11 West Gay Street

A few months back my brother-in-law began raving about a new burger joint that had opened out his way in West Chester.  I have a lot of faith in his recommendations for other things so I was definitely looking forward to checking out Buddy’s Burgers, Breasts and Fries (double entendre intended?) as soon as we could and on a recent Saturday I finally got my chance as our families met up for lunch.

I won’t be the first (or last) person to compare them to Five Guys, but I’ll say a comparison to them is only fair in menu configuration (little buddy = 1 patty, buddy = 2 patties) and in the offering of a myriad of toppings.  Anything further would be a slap in the face to Buddy’s as everything they do is superior to the ever growing chain – from the burgers to the fries.

Their toppings menu is slightly more extensive than at Five Guys and opened up the opportunity for me to concoct a slightly Mexican themed burger to satisfy my spicy tooth.  Pepper Jack cheese, avocados, jalapenos and caramelized onions worked perfectly on the more than generous griddle cooked single patty that I ordered.  Served up on an over-sized sesame seed specked bun, the meat-to-toppings-to-bun ratio was perfect without going overboard (I can’t imagine having the second patty would add too much besides bulk – on me).

The fresh cut fries are perfect, too.  A small is more than enough for two people but you probably won’t want to share them.  Huge flecks of salt set up camp on most of the fries giving you that great crunch when your teeth meet up with them.

One of the interesting features of Buddy’s is that it is actually two restaurants in one, though both have separate entrances.  The adjoining restaurant?  The Salad Stop.  You could see the tumbleweeds rolling down through the dining room while at the same time Buddy’s was bustling.  It is an interesting combo that forces a pretty serious gut check as a look to the left towards the salads reveals perhaps how we should be eating, while a look to the right towards the burgers reveals how we really want to eat.  My inner Michael Pollan was conflicted for about 2 seconds.

West Chester is off the beaten path for Philly folks, but Buddy’s is worth the drive out one weekend.  Two doors down is an Iron Hill outpost and a bunch of other top-notch watering holes line Gay Street.  Baldwin’s Book Barn isn’t too far away and provides hours of entertainment searching for a rare book or quiet nook to read, and perhaps providing enough time to build up your hunger again to head back for another burger or a quick stop at West Chester’s legendary hot dog stand Jimmy John’s.

2910 East High Street

Cast in the eerie shadows of the twin towers of the Limerick Nuclear Power Plant lies the Philadelphia Premium Outlet Mall, a mecca for consumers that in just a few days will cast its siren song southward to lure Black Friday shoppers and welcome their efforts to spur the economy through ritualistic spending at Nike, Adidas, Jockey, Le Creuset and the thankfully curable Perfumania (not to mention food offerings such as the painfully punny Chinese stand called Asian Chao).

What was even just a few months ago a barren field now teems with activity, forever in the present with today’s hottest fashions and modern trends.  At the exit ramp off of Route 422 drivers are offered barely the chance to turn away from the mall, almost by centripetal force their cars are willed to turn left and ease into the acres of available free parking. But for those who can fight the potent inertia of drastically reduced prices on factory seconds and previous year’s stock (or perhaps more realistically forestall their entry into the maelstrom for a few moments) there is a reward for steering your car to the right at the end of the ramp – The Hilltop Drive-In.

In stark contrast to the not so accurately named outlet mall (anyone from these parts will know they are nowhere near Philadelphia, Google Maps pegs it at just over 29 miles from City Hall to the Wilson’s Leather Outlet), the Hilltop sits as a pink-hued reminder of a bygone era and the simple pleasures of a pre-fast food chain dominated burger landscape.

Make no mistake, this is not the best burger you will ever eat, but the overall experience makes it well worth the effort and miles.  Add equal parts classic architecture, hand-spun milkshakes and malts, black and white photographs and retro signage and you’ve got yourself the ideal destination for a lazy Sunday drive to the far reaches of the suburban Philly telephone area code.

On this my second trip to the joint I ordered the California Cheeseburger, so-named for the appearance of (gasp!) vegetables which, at a time in our country, must have been viewed as exotic and otherworldly, just like the Golden State.  Two perfectly acceptable fast food size and style beef patties were joined on the white, squishy burger bun by a piece of American cheese, sliced raw onions, tomato, shredded lettuce and mayo.  (I substituted the kaiser roll which this sandwich is usually served on for a regular burger bun due to my long held belief that a kaiser roll has no business being near a burger.)

I had forgotten the pure pleasure of eating a burger with heaps of mayo on it. Despite the results of A Hamburger Today’s “Favorite Condiment” poll back in August, far too few of the burgers we eat have mayonnaise on them.  Why not?  Adding more fat to a burger seems like a no-brainer, and at the Hilltop, which uses some brand that bridges the chasm between Hellman’s egginess and the sweetness of its arch enemy Miracle Whip, the gooey-ness continuum that is created with the inevitable mingling of the white American cheese and mayo is pure perfection.  That moment of self-questioning “was that the cheese or the mayo?” works well in the burger as grease delivery vehicle equation.

The Hilltop’s roots reach back to the 1950’s when it was a Carvel outpost and the shakes and malts served today are legit.  I had a chocolate malt on my first trip and it was perfect, deeply chocolaty with flecks of slightly bitter malt powder.  Soft-serve cones and sundaes are available as well and I can imagine in the summer time they do a fare bit of business cooling off the locals with these treats.

One of the great surprises of The Hilltop is that they serve Good’s Potato Chips from nearby Adamstown, PA.  An old-school producer of no-frills, fried in lard chips, Good’s have become a strictly rationed treat in our house (Philly area folks can get them closer to home at The Head Nut in Ardmore) and as served here are the perfect accompaniment to your burger.  They also offer pretty good french fries, McDonald’s style thin cuts fried up crisp and tasty, but when presented with the chip option they slip into second place.

Special mention must be given of their crab bisque soup.  With our proximity to Baltimore and the Chesapeake Bay, decent crab doesn’t seem like it would be too hard to come across, but it certainly wasn’t expected in this kind of setting and truly stole the show on our first visit.

Huge thanks to ModBetty of Retro Roadmap for bringing The Hilltop to my attention via her great post and pictures (special notice should be given of the early ’50’s black and white image she shares of the Hilltop as a Carvel -complete with a rogues gallery of patrons straight out of central casting).  Her site is packed with other great info and she is the rare Keystone state resident with actual duckpin bowling experience.

As the days get shorter and the air a bit crisper up here in PA, the odds of foregoing preparing a home cooked dinner and ordering Chinese takeout instead have increased.  This quick recipe came about the day after a recent takeout night and we resurrected it this evening for dinner with some friends.  It is a dead simple recipe which produces a quirky take on familiar fare and, when combined with Sriracha Ketchup, makes for a darn good burger.

The taste?  Take everything you love about bacon on a burger and then sugar that up about 200%. By itself, honey boneless spareribs may be the most addictive item on any Chinese menu (and easily account for 2/3 of my repenting on Yom Kippur)  and as served here (chopped up and mingled with high quality beef) it follows along the lines of the trend led by so many “name chefs” adding different cuts of meats into their burgers (not just on them).  The spicy ketchup cuts down the sweetness a bit and provides a tease of heat to take this burger to the next level.

Recipe:

Rough #’s here, but any combination of these ingredients will produce more than passable results.

Dice the pork into very small slivers then combine all ingredients in a bowl, mix lightly but well and then form patties (we made slider sized burgers).  As mentioned earlier on this blog, and ripped from the pages of John Torode’s book “Beef and other bovine matters,” when using the oyster sauce you can omit salt from the recipe.  The oyster sauce provides you with the tang you are looking for and keeps the burgers incredibly moist.

Siracha-Ketchup

As shown cooked on the gas grille and served on Martin’s Whole Wheat Potato Rolls.

You’d probably be excused for confusing Louie’s Lunch with Louis’ Lunch, the venerable Connecticut restaurant which claims to be the birthplace of the hamburger. Both have Ivy League links (Louis’ Lunch is in New Haven, home of Yale, while Louie’s Lunch sits on the north campus of Cornell in Ithaca, NY), both are mobile (Louis’s moved four times before settling into its current location and Louie’s has four wheels and thus can move at any moment – though there are a bunch of wires to unhook from the light pole and something that looks curiously like coax cable) and oh yeah, both serve darn nice, lo-fi burgers.

With lineage dating back to 1918, the current Louie’s Lunch truck sets up shop seven days a week to satiate the late night cravings of our country’s future doctors, lawyers, jock-rockers (Huey Lewis) and surgeon generals (oh yeah I’m talking about you C. Everett Koop).  Until 3 am (except Sunday nights when they retire at the modest hour of midnight) students in various states of stress and/or inebriation can hit up this mobile c-store for cold drinks, hot coffee, energy shots, candy bars and of course – burgers.

Back in college at the much less educationally challenging (though no less hilly) Mansfield University, I discovered the Bo Burger, a griddled hamburger topped with cheese and a fried egg. To this day, no single dish has screamed “college” to me as much as this combination which I used to enjoy at the local truck stop affectionately known as Greasy Eddie’s, and so when I saw the Bo Burger listing on the starboard side menu of the truck I jumped at the chance to reminisce about my own college years.

Louie’s version featured about 1/4 lb of griddled beef, resting on some white American cheese and topped with a nicely cooked egg.  Health departments be damned for their insistence that eggs cannot be runny, but kudos to the flat-top chef who brought this oeuf in just on the cooked through side, avoiding that rubbery, overcooked state.  The Bo Burgers of my youth were served on squishy white buns, but this being Ithaca (home of Moosewood and macrobiotic jerky) my Bo was served on a whole grain bun flecked with oats…a bit odd, but good; almost allowing me to dream for a second that this burger was kissed by Mother Earth herself and thus filled with only healthful vitamins and minerals (reality check – it is in actuality a glorious greasebomb of a burger!).

Served with a smile by an actual Cornell student, I give this burger high marks for both quality and history.  For years I have been fascinated by the idea of making decent burgers in a food truck and as mentioned on this site before, my own bucket list includes opening a mobile burger shop called “Burgatory” (ideally parked on City Ave in Philadelphia half-way between the Catholic Seminary and the Hebrew Yeshiva).  Louie’s provides further proof that good burgers can come from just about anywhere and thousands of Cornell grads no doubt have fond memories of placing their own late-night orders at Louie’s window.

The Louie’s folks have done a great job of cataloging their own history on their web site.  For more details on the various iterations of the lunch truck and pictures of through the years, click here.

This is the first of a four part series ingeniously titled “Burgers I Ate While In The Finger Lakes Region A Few Weeks Ago.”  Future installments will include entries from a winery, a creamery and the epicenter of the gourmet vegetarian movement.  Stay tuned.

To put it lightly, I am not a fan of Oprah and as such I had an immediate prejudice against this recipe when my lovely wife mentioned she was going to prepare some for me to grill for dinner the other night.  Not sure of the complete back story on this…apparently Oprah ate this burger at Donald Trump’s Mar-A-Lago resort, begged for the recipe for herself and then shared it with her TV audience.

Recipe here via Oprah.com (ugh!)

The best part of this burger might be the use of the mango chutney.  Clearly not a common burger ingredient, it keeps the burger juicy (which is often an issue when cooking a turkey burger and relying on your mom’s advice about cooking turkey until it is done aka completely dried out) without imparting too much fruity flavor.  The apples and scallions are nice touches, too.

Additional notes: Finally got the BBQ up to a high enough temp to land some grill marks on the burgers – a geeky thing that fills me with pride…Potato rolls are the bacon of the baked goods industry, they just make everything taste better…Pull back on the salt a bit, you aren’t going to draw out any beefy flavor by loading up the sodium so you might use this as an opportunity to back off…Bought the corn at Root’s Market the other day, which is a completely chaotic Amish/Farmer’s market nowhere near where you or I live (which is a shame)…For those that know me personally, the addition of a mini-van to our driveway and now my reviewing a recipe promoted by Oprah means that yes, I have officially given up. The old Marc was a lot of fun – remember the good times and pour one out for me.

Now you can try to authentically recreate this baby at home.  Still no sign of the mysterious 11th ingredient (only available in Portuguese).  Enjoy!

Picanha Grill Lanchonete (yes, that is spelled correctly)

The best new burger in Philadelphia is an absolute mess!  An ungodly train wreck of ingredients served to you in a location devoid of glitz, glamor, panache or any of the other adjectives our beloved city’s slew of worthy new burger joints can lay claim to.  It is primal, carnal, evil and glorious.  It is more Ronaldo than Ronald.  It is 5 inches tall and a hemisphere of flavor wide.  It is the reason I may never have to venture into Newark, NJ again.

I present to you the X-Tudo Hamburger-

Game-Set- Match, checkmate, “you sank my battleship“, Yahtzee! and “boom goes the dynamite (as uttered by Cleveland Brown)” all wrapped up in wax paper and delivered piping hot on a plate.

I was first introduced to the concept of Brazilian hamburgers by Jason Perlow’s review of Hamburgao in Newark on his pioneering food/tech site offthebroiler.  After that, and thanks to the coincidence of some of my work locations being in that neck of the woods, I trekked to the Ironbound to get my hands on a Cheese Egg as often as possible.  And whenever possible I dragged others, first my wife and daughter and then later my boss and some work colleagues.  The Brazilian version of a hamburger just rewrites the rules and is guaranteed to be a memorable experience (even if it were bad – and they have never been – it would be memorable for so many reasons including the atmosphere, the language and the ubiquitous pastries).  Now to find a location so close to home serving these gems…needless to say I’m a happy happy guy.

The Picanha Grill Lanchonete is the sister restaurant to Picanha Brazilian Grill, which sits further south on Castor Ave towards Oxford Circle and offers all-you-can-eat rodizio style dining.  In fact, the Lanchonete will be moving next door to the grill later this year, which is good news for anyone visiting from the City or the ‘burbs because it makes the trip about 10 minutes shorter (just off the Roosevelt Boulevard).  It features a long bar with high chairs for eating while watching Brazilian daytime TV and a row of tables for more refined noshing.  In the barren wasteland that is this strip of Castor Ave, the inside of this joint yearns for a hipness above what is both expected and probably attainable considering the rivers of asphalt just steps from any seat in the place.

The menu features several different variations on the kitchen sink theme, with your choice of hamburgers, chicken or hot dogs buried underneath.  Even if this wasn’t a burger blog I’d insist that this be your point of entry to the cuisine as, in my opinion, it provides the perfect foundation (both in shape and taste) for the bevy of toppings which run the gamut from the mundane (lettuce) and mandatory (bacon) to the ridiculous (bananas) and sublime (yes, potato sticks belong on your sandwich!).

My Portuguese is negligible, despite a short period of time living in Rhode Island (where have you gone Vinny Pazienza?), so I am still a bit lost as to how the description of my burger on the bi-lingual menu has more ingredients in Portuguese than English?  (11 items in Portuguese and 10 in English).  I’m jut going to assume the real secret to the deliciousness of this concoction is that magical 11th ingredient which us estrangeiro’s are forbidden to possess (like bikes in the United Arab Emirates  or  that Goethe quote about “…what we cannot understand”).

Eating this burger gracefully is impossible.  Even after cutting it in half (a tactic both to increase one’s ability to grip the darn thing and to cause me to pause long enough to weigh the downside of consuming the whole thing in one sitting) didn’t render it manageable.  An ample supply of napkins were key as were the polite pauses in conversation offered by the server who told me about his family in Sao Paolo and his impressions of Philadelphia after having only been here a short time.

In a year where so many great burger joints have opened in the City, the arrival of Picanha Gill Lanchonete has gone completely unheralded.  Nary a tweet, yelp or peep from a chowhound has tipped off the masses to this joint, and that is a shame.  I hope you’ll stray from your comfort zone at least once to test this place out (or their new location when it opens) because your perception of what makes a great burger will be changed forever.

Additional thoughts…Fries With That Shake’s friend girlscantell needs to diagram this thing for her next set of placemats….the roll at Hamburgao in Newark is a bit different and much better, but it is about an hour and a half away and will set you back $20 in tolls to get there so I am willing to forgive…I was in the area for business and to test out the kosher burger at Holy Land Grill (located just a few doors down).  Not sure if I will ever actually make it there…yes, it is called a hamburger but it has cheese on it, I think cheese is just a given.

Editors note:  I am honored to present the first guest post ever here on burgatory.com.  Penned by good friend and world-class BBQer, baker, chef and eater, Jim Caccamo, this post is guaranteed to make your mouth water and have you running to a map to figure out exactly where Missouri is (we know it’s there somewhere – in the middle, right?).  Look for Jim’s own blog about Technology & Ethics kicking off later this fall.

Beef In a Pork Town

I’ve spent the past twenty years living in beef towns. Chicago, with its Vienna Beef dogs, and Philadelphia, with its devotion to the Cheese Steak, certainly have their charms. But I grew up in the land of bar-b-que–Kansas City, Missouri. Now, I don’t know much about my new home here on the east coast, but what I do know is that few people from Philly know much about my home town. For most people around here, KC is one of those generic places in the thousand mile “flyover zone” between here and the west coast. If people have a sense of it, they think of it as a cow town.

Of course, it’s not a cow town. When I was growing up, it had a population of more than 2.5 million people. The stockyards had long given way to 4 professional sports teams, ballet, opera, and world class art museums. That, and we ate pork, not beef. Bar-b-que, to be specific. There were some good burger places, no doubt. Winstead’s made thin, melt in your mouth burgers. Town Topic did the perfect all-night-diner burger. But Kansas City was a bar-b-que town, with pork ribs at the top of the luscious hickory-smoked, mopped, and rubbed heap.

Today, the city’s food landscape has changed. Don’t get me wrong, bar-b-que is still king. But the city has undergone a dining-out revolution, and now there is a veritable royal family of great restaurants that serve excellent contemporary American cuisine, local favorites, and foods from around the world.

Into this mix comes Blanc Burgers + Bottles, a burger place in the Westport neighborhood that opened in 2006. Blanc is an independent boutique-burger restaurant that focuses on quality. Their menu is trim, focusing on burgers, fries, and beers. The beer selection is great, with a variety that is balanced between local, national, and international microbrews. They do a few appetizers and some great “adult” milkshakes (see later).

But the focus here is the burger. Their beef burgers are half-pounders made from a custom blend of tenderloin, ribeye and NY strip steak. They are going for the taste jugular. The buns are baked daily at a local bakery. They make their own pickles. They do hand cut fries and sweet potato fries, and local brew Boulevard Pale Ale battered onion rings. To top the fries, they make their own ketchup, whole grain mustard, and chipotle aioli, all of which are vibrant and flavorful. They do offer bison, pork, turkey, mahi mahi, and lentil burgers, but I didn’t try them, so I can’t help you there.

My wife and I went there on a Sunday evening in June. We got there at 6ish, which turns out was perfect—right before the rush. Blanc’s design is Danish modern–sleek, clean, and cool.

I decide to go basic, so I ordered a “classic”: aged NY white cheddar, lettuce, tomato, homemade pickles, red onion, “made-from-scratch” ketchup and mustard on a sesame brioche bun. My wife went a bit fancier with a steakhouse classic, getting the “au poivre”: pepper-crusted burger, creamy green peppercorn sauce, grilled onions, watercress, on a salt and pepper brioche bun.

In short, the burgers were wonderful. They were rich and full of meaty flavor. They were buttery and light owing to the ample portion of fat, and definitely drippy. Eating a Blanc burger is a full sensory experience.

One nice touch was that the burgers were very balanced. My “classic” (pictured at top of post) had lots of toppings, but the toppings did not overwhelm the meat. I could taste each of the toppings, and nothing stood out too much. The homemade ketchup and mustard seem to be made to share the palate well. The pickles were perhaps the best part: meaty, juicy, and full of flavor, but without such high levels of dill and vinegar flavor that they overwhelm the other flavors. You could still recognize them as recently being cucumbers! Heck, I don’t even like dill pickles and I liked these. And even with all the toppings, the burger still tasted meaty.

My wife, who has no particular devotion to the burger, said that she had never tasted better. The meat was good and it was “drippy in a good way.” The burger was crusted entirely in peppercorns, but the pepper was not as overwhelming as one might imagine. It was flavored nicely, with the pepper adding a bit of bite to cut through the juicy meatiness. The creamy green peppercorn sauce rated a “mmmmmmm.” Finally, the toasted brioche bun was a nice touch. Again, a well-balanced burger, full of flavors, with no element overwhelming the others. She recommends eating only half the burger so you will have room for dessert. Even the day two portion tasted great.

Which brings us to dessert. The only desserts they offer are shakes. We ordered two “Grown-up Milkshakes,” which are intoxicating combinations of Foo’s Fabulous Frozen Custard and various spirits. My wife worked at an ice cream shop growing up, so she has a profound devotion to the milkshake. She ordered a “Sangria”—red wine, vodka, fruit juice, and vanilla custard. I ordered the “Cherry Cordial”, which I don’t remember completely, but included Malibu rum, marschino, some Absolut flavored rum, and chocolate custard. Joyce’s was excellent. It was light, refreshing, and had a wonderful flavor that hinted at sangria. Mine tasted exactly like a chocolate covered cherry, but better. Warming and cooling at the same time. Wow. As my wife put it, it seemed a bit “sinful to have alcohol in a milkshake.” This is no soda-fountain shake.

They also make a beer float—pick any beer on the menu and add frozen custard. That’s what I’m having next time.

The only down-side to the whole experience was that these burgers are rich—very rich. Dripping in juicy meatiness rich. Indeed, they seem to have adopted the “get your hands dirty” aesthetic that is standard at the bar-b-que joints. There is no mistaking that this is beef. I ate the whole thing, but I sure didn’t need to. My wife made a much wiser choice to eat only half of her burger, leaving more room for a milkshake. Not that it stopped me from having one, too.

Both Joyce and I recommend Blanc the next time you are in Kansas City. Even if you’ve come to town for the sole purpose of finding the perfect bar-b-que, its good enough to be worth taking a break from all that pork.

****

Jim is also a respected scholar, having written and presented many trailblazing pieces on religion and the internet, here he is speaking on the topic “Questions About The Implications of Blogging?“

I am thoroughly convinced that places like Coney Island Lunch exist in every town, except the ones I have lived in. It is some sort of bizarre Murphy’s Law hybrid that (mercifully) keeps me from eating like this every day of my life (which would no doubt be shortened by easier access to food like this).  Stereotypically retro, with bustling counter service, a handful of booths, limited menu options and friendly staff, luncheonettes like Coney were a dime a dozen just a few decades ago but are sadly a dying breed in the continued “chaining” of our country.

One of my favorite artists and food bloggers, Hawk Krall, just posted a story about another Coney Island in PA, and a quick Google search reveals a “Coney Island Lunch” spot in just about every nook and cranny of the Keystone State, including the bustling hubs of Erie, Shamokin and Johnstown (where I have personally enjoyed their legendary “Sundowner” – a cheeseburger with chopped onions, “Coney Island” chili sauce, mustard and a fried egg). The Scranton version has been around since 1923 when Steve Karampalis, newly arrived from Greece, started serving hot dogs and burgers to the factory workers and railroad men in this bustling industrial hub.

Truth be told (and man it seems to get murky), this Coney Island Lunch isn’t the same one that Scrantonites would have visited back in the 20’s. The joint we popped into on a recent sunny Sunday opened in 1988. This location, across from the “Mall At Steamtown,” claims direct lineage to the original owner (their grandfather was Steve Karampalis) and the original location a few blocks away – where, coincidentally, you will find a similar restaurant named Coney Island Texas Lunch, which recently reopened after a devastating fire (arson suspected). There seems to be a bit of a turf war in the Electric City over the true “original” and at the risk of adding fuel to that fire, I’m gonna have to side with the folks at the new location (Lackawana Ave) as I’d consider the direct family link the lynchpin in making a decision on who can rightfully claim to be the original.

The first thing that arrived at our table was this heaping serving of gravy fries. They could not have been cooked any better, perfectly crisp on the outside and airy inside, these slightly smaller than steak-fry sized spuds were made all the more incredible by the addition of brown (beef) gravy. Toss on some cheese curds and we’d have poutine, but this is Scranton so none of that French stuff here. To me, gravy fries are the classic diner food staple. I can remember many a post little league game meal with my dad at the now dismantled Vale-Rio Diner in Phoenixville, PA where ordering a bowl of gravy fries was de riguer (there’s that French stuff again, note to self: limit the amount of Fancy Nancy books I read to our 3 year old daughter). Back to the program, the gravy fries were a great start and were quickly joined at the table by the above pictured Texas hot dog and Texas hamburger (left to right in your picture, though you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference before biting in).

When the place is called Coney Island Lunch you can expect an emphasis on “Coney Island Chili,” a traditional no-bean chili (not spicy hot either) made with ground beef, onions, tomato paste and the most popular items from your spice rack. A cauldron endlessly simmers in the storefront kitchen waiting to be heaped on top of a hot dog (Berks brand beef dogs sliced in half if you are keeping score at home) or burger (pretty good beefy patty, though to be honest it really is just a delivery vehicle for the toppings) along with a mound of diced onions and a slathering of Dusseldorf mustard (applied almost artistically, paint brush style during the lightning fast construction phase). Both dogs and burgers are served on the same fresh, pillowy rolls, made by Scranton’s own National Bakery.  Slightly hard on the outside, these buns are sturdy enough to help avoid a complete toppings blowout disaster and ensure that you get every bite of the delicious chili.

As good as our sandwiches were, consensus at the table was that dessert stole the show. A last second gut decision (we were already late to meet some friends, what harm would a few more minutes do) to ask whether the pie was made in-house (they are not, but keep reading for details on where their pies are made) started a discussion which introduced us to the first place on our must visit list the next time we are in NEPA, the Minooka Pastry Shop. We ordered a slice of Pecan Pie and were completely blown away (though we could have probably thrown a dart at the pie list and found another flavor that was just as good). Served ice cold with a healthy dollop of whipped cream, this slice never stood a chance as we tore into it repeatedly exclaiming “can you believe how good this is?” The molasses (and butter and sugar) had melted through the crust before being chilled back to solid creating an almost candy bar like texture to the bottom of the pie. Overarchingly sweet without tasting even mildly syrupy, this was hands down the best pecan pie any of us had eaten and was the perfect end to a great experience at Coney Island Lunch.

A couple of additional random thoughts…”Texas” hot dogs and hamburgers are so named because of the preparation style (grilled then topped with chili, onions and mustard), not because of where they are from…the restaurant is a baseball junkies dream with every available bit of wall space crammed with memorabilia from the local AAA team (formerly the more interestingly named Red Barons, now simply called the Yankees) and various major league teams (oddly no distinct allegiance to any one team as much as a clear love for the game and its icons over the past few decades)…they serve Mr. Pibb (Pibb Xtra), earlier noted in my review of Elevation Burger as a childhood favorite that is all-too-rarely found in restaurants these days…the Steamtown National Historic Site is a stone’s throw from here and is a great take…they have a facebook fan page…I don’t think they’ve been mentioned on “The Office” yet, but no trip to Scranton is complete without some Dunder-Mifflin related sightseeing…there is a Gene Schall model baseball bat in the front window (yes, I am a complete Phillies geek)…they make a really good tuna salad sandwich, too (seriously).

Maybe next time through town we’ll test out the other Coney-spot at the original location (and then come back over here for more pie).

A few people are talking about this place online…just a few – read here, here, here,  here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here (the rest of the world still has Crystal Pepsi?  Seriously?  Damn!), here, here, here, here and oh, here.   Holy word of mouth!  Well, if there is one thing legendary Philly party-promoter Tommy Up knows how to do it is get people talking and with his latest venture, the uber-hip restaurant/lounge P.Y.T., it is clear another thing Up can do really well is run a burger joint.

Self-described as a California style burger bar, P.Y.T. as a concept is well thought out and its location in the middle of Bart Blatstein’s Piazza At Schmidt’s is both ideal and logical.  Indoor seating in stylish booths and at the sleek bar will be more popular in colder months, but on a gorgeous day like we had (a rare example of the idea that it is “Always Sunny in Philadelphia”) the piazza-side tables with lime green umbrellas were the place to be.

I modified my P.Y.T. Burger (toppings are key here) and was able to snap a few pics before eagerly diving in to devour  the 1/3 lb.(ish) of beef blanketed (but not buried or overpowered) with a fried egg (preparation nailed – just the slightest bit of yolk ooze), bacon, lettuce, tomato (bright red!), onions, cheese (great melt) and a devilishly sweet onion & mayo secret sauce (note to Colgate – this would make the perfect toothpaste flavor).  The burger was heavily seasoned and cooked around the range I requested, not pegged, but to the rarer which is a 1000 times better than going too far.  The completed burger stacked pretty high, but everything squished together well and was pretty manageable to eat in mixed company.

As good as the burgers are, the P.Y.T. sign also promotes two other strengths of the restaurant.  If the “T: thing” is the burger and the “Y:young” is the music (djs, Steely Dan’s “Kid Charlemagne” was playing as we were leaving – probably not stereotypical but it worked for a Sunday), then “P: pretty” is a really great way to describe the drinks.

With a tip of the hat to the history of the area, P.Y.T. offers cherry sodas (and cherry cokes) mixed special for the under-21 set (and or those feeling a bit guilty about imbibing so early in the day).  For those old enough there are adult milkshakes that may become the calling card of the restaurant.  Offered in 3 varieties they were the perfect mix of ice cream pleasures and alcoholic zing….. my “Jack Rabbit Slim” vanilla shake, spun with a healthy mix of Maker’s Mark, was impossibly simple yet incredibly complex in taste.  Not overpowering or “boozy,” the shake was light and airy and instantly brought smiles to our faces.

Brunch ended with strawberry mojitos and that warm and fuzzy glow of a great meal shared in good company.

Up’s place is still in soft-open mode and the addition of a POS machine and a few more weeks with the layout of the joint may help the flow.  I truly appreciated our server’s enthusiasm for the menu.  I gotta say, I love it when the wait staff is as excited about what you are ordering as you are.  It is clear Up (and his team) spent some time in training making sure that the staff understood it is ok to be themselves.  P.Y.T. is to a degree about the scene and the servers fit the part straight from central casting, but everyone we came into contact with had a personality, a smile and enthusiasm for what they were doing – that is rare and is a testament to Up and his history creating a vibe.

Thanks to Jess from Philly’s favorite burger blog  Fries With That Shake for inviting me to the special food blogger tasting and “E” from Foodaphilia for the great conversation.