How do you batter...?

Here's some advice I learned from a not so recent trip to San Antonio.

"How do you batter your mushrooms/pickles?"

This can be one of the best assessments of the burger place you are about to try out. If the best judgement of an Asian restaurant is their rice, then the best judge of a burger place is how it treats its sides.

Walking into one burger place, and looking at the menu, I wanted to try out their fried mushrooms, but Frederick was quick to stop me saying "this place? Fried mushrooms? (whispering) they probably come off of the back of a truck." I asked the girl at the counter "how do you batter your fried mushrooms?" She responded "they come prebattered." I went with the fries instead even though they probably came precut. How did this reflect on the burger? The meat was finely ground and we assumed, came as a pre-formed patty. Mine didn't taste bad, but it's a matter of quality. The burger was also a little on the greasy side.

A few trips later, I asked the batter question to the counter girl at one of my usual SA haunts and get the reply "we dip them in butermilk and dredge them in flour." That is a much better answer. Needless to say, the burger was well made and not a greasy meat sponge.

Email me if you want to know the first place, but I'll say that the second place was Sam's Burger Joint.

#9: Hot and Spicy Pickles

Happy Valentines Day! Happy Lunar New Years! I've been in San Antonio lately as is the tradition with my family during the Lunar New Year. I would've liked to do a piece on things to do in Austin during the Lunar New Year, but that will probably never be the case. Picking up off this, Chinese cuisine, as experienced by my family has this strong, but not quite excessive, focus on crazy flavor combination. As such, it takes an experienced and open palate to appreciate hot and spicy pickles.

For future reference, whenever my friend and I end up at Phil's Icehouse our new approach towards narrowing down the menu has come to: look for hot and spicy pickles.

Like many things in life, greatness is in the details. Before, I would look for well seasoned meat, meat that could stand alone. In retrospect, even the best meat patty never stopped me from smothering it with ketchup and mustard - there's not much point in searching for meat that stands alone if I refuse to let it, it's like going to the best sushi place in town only to cover the work with a disrespectful amount of soy sauce.

The thing about pickles, dill pickles in particular, is that they're already a little sweet and a little sour to begin with. When you add hot and spicy to that mix, your taste buds go crazy and have a fiesta.