10 Burgers in One Night at the 2010 Boston Burger Bash

Posted by Liz Bomze, February 5, 2010 at 10:30 AM

Liz Bomze lives in Brookline, Masachusetts, and works as the Associate Features Editor for Cook's Illustrated Magazine. She also freelances regularly for the Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, The Improper Bostonian, and Martha's Vineyard Magazine. Though eating is an all-day, everyday part of working at Cook's, she had no problem trying 10 burgers in one night to bring us this report of Monday's Burger Bash in Boston.

[Photographs: Liz Bomze]

As a warm-up to this month's annual gut-busting Burger Bash in South Beach, Florida, this past Monday chef Ken Oringer converted his Nine Zero Hotel steakhouse KO Prime into a competition hall and challenged nine of his fellow burger-slinging contemporaries to a flame-broiled battle of bovine proportions. The stakes (or patties, we should say): a beefy donation to Autism Speaks, a nine-dollar trophy, and a year's worth of juicy, cheesy glory as the incumbent meat to beat.

Prime Pick

Bristol Lounge | chef Brooke Vosika

In a perfect world, that crispy potato ring would have been a deep-fried onion. Otherwise, chef Vosika's in-house dry-aged prime burger—festooned with high-class fixin's like buttery béarnaise and foie torchon (this is the Four Seasons, after all), plus your average lettuce, tomato, and side of crinkle-cut pickle chips—earned the extra two votes it needed to take gold. 200 Boylston Street, Boston MA 02116 (map); 617-351-2037; fourseasons.com

Choice Cut

Toro/Coppa | chefs Jamie Bissonnette and Ken Oringer

Many local carnivores (myself included) figured Bissonnette's "messy" burger was a shoe-in champ, and not just because it was slathered in Toro's grilled corn schmear: aioli, espelette pepper, lime juice, and crumbled cotija. The dry-aged sirloin-short rib combo (though maybe a tad too blood-red for some more squeamish stomachs) packed all the beefy flavor of a well-marbled steak in the confines of a delightfully squishy, average enriched wheat flour bun from 7-11. 1704 Washington Street, Boston MA 02118 (map); 617-536-4300; toro-restaurant.com; 253 Shawmut Avenue, Boston, MA 02118 (map); 617-391-0902; coppaboston.com

A Select Few (in no particular order)

Sel de la Terre | chef Louis DiBiccari

Equipped with his "I 'heart' burger" t-shirt and a pint of PBR, chef Louis DiBiccari talked up the nice 'n fatty (70/30) ground chuck he gets from a small Maine farm (no wonder the juices were flowing!), Vermont cheddar, and pancetta, which they smoke in-house, chop fine, and fold into the Sriracha-spiked mayo. Multiple locations in Boston (map); seldelaterre.com

KO Prime | chefs Josh Buehler and Ken Oringer

There was more than a little KO in this Meyers Ranch chuck mini-burger: a thick slab of foie torchon, citrusy yuzu aioli, kabayaki glaze (a.k.a. the stuff they shellack on barbecued eel), and a requisite housemade pickle sandwiched beneath a golden dome of baby Iggy's brioche. It was a tempting attempt at gourmet burger nirvana, though clearly out-beefed by the competition at the host's other table. 90 Tremont Street, Boston MA 02108 (map); 617-772-0202; koprimeboston.com

Tremont 647 | chef Andy Husbands

Meet the Burger Daddy: "No bells, no whistles, no shrimp (see Blue Ginger)," jested the sandwich's proud creator. Just the basics: medium-rare grass-fed beef (a custom chuck-brisket blend), lettuce, tomato, red onion, pickle, and "secret sauce"—all curiously stacked on a whole wheat bun. 647 Tremont Street, Boston MA 02118; 617-266-4600; tremont647.com

Stella | chef Evan Deluty

For those unfamiliar with New Haven's finest, the sandwich bread wasn't just for shock value (or because the chef ran out of regular buns). "It's a tribute to the Louis' Lunch original," Deluty explained (though I doubt the luncheonette stuffs their burger with fontina). The 80/20 chuck-sirloin blend developed a deep, crisp crust that crunched right along with the lettuce and house pickle. 1525 Washington Street, Boston MA 02118 (map); 617-247-7747; bostonstella.com

Green Street Grill | chef Greg Reeves

A tall order, from top to bottom: local bakery bun, Russian dressing, applewood-smoked bacon, panko-crusted fried pickle, medium-rare chuck-short rib patty, melty American cheese, another beefy patty, more melty cheese, bun bottom. If you could bite into it, the pleasure was all yours. 280 Green Street, Cambridge MA 02139 (map); 617-876-1655; greenstreetgrill.com

The Lower Depths | chef Tyler Potter

Between the sliced grilled apple, applewood-smoked bacon, bacon fat, smoked gouda, and squirt of apple-jalapeño ketchup, this ground chuck patty from Kenmore Square's beloved subterranean beer bar got lost in a cloud of sweet smoke. 476 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215 (map); 617-266-6662

Blue Ginger | chef Ming Tsai

There was no mistaking the TV personality in the room, but maybe that's simply Ming's way of drawing a crowd. For his surf-and-turf approach, the famed Wellesley chef topped a thick, springy ground-shrimp cake with braised oxtail hash, Asian slaw, pickle-y jalapeño tartar sauce, and frizzled shallots before packaging the whole bundle in a shiny sea salt-sesame bun. 583 Washington Street, Wellesley, MA 02482 (map; 781-283-5790; ming.com

Mike's City Diner | chef Jay Hajj

A Greek-style gyro-turned lamb burger. Not a purist's take by any means, but the juicy, well-spiced meat and appropriately Athenian condiments—pickled turnip salsa and mint-yogurt tahini sauce—all swaddled between pita halves had several tasters sheepishly reaching for a second helping. 1714 Washington Street, Boston MA 02118 (map); 617-267-9393; mikescitydiner.com

The judges, from left to right: Richard Chudy, J. Kenji Lopez-Alt (aka our Burger Lab contributor), and Andrew Rimas.

The trophy and winner Brooke Vosika of Bristol Lounge.

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