Burger Jones: St Louis Park, MN - June 13, 2009

Ever since I went to Ocenaire with Jeni in February and the waiter tipped us off to Parasole's newest addition (Burger Jones), I have been salivating in anxious anticipation for this joint to open. 3 months later in May, it did. Opening to a huge harrah, my friends complained that there was a 2 hour wait just a week after its grand opening. So I waited yet another month for Andrew to try it with me, cutting my calories for a month so I could guiltlessly enjoy an enormous burger that was to come. After an interesting experience at the Driving Range, we had the perfect appetites to chowdown at Burger Jones. On a Saturday night at 9:30 pm, we were thankful not to have a wait and the restaurant was full, but not packed.

We kicked things off immediately with our milkshakes- an Oreo (classic) and a Twixie Tweat (Twix candy bars anyone)? Made with local and premium Minnesota ice cream, these milkshakes were delicious. The Twixie Tweat was a bit on the sweet end, but hey- candy bars in ice cream...what else can you expect? Despite our friends Melissa and Geoff's comments that they were "abnormally huge", we finished both in good old fashioned style. In fact, we had to set them aside just so we could enjoy some with our burgers as well.

Burger #1: Applewood Bacon with gruyere cheese
This was a great burger- juicy and well cooked, there was 'some pink' in the ground beef, and the fries were crispy and delicious. Good fries are stationary to a burger joint, but the burger was gourmet and top notch. Even so, I thought the meal was a little pricey with the burger ringing out at $10 each.

Burger #2: Black and Bleu
Blue cheese and mushroom burger with sweet potato fries
Unfortunately, the server didn't ask either of us how we wanted our burgers cooked, so it was surprising that Andrew's was a little pink, and mine was not pink at all. A bit on the dry side, the huge slab of blue cheese was clearly the star of the show and stole the spotlight a bit too much in my opinion. I would have preferred some lightly crumbled alongside the mushrooms, and the dry beef didn't add much for the flavor either.

The sweet potato fries were good, but not outstanding as I had expected.

Next time I might try the White Trash Burger (Chicken Fried Bacon, fried cheese curds and velveeta cheese) with a salted caramel or Nutella milk shake. But it might be another 6 months before I save up the calories for that meal.

*Note- some of my friends also complained that while there was a long wait, it looked as if the tables weren't all full. Well, due to some diligent digging, I discovered that the restaurant has purposely not been filling up to capacity to give the kitchen some relief. For crying out loud- who opens a new restaurant who can't keep up with its diners? They definitely need to get on that...
http://blogs.mspmag.com/chowandagain/2009/06/burger-jones.html


http://www.burgerjones.com/index.php