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.