Post # 11 Corey's Catsup and Mustard

Corey's Catsup and Mustard
623 Main Street
Manchester, CT 06040
catsupandmustard.com

My wife and I sat steely-eyed across from one another at a table at Corey’s Catsup and Mustard, a Triple D featured burger joint outside of Hartford. We had placed our order thirty minutes earlier and Alicia was getting antsy. Having a long drive back to Boston, she wanted to get home to our kids. I wanted to get home, too, but only after eating the delicious burger I knew would soon arrive.

As her frustration mounted, I tried channeling a Zen state, but Zen states are hard to channel when your wife is exclaiming, “I haven’t seen our waitress in ten minutes" and “That table being served ordered after us."

Om...Om...Um...?

Triple D approved: Corey's C&M

I knew my burger would be delicious because I'd eaten at Corey’s once before (alone at the bar, I might add) and my cheeseburger was amazing. This was before Happy Burger began featuring regional fare (posts # 7 and # 9) so instead of writing about the experience, I filed it away.

Since that time, the excellence of that Corey’s burger has nagged at me to where it has taken on mythical proportions in my mind. I had ordered something called The Rodeo, topped with fried shoestring onions, BBQ sauce, cheddar cheese, bacon, ranch dressing and served on a sesame seed bun. The combination of flavors and textures made for a truly burgasmic eating experience; but was The Rodeo as perfect in reality as it was in my memory?

The evocative Rodeo Burger

Sidekick Scott was out of town, so here I sat across from a woman who is gluten free, anxious to get home to the kids and not a burger enthusiast to begin with. As my wife's patience neared it's peak... “Another minute and I'm having it packed to go!"...I focused hard on Zen and the Art of Marital Stability.

“Are you positive this place was on Triple D?!?"

Om...Om...Om...

"It's cold in here!"

Om...Om...Om...

When our food finally arrived, Alicia took a first bite, and asked, “Is your burger hot? My bun-less sliders are room temperature. Which means they're freezing.”

OOOMMM...OOOMMM...OOOMMM...

I tried to imagine that my burger was hot. I tried to visualize it being cooked to perfection as the first had been. I tried envisioning myself sitting alone at the bar. But even in a Zen state I couldn't pretend that my wife wasn't right. The six ounce, 80/20 Angus patty was barely warm. Worse, it had been flat griddled to an unsatisfactory medium-well instead of "on the way to medium" as ordered. The fact that Corey's beef is trucked in twice daily from a local source (a tidbit gleaned from a hostess during our ample wait) was only a sad footnote.

Still, even tepid and overcooked, The Rodeo rivaled many we've featured in Happy Burger. The combination of fresh, seasoned meat, salty bacon and sweet BBQ sauce made for a lively tap dance on my taste buds. The mellow yellow gooey deliciousness of the cheese was complimented by the tangy ranch dressing. The bun's thin crusty outer shell and crispy shoestring onions contrasted nicely with the bun's doughy soft interior. No doubt the combination of textures and flavors had been tinkered with meticulously by talented chefs until they thought the perfect amalgamation had been reached.

And it had. Only this time the execution was off.

On the road home to the kids two things were readily apparent: a recipe is only as good as its implementation, and, while a good wife is right an annoyingly high percentage of the time, a good husband is one who learns ways to deal with it.

Om...Om...Om...

The score below reflects the average of both Corey’s experiences. 

Score: 8.75 out of 10 napkins

(Since this writing I've visited Corey's  a third time, again alone, and I am still in search of that elusive burger. It was better than the last burger but worse than the first. A 9.1 on its own.)

Post # 10 Mr. Bartley's Burger Cottage, Cambridge, MA

Mr. Bartley's Burger Cottage
1246 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
mr.bartley.com

Had it really been twenty-five years since I'd eaten at Bartley's? Considering my fond memories, I should have been back decades ago. What's not to like about a historic, fast-paced burger joint in the heart of Harvard Square...one that's always packed and offers a carnival atmosphere...with a wait staff barking food orders to cooks over customers' heads...oodles of accumulated memorabilia lining every inch of wall space...locals, students, tourists and burger buffs cheek to jowl at wooden tables chatting between bites...and everybody happily a part of the same scene that Bob Dylan, Jackie O., Johnny Cash and countless others have enjoyed since Joe and Joan Bartley opened their little establishment in 1960?

  

Vivid memories for sure, but I 'd forgotten about the line to get in, which upon arrival seemed to have only grown with time. Scott and I took our places at the end and quickly learned a reason: it was parents' weekend at Harvard, and most of them were ahead of us with their prodigy.

Quick! Find the incorrect grammar!!

A waitress hoofed down to the end of the line and gave us menus. We read the list of burgers, named after politicians, celebrities, local sports legends and tid bits of pop culture: The Putin, The Jimmy Fallon, The Tom Brady, the Hash Tag...twenty-two burgers in all. Joe Bartley sat on a stool several yards up, keeping warm in a blue parka while taking orders from patrons as they shuffled by. Wife Joan, looking both cooler and hotter in her own blue parka, played hostess, collecting the orders from Joe and timing their placement with the grill staff to when she had a table available.
       

The Bartleys run a well-oiled machine, and with fifty-four years experience it's no wonder. One would think they'd be ensconced in some Florida beach community by now, counting their money and sipping Mai Tai's; but what got them here keeps them here, and what keeps them here, what keeps us all here (even twenty-five years later) are the burgers.

Scott's People's Republic of Cambridge Burger

Beacuse of Bartley's volume, (on this Saturday alone they'll go through about 300 pounds of beef) Joe has the luxury of having the meat flown in daily from a source in Montana. The Certified Angus arrives pre-ground in bulk, and seven ounce patties are pressed by machine on premises. Years ago, Joe would shower the meat with Accent before cooking; nowadays, he adds only a bit of kosher salt, relying instead on the meat's freshness for the burger's flavor.

These burgers do, in fact, have a very meaty, fresh taste to them. Scott's People's Republic of Cambridge Burger, topped with slaw and Russian dressing and served on a La Ronga Bakery roll, was big and beefy and cooked perfectly to a bright pink medium rare. My Joe Biden Burger, with bacon, American cheese and BBQ sauce, was cooked to an equally perfect, pale pink "on the way to medium." Again, no surprise, as Joe and Joan's son, Bill, has worked the grill since he was fourteen, some forty years ago. Needless to say, the dude's got the hang of it.

After a selfie with Joan on the way out, I found Joe in his car in the parking space directly in front of the restaurant. The line had thinned to a point where he was able to take a lunch break: Chinese from a neighboring restaurant, which he ate with a plastic fork from a Styrofoam container. I asked about the many burger joints that have popped up in the Square in recent years. He said he'd been curious about them, and sent his staff out to test the burgers. The results confirmed his hunch. The burgers were okay, but the meat wasn't fresh like his.

Score: 8.50 out of 10 napkins

Post # 9 The Menemsha Galley

The Menemsha Galley

515 North Road

Menemsha, MA 02552

menemshagalley@aol.com

In the introduction to Happy Burger we gave a shout out to The Menemsha Galley as a place that serves consistently awesome burgers summer after summer. I’m happy to report the tradition continues.

Tucked away at the tip of picturesque Menemsha Harbor on Martha's Vineyard, The Galley is primarily known for its killer lobster rolls, clam chowder and fresh swordfish sandwiches. That's logical considering a sea-to-table distance of about 100 yards, and a co-owner (Barbie Fenner) who is a CIA trained chef. I'm unable to comment on Barbie’s seafood though, as throughout my fifteen year love affair with The Galley I’ve ordered nothing but burgers. 

The Galley's sign , with burgers listed a distant third

In a recent post (see post # 5) I suggested that one's mood at the time of eating can influence a review, and no doubt that's the case here. In an effort at full disclosure, I admit to having been in a great mood every time I ate at The Galley. And why not? I’m on vacation, I’m with family or good friends, and I’m sitting in a postcard setting eating a burger.

The view from The Galley's back porch eating area

I visited The Galley three times this past summer (once with sidekick Scott, once with my wife Alicia, and once with Alicia, our twins, my parents, my brother, my two sisters, a brother-in-law, a baker's half-dozen of nieces and nephews, and a dog.) All three times I was in a great mood, but good mood or not, there's no denying the place serves a scrumptious burger. Made from 80/20 Certified Angus, the patty is smaller than others we’ve tried, but no less delicious. On each of the three occasions I topped it with cheese, lettuce, tomato and Barbie’s homemade Jack Daniels sauce. The cheese was always melted thoroughly over the patty, the lettuce and tomato crisp and cool, the griddled, sesame seed bun crunchy-fresh, and Barbie’s smokey-sweet, oniony JD sauce complex enough to add mouth appeal without overwhelming the other flavors.

A Galley cheeseburger with Jack Daniels sauce

Scott was equally impressed with his burger on our visit, and no doubt Alicia would have been too if she'd ordered one. Since our cleanse (see post #3) she's gone gluten-free, and settled for a roll-less lobster roll. It sounds lame, but she loved it.

Another thing to love about The Galley is the pricing, which is very reasonable considering we're talking about Martha's Vineyard here, and are surrounded by a quintessentially Vineyard-esque view when eating.

Next time you’re driving up-island, after you've stopped in on Geoffrey at Chilmark pottery, bought a jar of homemade honey at Our Honey, downed a drinkable yogurt at Mermaid Farm and procured tomatoes and corn at Beetlebung for dinner, cut over to North Road and take it to the very end. On the right you'll find The Menemsha Galley. Stroll to the take-out window, place an order for a cheeseburger with Barbie's JD sauce, find a seat out back overlooking the harbor, and hope it takes a long, long time 'til your burger arrives. It doesn't get much better.

                                          Three generations of Leubas enjoying their annual pilgrimage to The Galley

Score: 8.75 napkins out of 10.