I was told that the Desert Hot Springs Spa had good burgers as well as their excellent house-made soups, so I tried their Spa Burger. It was made with a kobe beef patty, but unfortunately I wasn't asked how I wanted it cooked, and I forgot to say, so it was more well done than medium rare; however, it came with plenty of lettuce, tomato, pickles, and red onion, but it was the potato skin fries that made this burger noteworthy. I hadn't come across fries quite like these before, and with a dousing of malt vinegar they were the star of the show. The simple burger on a sesame bun was nice, I just have to try it again on the more rare side.
Location: Sunshine Cafe at the DHS Spa Hotel, 10805 Palm Drive, Desert Hot Springs, California. Date: April 1, 2024.
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The tech guy was at Smokin' taking a picture of this burger, and then the owner gave me the burger to eat, and oh my goodness, what a delicious one this is! It's a juicy burger topped with pulled pork and slathered with BBQ sauce. There's coleslaw on it for crunch and freshness, and it's garnished with little crispy onion rings. This burger is smokey, juicy, sweet and savory, and I paid for the one you see in my photo. It won't be the last time I'm ordering this one.
Location: Smokin' Burgers, 1775 E Palm Canyon Drive, Unit 220, Palm Springs, California. Date: November 26, 2022. This is a Black Bean Burger with sweet potato fries as my side. It came with mushrooms and melted Swiss cheese as well as a side of lettuce, tomato, red onion, and pickles, all of which I put on my burger. The black bean patty was very moist and there was lots of umami. There was also sweetness from the fries, not to mention nutrition. Even though this was my breakfast, I enjoyed it with a local Tucson beer, the 7.3% Dragoon IPA. On the bottle it said, “Bright, Hoppy, Dank.” It was certainly bright and hoppy.
Location: Bisbee Breakfast Club, 13864 Sandario Road, Marana, Arizona. Date: January 13, 2022. Fig jam was spread on both cut sides of the bun. The ground beef patty sat on the bottom topped with melted goat cheese. On top of the cheese were some slices of crispy bacon topped with arugula and diced tomato and red onion. I asked for the burger to be cooked medium rare, and they did it perfectly: it was juicy and still pink in the center. This burger was sweet, goaty, and delicious. We can forget about the skinny fries; I'll never understand their popularity. The burger, though, was good enough to make up for any shortcomings.
Location: Eureka!, 74985 Highway 111, Indian Wells, California. Date: November 6, 2021. One of the first bleu cheeses was Roquefort, and apparently it was a boy who discovered it. Sometimes it's the inventive name for a dish that's most noteworthy, though this was also a really good burger. It was a half pound beef patty, cooked medium, with juicy grilled onion, lots of bacon, and lots of mild bleu cheese. The fries were too skinny for me, which is fashionable now, but at least they tasted of potato. I found this burger in the Old Town of Lakeside, a suburb of San Diego.
Location: Eastbound Bar & Grill, 10053 Maine Avenue, Lakeside, California. Date: September 2, 2021. This burger, at a local BBQ joint, came with a half pound beef patty, smoked sausage, pulled pork tossed in mango habanero sauce, sliced jalapeños, ghost chile aioli, and apple slaw on a brioche bun. It actually wasn't as spicy as it sounds, especially because I really didn't detect the jalapeño slices, but there was enough heat to be satisfying. The brioche bun was toasted to perfection, and the beef patty was medium on the outside and pinky rare in the middle. This burger was moist and juicy. It also came with a slice of cheese that wasn't on the menu; it was pepper jack, I think. The apple slaw was cole slaw with cubes of crispy green apple, and with their sweetness and crunchiness, they were the star of the dish. There were some nice slices of smoked sausage and some porky pulled pork to give this burger its BBQ theme, but for me it was the apple that took it over the top.
Location: Bubbas Bones & Brews, 68525 Ramon Road, A-101, Cathedral City, California. Date: August 21, 2021. This amazing burger came, apart from the medium rare venison patty, with hardwood smoked bacon, wine poached pear, and mushrooms, and on the top bun there was lettuce, tomato, and whipped cream with plum jelly. I kid you not. There was a lot of sweet going on with the pear and the whipped cream and the jelly, but it was balanced by the savory venison patty, the bacon, and the mushrooms. Then there was the freshness of the lettuce and tomato. Deer has less fat than beef, but the patty wasn't too dry, and the rest of the burger was quite juicy. The whipped cream melted when I put the two halves of the bun together, but it was visually interesting before that. There was a sweet spice in the pear that I couldn't quite put my finger on, and overall this was a delicious and very unique burger.
Location: Crazee Burger, 3993 30th Street, San Diego, California. Date: July 27, 2021. The Smashburger chain was founded in Denver, Colorado, in 2007. The idea is to use freshly ground beef, form it loosely into a ball, and smash it down on a hot grill. The result is a large, thin, fluffy burger that is quite unlike the traditional. Heyday in Palm Springs was started by a local couple as a stall at the outdoor Thursday market, but during covid they were invited in to the Palm Springs Hilton. These burgers were recommended to me by my lawyer friend, and another friend of mine had eaten them before at the street fair, and he joined me at the Hilton. The smashburger at Heyday comes with a patty of Harris Ranch beef, which is humanely raised, cheese, and thick slices of caramelized onion that resemble mushroom in taste and texture, though some of the slices are still a bit crunchy. The burger also comes with shredded lettuce and special sauce (similar to 1,000 island). The burger is creamy with the sauce, the patty is not at all as dense as a regular burger, and there's a good amount of umami in the flavor. This burger is messy, but it's a refreshing change from the norm.
Location: Heyday in the Hilton, 400 E Tahquitz Canyon Way, Palm Springs, California. Date: June 12, 2021. Stout Burgers & Beers has just recently opened in Palm Springs, and this is their signature burger. I would have loved to have had it with a stout beer, but their liquor license is still pending so all I could do was look at all the beer taps on the wall and salivate. Apart from the coarsely ground burger patty, the stout burger features blue cheese, gruyere, rosemary bacon, caramelized onion, roasted tomato, and horseradish cream. It's served on a brioche bun, which isn't my favorite, but in this case it's just a vehicle for picking up and eating the delicious burger. The most pronounced flavor was the horseradish cream which kept threatening to go up my nose like good horseradish should. Other flavors came and went depending on where you bit: a nice punch of flavor from blue cheese, some sweetness from the caramelized onion, and at the very end the rosemary came through. The well done bacon provided some nice crunch. The burgers here are prepared “pink” or “no pink”. I ordered “pink” but it came “no pink”; however, it wasn't over cooked. I'll definitely go back when the beers are on tap.
All the burgers here can be ordered "Stout Protein Style", which means they are served without the bun on a bed of arugula. Location: Stout Burgers & Beers, 100 W Tahquitz Canyon Way, Ste 130, Palm Springs, California. Date: March 15, 2021. Apart from lettuce and tomato, this unique burger came with grilled eggplant, black sesame seed encrusted ahi tuna, and aioli garlic sauce. This same French cafe also does a scallop burger and a sole burger. The tuna I had was still pink in the middle and so it was still moist. The three eggplant slices were cooked to perfection; they were succulent. There was nothing dry about this burger, with its healthy protein, and the flavor of the eggplant complimented the dish nicely. The fries, unfortunately, were the skinny type, but you can order this burger with salad instead. When I told the French waiter, who I believe is actually the owner, that I'm not a fan of skinny fries, he recommended the sweet potato fries for next time, and when he brought me my check he also gave me a sample dish of the fries. They were crispy, meaty, a little sweet, and he mentioned that they were more nutritious than regular potato. The burger itself, along with a glass of French white wine, was a very good lunch on a warm sunny desert day in December.
Location: French Corner Cafe, 72432 Highway 111, Palm Desert, California. Date: December 5, 2020. |
AuthorChef Roland has been a legal resident of seven countries and has travelled in over thirty, documenting food along the way. He currently resides in the desert in Southern California. Categories
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