FiveTenBurger: No Deal At The Five and Dime…
It saddens me when there’s a cult following belonging to infamous films, literature, artworks or even automobiles and I can’t seem to jump on the bandwagon. I ask myself, “Self, what is it about this that you don’t like? And if there are hundreds of people out there who do love this, what the hell is wrong with you?” The answer? I have absolutely no idea. It’s worse if the person who created this object of desire is of the sweet nature and has made me laugh. Standing patiently under a hot south shore east bay sun, exchanging banter with an out-going patron who is a self-proclaimed fiveten groupie, religiously visiting them once a week since they opened their truck doors in 2010. She claims they’re the best burgers she’s had and that the garlic oil fries are worth their price. Their usage of local ingredients worth the visit. Hamburgers and french fries aren’t a hard sell. But, they are definitely more difficult to execute then people seem to think.
The dreaded-head staff member greeted the groupie patron by name, she ordered, a joke about THC was made, laughs were cachinnated, and soon it was my turn to order. At $6.75, a fully loaded burger comes sans french fries, but with the commonplace ingredients. Add bacon for an extra $0.75, and that I did. Medium-rare, please. The staff member was gracious enough to offer to cut our burger in half, thank you sir, and roughly ten-minutes later we were combating our way through the army of strollers to sit in the shade. Sandwiched between two crying children, that I’m convinced plotted against me, we dove into our cheeseburger and fries.
Firstly, not all french fries and burgers are created equal. You could tell the $2.50 fries were not going to be that great judging by their anemic color and flaccidity. Moreover, they had almost no garlic flavor (for being garlic oil fries), until I bit into a nibblet of burnt garlic. Oh, there’s the garlic flavor. Secondly, my burger was more along the lines of medium, I can overlook that. Unfortunately, I got a semi-corner of bacon on my side of the burger and before I could speak up, my dining companion had completely inhaled their half. The meat itself was still moist, the cheese melty, the lettuce crisp and bright green, tomatoes bland. Actually, the burger and fries were both completely under-seasoned. That brioche bun is something worth raving about, but from my understanding (via the groupie), the buns are outsourced.
Eating good hamburgers is part of the reason I’m a gorda, some things are just worth being fat for. In the end, I’m depressed that I missed out on another chance to jump on the bandwagon and have the opportunity to be apart of a sub-culture of people who love this burger. I’m also depressed that massive caloric intake was spent on consuming this hohum burger that didn’t deliver on satisfying that primordial instinct to consume charred flesh most primates have.
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