Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Only two in my case...

I'm a fan of Simon Oren, so I went to check out 5 Napkin Burger tonight with two of my buddies.

A decidedly mixed experience.

5 Napkin is new, and new places have yet to iron out all their kinks. I hadn't been at the bar five minutes, waiting for my table, when I heard the second glass smash.

Plus, when one of my buddies went to the bar and was taking a look at the various bottles of whiskey and asked how a particular vintage was, the bar tender had no idea what he was talking about. (Not a good sign.)

And it took forever for our burgers to arrive. (Which is bad when your restaurant supposedly specialized in burgers.)

Finally, my burger came slathered with cheese, even though I had asked for it with no cheese. (Perhaps it was their 5 Napkin sauce -- but the long and short of it was: I just wanted a burger with pickles and onions. And that didn't seem to get through to our waiter.)

All that being said, my burger was actually really awesome.

There was too much of it for me to eat. (Well, I restrained myself from eating the second half.) Very well cooked and well seasoned. The bun was good. The fries were good. (Our mozzarella artichoke dip appetizer, I'd skip however.) I intend to go back in about a month and see if service has improved.