Posted by lamboburger on Dec 8, 2010 in
Burger Bar 
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
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Posted by troyburger on Sep 2, 2010 in
Burger Bar,
Chain 
The UBR staff at The Counter
For this weeks UBR review we hit “The Counter” at the forum shops in Carlsbad. We were joined by our trusty ‘Associate Level’ UBR member, Kristina. The Counter offers “locally sourced, sustainable” hippy, blah, blah ingredients and burger patty sizes of 1/3, 2/3, and full pound! The UBR Staff tackled… no make that were destroyed by, the 2/3 pounder while Kristina munched on a petite little 1/3 pounder. Seriously, they need a ½ pound burger offering for us working stiffs (namely us non-sales people who don’t have the luxury of afternoon naps…Mike). We felt way over burdened by the painstaking digestion effort needed to move that “pig in a python” the rest of the afternoon. The ‘Post Burger Experience’ rating definitely leaned towards ‘Problematic’. And, let’s face it, a 1/3 pound burger is, well, girlie… No offense to our lovely associate Kristina. Anyway, part of our problem could have been the cornucopia of menu check list items for burger upgrades. Troy, for example, opted for adding ham and bacon to his 2/3 pounder. Not wise! Good thing we have defibrillators in our building! The vast list of “killer” upgrades include twelve cheese types, twenty nine toppings (including a fried egg), and twenty sauce types. And they even had four choices of friggin’ buns! So what about the burgers? They were killer! Heck, even the fries were among the best we have reviewed! The only negative for The Counter, besides lacking a ½ pound burger, was the cost. Way too much! Our per-person meal averaged out to $16 (burger, fries, drink and tip). But you have to give them the yum factor! So next time you want to drop the better part of a ‘Jackson’ for a burger, definitely consider The Counter!
2/3 Pounder with Ham and Bacon
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