Niko’s Steak Burger and Greek Food – Vista, CA

Niko buger

Niko's

Niko's Mike Fail

Zinburger – Phoenix, AZ

Zinburger

Yes! Another UBR travel review! Since Mike and Troy were in Phoenix for a tradeshow, they figured they must take on a non-SoCal burger. Sadly, this one doesn’t include Greg.  He had to stay at the corporate office and play with his numbers. Also, there was no guest reviewer so perhaps this could be construed as an unofficial review. Anyway, Mike and Troy busted out of the show and went to a place called “Zinburger” in North Phoenix. The first impression of Zinburger was, well, just that, Zen! Zinburger was a hip, trendy burger bar. They had giant murals on the wall of happy cows grazing while mindlessly awaiting the fate of becoming a burger. Zinburger is not yet considered a chain since there are only two, but we expect that to change. The whole experience started off great. We had a cute waitress who was attentive to our cheeseburgering needs. However, the service slowly began to decline and Mike was soon left without Coke in his glass.  No cute waitress was in site. He just kept muttering “Coke, Coke, Coke,” which, needless to say, annoyed the crap out of me.  His glass was finally refilled but the hassle pretty much killed the “Zen” experience. Once the burger and fries hit the UBR staff (sans 1), we were happy again. That was until Mike chomped into his burger and it literally squirted out a huge gob of bloody juice like a ruptured puss pocket, resulting in Mike “Clarking” all over his good shirt. However, once we (Troy) got past that, the burger was excellent, resulting in a 4.05 UBR rating. The fries, also near perfection, earned extremely high marks as well. The only real negative to Zinburger was the cost. Ten dollars for the burger and five dollars for the fries added a bit of damage to the overall experience. The truth be told, we hope Zin does go chain because we would love to add them to our cheeseburger repertoire in San Diego.

Zinburger Pre Pus

Zinburger Pus

Dalton’s Roadhouse, San Marcos, CA

High Hopes

For the this review we tried to hit a new place called “Fat Cat Burger & BBQ” based on a recommendation of one of UBR’s many fans around the world. This particular fan ‘X’ just happened to be local in our I.S. Department. Fat Cat apparently was a failure before we could deem it a failure. They were closed.  Anyway, let’s get on to the next failure. Since Troy had to stock up on ammo and rockets for his Thanksgiving desert jaunt we targeted nearby Dalton’s Roadhouse with our guest reviewer Ryan Baldwin (who is well on his way to a coveted Associate Level Reviewer status). Please, no whining from the people that still have not been lucky enough yet to experience their “first time” with the UBR staff. Anyway, once the UBR staff stepped out of the car they were greeted by a lovely aroma of searing meat. Sadly, the delightful aroma was killed once we stepped foot into the restaurant where it was overpowered by the stench of a rancid grease trap. However, Dalton’s has a cool old barn feel and it’s one of those places where they give you peanuts to throw on the floor. Our waitress was delightful and quickly brought us our burgers. They had decent presentation points, except for the fact that they cut the burger in half. This contributed to some structural integrity issues. That was a nice way of saying “what the hell”!?!? If I want my burger cut in half I’ll friggin’ tell you I want it cut in half!”  Good thickness and decent burger- to-bun ratio couldn’t hide the flaws from the discerning palate of the UBR staff.  It was quickly pegged as a standard machine-formed flavorless meat circle. Lame! The burger category did receive a rare “pickle bump” of 0.1, pushing the overall rating up to 2.6. The best part of the experience was the fries, which earned a solid 4 by UBR standards. As a footnote (and we have never had to add this to a review before), the post burger experience was quite problematic. Troy damn near yacked by the time he got to the car.  As a result, we must give Dalton’s a 2 on the ‘post burger’ rating. Too bad Troy never did yack because that would have been hilarious, and they would have gotten an unprecedented 1 on the ‘post burger’.  The moral of the story is Dalton’s Road kill Roadhouse burger is not worth the stop.

Roadhouse Burger