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Healthy Home Economist / Archives / Healthy Living / Burger Monger: A Burger Joint Even Real Foodies Will Love

Burger Monger: A Burger Joint Even Real Foodies Will Love

by Sarah Pope / Affiliate Links ✔

burger monger

Yes, that’s a picture of me eating fries at a restaurant at lunch yesterday.

Can you believe it?   I’m actually enjoying the experience and not at all worried that I will be feeling rather sick or in desperate need of a nap later.

Here’s how it went down  ….

My kids have been bugging me lately to go to this new burger joint that was recently voted #1 in our metro area.

It’s called Burger Monger and the slogan is “It will only take one bite to make YOU a Burger Monger too!”

Yawn.

I’ve heard that one before.

I’ve tried Five Guys (barf) and Jakes’ Hamburgers (I had to take a 2 hour nap afterward).  I even tried this upscale restaurant called Grill One Sixteen that has Angus burgers for only $5 each for Sunday lunch.

Every. Single. One.  Makes me ill or desperately tired as my digestion grinds temporarily to a halt as it tries to figure out how to deal with what I just ate.

Even Evos, the so called healthy fast food, leaves much to be desired.

I’m just a sensitive gal, what can I say?

Ok, I’ll admit it.  I’m just a Food Snob who is used to feeling pretty darn good most of the time and any food that isn’t absolutely whole, awesome, and additive free makes me feel lousy in short order.

How does the general public get through the day, I often wonder?  If I felt all the time like I do after eating at a typical restaurant, what would I do to function on a daily basis?

I know!

Coffee, sugar, and caffeinated soda.

That’s how most folks do it, right?

Oh yeah.  Almost forgot.

Those nasty 5 hour energy shots.

And, plenty of over the counter painkillers for the almost daily headaches, backaches, and joint pain.

So as you can imagine, I was in NO HURRY to try out Burger Monger.  But, kids have a way of getting to you, don’t they?  After a couple weeks of raving about this place, I said, “Ok, let’s go for lunch on Monday.”

Yesterday happened to be the first day of Winter Break so we all went to Burger Monger to celebrate.

Soooo, I’m sitting there in the booth with my arms folded in resignation about the negative eating experience that is about to be thrust upon me.

Sigh.

Sometimes we must suffer for the ones we love.

Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I spy a flyer that describes Burger Monger’s food philosophy.

I am not going to blog about this, I tell myself, as I grudgingly get out of my seat and go and pick one up to look at.

I open it and see that they use Haagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream for their milkshakes.

Not bad, I think to myself.   Better than the mystery mix that most restaurants use.  Haagen-Dazs is definitely one of the best quality commercial ice creams available.

I also read that their buns are fresh baked and preservative free and the cheeses are gourmet, real milk cheeses.

Next, I start to read about the meat they use for making burgers.

It’s called Akaushi Kobe Beef and it’s a breed of Japanese cattle that produce meat that rates several levels above USDA prime.

Yawn.

“Akaushi Beef contains a higher concentration of monounsaturated fat relative to saturated fat, which the American Heart Association says can lead to lower cholesterol, the prevention of coronary heart disease, and weight loss.”

Double yawn.  More of the lipid hypothesis baloney.  When will people actually wake up about saturated fat, I think to myself?   As many people with low cholesterol have heart attacks as those with high cholesterol.  Total cholesterol means nothing with regard to heart disease!

The flyer went on to say that the taste of Akaushi Kobe Beef is rich, buttery, and unbeatable.

Ok, that’s sounds good.  I was definitely interested in how it would taste compared with conventional and grassfed beef.

Flyer back on the table.  Arms folded again.

I notice one of the servers walking by me with a plate of fries.

“Don’t ask about the fries”  I say to myself.  “You know they’re fried in rancid vegetable oils cleverly promoted as “transfat free”, so why bother?”

The server looked over and smiled.

I smiled back.  “Could I ask you a question?  What oil do you fry your french fries in?”   I asked quietly.

“Kobe beef fat”  she deadpans.

I almost fall on the floor.

“Beef fat?”  I ask incredulously.

“Yes, that’s right.  Kobe beef fat.”  she says again.

I sit in stunned silence taking this in for a few moments trying to figure out if what I heard is actually true. A restaurant actually frying its french fries in a healthy oil?

Hell has obviously frozen over.

Just then, the owner whose name is Jake walks by and I say hello.

I mention the fact that I am so pleased that they fry their french fries in beef fat because this is so healthy and traditional and how I do it at home.

Jake says that beef fat is the best fat to fry french fries in and he is going to do it this way regardless because it’s the right way to cook them.

I shake his hand and congratulate him on sticking to his guns.  I mention that I’m a food blogger and that I will be writing a post about his restaurant (what did I just say?).

Jake is obviously very passionate about what he does and mentions that they will be opening their second location in New Tampa soon.

I’m thinking to myself, now here’s a restaurant that needs to get franchised!

As my family is eating, I casually mention that I talked to the owner Jake and that the fries are cooked in beef fat.

“So that’s why we can only eat a few and be full” exclaims my 9 year old.

Don’t you just love it when your kids demonstrate that they get it?

Jake the owner drops by at the end of the meal and asks if it would be ok to give us dessert on the house.

Being a food blogger definitely has its perks.  Scoring free dessert is one of them.

Dessert was strawberry buttercake with 2 scoops of Haagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream on top.

The buttercake turned out to be Entenmann’s.   I looked up the ingredients.  It’s says it’s made from all butter.   Love the butter, but I’m sure there were some preservatives in there though.  The ice cream was, of course, sensational.

All in all, Burger Monger was the best burger experience I’ve ever had eating out.  Not perfect for sure, but moving very strongly and purposefully in the right direction.

Maybe there’s hope for the American restaurant after all.

 

Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist

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Category: Healthy Living
Sarah Pope

Sarah Pope MGA has been a Health and Nutrition Educator since 2002. She is a summa cum laude graduate in Economics from Furman University and holds a Master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

She is the author of three books: Amazon #1 bestseller Get Your Fats Straight, Traditional Remedies for Modern Families, and Living Green in an Artificial World.

Her four eBooks Good Diet…Bad Diet, Real Food Fermentation, Ketonomics, and Ancestrally Inspired Dairy-Free Recipes are available for complimentary download via Healthy Home Plus.

Her mission is dedicated to helping families effectively incorporate the principles of ancestral diets within the modern household. She is a sought after lecturer around the world for conferences, summits, and podcasts.

Sarah was awarded Activist of the Year in 2010 at the International Wise Traditions Conference, subsequently serving on the Board of Directors of the nutrition nonprofit the Weston A. Price Foundation for seven years.

Her work has been covered by numerous independent and major media including USA Today, ABC, and NBC among many others.

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Reader Interactions

Comments (173)

  1. whisperingsage

    Apr 5, 2018 at 5:31 pm

    That may be true and they may be good, but all of that depends on the nutrients they get, I haven’t yet seen the soil test results from Harwood TX or the minerals in the feed they are given, as far as teste and texture THAT would really be the deciding factor on quality. I know from expeireince when my goats are not on all their essential nutrients, their miolk is yucky, and they aren’t in the best shape, but when I am able to provide their 9-0 nutrients, their milk is sweet and smooth and yellow (vitamin k2 from live greens.)
    That being said, in the book Real Food, Fake Food, and a series of articles on the Forbes website, Kobe beef is a very specific food, raised only in the Kobe region, allowed only the Kobe grasslands, and supplements, and is illegal to import here due to US restriction on ALL Japanese beef due to their phobia of foot and mouth disease. So they can call it what they want, but it’s dishonest for them to call it Kobe beef.

    Reply
  2. Daniela

    Sep 29, 2013 at 11:33 pm

    I agree with Ann, I won’t touch Haagen Dazs as they use rBHT milk. I called them once to ask. They are another company guilty of false marketing, fooling people into thinking that because they use only 5 ingredients, they are natural. I used to go to Bare Burger in NYC which use grass fed meat and diary, organic condiments and natural sodas. They cook their fries in peanut oil, which is better than GMO oil. They have amazing salads too and their milk shakes are the best I have ever had using milk from grass fed cows! The best place however which unfortunately closed down was BM organics in Fort Lauderdale. They followed the WAPF principles with everything that they made.

    Reply
  3. Marc

    Sep 21, 2013 at 2:16 pm

    BurgerMonger should stop using the word “Kobe”.
    http://www.forbes.com/sites/larryolmsted/2012/04/12/foods-biggest-scam-the-great-kobe-beef-lie/

    Reply
    • Robert

      Apr 9, 2015 at 11:36 am

      I believe they can :
      forbes.com/sites/larryolmsted/2014/01/07/the-new-truth-about-kobe-beef-2/

  4. Bryan Lambeth via Facebook

    Jun 1, 2013 at 10:02 pm

    We need one in Austin! 🙂

    Reply
  5. Judy White via Facebook

    Jun 1, 2013 at 10:01 pm

    Amy knoch is full of bull…pardon the pun! The largest purebred group of the WagyÅ« breed of Akaushi cattle outside Japan is located in Harwood, Texas, owned by HeartBrand Beef. It was raised from a Japanese imported herd of 11 which was guarded by off-duty Texas Rangers to protect from interbreeding for over 12 years until the herd grew to over 5,000 cattle.

    Reply
  6. Karen Henshaw via Facebook

    Jun 1, 2013 at 9:06 pm

    See Jim, beef tallow to cook fries at this burger joint in Tampa. Yum!

    Reply
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