Possibly the worst thing that could have happened to the burger at Healdsburg Bar & Grill—at least for the purposes of this review—was that it was included on Food & Wine's list of the 25 best burgers in the country. I entered the restaurant visibly salivating in anticipation of the lunch I was about to eat, and instead of finding the positives in a respectable enough burger, I was left to wonder why my meal was nowhere near what I had hoped and dreamed.

It's easy to understand why one might expect a best-of burger from HBG. Since 2008, the place has been owned by Douglas Keane and Nick Peyton, the chef and manager at nearby two-Michelin star Cyrus. In keeping with this pedigree, a few cheffy touches dot the menu at HBG—such as the use of chorizo in the corndog appetizer—but the dishes are otherwise true to the bar-and-grill food the restaurant's name promises. Reubens, fish and chips, and Buffalo wings are the options at hand.

My disappointment with the HBG burger did not start when it arrived at the table. This burger looked quite handsome. Besides a slightly tattered slice of cheese on top, the patty was decorated with a nice bit of caramelization from the grill and droplets of burger juice that looked poised to flow. The inside was just as attractive, with plenty of enticing red, red meat—though it did appear that I had won the cook's game of three-card monte, as three other burgers eaten by my dining companions ranged from pink to cooked straight through despite requests for medium rare.

But even with the winning patty of the bunch, my burger came up short of best-of status on first bite. The fellow helming the kitchen told me HBG buys fresh-ground, free-range Angus beef from Del Monte Meat Company. I'm quite certain they use quality stuff, but it lacked a beefy oomph, and even with a bit of caramelization on the outside, the grill hadn't added enough flavor to elevate the meat.

HBG gives you the opportunity to add some frills to their burger. Red onion, crisp lettuce, and nicely sweet-and-sour pickles arrive standard. The cup of aioli sitting on the edge of the plate comes in handy to moisten the bun from Costeaux Bakery that gets a bit dry after toasting. For a price, HBG offers the chance to add cheese, sautéed onions, mushrooms, or bacon. Interestingly, it will also cost you extra to add tomato, a move that may pique those that think a burger should automatically arrive with the fruit. In either case, there is nothing so extraordinary here to suggest that Food & Wine might have overlooked the beef for some of the fixings.

What HBG does exceedingly well is fry potatoes. The skinny fries with just a bit of skin on the ends were superbly crisp and properly salted. We spent an extra buck to dip these beauties into chipotle aioli and quite liked the way the sauce offered an initial tang followed by enough heat to just barely tickle the tongue. HBG also riffs on the traditional fry, offering versions with truffle oil, chipotle, and the Bay Area-favorite garlic fries. They have managed to make this latter treat uniformly pungent by tossing them in garlic and oil, and I'd say the flavor is more than a fair trade-off for your subsequently greasy fingers.

Those fries and the resume of the owners left me quite interested to try a few of the other dishes on HBG's menu. In a world of normal expectations, if I found myself in Sonoma with an itch that only a burger could scratch, I might even consider ordering the HBG burger again. But it will take me a little while to nurse the wounds left by my fall from the cliff of very high expectations.

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