March 10, 2011 |
Short Order
Burgermaven Ruminates on Burger Bash
A greasy highlight of the big wine and food festival that takes place every year in South Beach is the hamburger joust. Skip Becker, AKA BurgerMaven, has chewed over this report. Insatiable Critic.
From Burger Speedway by Skip Becker
It was way too crowded. A few years ago people could walk around, eat, dance, and hear each other talk. This year the crowd almost doubled. At least it felt and sounded like 50 per cent too many people. The music was non-stop without reprieve and too loud.
My solution: Make it more exclusive and charge $100 more per person.
My choice of the Burger Kings: Odd coincidence. The initials MS. I felt that there were a few exceptional burgers all by guy named MIKE and a SPIKE:
* MS: Michael Symon from B Spot in Cleveland. Winner 2010 – this year with Salami instead of Pastrami.
* MS: Michael Schlow from Radius in Boston. Winner 2008 for best seasoned.
* MS: Michael Schwartz from Michael’s Genuine, Miami: his fried cheese grits were ‘melt in the mouth’ delicious.
And a little S & M:
Spike Mendelsohn Smokehouse great burger winner 2009
The Burgermaven rated all four as in the top group, but a winner had to be picked by the PEOPLE.
And the winner: Michael Symon again. First time a winner back to back two years in a row. Since Michael became an Iron Chef, the crowds for his burger were longest. Therefore more people tried his excellent burger and deposited their People’s choice vote chip’ for Michael. I do not take away anything from his burger with fried salami (I love salami) but it was a notch below the great, over the top, pastrami Fat Doug burger that won in 2010.
Next year will Michael use tongue? I hope not!
I missed Jeff Chodorow’s son Zach and his great burger but there were still 26 competitive patties in the judging.
And the professional critic’s choice was Marc Murphy of Landmarc.
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