Sonic Burger – San Marcos, CA

The UBR staff has long been awaiting the grand opening of Sonic Burger in San Marcos.  Of course the timing was perfect because it was Greg’s turn to buy, because he was a big stupid loser, and also it gave the cheap whiner the opportunity to use a coupon he has been holding on to for over two years. For this review, we invited Amanda (a.k.a. Poops) to be our official guest reviewer. Sadly, Poops may have flushed her chances for any future reviews.  The highly coveted UBR Associate level potential may have swirled right down the toilet.  This is all because she failed to do her homework of studying past reviews and she also lacked the ability to provide us a mobile burger review app for free.

Sonic’s format is unique in the fact that you have three serving choices.  You can go through the drive through, pull up to the mini squawk box and eat in your car, or eat outside and order from one of several land-based giant squawk boxes.  The multitude of choices caused a serious dilemma with Mike who had to circle the parking lot to figure it all out. It was like being in a burger round-a-bout. The center of the grounds consists of a building that resembles a bank with tinted windows and a door with an ‘employee’s only ‘ sign that servers on skates would come bursting through.  This is a bit disturbing as you don’t get the opportunity to see your food being cooked. For all we know the roller skate servers are bringing us repurposed feral cat burgers.

The excitement for our burgers was quickly stalled when we decided to try and place our order through, what can most easily be described as walk up ATMs with a Siri that has the mental capacity of a six year old. And when you pair a burger-image-covered talking ATM with Meatsack Mike, the confusion was near instantaneous.  All we wanted was a few lousy burgers.  After about ten minutes of agony and numerous confirmations of our order, we were pretty confident we had success.

After finding a picnic table on the front patio, our roller skate server quickly arrived with our food, greeted us with a smile, and gave great service.  But even after all the inane dialog with the ‘ATM’, the order was wrong. This made us wonder, why couldn’t we have just placed our order with our roller girl?  As we ate, there were roller skaters zipping all over the place demonstrating their mad rolling skills. Of course this instantly gave Troy the idea of returning next time with a sack of pebbles to scatter around to provide entertaining carnage as we dined.

But enough of the fun and games…we know you are dying to find out what we thought of the food! Well, our loyal burger fans, the burger rated a strong 3 out of 5.  Not that that’s a bad thing. The UBR staff is tough and a 3 is a “meets expectations.” However, it needs to be pointed out they did have a 4 in the very important “beef quality and flavor” category.  And the fries?  They were pretty good too. But, by far, the most impressive thing was the tater tots! Yeah! TATER TOTS!!! Tater tots cooked to delicious perfection none the less!  Unfortunately, believe it or not, Sonic had a near complete fail in the portion category that dragged the score down to a 2.  It was more along the lines of what you would expect from a stupid kids meal. Have you seen Mike? You can’t give that giant Meatsack a kiddie portion and expect a smile. That boy could stuff a train load down his gullet if he wanted.

So, suffice it to say, Sonic was a bit of a disappointment. But we’d like to extend a special thanks to Poops for partaking in our most recent quest for the Ultimate Burger.  And you’ll be glad to know that she gave the ‘Post Burger Experience’ rating a nice ‘solid’ 4 out of 5 stars.

Craftsman – Encinitas, CA

Okay, so football season is in full swing and it’s time to post some burger review. Sadly, this first one is from last year… Our bad! This particular UBR location was recommended by a few of UBR’s superfans. Yeah we got fans, tons in fact!  Craftsman is located a few miles inland in the nearby town of Encinitas, however, it a bit of coastal hipster wannabe feel.  The inside is nicely decorated with rustic wood and wall art as well as a bar area which made for a good cheeseburgering environment. Craftsman also had  a TV that was only turned on after “Meatsack” Mike whined about it loud enough for everyone to hear. The cleanliness of the restaurant has to be noted as well, in fact it was so clean that our OCD resident Marketing staff member Caitlyn even used the restroom, without having to “hover” which we understand is a big step for her.

Our waitress Lindsey was extremely informative and friendly, enough to put up with our obnoxious antics at least.  She took our order quickly and even gave us the hookup on their special bacon onion marmalade as well as the world’s smallest cup of soup for tasting.  UBR staff loves extras! When informed of Mike’s bulimia problem that he was able to overcome in the womb, Lindsey even tried to be nice by saying his body type shows a certain type of “confidence.”

There was only one burger option on the menu, and at $15 it was a budget breaker, we can only afford a retired cop car as our staff vechile after all.  We also sprung for the deviled eggs at $2 a pop because it was payday and why not celebrate?  The restaurant was so expensive that we watched one of the staff members leave on their lunch break, presumably to go across the street to hotdog on a stick where she could afford to eat.

After a little bit of a wait we received our burgers (and lame tuna sandwich to be consumed by a nameless non-meat eating dummyhead) on a nicely presented plate with fries.  Okay first the burger. We don’t want to go in to too much detail on the burger because it was not the star of the meal (it was good to average with the high points being beef flavor, patty thickness) But the Fries! OMG! The deal is they are fried in duckfat! Yeah!!! Frickin for real! Duck fat! Who was the genius that though this up! We want to put up a bronze statue of them in the UBR park we don’t have. Let us tell you o’loyal followers of the knights of UBR, these were the best fries we have yet to come across our gullets  in our long tenure of burgering experience!

All in all, Craftsman knows how to serve a good burger with the best fries frickin ever, but that comes at a cost.  However, the price and speed of lunchtime service was almost completely mitigated by the great food and friendly service.  While the restaurant received a solid four, it will be location save for special occasions like Mike’s induction into the AARP and the recognition of him beating bulima.

Prime Cut Grill – San Marcos, CA

When we heard about a new restaurant just over the hill from work that had $5 burgers we knew we had to check it out.  It was instantly moved to the front of the review queue because Greg Loser, Loser Greg, Loser was the first loser of the football bet and had to pay.  It must also be noted when talking about the football pool that Caitlyn is winning hands down over everyone even though she doesn’t watch football and can only name one Chargers player.

Prime cut is a sport bar type restaurant that obviously caters to the college crowd with Cal State being across the street.  Remember that hamburger that you used to get from the old smelly lady with a hairnet in Jr. High that had an old crusty bun and flavorless meat? Yeah, that’s this place.

On this review, we decided to bring a resident college student, Alisha Lamson.  Her name may sound familiar because she is the unfortunate spawn of Greg Lamson, UBR founder.  We must point out that she takes after her mother in looks and was not cursed with a head of brillow pad hair.  It is surprising that she agreed to come as the last time she dined with us, Troy informed her that her little brother was conceived in a tent while she was sleeping next to her parents, nice work Troy.

The only detail about the boring food that is worth noting was the fun game they played called onion and cheese lottery.  There was random placement of both toppings on people’s burgers when we all ordered the same thing.  That is about the only thing we can remember as Caitlyn, after giving herself a promotion to VP of Marketing for UBR, couldn’t even remember to bring the official rating clipboard leaving us to wonder why we even buy her burgers in the first place.  By the way, how’s that website update coming along Miss VP???

Mike was willing to overlook the crappy food because it was served by a waitress with the perfect level of “jigglyness” on the top deck. Honestly, we were surprised that he didn’t use his signature line and ask her if she “wanted to be on the internets.”  She also tried to make Troy feel better about himself by giving many courtesy laughs for his stupid jokes, actually, she might have just been laughing AT him.

Our crappy meal reminded Mike to check out the crapper for a cleanliness review.  It scored an instant 1 with the toilet being completely clogged.  The perp may have been Greg as he has been known to have large clogging explosions in public places including AM/PM while his family, including Alisha, has had to wait outside in the car.

Prime Cut Grill is anything but Prime, unless what you long for is a trip down memory lane to the last time you were in a school cafeteria or hospitalized, where at least the person serving it is jiggly in an entirely different way.

Prep Kitchen – Del Mar, CA

For this burger review, the UBR staff headed down to Old Del Mar to attend a final California burger review with Chuck “Dog Biscuit” Huston.  Chuck, Hunter’s previous VP of Sales and Marketing, has and continues to be mentor for the entire UBR staff as well as many others within the industry. Not the cheeseburger review industry, the sprinkler industry, where we all still hold real paying jobs which of course we’ll abandon once we have enough fuel for the official UBR Gulfstream 5 jet.

Since we did not have the UBR cop car, Chuck insisted that we walk down to the restaurant as he didn’t want to ride in Mike’s Explorer, because Chuck is a man of class.  As you may have already guessed, this began a tireless session of whining by Mike because he had to walk a whole four blocks…….downhill.

Prep Kitchen is located on a street corner in Old Del Mar on Pacific Coast Highway.  We opted to sit on the patio which provided partial ocean views.  The setting, ambience, and weather could not have been better.  It was the perfect location to have laughs and regale of times past with Chuck, Judy Netteland, and Pat Sullivan (another retired veteran survivor of the sprinkler wars).

When it came to the actual burger, our expectations were high and did not come close to being met.  The mediocre meat puck, although edible, was nothing special.  After waiting for over 30 minutes for our food, we were thinking it would come out presented with origami French fries…..or at least a friggen’ pickle. Maybe the pickles were what Troy saw the cook eating in the kitchen in plain view while we were waiting for the food.  I guess he was too hungry to cook our food before his.

However, even the lame service of an even lamer burger did not even have a chance in overshadowing the great day we enjoyed with great company.  The UBR staff is looking forward to future review with Chuck in Texas. Godspeed Dog Biscuit.

Bobby’s Hideaway Cafe (Revisited) – Carlsbad, CA

The start of the football season has prompted the end of the official UBR hiatus.  To get back in the game we decided to do a warm-up with a re-visit of Bobby’s in Carlsbad. Last time we went to Bobby’s we enjoyed a great burger and thought what a great way to start the season off. We found the burgers to still be delicious, but still had the same slight imperfections as last time such as the meat patty of yumminess could have been a tich thicker and the burger to bun ratio a tich better. While the slight imperfections remained, it was clear Bobby’s staff are fans of UBR and almost instantaneously recognized the UBR staff as the celebrities they are. Hey Bobby’s! Let us know if you would like some burger consulting! It will only cost you free burgers. Most establishments would pay in the 10’s of dollars for such valued input and direction.

The group was excited to invite the newest member of the Marketing team, Megan, to be the guest reviewer this week. For some reason Mike felt he constantly had to apologize to Megan for everything including his whining, language, and overall personality.  Her husband, James, had been asked several times last year but was too busy “working” to experience the honor of the UBR guest spot. Clearly James is not smart enough to pass a simple intelligence test. Moreover, apparently he doesn’t think it’s cool since nothing will top his past Prom King status at his high school class of 10 people. Even with that low class number we at UBR are pretty sure it was a mercy thing and they just felt sorry for him.

Pretty much everything about the restaurant has stayed exactly the same over the last year, in fact, it’s probably been the same for the last 30 years, but that’s part of what makes Bobby’s a cool and eclectic burger stop.  The pictures of random semi-famous people like Bob Villa line the whitewashed walls throughout the restaurant and are grouped into mini themes.  Mike was happy to see the representation of some sort of sport memorabilia as he was going through Sport Center withdrawals from the lack of TV.  There was a special kid’s corner which probably would have suited Troy better but we didn’t let him play because he could have choked on stuff.  An added bonus was the free WIFI which Troy found extremely exciting and distracting throughout the entire review process. Lastly, the UBR staff was excited to see someone flushed the crap in the crappy crapper that we noted on the last review.

Fatburger – Escondido, CA

Fat Burger

For this review the Ultimate Burger Review staff made their way over to Fatburger in Escondido with guest reviewer Jon Truttmann. Fatburger is a fast-ish burger chain that started in the fifties and they tout fresh ingredients, real ice cream shakes and made to order deliciousness. Sounds a little like In & Out doesn’t it? While there are some similarities you will typically find Fatburger in a strip mall and they spin their burger offerings with a greater choice of toppings that will assist you in your efforts of killing youself faster through bad (but delicious) food choices like adding bacon, chili and fried eggs (why not)! Additionally, they have different burger size offerings. Mike and Jon opted for the traditional Fatburger which is just under a ½ pound while the more adventurous Greg and Troy tackled the King Burger that offers an 8oz patty. Although we should mention Mr. Truttmann took his guest reviewer assignment seriously and threw all caution to the wind and ordered his with fried egg and bacon! The cool thing is you can keep going up in size if you want to an XXL burger offering or the 24oz XXXL burger that rivals IN & Out’s 4×4! Too bad we didn’t bring wingnut Caitlyn because they even offer a Boca Burger for the non-meat eating weirdos. All that means nothing really unless the burgers have a worthwhile yum factor, and Fatburger does have a high yum factor! We were very impressed that they offer different bun sizes for the burgers which kept the burger to bun ratio at an optimum. The only weird thing was that the burgers were built upside down with the cheese at the bottom which caused Troy to deeply contemplate the true meaning of proper burger structure and how it affected the taste. As usual, everyone else just ate their burgers and brushed off Troy’s idiotic ramblings. Another pleasant surprise was the fry options. Yes, they have options! You can get either the standard fry type or go for steak fries! Is that awesome or what? And to top it off, they know how to cook both types to perfection. It’s totally crazy! Needless to say the UBR staff was very impressed with the Fatburger offerings, earning them a 3.3 for the burger and full 4.0 on the fries. The burger definitely had the yum factor, but suffered a bit on the structural integrity and presentation scores. Speaking of presentation, this is where Fatburger lacks. The dull, unassuming exterior is equalled only by the drab interior. They did have some old style T.V.’s, but they failed by making us watch Nickelodeon. Yeah, SpongeBob is just what you want to watch while shoving a yummy Fatburger in your pie-hole. It also needs to be mentioned that this location requires the use of tokens to access a very crappy crapper. I suppose they need to lock it so it won’t get crappier? Anyway, the delicious offerings where still enough to overcome these fails and give Fatburger a 3.5 on the overall experience. Our suggestion, go get fat on a yummy Fat Burger!

Fatburger Curbside

The Landings – Carlsbad, CA

The Landings burger

For this review we visited the “The Landing’s” at Palomar Airport with our guest reviewer Jeff  “Meat Sickle” Falk. Also, tagging along to review the stupid veggie burger was Caitlyn Bragelmann (which really doesn’t really count for anything but we let her go anyway). We know what you’re thinking.  Why would these UBR high rollers hit an airport for a burger?  And no, it’s not where we keep the UBR corporate jet. You see, back in the day, we use to frequent a little greasy spoon called the Palomar Airport Café.  It was located on the old airport’s tarmac.  You’d weave your way through the parked airplanes, climb up the rickety staircase to the second floor of this cool old building. Here you were met by the classic American diner, complete with a panoramic view of the little regional airport. And man, did they have a good burger! Unfortunately, they became a victim of progress.  Because of the needs of a growing airport, the building was torn down and classic yummy airport burgers are a thing of the past.  Welcome to the new age of the airport diner.  The Landings is now located within the new airport terminal. Sadly, without the yummy burger part. The new Landing’s is nothing like the old crusty burger hole in the wall. It’s all posh with granite topped tables and comfortable chairs and a fancy bar. One really cool thing is the glass wall that gives you a ground level view of the tarmac where you can sit and watch the planes taxi around. They also have a nice outdoor patio area which would be a great place to hang and have a beer on a warm sunny day. A special mention needs to go out about our server, Jackie, who was cute, fun and attentive. We surmised that her Mom must be a real hottie too! On to the burger; if you have ever eaten a burger at an airport you know you can’t set your expectations too high.  And this place proved to be no exception. Despite taking our request for cooking requirements (which gave a false sense of hope), all the burgers showed up well done. While the burger displayed some positive visual traits, like a good burger-to-bun ratio and decent patty thickness, it earned a dismal and flavorless 2.67 on the UBR scale. Additionally, the fries, as ‘Meat Sickle’ Falk said, were “Stiff” like some rigor mortis stricken, long dead, heat lamp warmed leftover from yesterday’s lunch. It’s pretty hard to screw up your standard fry type, but they managed to go out of their way to pull that off. For you weirdoes like Caitlyn, that bypass the normally delicious meat factor, it’s a “pass” on the stupid veggie burger too (for what that’s worth). While the Landing’s probably have better things on their menu, sadly it’s a pass on the burgers and fries. This proves progress and posh are not always a good thing.  We miss you Airport Café.  

The Landings

Five Guys – San Marcos, CA

Five Guys Burger

Well the long awaited and anticipated review of Five Guys is finally here!

 Five Guys is a chain of burger restaurants that started out in Virginia in 1986.  They franchised in 2003 they have literally exploded across the US to over forty states. Very impressive to most, but not the Ultimate Burger Review staff. In fact, this was our second visit to the new San Marcos location because the first visit was not good and we wanted to give them a second chance. The first time through the doors, it was jam- packed to the point they were just slinging burgers and fries with nary a care for quality. The fries were an under cooked glob of greasy potato mush sticks. To top it off, the ‘order number barker’, who had clearly enjoyed more than his fair share of burgers, had sweat dripping off his nose as he stuffed food into bags for the throngs of starving carnivores. Troy, being nimble and catlike, luckily jumped on a table that opened up while Mike ordered burgers.  That created yet another problem (although not a Five Guys problem) because Meat Sack (aka. Mike) forgot the say, ”Duh, yeah can I have cheese on, duh, that too…duh”! So I got stuck with a cheese-less cheeseburger.  Yeah, not a good experience.

 Fast forward to a few weeks later and this Official UBR Review. For this review we had a special matriarch guest reviewer Mimi Lamson, mother of ‘Meat Sack’ Mike and ‘Meat Stick’ Greg. Our second first impression was the same; the place is still a damn zoo. Five Guys décor is standard ‘fast-food-like’ red and white trim with sacks of un-cut potatoes stacked throughout (which is kind of cool). Also, they have big boxes of shelled peanuts that you can chow on for free. It’s probably to reduce liability by ensuring that nobody starves to death waiting in the long friggin’ line to order a burger. They also have boastful quotations from random print media of how great their food is. By random I mean they have a sign touting that their fries were voted the best in Kaimin, Montana. How hard could that be? Probably the only fries you can get in Kaimin! Anyway, on to the official UBR review. Our burgers arrived in a brown paper sack, wrapped in tin foil…. Okay. The burger is pretty damn good and scored a 3.31 on the UBR scale of yum (and probably should be higher in Greg’s opinion). And the topping choices are really impressive. But the fries pretty much still sucked. The really sucked the first time and still sucked the second time, earning an undercooked 2.9 on the UBR scale. They would have received a much lower score if it wasn’t for the large portion and the fact that their seasoning is good. A menu item that Five Guys lacks though is milkshakes. Come on! You can’t be a classic burger joint without a milkshake offering! So Five Guys received a lackluster 3 for an overall experience score. In the argument on which is better, Five Guys or In & Out,  you’ll find the UBR “Po Po” in the In & Out parking lot.

Five Guys San Marcos

Centre City Cafe’ – Escondido, CA

Looks can be Deceiving

For this review the UBR staff and the guest reviewer entourage of Darrin, Kevin, Chris and Tim motored down to Escondido to Centre City Café, San Diego Home Cooking’s North County location.   As usual Mike, a.k.a. “Capt. Cranky”, was in full pissy mode to start the adventure. This was the first time Darrin had met Mike and he was seriously second guessing if it was worth a free cheeseburger to have to endure a 50 year old man-child’s tantrum. However, once we arrived at our burgering location and met up with the rest of our burger buddies (who came all the way from Florida for this review), Mike’s attitude turned around. Centre City Café has classic 1970’s architecture since it was formally a Sambo’s.  It’s also located in an area of Escondido that seems to be unaware that several decades have gone by since Sambos demise. They did however have a few awkwardly placed TV’s that clashed nicely with the randomness of the un-themed painted artwork. While this description sounds like a great place to chow a burger, the restrooms and service speed severely affected the overall restaurant rating (thus the 2.5). If it wasn’t for the cute and very attentive waitress, the restaurant ratings would have been much worse.  It should be noted that knucklehead Troy picked this place because they touted their great burgers on a TV ad. Understanding Troy’s pea-brained belief that the TV never lies helps explain his depth of thought and reason. Once the burgers finally arrived, the real disappointment began. Before the burger bash begins, let’s list the good points.  It was made of meat, you had several cheese choices, you got a pickle spear, and the presentation and appearance was average. The rest just sucked. It earned a dismal 2.5 on the UBR scale. The post burger was pretty dismal too, and came close to yakking up a 1 on the post burger rating.  Then there are the fries. On the surface, the fries should have been great (good curb appeal); the reality was they were disgusting. They completely jacked them up by cooking them into a charred greasy shell. Yeah, they can’t even cook a friggin’ french fry! Probably the best part of this visit was watching the black cat hanging out on the outside awning. You could almost hear his little squeeky kitty voice saying “DON’T ORDER THE BURGER! RUN, RUN NOW!” To our may UBR fans from around the world, you are the reason we do this, and we took one for the team this week. Now you’ll know to pass right by this pathetic burger experience! We’re just glad we didn’t have to pay for this one… Thanks Chris!

Unwitting Darrin

The TV says it's good!

Bistro West – Carlsbad, CA

Bistro West Burger

For this review the UBR staff, along with guest reviewer Jeff Kremicki, journeyed to Bistro West in Carlsbad based on the recommendation of our Future UBR staff accountant Stacy. Bistro West is an upscale restaurant that offers a Kobe “blend” burger offering. We’re not sure what the “blend” means but based on the price we’re pretty sure it wasn’t “blended” with something worthless like Greg’s wallet after he picked up the bill. Overall the restaurant was by far the finest we have experienced to cram a burger in our… Sorry, to partake in a burger gastronomic experience. To match the fine interior surroundings were pleasant clientele and top shelf service.  Our server was on it from the start, delivering insanely delicious fresh baked dinner rolls the moment we sat down. At no point did the high quality service falter and they would have received a perfect UBR five if he wasn’t, well, a dude. We prefer our burgers delivered by a girl and this is our site, so we can give a wiener deduction if we want too. Speaking of wieners, a mention needs to go out that Mike strongly felt that the Bistro also has the finest restrooms we have seen at a place that serves burgers. Oh yeah, the burgers. Yum! A 3.9 UBR scale yum and perfectly cooked to our order specifications. The burger would have easily broke a coveted 4 rating if the burger to bun ratio was a bit better, the meat a bit more favor/seasoning, and of course had they included the often over looked detail of a pickle spear. The only key burger item to note is that they offer two bun types, Focaccia or whole wheat.  Focaccia is the way to go. On the fry front, there are many options here too, from standard fry, the steak fry, or the un-traditional metro-sexual sweet potato fry. Most of us opted for the standard, but Greg was the clear winner with the steak fry option which boosted the fry score to 3.6 UBR rating. Bistro West is a place a guy could impress a girl on a burger date if paired with a fine bottle of Cabernet.  So our recommendation is, throw your burger eating babe in a cop car and head west, to Bistro West!

Mike's attempt at photography (Bistro West)