Burger Project Summary

I had a great time this past year investigating hamburger joints with my good friends Jay, John, Norm, and Ray. It all started in November 2011 when I read an article in the Oregonian on The Top 10 Classic Burgers in the Portland Area.  My immediate thought was; "what a great job to have: eating burgers and writing about it. I like to eat and I like to write about stuff." My second thought was "hey I could go eat burgers and compare my experience". That was quickly followed by "I bet I've got some buds who would could occasionally escape the food police (aka spousal units) and do this with me." 

I have a great affinity for spreadsheets (just ask my co-workers) and I wanted to get an experience working with Google Docs. With just a few minutes thinking I had many itches I could scratch with just one effort

• Hang out with friends semi-regularly
• Eat great hamburgers (come to find they wouldn't all be great)
• Learn how to use Google Docs and use a shared form to populate a spreadsheet
• Blog about the adventure.

At first it was Jay, John and myself. After a couple of trips we recruited Norm and Ray. We took turns picking and made our way to some interesting places and some not so much. We used a 5 point scale  to rate 6 categories:

Rating system

1. Horrible
2. Not the worst ever
3. Average
4. Pretty darn good
5. Epic

Rating categories

• Hamburger
• Side
• Drink
• Atmosphere and ambience
• Service
• Overall

I learned subsequently through a project at work that an odd number rating system isn't preferred in this type of work because it's too easy to choose "average" thus avoiding a real decision. But it worked pretty well for us. I think we could identify the difference between a 2, 3, and a 4.  We were pretty tough judges. We didn't hand out 5's right and left; neither did we hand out many 1's.  I think the only item that averaged below a 2 are the fries at Stanich's. They were truly awful (gray, limp, greasy, AND cool) in most everyone's opinion. Three of us gave them a 1; 1 person a 2; but Jay gave them a 4. We looked at him like he was crazy, but didn't pressure him to change his score.

Here is our week-by-week tally.

Week-by-week comparison

A burger joint has got to have a great burger; here is the ranking of the burgers in order of preference.

Hamburger Ratings

The overall rating ranking shown here is the based on the average "overall" rating by each member. The "overall" is not an average of the other categories but rather the raters overall rating of the place. As such it is subjective and will weight the different categories in different ways week-to-week. Confusing? Don't over-think it.

Overall ratings in best-to-worst order

My biggest reaction to our ranking is that Dea's In n Out is rated way, way to low in my opinion. When people heard I was doing this project they's ask "where should I go?" Dea's was always very high on my list. 

I think the (well at least "a") reason for this is that it was our first visit and we were cognizant of the fact we were setting a standard. It's like judging figure skating or gymnastics. If you give a top score to the first contestant, you've cut off your ceiling for the rest. Also, since it is way over in Gresham (about an hour away from our homes in Beaverton) we had to make a pit stop in their bathroom before we left. Not pleasant. That dinged their atmosphere and overall points I'm sure.  We didn't include bathroom status in the other places so that could be a bit unfair. On the other hand, maybe it is just average. 

I think we may have to go back and see how it fares now that we have a body of work to base it on.

The initial goal was to visit the same ten places the Oregonian wrote about; we then were having so much fun we added others. It looked like it could be the never-ending project so I corralled us a bit at the end to finish off the original comparison.

Head-to-head comparison with The Oregonian

 We were in agreement about Helvetia Tavern being a great burger place and that there are better places to spend your burger money than Humdinger. But that's about all we could agree on. Their #2 was Skyline and we rated that dead last. Other big disparities were Dea's and Stanich's.

Let's give my fellow team members space for their opinions.

Jay

The yearlong Burger Research Project was a blast.  It was fun to get together with friends and sample hamburgers, fries and milkshakes.  I think BBQ or Thai should be our next research project and should be limited to ten independent restaurants.

Basic research principles applied to this project.  If the subjects know you are evaluating them, they act differently.  For example, when we told the servers/owners what we were up to, they were on their best behavior – we got their best burgers and not their average burgers.  Sometimes we even got a free dessert.

The data, as presented in the summary tables, seems to support several conclusions.

Norm and Ray are easy graders and you don’t want to be evaluated by Howard.

The Oregonian told the businesses they were being evaluated.

The Oregonian’s burger wonks don’t have a clue as to what a good burger tastes like.

It pays to do your own homework.

John

The experience: Going in: I never thought there would be such differences between burger joints. Who knew? As it turns out, these differences can be vast and, with our criteria, varied. 

We all had fun being almost serious 'burger joint' critics.
Where should I go to get a burger? An age-old question that has finally been answered. With the work recently been done in this field by our crack research team, we have now determined that the finest burger joint burger available in the Portland metro area is ...
well, see for yourself in the attached results of our efforts. 

My personal overall favorite burger place is Helvetia Tavern. They offer a consistently great burger, good fries and onion rings, and the drink choice for me is usually (always) a pint of IPA.
Service is generally friendly and efficient.
Their choices in decor pretty unique with just the right balance of post-tornado salvage and man cave chic. Always comfortable and funky. I love this place.

 Ray

This project was a lot of fun. It was great to eat good food in good company. I particularly liked the structured method of evaluating experiences. Without a discrete scoring system it would have been hard to compare one place to another. It was also interesting to see how our ratings and rankings varied from those of the Oregonian. Maybe the burger quality varies from time to time or maybe our tastes and methods are different from their reviewers.

For me, the best burger I found was at Rock Creek Corner. Helvatia Tavern was a close second. When you include the other factors such as sides, service, atmosphere, drinks, etc. I think the Helvatia Tavern was the best. 

Unfortunately, I did not participate in outings to some of the other top spots, such as Killer Burger and Red Coach. Based on my fellow researcher's ratings, I will surely check them out on my own. Big thanks to Howard for organizing this caper and for doing such a great job with the web publishing.

Final Words

To read the results of all our places, simply go to the blog home page and click on the "Burger Project" category toward the top. Or click on one of the links here (sorted in our overall rank). A "*" indicates it was part of the Oregonians list.

• Dea's In n Out*
• Skyline Restaurant*
• Killer Burger
• Mike's Drive-In*
• Dickie Jo's
• Fresh Grill
• Canyon Grill*
• Stanich's*
• Helvetia Tavern*
• Five Guys Burgers and Fries
• Rock Creek Corner
• Humdinger Drive-In*
• George's Giant Hamburgers*
• Red Coach
• Giant Drive-In*
• Roake's*

and honorable mention for my burger trip in South Africa this summer:

• Ed's in Pretoria, South Africa. 

I had a blast doing this. One of the best things is it's a great conversation starter. a lot of people share their opinions on where to go to get a good burger. There are many, many options in Portland. Heck, I have scouts doing research for great places to go during our upcoming trip to Arizona and Idaho I have

There are lots of other cuisines to be explored. I love barbecue and there are some good joints in town so that may be it. I don't know that I'll set it up quite as formal. The ranking and rating was fun, but to be really dedicated to it would require setting up a database and a system that would allow publishing results a bit more easily. But, that doesn't mean you won't find write ups on good places to eat here on the blog from time to time.

Burger Project - Roakes

January 26, 2013

Today was a bit bittersweet; it was the last visit to the burger joints listed in the Oregonian's Top Ten Burgers in Portland article in November 2011. I'll follow up with the overall ratings and comments in a week or two. But today we cover our last visit. Jay was up in Tacoma watching his grandson Owen's basketball game; but Norm, John, Ray and I made a quorum.

When we first moved to Aloha in the early 80's we would go to the Roake's on TV Highway between 185th and 198th. It was sold and renamed Annie's at some point. For the years when Jeff and Andrew were in middle school and high school we had a tradition to start our Christmas vacation there (weird tradition, but there it is). Even when the kids were in college we'd try to head there during their visits home. We'd have the same thing, mostly: foot long coneys, fries covered with coney sauce and root beer milkshakes.

Well, today the burger bunch headed to the orignal Roake's in Milwaukie, Oregon. It's about a 40 minute drive from our home in Beaverton. One of the side benefits of this trip is we would be able to drive over the Sellwood Bridge which was recently moved 66 feet north so a new bridge could be built in its place. I didn't want to be the first ones over the bridge but I wanted to try it.

A long drive. The arrow marks the Sellwood Bridge over the Williamette River

Its a tiny, tiny place. I had to pay close attention to make sure I didn't drive past it

Classic burger shack.

The parking lot is much larger than the restaurant; they must have car service sometimes. Look at the sign closely; a few years ago they switched from Coke to Pepsi.

Outside menu; you can see a few years ago they switched from Coke to Pepsi

Inside there is a small counter in the ordering area.  Four cheerful young women were there to take our order and cook our lunch.

A small order, cooking, and prep area. Efficiency is required to not bump elbows

In all my visits to Roake's in Aloha, I've never had a burger; I've always, always gone for the foot long coney dog. But this is a burger project after all, so I bit the bullet and ordered a bacon cheese burger.

Attached to the main trailer is a little addition with one 4-seat table and three 2-seat tables. After we ordered we headed into the small dining area and grabbed the 4-seater as a threesome was packing up.

Norm and Ray grabbing our seats after ordering. You can get an idea of how small it is.

Ray and Howard after ordering. 

Compare the two pictures to see  how close we are to either end of the dining room

John and Norm waiting for lunch

 We ordered one batch of fries to share. Had I been with my boys we would have had them pour coney sauce over the top; but since it may be an acquired taste, we ordered coney sauce on the side. It looked and tasted very much like the sauce at the Roake's/Annie's in Aloha.

Fries with Coney sauce

 The burgers came next. I thought they were excellent; check the ratings and comments to see what the others thought. The buns were perfectly toasted with nice crisp edges - not overdone. The burger sauce was fantastic: creamy with a little spice. The only downsides were too much lettuce and the bacon was just a bit tough. If memory serves, a lot of our hamburgers have been loaded up with lettuce. My suspicion is it is a good way to make a burger look larger than it really is. The toughness of the bacon may have been because the slices were so thick. Who am I too complain about too much bacon?

Bacon cheeseburger. Note the edges of the perfectly toasted bun.

 What to say about the fries. If you like greasy fries, you'll love Roakes. They are thin cut fries, which I like, and the coney sauce is my secret pleasure.

Remains of the day: greasy french fries.

If you want a good hamburger and are in the southeast suburbs, Roake's is a good bet. That is my take, check out the ratings and comments to see what my fellow researchers think.

Ratings

Comments

Burger

Howard

Excellent hamburger. The bun was perfectly toasted, the sauce was nice and creamy with a little zing to it. One of the best "special sauces" I've experienced. The huge mound of lettuce keeps it from being epic.

Norm

Great Burger. Large fresh, and most important for a burger this size, a STRONG bun. A very large tasty piece of meat, with flavorful bacon, cheese, and special sauce. It was wrapped old school style in a piece of paper.. so you could get a good grip without losing the goodies out the bottom. Pretty close to EPIC..

John

Very good burger. Toasted moist bun, tasty 'special sauce', patty was ample and juicy.A little mayo to keep it legal. Fresh veggie condiments. Bacon was good - could have been a bit crispier.

Ray

 Meat was good, but pretty thin. Bacon was a bit tough. A little too much lettuce. Good toasted bun and very tasty sauce. Juicy but not dripping. A nice fat slice of tomato. Altogether, a very good burger.

Fries

We all shared an order of fries with some coney sauce on the side

Howard

What can I say? I'm powerless in the face of greasy fries with coney sauce. They may be greasy for most peoples' taste and the coney sauce may not be for everyone, but oh, how I like them

Norm

The burger was great, but the fries...... Oh My. They were the "shoestring" style...with plenty of Oil!. You might even call them greasy. I don't mind shoestring fries if they are substantial...but these were not that long...and down about the middle of the basket they started getting smaller and smaller. The final pieces weren't even big enough to dip in the sauce. The vaunted coney sauce in my opinion was not that great.

John

Tried one or two. These fries were pretty soggy (greasy) and limp. Not my favorite.

Ray

I liked the fries. They were small and pretty greasy, but I really liked them.

Shakes

Howard (Root beer shake)

Pretty standard soft serve milk shake. This was made with a shot of root beer from the fountain, not root beer extract.

Norm (Chocolate shake)

Shake was average... If you are going to serve a shake that is somewhat thick make sure you give the customer a large diameter straw. Had to take the cap off and drink the shake because it was too thick for the small straw. It was chocolate. it was ok.. but nothing special

John (Malted chocolate shake)

Good shake. plenty of flavor, thick, with some malt added.

Ray (Chocolate shake)

It was a pretty average shake. Very thick, which I like.

Service

Howard

Quick and friendly. Just right

Norm

The Service at Roakes Milwaukie was very good. An energetic group of young woman in the very small kitchen have figured out how to give quick service, handle a large number of orders and keep everyone happy. Hats off the servers and cooks!

John

Friendly, efficient and prompt.

Ray

The service was very fast, accurate, and friendly. They were pretty busy and didn't have time to chat, but it was very good service.

Ambience and Atmosphere

Howard

A classic roadside burger joint. Small, cozy, but clean.

Norm

The ambience was very historic. Apparently this location has been in business for decades...and started in a small trailer which has been added on to. Inside it's very stainless steel, like the kind of diner you might find in New Jersey. But it's very clean and well organized with a lot of happy customers. In spite of the tiny area inside, there is a large amount of parking outside and a couple of tables under cover outside that could be used in good weather.

John

I like this place. It's been around since 1937 or so. Not sure of the structure but it looks and feels like parts of a grounded stainless steel trailer or something along those lines. Very compact, but there seemed to be enough room for all who showed up. Funky, old-school burger joint vibe.

Ray

Old and funky. Clean but very well used environment. Tables were squeezed in with little room to maneuver. Chairs were standard folding chairs.

Overall

Howard

Certainly a place to return to.

Norm

In spite of the disappointing fries and the so so milkshake, over all experience was pretty good. If you've never been to Roakes you must check it out.

John

Good, reasonably priced burger and shake, cool old 'building'. Nice folks working there. I'd go there again.

Ray

I would definitely recommend this place. It is very unimpressive from the outside, but very good food and service.

Burger Project - Giant Drive In Lake Oswego

December 1, 2012

We had two places left on our original quest to match up with last year's  Oregonian's Top 10 Classic burgers contest. Our experiences have been very different from the Oregonian's. Not sure why. At any rate I picked Giant Burger for this week's quest. It's just down on Boone's Ferry Road south of Kruse Way which is the end of highway 217.

Now I've lived in the Southwest part of Portland for about 20 years and I've driven down 217 hundreds of times. You think I'd know how to get to a place as simple as Boones Ferry Road. Well, if you've driven with me you know I'm direction challenged. I was in the wrong lane at the end of 217 and ended up headed south on I5. I re-headed north but then missed the exit AGAIN heading back north on 217. Finally, 3rd time is the charm and I stayed in the middle lane to get to the end of Kruse Way. As Jay said, it was a no hitter so counts as a success.

A nice sign welcomed us to the parking lot.

Nice signage. Maybe the best thing about the place

As we prepared to get some exterior shots a young woman jogger came by and offered to get all of us in a a photo. That's rare and welcome. I'm glad she didn't just run off with the camera :) I'd never have caught her.

A rare picture of all 5 of the project members (From Left: Ray, Jay, John, Norm, Howard)

We walked in and were greeted by a man who I bet is the owner (I should have asked). He was very pleasant as he took our order. I asked if he had root beer shakes and he said "No, we don't have drinks requiring syrup; only the real deal". Oh well.

The owner I think. A nice guy

They brought our order to us on a big platter. They dropped it off and didn't bother to tell us which basket had which kind of burger. So we had to open them up to look at the ingredients and pass them to the rightful owner.

The burger

Then we got down to eating

Jay: a very happy guy. He's got some cajun fries there. Regular fries with a shake of cajunseasoning

Norm is about half way through lunch

Ray saying "cheese"while John ponders his first bite

They make some serious money on the cajun fries. Regular fries with a shake of cajun seasoning. Probably less that 1 cent for which they charge an extra quarter.

Close up of the cajun fries; Not impressive

Ratings

Comments

Burger

Norm

It was fairly big, the bun was substantial, there was ham along with BBQ sauce and onion.. but the patty appeared to be the previously frozen type from the gigantic hamburger patty factory. And I detected a strange aftertaste from the burger patty. It could have been seasoning or something else, not sure what. If it was seasoning it was not good seasoning. The patty did manage to contain the burger, which is a plus.

Howard

Nice melted cheese. That is all. Too much bun; flavorless meat patty.

John

Nothing great about this burger. There was no standout flavor to it, pretty bland. The patty on my burger was a little under-cooked although not enough for me to complain about. I noticed Ray's was well done, by comparison. There was only a dab of mayo and no "special sauce" in evidence. The usual vegetable parts were good. Bacon was okay. The bun was toasted - nice.

Ray

Bun was too large and over cooked. As a result it was very dry. Meat was tasteless, very thin, and over cooked. Sauce was unremarkable. Had to remove raw onions. Bacon was not crispy..

Jay

This burger was average with tomato, chopped lettuce and mayo. There wasn't a secret sauce and the burger was not juicy. My hamburger patty was overdone on one edge and just about right on the other edge. The buns sesame seed buns were were huge but a tad dry.

Side - French Fries

Norm

Standard French fries. Crispy and cooked well but nothing remarkable

Howard

Again, bleh. Not much too them. They weren't hot, crisp, or salty.

John

Average fries. Not very tasty but well-cooked and not soggy or greasy. Maybe a lack of salt or anything else to spark them up.

Ray

Pretty standard fries. Better than some, but not the best.

Jay

The fries were hot with an adequate portion. The Cajun part was more or less missing. A few of the fries seemed to be sort of Cajun. It was what I expected.

Drink

Norm

Chocolate milk shake...in a paper cup, pretty thin. Average chocolate flavor. Would have fit in at Mcdonalds or Burger King

Howard

Average chocolate shake. No root beer shake.

John

Pretty good shake. Good consistency. Lots of flavor.

Ray

Pretty ordinary shake.

Jay

Again, this was an average soft ice cream shake with a light chocolate flavor. It was small for a one-size fits all shake.

Atmosphere

Norm

Small town one-off hamburger place. It was clean but average

Howard

Nice burger joint. I like the booths; the counter; the location

John

Nice older place in Lake Grove. Well maintained and clean. Great "burger joint" feel. It appeared a lot of the customers we saw come in were regulars.

Ray

Clean, but pretty boring.

Jay

Giant Drive In (LO) was very clean. Our host and server were very friendly and obviously experienced.

Service

Norm

The Gentlemen who took our order was friendly and efficient. Our food was delievered fairly soon after we put in our order.

Howard

Nice guy behind the counter; I think he is the owner. They brought our platter to us but left it to us to figure out what each basket contained.

John

Very pleasant gentleman took our orders. Pretty prompt getting the orders out.

Ray

Service was pretty good. Fast delivery to our table. The owner took our orders. He was nice and friendly.

Jay

Service was excellent and prompt. Our orders were delivered to our table.

Overall

Norm

Average experience. If you want to fill your tummy in a hurry this is your place. But you could do the same thing at McDonalds or any other fast food joint... and then there's that strange aftertaste.

Howard

Not much to recommend it really. There are better burger places in town. Heck I'd go to McDonalds before I returned

John

I like everything about this place except the very average burger and fries.

Ray

The burger was very dissapointing.

Jay

It was a good average (Grade C) burger meal at a fair price.

Burger Project - Red Coach

November 1, 2012

We've been at this project for almost a year now; it was last November when the Oregonian came out with their Ten Best Classic Burgers in Portland article. We've disagreed with many of their ratings. One of my issues is that Red Coach wasn't even on the list! I come here with some of my team every couple of weeks and I wanted to get it in our list before we wrap things up. If this isn't a classic burger joint I don't know what is.

Red Coach is on Broadway 1 block north of Nordstrom in the heart of the shopping district. Ray couldn't make it today so it was Jay, John, Norm and me.

I drive down the Sunset Highway every weekday to get to work. I've been admiring the colors and wishing I could get a picture; not practical while driving. But Jay was driving today and I could snap to my heart's content

Late Fall colors driving down Sylvan Hill into downtown.

One of Portland's unofficial mottos is "Keep Portland Weird".  As we walked up the South Park Blocks we saw a splendid example.

Keeping Portland Weird

John, Norm, and Jay ready to head in

Red Coach is hopping on weekdays with the business crowd; but not so much on weekends. The top is closed and the grill is lightly used.

The grill is ready.

A brief note about today's pictures. I recently purchased a 35mm f1.8 prime lens for my Sony Alpha A55. I got it to get good close up pictures and the wide 1.8 aperture means great focus on my subject with blurring of the background. As you will see in the pictures I have some learning to do. I left it open at 1.8 and as a result had a very short depth of field.  For example, in this picture you'll see the booth backs in the mid distance are in focus but not the waitress or patron. I've got some work in front of me.

The other customer. The young woman is our usual waitress when we come in on weekdays.

Ray, the owner; a real nice guy

The boys. 

Hard ice cream shakes! I think this is the only place we've been to on our quest that has true hard ice cream milk shakes.

Yum! Better use of the new lens. Nice focus on the glass; everything else is blurry

John performing the spoon test. It passed with flying colors!
John's in focus but I missed the glass. I should have closed down the f-stop

Lunch is served. Delicious hamburger. These aren't fresh-cut fries but they were nice and hot.

Top center of the bun in perfect focus. But the front is blurry. That's a shallow depth-of-field at 1.8

Ratings

You'll see in the ratings and comments why it's good to have a group do the rating. I think we have the widest disparity of scores this week. I loved it; Jay liked it a lot. John thought it was pretty good; but Norm was unimpressed. You may want to discount my score since this is my regular burger joint.

Comments

Burger (Karl's Classic Cheeseburger with Bacon except Norm)

Howard

I love these hamburgers. The bun is nice and soft with a perfect toasted underside. The American cheese is good quality; the bacon is perfectly cooked.

Jay

The burger was tasty and nicely cooked with fresh lettuce and tomato. The bacon and cheese were perfect.

Norm (Cheeseburger)

Pretty much average all the way. Pretty standard very flat and somewhat dry patty. Bun average. Basic cheese. Add your own condiments. About like something you'd get at a cafeteria or buffet place.

John

Bun was fresh, not over-sized as some can be; patty was cooked medium,still pretty juicy; The bacon was perfect - lean, crisp but not crunchy, and it was flat so it fit nicely on top.(bonus points). Whole, not shredded, lettuce, tomato, sauce, no onion. The cheese was good and melted - american, I think. All in all a very good burger.

Side - French Fries

Howard

Crinkle cut. Nice and hot.

Jay

The frozen fries were served very hot and complemented the burger.

Norm

These fries were probably out of a box made by an Ore-Ida wannabe. Ok but very average

John

Good fries. 'krinkle' type. cooked, not mushy. Could have been a bit crispier.

Drink (Chocolate shakes except for Norm)

Howard

Hard ice cream shakes! Yummy

Jay

This real ice cream shake was perfect. The chocolate syrup on the sides of the full glass was a perfect presentation.

Norm (Coke)

It's coke

John

Real ice cream, served in a glass. This place drizzles chocolate syrup around the inside of the glass along with the regular dose.Nice touch. Pretty thick consistency. I love the chocolate, so it can always be more so. Good shake.

Atmosphere

Howard

Nice booths. It's a little on the dark side, which is fine but the darkness takes a smidge away from my ideal burger joint.

Jay

The surrounding were very comfortable and well appointed. The device was prompt and accurate.

Norm

Downtown lunch joint on a saturday. It was deserted except for us and the help.... and a woman who arrived about halfway through our meal. Everthing appeared to be clean and well maintained. $9.75 for the coke and burger was a bit pricey.

John

This is an older restaurant in downtown Portland serving a variety of fare. Not just a burger joint. Decor is nothing fancy but pleasant. Big, overstuffed 'pleather' seating was pretty comfortable. Nice place.

Service

Howard

I eat here every couple of weeks and love the owners and their daughter. They know me and are always pleasant, prompt, and courteous.

Jay

We received more attention than we deserved. I think we shouldn't tell them what we're up to.

Norm

About halfway between average and pretty darn good. Guy who took our order was friendly, probably the manager. Had two waitresses working for him and one was very chatty. Personable, yes. but the service was still a 3.5

John

Since we were virtually the only ones in there, we had their full attention. The owners took good care of us. Friendly and chatty.

Overall

Howard

For me; it's Red Coach and Dee's In 'n Out as the best burger places in Portland so far.

Jay

The Red Coach puts it all together - a great burger with great service and attention to detail.

Norm

OK place to go and have lunch during a workday. But don't expect much out of the burger.

John

The fries were good, the shake was better, and the burger was better yet. I would go there again. Nice place, good service, and as for our burger research, better than average food.

Burger Project - George's Giant Hamburgers

Saturday September 29, 2012

With our vacations and otherwise active lives, it's been a while since we were able to all get together for burgers. Thankfully we were able to get a start for fall. John picked and determined it was time to get back to the original 10 from the Oregonian article last winter. So we headed out to George's Giant Hamburgers in Tigard.

11640 SW Pacific Hwy Tigard, OR 97223

One sign that it had been a long time since our last outing is that I forgot my camera and had to make do with my iPhone.

George's Giant is different from the other burger joints we've visited in that you make your own burger. You order the basics, a cheeseburger with bacon and you get a patty with melted cheese on a bun with some bacon. Then you go to the condiments bar to add whatever combination of pickles, relish, lettuce, onion, tomatoes, and sauce that your heart desires. The condiment bar was extremely well stocked with good looking purple onions and tomatoes.

The condiment bar. Very well stocked and clean

Nice looking tomatoes and onions.

We all had pretty much the same thing but different: bacon cheeseburgers with different fixin's 

Standard set up

They do Burger King one better: my burger my way.

My burger my way.

Good idea but not perfectly executed. The burgers were warm, not hot and not as tasteful as we'd like. I think if they used some of the magic dust they have at Killer Burger things could be much better. 

The owners are really nice and work hard to ensure you have a great experience. When they learned about our burger project they brought us some home made moon cake, a traditional Chinese desert made during the autumn festival. This was undoubtedly the most original thing we've eaten in our burger quest.

Moon Cake

All in all I think the Oregonian had it right in their ratings. Good idea; okay burgers.

Ratings

Comments

Burger

John

Buns a little dry. Minimum size patty cooked medium-well. The onions, pickles, mayo, ketchup, relish, mustard etc. - okay. The 'american' cheese was nice and melted. No 'secret sauce' or special seasoning detected.Finely chopped lettuce - okay if you like it that way. Me, not so much. The fact that you have to 'build your own' takes some of the pressure off these place to make a great burger but they have to start with a good foundation, and I don't think they quite met that standard.

Norm

Pretty Average hamburger however the bun was nice and fresh, and did not mush up considering all the items it held. Bacon was average, as was the cheese patty. It was an ok burger but we are looking for something better than just average.

Howard

Okay. you get the basics: bun, patty, bacon, cheese then go to the condiments bar for sauces, relish, pickles, tomato, onion, whatever. The condiment bar was wonderfully maintained with lovely slices of tomatoes and purple onion. The bacon was cooked just right.

Ray

Pretty ordinary. Good bacon, though. All the trimmings were available to be added by the diner. The bun was not unusual, just what I buy at Safeway.

Jay

Fresh, American cheese, my own secret sauce fro salad bar, shredded lettuce, patty well done - no hint of pink

Side - French Fries

John

A little under-cooked, a bit mushy is not my favorite.

Norm

Pretty average fries, better than some we've had, but again, we are striving for something outstanding. They also needed a lot of salt.

Howard

Great french fries are hot and crispy; okay fries are hot or crispy. These were neither. I only ate a few

Ray

Again, very average fries. Not seasoned or salted. Not freshly made. Not brown or crispy.

Jay

Hot

Drink

John

Milk Shake. This was not a good shake. Not enough syrup or whatever they use for flavoring and the consistency was ' icewatery'. I might have had better luck trying to order chocolate milk. Terrible.

Norm

The flavor seemed to be a little off. The "ice cream" was pretty thin. Not worth the money

Howard

Root beer shake. Okay shake; not real rich ice ceram

Ray

Not especially thick and not very chocolatey. Pretty weak and not made with real ice cream.

Jay

Soft ice cream

Atmosphere

John

Clean, no-frills burger joint. Nothing really stands out. The place seems to be pretty popular.

Norm

Pretty average non franchise burger place. And I did like the condiment bar. Everything seemed fresh and there was a large variety

Howard

Nice clean place.

Ray

It was OK. Not fancy, not funky, just functional. Very clean. Nothing to set it apart from hundreds of other fast food joints.

Jay

Very clean and tidy

Service

John

They delivered the buns with a patty with cheese on it to the table. Pleasant servers.

Norm

The high point of our visit was the service. Prompt and attentive. The server was very friendly!

Howard

George's Giant is owned and operated by a wonderful couple. They were very helpful and even brought us a little Chinese Moon Cake for desert.

Ray

Very good service. Friendly, fast, and efficient. She even brought us a special chinese dessert she had made.

Jay

Server brought food out, explained ingredients, prepared special dessert

Overall

John

I cannot not say I would suggest others go there. The price was okay, $8.50 or so, but the hassle and the quality don't get it up to anything but maybe average. Of the ten restaurants on the list rated by the paper, this place rated number 10. I can see how it might get that score if there were only ten burger joints in the metro area, but I wonder how it got on the list to begin with.

Norm

Average

Howard

A nice place worth a visit if you are in the neighborhood, but not epic

Ray

Just average

Jay

The burger was average, service and ambience above average

Burger Project - Humdinger

Visit date: July 21, 2012

So much hope; so much potential; so disappointing. When the Sunset Highway is jammed up in the morning I sometimes take Multnomah Blvd to Barbur and pass this cute little burger joint. And back in the day when the kids were little we'd go to the Humdinger near Sunset High School. But before you can get the question out of your mouth "are the 2 Humdingers related?" you get a curt "No". I guess they've been asked that question a few times. Apparently they were related about 45 years ago, but not today.

It was only three of on this day: Howard, John, and Jay. Jay missed out on our last couple of visits because he was up at Hood Canal. Since he was in town, we wanted to make sure we could get out. Ray and Norm were travelling.

Looks like a perfect burger joint

Just 4 tables inside. More seating outside.

 Everything looked great on first inspection. I like that we got extra root beer for our floats.

Look at all that bacon! Too bad it tasted bad. Greasy fries and notice the cheese that broke in half.

Looks good. But in actuality. Not so much.

The Oregonian Top 10 Classic Burger had this place rated 7th, which is about right; but had them above Stanich's and Dea's In-And-Out. No way.

Ratings

Burger

John

Nothing great about this one. Bad 'american' cheese (two of them.) Not good to start with and not melted. The sesame bun was dry. Skimpy amount of shredded lettuce. Mayo is the special sauce. Tomato was there. The patty was dry. This was a bacon burger and this is where, I guess, the management tries to make up for the rest of it. This thing had a fistful of it sitting on top of all the rest. Usually I wouldn't complain, but there was too much of it, it wasn't particularly flavorful, and it was over-cooked a bit, really curled up, increasing the size of the whole thing. Overpriced mediocrity.

Jay

IThe huge burger was all flash (It looked really good at a distance) and no form. American cheese (or maybe it was Velvetta Cheese) makes better trout bait than burger cheese. The 6 strips of bacon were too much and over cooked. There was no secret sauce and the meat was dry - a solid 3.

Howard

All show, no go. Looked good at first with a huge pile of bacon. But on further review the bacon was charred and hard. The American cheese was poor quality and non at all melted on the burger. Bun was a little stale. All in all just a crummy hamburger. I didn't even finish.

Side

John

Crinkle cut french fries. Nice color. The centers were mushy. Okay taste.

Jay

Just your average tots.

Howard

Okay tots.

Drink

John

Chocolate shake. Soft serve ice cream. Plenty of syrup. Good taste. Overpriced.

Jay

It was a really good soft ice cream root beer float. It came with extra root and adequate ice cream.

Howard

It was nice that I got an extra cup of root beer to add to the ice cream as I made my way through the float. Hard ice cream would have been better.

Atmosphere

John

Kind of a cool, older, roadside burger joint. Homemade, DIY decor. Very compact, yet lots of seating, in and outside. Clean.

Jay

The outside tables, benches and umbrella poles were sticky. The old plates used for baskets were unique.

Howard

Definitely a summer place; just 4 tables inside and a few outside spots. This could have been rated 4 or 5 for ambience, but the tables were totally grimy.

Service

John

Nothing special

Jay

The counter guy was friendly and had a good patter. The service was very slow. It took about 30 minutes for our order to appear.

Howard

Long wait; cashier wasn't rude but had a bit of an attitude

Overall

John

It was a beautiful day. The place was okay. The meal was not.

Jay

The meal was entertaining, but the food wasn't part of the entertainment. It was interesting to check out one the Oregonian's top burger joints. The overall dining experience was average.

Howard

I had such high hopes but they were dashed to the ground like so many helpless puppies. OregonLive had this place ranked 7th. I'd rank it at the bottom of the places we visited, maybe tied with Mike's Drive-In.