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Three burgers today. The first was the falafel burger, which I learned is ground-up chickpeas. It has guacamole, tomato, green lettuce and tzatziki dripping everywhere. With a vegetarian burger you have to ask if you miss the meat, and I don’t. The patty is seasoned well and loose and soft inside, not dry and hard like a traditional falafel. The texture reminds me of smashed black-eyed peas.
The Manly Chick is a play on Umami’s Manly Burger: a chicken breast patty, bacon lardons, onion strings and mustard beer cheese. The bacon and onion strings dominate, and you can’t taste much of the beer cheese. It’s basically a Western bacon cheeseburger with chicken instead of beef, and I ate the whole thing.
The Negroni Barbecue Burger is the showcase, made for Campari’s Negroni Week with the James Beard Foundation’s Blended Burger Project. The patty is beef blended with mushroom, with a Negroni barbecue reduction. Before I could take a bite, The Grove’s security stopped us and said we couldn’t film outside, even though it looks like Umami’s patio. That was awkward, so we moved inside. The burger is juicy with good beef texture, though I couldn’t tell the meat from the mushroom. My top bun was dry, so I added Umami’s ketchup, which helped but changed the taste. My order: the chicken first, then the Negroni, then the falafel. Umami did a pretty good job.
Some meals here are on me, some are hosted. Either way, it is disclosed and the score is mine. If this helped you decide where to eat, a coffee helps keep it going.
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