It's hard to innovate a classic.
When it comes to burgers, which were apparently invented in Connecticut by steaming beef patties vertically and slapping between two slices of bread with mustard, people have tried all kinds of things. Different kinds of buns, different kinds of toppings - even going so far as "standardizing" catsup, mustard, pickle, and onion but calling it a California when topping it with the equivalent of a side salad. Then there's how you season it, how you cook it - broiled, fried, grilled. There are YouTube channels devoted to burger craft and if you watch the ones devoted to people with the kind of time and disposable income to grind their own meat like Munchies or the why-is-it-not-dead-yet? Bon Appetit, they will tell you about what cuts of beef to use. It's all very weird and I bring it up now because we're going to get into that in a minute.
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A while back, like October, November, who can remember when, my coworker, Sue, brought in a clipping from the Star-Tribune about the new Bebe Zito burger at Bebe Zito, the ice cream place in Lowry Hill East (strangely marking our first entry for that neighborhood), because she knows that Kath and I, at the time, were in the habit of trying new things on the weekends. We typically still kind of do, but really we try to keep it to one night a weekend because, hey! Who knew? Going out is expensive.
ANYHOO, back in whenever it was, I showed the clipping to Kath and we made it a point to try it that weekend and we came up on Bebe Zito, saw the line for the burger stretching down the block, and we decided to go right past it.
Fast forward to last weekend when we were blessed by the return of The Absolute Boy, you know him, you love him, the only man to eat Taco Bell in a German restaurant...
... and he asked us if we had tried the Bebe Zito burger yet, which we had not. And because he's The Boy, The Boy responsible for the Dollar Taco Incident, The Boy who vouched for Frank from Philly's authenticity having never been there, when we asked him if he had had the Bebe Zito burger, he said, "No."
This past weekend, I told Kath that I was going to buy her one (because I wanted one, too) and we finally got in to get one. It was time, we were ready. We got in right in time, before the rush hit, and waited in a short line. I looked out the window and saw a couple enjoying theirs and thought, "Those look pretty skinny, I should get a double." I got that and a Dr. Pepper while Kath got her special chocolate ice cream scoop I can never remember the name of and a single.
There was a bit of a wait, during which time, who should we happen to see?
We shot the shit with him until our food came out and then he disappeared and we enjoyed our burgers, which we agreed were worth the wait.
But were they? Or were we just happy that we finally got to be part of the club that knows what the Bebe Zito burger is about?
Remember how up top I told you how people keep trying to innovate the burger? Well, Bebe Zito has tried and while it's not a fail, I'm not sure it's a win.
The burger patties are made of a blend of brisket and bacon which result in flavor much closer to a brat burger, just without the notable seasoning and things like caraway seeds. It tastes like a well-seasoned ground pork patty, likely due to bacon's overbearing flavor - anybody who's ever fried eggs in bacon fat can vouch for that - and that brisket has a big river of fat running through it, leaving the majority of the muscle lean and unmarbled. The result of blending the two and grilling them in the smash burger style produced a nice flaky crust rather than a char and the meat on the inside was almost white, like a porkchop, another cut of meat that is typically unmarbled.
It was good, it was certainly a burger, it was sure as hell better than some frozen patty nonsense I've been served in the past but... I don't know. While I liked it, I felt an urge to defy it.
Bebe Zito burgers come dressed in "burger sauce", which I assume is that weirdo catsup / mayonnaise blend bullshit that people like*, and American cheese, pickles, and lettuce.
There it is: Our first Lettuce joke of twenty twenty one.
Whatever this slaw was, I detected that the pickles must have been of the sweet variety to play with the sauce and to balance against the salt and fat of the patty and cheese.
The burger's draw seems to be the combination of the sweet & salty flavor pairing along with a crispy (and honestly) greazy burger patty that, hey, does hit the spot. I wasn't complaining until I had a chance to analyze it and I still don't think I'm complaining. I liked it. It just tasted more like a ground pork patty on a soft bun with some sweets added to it.
And that's not bad. I would get it again but I don't have a craving for it the way I would normally have a craving for grilled ground chuck and a slice of American with catsup, mustard, pickle, and onion. It's something new, something different, and Kafe Nasty still hasn't had it, even though he watched us eat ours. So I would say, yeah, go ahead, give them your money, but keep cruising if you see a line. It's not a "must have", it's more like a really nice change of pace made by people who know what their doing. Just be sure to eat it in the wrapper because it's hella drippy.
It also gave me the squitters.
* How many people do you think go fucking bonkers over "burger sauce" or "fry sauce" or whatever it's called but would also turn up their noses at "puréed tomato aïoli Provençal"?
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