something of a ROYAL feast

we have been hearing about the inimitable bobby flay's gift to the philadelphia burger scene in various blogs and newspapers for weeks. and since BOBBY'S BURGER PALACE opened its doors this past tuesday (4/6), foodies and fauxdies alike have been all atwitter.

supposedly the wait time has been averaging somewhere around 1 hour this week, i was fortunate enough to have a quiet day at the office this afternoon and decided to take the trip up to university city to try this newest burger creation out.

:: bobby's burger palace ::
address: 3925 walnut st, phila
what: dallas burger, napa valley burger, B&W milkshake, onion rings, sweet potato fries 

so officially, the line was out the door and equated to about 50 minutes to order food. it was probably <10 minutes for the food to arrive. they give you a number card and you place it in front of you and a server will bring you your burger. fountain soda machine, so that means free refills (and they had fresca!!)

geo and i split the dallas burger and the napa valley burger, onion rings, sweet potato fries, b&w milkshake.

overall, i was a bit disappointed! the meat on the burger itself was great; very flavorful and a good size, but the toppings (at least that we ordered, weren't stellar). important note: here they say the default temp on the burger is "pink in the center" and boy do they mean it. unlike 500 degrees where their medium rare is really a medium temp, at bobby's burger palace be prepared for an authentically medium rare preparation unless you tell them otherwise.

dallas burger: burger + bbq sauce + coleslaw + monterey jack cheese + pickles
i was sooooo excited for this burger. this was the reason i wanted to go to bobby's burger palace, but the toppings were just all MEH. the coleslaw, while providing good crunch, was flavorless! the pickles were the brightest flavor and despite my love for pickles, that is not ideal. i didn't really taste too much of the bbq sauce either. though disappointing, i'd try this again. after i try others.

napa valley burger: goat cheese + meyer lemon honey mustard + watercress
i normally love love love goat cheese, but did not like this burger. at all. didn't eat more than a few bites of it. it was heavy on the goat cheese, light on the watercress and who knows what the actual ratio of honey mustard is normally.
what i mean is, when they say watercress, they mean like 2 sprigs of it, so it may as well have been left off. AND as it turns out, they did leave the honey mustard off of our burger. sigh. i guess since their staff is still new, they are experiencing some growing pains - they completely forgot the mustard. which we didn't realize until a few bites in. i wouldn't recommend this.

*sidenote to the growing pains part, they accidentally brought out 2 to-go orders of sweet potato fries so we had those too. fortunately, that gave me more than enough to bring back to the office to share with soopah and chiho.

sweet potato fries with horseradish honey mustard
hands down, best sweet potato + condiment combination i have ever had. fries were crispy but substantial enough to have good tension. the horseradish honey mustard is AMAZING. i want to have this with me ALL. THE. TIME. it was just so interesting with that spicy kick and very slight hint of sweetness.

black and white milkshake
i only had a few sips of this, but it was made from real hard ice cream so it tasted really really good.

beer battered onion rings
HUGE rings. and THICK. these were like an inch high! that is crazy for an onion ring. but the batter tasted good and was not too thick. crunchy delish.

sante fe burger: queso sauce, jalapenos, crushed blue corn tortilla chips
brought one of these back for soopah. i will let him comment. i only took one bite of this, but it was better than either the dallas or napa valley burger and that says a lot, especially considering it wast eaten about 30-40 minutes after initial preparation. the good thing for take-out orders is that they wrap the burger in foil so it stayed warm. the queso sauce was TASTY. cheesy and just salty enough. jalapenoes gave much needed kick. and the CRUNCHIFIED-NESS was great. (ps- bobby flay servicemarked that term, crunchified SM).

just as a point of reference, the total cost for 3 burgers, 1 milkshake, 1 soda, 1 order sweet potato fries and 1 order of onion rings was: $38.20.

i would go back here. i have heard others say that the bobby's bleu burger and the miami burgers are unbelievable. definitely go because it's worth a try, but just wait til the hype dies down a bit and you won't have to wait in line for over an hour.