JohnH wrote:LEYE should stick with what they do well..concept restaurants and leave the fast food to the locals.

I believe M Burger is a concept restaurant.

Absolutely...you are correct. I guess what I should have said was stick with the "speakeasies, french bistros, and italian" and leave the fast food sandwich to a good local grease monkey with fresh cut fries in a brown paper bag and a burger that drips down the arm!

Just curious: has any one tried the "fresh squeezed lemonade"? Both The Wife and I thought it tasted a lot like Countrytime or some other rehyrdrated powder, but I'd be curious in other perspectives?

Maybe they learned the recipe in The Dells.

Kennyz wrote:Surprisingly for LTH, 2 whole pages of posts and not a single photo. Here's what all the buzz is about:

Hamburger:


Just looking at this thing gives me a little chuckle. At least there's that.

David Hammond wrote:Just curious: has any one tried the "fresh squeezed lemonade"? Both The Wife and I thought it tasted a lot like Countrytime or some other rehyrdrated powder, but I'd be curious in other perspectives?

I'll stick with the real thing, thank you.



Sign seen at a downtown Detroit hotel coffee shop.

I just called M Burger and they told me their hamburgers are fresh, not preformed frozen; their buns are baked fresh; their lemonade is fresh-squeezed.

David Hammond wrote:I just called M Burger and they told me their hamburgers are fresh, not preformed frozen; their buns are baked fresh; their lemonade is fresh-squeezed.

McDonald's uses fresh hamburgers and their bun's are baked fresh as well. Nothing to brag about...

McDonald's uses fresh hamburgers

Nonsense. They're the epitome of the frozen hockey puck burger.

A bun on the other hand, obviously it's fresh-baked, what else could it be?

Mikey wrote:McDonald's uses fresh hamburgers and their bun's are baked fresh as well.

Wrong and wrong.

The buns I believe tend to be contract-baked locally. They certainly were many years ago when I worked at McD's in two different cities and saw them come in from the local bakeries in their bread trucks. Even today, I expect the expense of shipping buns nationwide makes local baking more likely, though the definition of "local" may have broadened considerably over the years.

Mike G wrote:

McDonald's uses fresh hamburgers

Nonsense. They're the epitome of the frozen hockey puck burger.

A bun on the other hand, obviously it's fresh-baked, what else could it be?

We used only fresh formed burger's on a flat grill when I worked there years ago. We used local suppliers, Otto and son's for the burgers, and Mary Ann bakery for the buns. I had to watch the McDonald's video on the making of a Big Mac to believe it, but you are right, they use frozen in a industrial George Foreman type grill now. Everything has to be idiot proof now, which simplifies the staffing greatly.

Mikey wrote:

Mike G wrote:

McDonald's uses fresh hamburgers

Nonsense. They're the epitome of the frozen hockey puck burger.

A bun on the other hand, obviously it's fresh-baked, what else could it be?

We used only fresh formed burger's on a flat grill when I worked there years ago. I had to watch the McDonald's video on the making of a Big Mac to believe it, but you are right, they use frozen in a industrial George Foreman type grill now. Everything has to be idiot proof now, which simplifies the staffing greatly.

Must've been quite a while ago...I haven't had an enjoyable McD's burger in at least 10-15 years (I do occasionally find the basic cheeseburger to be somewhat close to enjoyable, though not quite). I bet the taste difference between the burgers you cooked and the ones that are thawed & cooked in 40 seconds flat now is like night & day.

Years ago, I wrote training videos that taught tens of thousands of kids how to griddle McDonald's 10:1 & 4:1 burgers, all of which were frozen, of course. At around that time, I was eating a lot of McDonald's (the only vegetable I had was the random pickle and shredded lettuce on top of a Big Mac -- some said my skin was turning blue). One day, for variety, I ate at Wendy's. The Wendy's burger tasted weird because, I think, it was fresh (this should remind you of a Steve Martin line from "L.A. Story").

The burger's at McDonald's were really good, more like an In- N- Out burger without the veggies, but that was 29 years ago. We actually toasted the bun's on the grill and used shake machine's as well. The fries were just going frozen then.
We had 8 register's going and lines out the door during a rush. Of course, there weren't as many back then either...

I suspect yours was one of the last to give up on fresh and go to frozen, then, because I worked there around the same time and all we ever cooked was boxes of patties as stiff as wallboard. Likewise the fries, vast cartons of frozen parboiled fries which I stacked floor to ceiling in the freezer.

It's too bad M Burger is arguing against the widely held belief that fresh is better.

Mike G wrote:I suspect yours was one of the last to give up on fresh and go to frozen, then, because I worked there around the same time and all we ever cooked was boxes of patties as stiff as wallboard. Likewise the fries, vast cartons of frozen parboiled fries which I stacked floor to ceiling in the freezer.

Same here. I worked in the Hillside store in 1985 and fries and burgers were frozen.

Holy crap, I worked at McDonald's 39 years ago, not 29! I'm not sure what goes first, your memory, or math skills...

Looks like I'm the only M Burger fan here.
To start, I do agree that the M Burger sauce is nothing special. It does remind me of a Big Mac.
But I thought the double cheeseburger was very good. Nice bun with good flavor, and the meat, although not huge, was tasty.
This is definitely a fast food place. You can't compare it to places like David Burke's. But for a quick burger, it is a heck of a lot better than most places and the price, especially for that neighbhorhood, it pretty reasonable.
I also liked the fries.

DML wrote:Looks like I'm the only M Burger fan here.
To start, I do agree that the M Burger sauce is nothing special. It does remind me of a Big Mac.
But I thought the double cheeseburger was very good. Nice bun with good flavor, and the meat, although not huge, was tasty.
This is definitely a fast food place. You can't compare it to places like David Burke's. But for a quick burger, it is a heck of a lot better than most places and the price, especially for that neighbhorhood, it pretty reasonable.
I also liked the fries.

Nope, you're not the only one. I stopped by M Burger a few weeks ago while I was in the neighborhood to try it out and was pleasantly surprised by the experience. I went with a simple cheeseburger and chocolate milkshake, and both of them were quite good. The meat definitely had a pleasant beefiness to it and the milkshake was creamy and chocolatey. I agree that you can't compare M Burger to upscale places like David Burke's, it's definitely in the fast food realm of burgers. I'm generally not a fast food chain sort of person, I despise McD's and BK and find the food to be mostly inedible (with the exception maybe of the McD's fries, those are often pretty good when fresh out of the fryer.) Of course my favorite burger that inspires my daydreams continues to be the perfection served at Edzo's, but the next time I have an appointment in the vicinity of Northwestern Memorial I'll definitely keep M Burger in mind for a quick bite to eat.

Neither of you is alone. Celebrated food writer Mike Nagrant called it the best fast food burger in the city. I stopped reading his column after that (not really, but still...).

I guess it depends on how one defines fast food (yes, I know this debate has been had here at LTH...) I definitely think the cheese burger I had at M Burger was superior to similar offerings I've had had at chains like McDonalds and Burger King. But then again if we extend the descriptor of fast food to places like Edzo's, I think M Burger doesn't even come close to competing with their offerings.

YMMV

I got a free M Cheeseburger and fries and lemonade today while spending WAY WAY too much time in line waiting on the Apple store. Apple paid.

They were fine as free burgers go, but I'm not sure I'd pick them over a sandwich from Corner Bakery unless my primary motivation was cost.

I thought the fries were fine, though I'd like them more done. The lemonade definitely tasted like a powdered mix, and I really didn't taste the burger much at all, and I experienced the same slight feeling of unsettledness in the tummy that I feel when I eat McDonald's - not sure what it is, but it just doesn't sit quite right in there. I never get that feeling when I eat restaurant burgers, only from fast food. They didn't call the veggie sandwich a "Nurse Betty" they called it a veggie burger. I'm sorry, if it's a veggie BURGER there darned well ought to be some sort of burger there, not just tomato and lettuce.

Anyway, it was free. Except for the cost of the iPhone.

Kennyz wrote:Neither of you is alone. Celebrated food writer Mike Nagrant called it the best fast food burger in the city. I stopped reading his column after that (not really, but still...).

So the only ones who seem to like this place are DML, SMT, and MJN? Have LAZ and MBK weighed in yet?

cilantro wrote:So the only ones who seem to like this place are DML, SMT, and MJN? Have LAZ and MBK weighed in yet?

I say that, lacking the capital M, LAZ gets a pass.

So, if an Mburger is a lot like a McDonald's burger, but slightly better, that makes it good?
You could then make the same leap of logic about other food choices. Like Papa John's is really good pizza because it's just like Domino's, but a little bit better.

I am not a big fan of mburger at M-Burger but they have a "secret" burger that is not on the menu called the Hurt Burger that is awesome. the hurt burger is one of my favorite burgers in the city

What's on this Hurt burger?

From my memory, I believe the sauce was some sort of bbq/mayo combination and they also add jalepeno to the burger. You can choose the level of "hurt" from 1-3, 1 being the least spicy to 3 being the spiciest.