Classic - Brennan and Carr (Nostrand and U - Brooklyn)

There are huge rivalries all around NYC, typically dealing with sports teams and there are very few that sit on the fence and root for both. It's one or the other. You like the Yankees and hate the Mets. You like the Giants and hate the Jets. You could care less about the Knicks but you still hate the Nets. Rivalries truly do make the things we enjoy that much more enjoyable because we want our favorite to be the best. There are two sandwich giants in BK, most famous for the roast beef offerings, and many people are loyal to either Brennan and Carr or Roll N Roaster (featured here)

As a kid I did what you call the Brooklyn shuffle, moving five times over a span of seven years while being fortunate enough to remain in the same general area. During my most formative years (read rapid growth) I had the luxury of living 4 blocks from Roll N Roaster yet had to take a bus that transferred right in front of Brennan and Carr**

Brothy Goodness

What's a boy to do? I mean, everyone had their favorite and I honestly could not choose. This was not some Mets-Yankees scenario unfolding, this was food. Great food. And great food is one thing I never deprive myself of, in case you hadn't noticed. Since I'm not comparing who has the better roast beef sandwich (I'll save that for another day) I have to go based on burgers. In the burger fight, however,  B&C doesn't quite play fair.

Hard to tell how soaked the bun is.

YES, you can buy their beef burger and be fairly satisfied at their offering OR you can play it smart and order the Gargiulo Burger, have the pour beef broth on it and know that they just did to burgers what should have been done a LONG time ago. The Gargiulo is listed there on the menu and if you don't know and don't ask what it is, you're missing out. But now, you're armed with knowledge that you need to get this burger (NOT cooked to order) topped with delicious, hot roast beef, cheese (optional) and then the bun is smothered in broth. Let it sit a while and have some fun poking the bun to watch broth seep out. This is a heavenly sandwich. It's pricy too but nobody said heaven would be cheap.

I'm a burger with roast beef on top

Rating - 4.5/5 - This is just such an impressive burger/sandwich. Yes it's kinda cheating to add it here but NYC is loaded w/specialty burgers and this is one of the best.

**Editor's Note - While I did take the B3 to the B36 when I knew a sandwich from B&C was in order, there was an "easier" way to get home via the B49 and I tell you this in an effort of full disclosure.

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Suggestions??

Have a spot in the 5 boroughs you think I should hit up? Comment here and I'll be sure to add it to my list. Thanks!

Nawlins Meet Burgers, Burgers Meet Nawlins - Rack & Soul (258 W 109th St)

Where to begin because I have my share of issues with this one. I guess the best approach is to stay burger focused. I went to Rack & Soul last week and was skeptical to say the least. It's BBQ meets soul food meets New Orleans and I was somewhat lost. It's like going to a diner and ordering eggplant parmesan, just because they offer it doesn't mean you should do it. Unless, of course, they have the best eggplant parm in the world. And even then, I'm skeptical.

Entering this soul food meets BBQ meets who knows what, I had one question - why the heck can I not get Kool Aid at a soul food restaurant? If you think that's wrong, you are wrong. Getting over my desire to be quenched by some red drink, I settled in and read what the menu had to offer. I was not in the mood for any traditional BBQ and my eyes found the selection of Po' Boys. I saw they offered a hamburger po' boy and figured I must be in the right place.

They brought a handful of scratch biscuits to the table that had a honey glaze on top. These were really good so I ate 5 and went back to waiting for my rare burger po' boy. Or so I thought. What I was really waiting for was a miniature hockey puck on a baguette that was lathered, heavily, with ground mustard. The burger was cooked to oblivion and was dry as eating a spoonful of cinnamon - even WITH the mustard and extra BBQ sauce (homemade, thankfully). Somewhere underneath my salad sandwich you'll see some brown, that itty bitty piece of brown is my burger. Tragic, I know.

Conceptually, the burger had a lot of promise. It reminded me of a favorite of mine that I get in AC at the White House - the foot long cheeseburger. At R&S, I was asked how I wanted it cooked and even a rare-medium rare burger was lost on this baguette. For the price, it's a horrible deal as you get virtually no meat and the meat you get tastes like nothing. Overcooked nothing in my situation.

Fortunately, they had some AMAZING collard greens. How amazing? This much!

Rating - 1/5 - Strictly points for the concept but it needs a LOT of work to get out of the burger basement.

Back to the Big Apple - Island Burgers and Shakes (9th and 51st)

Looks are deceiving. Deceptively deceiving sometimes. From the outside, Island Burgers has a small and rather modest appearance which does not foreshadow what you are about to encounter on the inside. Island Burgers and Shakes are yet another burger/shake spot in NYC. Unavoidable, I know but I comprehend it better than the burger/shake/cupcake craze that's trending on the NYC streets. Put a burger on a cupcake and you have me as your brand new BFF but you decide to bake those too b/c you know that the $4 cupcake is a trendy little snack on the NYC streets, shame on you cupcake cooker. Or baker. Whatever.

Back to IBS, their menu is simply amazing. There are so many options, each coming with different toppings, seasoning, etc. Did I mention that you can have any of the burgers as either a hamburger or a grilled chicken sandwich? Not a bad deal if you are craving a delicious, juicy, big burger and have a friend that's more into chicken. The complete menu can be found here and locals can use it to place orders for delivery.

Bourbon Street

At left, you can see the inside of a perfectly cooked RARE burger. At right, you can see the Bourbon Street burger, featuring a blackened burger patty, jack cheese, sauteed onions, and bacon.

I had two issues with the burger and that's going to hurt my overall review. Issue 1 - the bacon was cold. Not room temperature, not sorta warm, but cold. It was obviously cooked earlier and then just sat around and was not even heated prior to climbing on top of my burger. That was a bit of a bummer b/c I ended up eating the bacon separately and wanted it on this burger. Issue 2 - the sourdough was a nice, different touch. There are a number of bread/bun options there and again, that's a HUGE plus. I didn't ask if I could select a different bread but I am sure I could have. After eating it, I can say that I wasn't a fan of this pairing as the bread was a little too large and the crust was just kinda out there and out of place. Not bad, just out of place.

Rating - 4.75/5 - The variety of food here should be enough to keep me coming back for more and I'd surely recommend it to you too! The burgers are big, cooked to perfection, and have lots of flavor. Have you been here? What's your favorite?

The BK Tour Continues - 67 Burger (Lafayette Ave.)

Fly your flag 67.

I get a message one day telling me that I need to try this hot burger spot in Brooklyn and then I find myself there. It's that easy. Not far from the soon to be home of the Nets is 67 Burger, located in Fort Greene, amidst some other really good eateries, Smoke Joint and the landmark Junior's immediately come to mind, 67 Burger has been building a really solid reputation with a fairly tough crowd.

When I am told something is a "must have" I usually am a skeptic. When this particular friend tells me it's a must have, I'm there without hesitation. Why? Usually because it means he's buying, both the burgers and the coke and by coke I mean nose candy and by nose candy I mean cocaine.

Hi, I'm the 67 Burger. I wear bleu cheese.

Hi, 67 again, profile shot. I sit on bacon.

All gone.

I absolutely love their menu. It's simple to the point of being short bus but deep to the point of being Grand Canyon. Sounds oxymoronic or just plain moronic, I know but let's examine what I'm trying to say. You start with the meat of choice though in reality there's only one meat for a hamburger but you can choose beef, turkey, chicken, or veggie. From there, it gets fun. Well, fun for me but I'm a bit of a slob. When I am presented with the amount of choices a place like 67 presents, I do a lot of pre-planning and show up in sweatpants. Not so stylish but certainly spacious. Since choice one is so simple for me, choice two made things tough. My brain does not work in a manner that says, "just go back another time or two or four to try all the things you want to try" rather my brain says "you gotta catch 'em all, Pokeman" or something along those lines. NO I cannot eat 12 burgers in one sitting, YES I can try. My eyes shifted to the specialty burgers and I immediately crossed one of the 12 off the list. "The Ranch" was my Judas and was quickly crossed off the list of 12. Not sure if "The Ranch" proceeded to hang itself but I don't do ranch so I skipped that offering.

The choices are abundant and there's just too much to list here so I've opted to give you a link instead - http://67burger.com/assets/67.menu.06.14.09.pdf It's a link to a pdf so you can print it and plan your course. I'm not going to say exactly what I had because my photos are not up to my usual standard but I can tell you that I vouch for the 67, the Cajun, the Southwestern, and the Western.

Multiple visits are recommended, especially if you care to dine al-fresco. If you choose to eat the opposite of al-fresco (or indoors) that's ok too as there's ample seating.

Rating - 4.75/5 - Cooked to order, fresh not frozen, nice sized bun. Lots of toppings and options if you so choose and just done right.

Haiku Review - Roll N Roaster

it's good but not great

cheez on anything you pleez

that's roll n roaster

Rating - 3.25/5 - If I was rating other things on the menu, I'd go 5/5 here. The food, the consistency, and the nostalgic feel are all worth the raves and repeat visits. The burgers are not main eventing at RNR but they are good. Go with cheez and onions.

Brooklyn's Finest - Peter Luger's

The premier Brooklyn Steakhouse, perennially rated as the top steakhouse in all of NYC also serves up one of the city's best burgers. It's so special, they only serve it during lunch hours (until 3:45pm) and you'll most likely need to get a reservation well in advance to eat there. I've been fortunate enough to be greeted by a little old lady at the hostess counter each time I've visited. She's awesome. Tell her DJ says hi.

A little advice if you are making your first trip to Peter Luger's:

1 - Try, no TRY the bacon. Get it as an app, eat if while you wait for the burger to be cooked.
2 - Do not get a 2nd bacon on your burger after having tried it and liked it. Trust me, I'm right.
3 - If you skip the bacon as an app, do get it with your burger. Eat it alone. Savor it. Chances are it will be the highlight of your meal.

Before I go further, when I say app, I mean appetizer. I'm not talking about something you can play with on your iPhone or Droid so just leave the app-store now since there's no such thing as a Peter Luger Bacon App. Nor should there be.

Holy Pig Fat Batman, look at that bacon!!!

Moving on, going here for a burger may sound like sacrilege to the steak lovers out there but not going here for a burger IS sacrilege to all the burger lovers out there.

This is a MUST if you are craving a big, juicy burger. Now, all this praise does not go without some negativity. If there's a knock on Luger's, it's simple. They seem to cook the burger(s) however they want to cook them. In my most recent visit, we were a party of 5 (minus Neve Campbell) and 2 of us ordered our burgers to be cooked rare, the others ranged from medium rare to something more cooked.

The little plastic cow said my burger was rare and that little plastic cow was not lying. Unfortunately the little plastic cow on my friend's burger that said medium was not medium.

Let's just say there were 5 rare burgers on the table at the time of delivery. It's so disheartening that their cooking of what would arguably be THE burger in all of NYC is so lax that it hurts the overall rating. I compare this to seeing your dream girl and then finally asking her out only to find out that she was born a dude. "She's" taking web design classes by day and did just buy a webcam to make some extra money to speed along the process to become a real-live girl but "she's" just not quite what you wanted now that you've got "her."

Rating - 4/5. If I just graded this on my experience, it's a 5. The meat just tastes so good, the bun perfect, and the slice of raw onion is really all you need. But the cooking errors are just abundant. I grew up in BK and know the FU attitude that BK has but I aint rolling over and handing out grades based on that FU BK charm.

Oh and I did NOT order a cheeseburger but they made me one anyway. Thanks but I was trying to keep Kosher.