I know that I’m relatively new to burger reviewing, having only been at it since October of last year, but never have I experienced anything quite like this. A couple weeks ago, 5 Napkin Burger opened in Boston and the local burger world has been all a-tizzy and hasn’t been the same since. Lately, it seems, it’s rare that I have a conversation with someone about burgers and a mention of them doesn’t come up. Wanting to give them time to get situated in their new home in the Pru, Burger Boy and I waited to stop in for a review until finally, this week, we went in for a 5 Napkin Burger.
I’ll be honest, I expected to like it. I didn’t expect to be blown away by it but I expected it to be a respectable contender in the search for Boston’s Best burger. Wanting to try the one that started it all, the Original 5 Napkin Burger ($10.95), I placed my order and agreed to split the fries and tater tots, neither of which come with the burger. When the burger arrived, it was neatly presented in the center of the plate. It looked juicy and was topped with what looked to be a decent amount of cheese and caramelized onions. On top of that, however, was a giant mass of rosemary aoili, I’m talking about 3-4 TBS of it, which is a lot to be sitting in a giant blob on top of my burger. I ended up scraping more than half of it off, the rosemary in the aoili was just too strong and too much. Even after I had scraped some of it off, the flavor still haunted, masking everything else happening in the burger. The burger itself, while being juicy, was under-seasoned and didn’t provide that beefy flavor I was hoping for. On the other hand, I did like the burger’s bun. Light and fluffy and fitting the burger perfectly, it had just enough strength to hold the messy burger together all the way through to the last bite.
As mentioned before, fries did not come with the burger, which is a pet peeve of mine. I just think that a lonely little burger looks so sad on a plate without hot and crispy fries automatically snuggled up next to it. The fries were an additional $3.25 and although quite tasty, crisp and well seasoned with salt and rosemary, the serving was rather skimpy for the price. In addition to the fries, we ordered the tater tots ($4.25) because, again, so much like the burger, there had been so much hype about them. When they arrived at our table, they looked great, all neatly stacked up, golden and crispy but one bite revealed a mushy mess of pasty mashed potatoes that were in desperate need of some salt.
Overall, I didn’t think that 5 Napkin lived up to its hype… and so the search for Boston’s best burger continues..
