It’s been awhile since my last burger blog post. I really should try to do one of these a week. Maybe.
In the time between this review and my previous one many things have changed. That’s a lie. 1 thing has changed…the weather. It’s cold now. When I reviewed AJ Bombers, the weather was sunny and warm. Now it’s cold. Exceedingly cold. It’s so cold that my water came out of the shower in ice cubes. ZING! I’m lying. It’s not that cold. It’s actually very pleasant. Hooray Autumn! (But curse you stupid silent N)
Law School has been occupying most of my time, preventing me from writing a new post (well, that and the fear that my arteries will spontaneously fill with candle wax). It’s going relatively well so far, but I’m sure it gets worse. It always gets worse. On the positive side, I’m working on a theory with which I can sue everyone who doesn’t read this blog. I’m serious. Totally serious.
Aside from law school I’ve been spending most of my time eating candy corn. As everyone knows, Candy Pumpkins are far superior to regular candy corn, but pumpkin is a much longer word than corn so I’ll just refer to them collectively as candy corn. My dad likes to say that Candy Corn is “God’s perfect food,” but I’ll take that a step further. If you’ve ever seen True Blood then I’m sure your aware that, to humans, vampire blood is like a combination of a fast-acting steroid, cocaine, and heroin. Candy Corn is the real life version of vampire blood.
Fact: Candy Corn has only one ingredient. That ingredient is awesome. Fact: Candy Corn has one other ingredient. That ingredient is crushed up unicorn horns. I don’t care how many unicorns it takes to make a bag of candy corn; I’ll sacrifice every last one of them. Middle East Peace Solution: give everyone some Candy Corn. Problem solved. World hunger? Candy Corn. Cancer? Candy Corn. Diabetes? Well, probably not Candy Corn. In all seriousness, I took a bag of Candy Corn to law school today to share it with the world. Only one thing in this paragraph is true.
OK, this isn’t a Candy Corn blog, it’s a burger blog (though a candy corn blog would be a brilliant idea).
The perfect food.
I’ll move on.
Before I get too far, I should preface that Comet Cafe is not a burger shop. Comet is mostly known for its breakfast/brunch options and kitschy, hipster, diner vibe, complete with many vegetarian options. Nonetheless, Comet does offer an extensive menu (complete with a burger), so it definitely merits a burger review.
The interior of Comet looks a lot like a typical diner. There is a bar, booths around the perimeter, and hipply-ironic art on the walls. Comet is obviously geared toward breakfast and brunch fare. I mean, they’ve got a class display case with baked goods. That’s like a classy, hip version of Friendly’s. The desserts and pies definitely looked tasty (I admit it, I suck at taking/posting pictures. I’ll eventually get better…maybe). It took me a few minutes to find the lone burger on the menu, but I finally stumbled across the Big Luck Burger.
The Big Luck Burger
The Big Luck Burger is a 6oz burger made with grass fed beef and topped with American cheese and 1000 Island dressing on an egg-glazed bun. Sorry, but I did without the 1000 Island. I’m not a fan of dressings or gooey toppings on my burger…I’ll admit that is a problem. I ordered the burger, without nasty-Island dressing, and went to reading contracts…for law school…because that is all I do…every day.
The Big Luck Burger arrived about 10 minutes later. Very quickly, I noticed the resemblance to the griddled type burger made popular by Steak n Shake. When you think of a griddled burger, you think of a greasy, crispy burger that is a little charred and deliciously blends melted cheese into greasy, almost fried beef. Most of these burgers are around 4oz and may be even smaller. For reference, for all you Chicagoans and Evanstonians, Edzo’s 4oz Griddled burger is, well, a griddled burger.
A little bit closer now.
This discover was an exciting one. I imagined myself biting into a delicious, fried burger that was even more better (that’s a thing right…more better?) than the 4oz variety. Sadly, I was mistaken. The burger did have the nice fried qualities of a griddled burger, but the extra 2oz added too much to the middle of the burger. It was awkwardly juicy (no one likes awkward juice…that’s what she said). This burger has an identity crisis. The Big Luck Burger doesn’t know if it wants to be a delicious and crispy griddled burger or a thicker, juicy burger. I though it would work but on second though, you’ve got to make a decision.
It’s a lot like the movie Mean Girls. In Mean Girls, Lindsay Lohan eventually has to decide if she wants to be a “Plastic” or continue to hang out with her other friends. Lindsay joins the Plastics in order to hatch a revenge plan for one of her friends but eventually gets sucked in. Through most of this movie, the Lohan is trying to walk the line between being a Plastic and, well, a geek. She fails. You can’t do both. (OK, obviously this isn’t true. You can be nerdy and popular but that’s neither here nor there. Just accept my analogy, or if you’ve got a better one then put it in the comments). The Big Luck Burger is a griddled burger that really wants to fit in with the bigger burgers, but when it tries it loses its identity and just becomes something worse than either of the two. Comet would be better suited to go all out and do a greasy griddled burger or to plump things up with a traditional pub burger.
I DON'T KNOW WHO I AM!
If you take nothing away from this post, you should understand that you can’t be cool and nerdy. You’ve got to pick one or the other. OK, that’s a joke. You can totally do both. You can’t, however, be both a griddled burger and a juicy pub burger.
On to the review:
Beef (1-5): 2
– This burger is crispy but not crispy enough, juicy but not juicy enough. It needs to make a decision. I’d err on the side of either going with cheaper beef and doing everything griddled or keeping the grass-fed beef and adding 2 more ounces to make a juicy 1/2 lb pub burger. The fried nature of the griddled burger really hid the potentially delicious grass fed flavor of the beef.
Bun (1-5): 3
– The bun was good. That’s most I can remember about it. It wasn’t anything special, and it would be a great compliment to a better burger. On this faux-griddled burger, it’s a pretty average bun.
Cheese (1-5): 2
– It was normal American cheese. That’s about it. Seriously. I’ve got nothing else.
Fries (1-5): 5
– The fries were really good! They were easily the best part of the mean. They were fresh, delicious, and had the perfect level of grease. If you go to Comet, order fries with whatever you get. If you get a salad, get fries with it.
Recommendation:
– Overall, Comet seems like a perfect place to grab breakfast or brunch, and THE perfect place to have a late-night breakfast or brunch. It is not, however, the place for a burger. Go to Comet but avoid the Big Luck Burger.
– The Big Luck Burger gets a 2 out of 5 and Comet is a 4 out of 5.
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