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

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!

Back Alley Grill, San Marcos, CA

Back Alley Burger

For this review the UBR staff visited the Back Alley Grill in San Marcos based on a recommendation by one of our many fans from around the world..  We were joined by Laurel Madden, our guest reviewer for the day. The Back Alley Grill has a relaxing feel by nature with a nice patio, propped open windows, and a general Pacific island motif. However it’s located directly behind a dog kennel business which added a hint of, let’s just say, flora, to our burger dining experience. And we had plenty of time to savor that aroma, as our meal took forever to cook.  But at least our server had all the qualities that we like when we are served a burger. She was nice, cute-ish, and attentive with a side of tats and butt crack. The burgers were surprisingly served on toasted sourdough bread. Our first thought was ‘epic structural integrity fail during consumption’, but they held up very well.  It was also tough to rate the burger-to-bun (in this case burger-to-toast) ratio. It took 3 bites of toast to finally get to the meat.  The burger earned a 2.87 on the UBR rating. The demerits include the chopped lettuce topping that, once you flipped the toasted lid over, scattered around your plate, your lap or most anywhere but on the intended target.  Not to mention, the lettuce itself clearly showed signs of an expired shelf-life. Additionally, the burgers were overcooked into a dry, well done, meat lump. At least the lack of juice/grease favored a positive post burger experience.  Clearly, the best part of this meal was the fries, which earned a 4.74 on the UBR scale.  They are, arguably, the best fires we have reviewed to date. These folks know how select a fry type and how to cook them to near-perfection! The overall restaurant rating was a 3.3 on the UBR scale.  The Back Alley Grill was a very ‘average’ (and aromatic) burger experience.

Back Alley Decor

Back Alley Reviewers

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

Niko buger

Niko's

Niko's Mike Fail

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

Bobby’s Hideaway Cafe- Carlsbad, CA

Leane and Mark

Okay…. We may have found it! Bobby’s Hideaway Café could be the new Holy Grail of hamburgers for North County San Diego! Not that we’ve fininshed our quest by any means, but it has set the bar locally.  Bobby’s is a classic piece of roadside Americana. While the service started a bit slow, it came on for a great finish. Actually, our waitress was fun and attentive. To kill time we entertained ourselves with straw paper wars … with ninja-like eyeball-maiming accuracy!  The restaurant was a bit eclectic with cheap Hollywood type memorabilia plastered on the walls, and SpongeBoob Square Pants trinkets lining the shelves. Our only complaint was the crap in the crappy crapper….Literally.  Someone needs to call a friggin’ army of friggin’ scrubbing bubbles on steroids and clean up the crapper… At least flush the crap in the crapper!

Anyway enough of that crap, let’s get to the burger….uuuuhhhh burger! Oh man… Yum! This burger was so good I can go on and on talking about the delectable, yummy, grilled to perfection, double cheese melt, blah, blah blah… But all is not 5 star at Bobby’s.  There were some slight imperfections on the UBR Scale. The patty of yumness could have been a tich thicker and the burger to bun ratio a tich better. Other than that, YUM! This is a must stop for anyone in the area.  Even the sandwiches looked perfect.  Helping to review and enjoy a great burger experience was Leane, UBR staff half of the clueless nitwit Troy.  Also, joining us was the nitwit’s good friend Mark.

Yum!

Nessy Burger, Fallbrook, CA

Who would drive for 30 minutes (each way) to eat a burger cooked in a trailer while standing in a parking lot?  Yes, the tireless staff of UBR would. This week we decided to pay a visit to the North County’s legendary burger hole, Nessy Burger. The location is on the extreme outer edge of our lunch hour comfort zone and it was  made worse by having a big whiney-baby driver (that would be Mike). Sorry you had to witness that Sean!  And unfortunately it didn’t get much better from there.  Due to Nessy Burger’s iconic stature in the local burger circles, and because we didn’t plan for trip that seemingly would never end, we hit their parking lot at the lunch-time peak.  They only have 3 picnic tables for seating and naturally they were taken.  So much for the first impression.  This all factored into the 2 star overall rating for the restaurant.  After all, we are on the quest for the ‘Ultimate Experience’ not just the Ultimate Burger.  Speaking of which, the burger was good enough to bump the overall score up to a 3 (and on the cusp of a 4).  It was pretty damn good!  Hand formed patties with just the right amount of seasoning and excellent burger-to bun and thickness ratings, helped ease the day’s pain.  Trying to manage the burger, the can of Coke  and a rather generous portion of crinkle-cut fries on a paper plate while standing in a wind-blown park-n-ride parking lot left a lot to be desired.  This doesn’t mean that you should necessarily bypass Nessy if you happen to be in the neighborhood. The burger itself warrants a quick exit off the I-15 freeway.  Just keep in mind you may want to bring your own table.  We would like to give a  special thanks to our guest reviewer Seany Boy, UBR’s official graphics designer!