I picked up food poisoning eating beef tartar in a third world country. Came back home, couldn’t eat anything for 3 days.

On day number four, I broke my fast with a mozza burger from A&W.

I’m sure it was the lack of any taste for the previous 4 days, but that was the very best thing I’ve ever ate. Such vivid and pronounced flavours.

It was unforgettable.

Not knowing it was plant-based, I got a monstrous jumbo something-or-other burger from Monty’s Good Burger in LA.

Honestly I almost freaked out at how good it was, and even went back to the place just to tell them it was the best burger I ever had.

It’s the one thing pulling me west

The best burger I ever had was in New York. I can’t remember then name of the place, or even where it was but it had an autographed picture of Regis Philbin on the wall with a comment on how much he loved the burger there.

On to the burger:

That first bite… oh, what heaven that first bite is. The bun, like a sesame freckled breast of an angel, resting gently on the ketchup and mustard below, flavors mingling in a seductive pas de deux. And then…a pickle! The most playful little pickle!

Then a slice of tomato, a leaf of lettuce and a…a patty of ground beef so exquisite, swirling in your mouth, breaking apart, and combining again in a fugue of sweets and savor so delightful. This is no mere sandwich of grilled meat and toasted bread- This is God, speaking to us in food.

I make myself one every week, green chile cheeseburger.

Seattle has a chain called Dick’s. Their burgers are tasty and cheap. A couple of Deluxes after a night out really hits the spot.

It was during a trip to Norway. I was in Stavanger, walking around with my friend. It was noon. We stumbled across a hamburger stand on the street next to a monument or something.

The burger (with no side dish) was quite expensive for street food (about $20), but we realized it was not made with beef or pork. It was reindeer meet.

And also the best fucking burger I’ve ever had.

Coming down from 5 days in the mountains backpacking, eating freeze-dried food. It’s not that I was suffering; I like the meals I pick, and I done this dozens of times before, but for some reason, that burger was fantastic. It was at the first restaurant we came across, and the beer was on tap and cold.

Maybe because it’d been a particularly grueling hike back out, and we’d skipped the last camp site and were racing the sun.

Good burger.

Not sure I’ll be able to get over In N Out Burger. For a chain their consistency is incredible. Good quality ingredients, but most specifically, they always get the toast on the bun perfect, soft in the center, crispy just around the edges, and thousand Island style dressing on a burger is the shit.

It’s a tie for me.

1. A place where they served only the bun and meat, and you got to serve yourself your own salad and sauces. I made some absurdly tall burgers. The taste was phenomenal too. Very handy place when I was a student with very little money.

2. Playing a gig in a small town. Saw a burger called The Carnivore. Was assured it was worth the cost, so I bought one. This thing had mince patty, bacon, sausage, steak, chop (pork or lamb, can’t remember which), then cheese, onion, lettuce, tomato, egg… and I’m probably still forgetting something it had. It was monstrous. It took me almost an hour to eat it, and I enjoyed every minute.

It was a burger I ate when the chef was going to kill us all.

Father’s Office in Santa Monica. You get it one way, no changes. If you want ketchup on it, F Off. Heck, if you want ketchup for your sweet potato fries (the seasoning on them is delightful), F Off again. But, and I say this after trying a million burgers (slight exaggeration), no contest.

That said, somebody commented with a burger in West LA that I’ll be shortlisting.

This restaurant in Argentina. Didn’t even go there for the burger. Wasn’t sure what to get on the menu. Place was on the “at least where a collar” type with low lighting and cocktails and all that. Type of place you’d usually eat with fork and knife.

Anyways, I saw they had a burger on the menu and the ingredients just sounded good. Nothing far out there or anything, but it gave me the craving. When it finally came out, the first bite was so. Fucking. Good. Meat in general has a very high floor in Argentina, but that burger was something else. My wife agrees that was the best burger we’ve ever tried as well.

We went back to Argentina about a year after we had had that burger. About a month in, I surprised my wife with a reservation at the restaurant. We had been talking about getting that burger again for weeks before coming to Argentina. We get to the place, order a drink, and pick up the menu. For about 2 minutes the table was silent. Then we started looking at each other quizzically. “Do you see the burger?”, I asked. She shakes her head. We signal to the waiter that we have a Q. He comes over and we ask him about the burger. “Ah, I’m sorry, the chef took it off the menu a couple of months ago. I guess not enough people were ordering it.”. Man, both our hearts sank.

TLDR; life is unfair. The best burgers can only be eaten once.

London, UK: Burger & Beyond, Bleecker Burger (RIP the Bleecker black), maybe Patty & Bun

North West, UK: Almost Famous, maybe Burgerism

What I fancy ordering from these places varies based on mood, but they’re good enough there’s pretty much no bad choices

There’s nothing else in the same category I’ve had in this country so far, but open to suggestions.

At Hubert Keller’s Burger Bar in Vegas. Wagyu burger black and blue.

Second best is the house burger at Tolon in Fort Wayne, IN.

Third best is one I cooked over charcoal at a campsite in North Dakota.

Philadelphia, but I don’t remember the restaurant: I had something called a “French Toast Burger.” In place of buns were two pieces of French Toast and it was topped with egg and cheddar, and came with maple syrup on the side (this is the only time I’ve ever gotten real maple in a restaurant.) It was the best meal that I will never eat again.