Om nom nom nom hot dog nom nom nom
Burger Bar & Bistro in SoNo has gone to the dogs…literally. And we like it that way! See, when our friend Melissa Gautier told us that they had a new doggy menu a few weeks ago, we knew we had to try it out STAT. I mean you know how big of dog people we are, right? So we gathered up our pup, Maynard, and took him down to SoNo for some outside dining. And of course, while we were there we figured that we might as well enjoy some great burgers and sides too, duh!
Maynard’s Meal
Om nom nom nom ice cream nom nom
Let’s start off with the dog menu! When we sat down we were greeted by the new owner, Pat, a big dog lover who has been changing up Burger Bar and making it awesome for the past 9 months. For Maynard’s first course, Pat brought him a nice cup filled with Gifford’s Vanilla Ice cream and an iced bowl of water. From the look of Maynard’s crazy eyes in the picture above, I think you can tell he loved it! For his second course we debated between the 4 oz. Angus patty w/ American cheese or the 6 oz. chicken breast with American cheese, but ultimately decided to give him the 4 oz. all beef hot dog with American cheese with a side of sweet potato fries, skins on. When Maynard got the hot dog it was split in half and grilled nicely. Of course like any dog would do when presented with yumminess, he tried to down it all in one bite. Hell, we turned away for one second to have a bite of our burgers and it was gone! Yeah! He also liked the fries, but at that point he was so full he actually stopped himself after a few. Hm, he apparently has more self control than his parents! : 0
Sides
Now onto the people food! As soon as we sat down at our table, we had a nice bowl of crispy and lightly salted, homemade potato chips. Yum. When we checked in we saw Foursquare reccos for the Disco Fries and heard the people next to us raving about them. Yep, that’s fries smothered in warm brie cheese sprinkled with white truffle oil. OMG! But, being the cheese wuss that Danny is, he just couldn’t do it! Bummer! So, instead of making a real choice at that point, we decided to go for the sidekick sampler – that’s four sides for just 8 measly bucks. Perfect for the foodie commitmentphobes we are. Here are the sides we nommed on:
1) Mac & Cheese: You know what a Mac & Cheese freak I am so I can say this one was very unique and very good. It’s made with Pecorino, Cheddar & Parmesan Cheese, Pasta, Cream & Seasoned Bread Crumbs. The Pecorino Romano adds a wicked kick and makes this memorable. You’d think with all these harder cheeses it wouldn’t be creamy, but it totally was.
2) Frickles: Hands down the best fried pickles that we’ve ever had. Not breaded too much, not soggy, not too much salt, and still maintained its pickleness. DELISH!
3) Onion rings: The smaller rings were good and crispy, but the bigger ones had too much breading and that made the breading too doughy and not done. The flavor was good, but wouldn’t say these were great.
4) Green fries: We didn’t know what these were, but our friend Darryl actually left a Foursquare tip saying these were awesome. Man, we love Foursquare. So yeah, these were lightly breaded, seasoned green beans. A crispy batter over equally crispy green beans. All in all, pretty solid.
Burgers
B.E.C. Burger. Yes, those are french fries.
So onto the burgers. Pink or not pink, those are your options for ordering burgers here. Of course we both got ‘um pink, but settled on different ones. Danny got the B.E.C. burger: piled up with applewood smoked bacon, a runny egg, double the American cheese, a handful of fries, and spicy ketchup. Danny actually thought the french fries came on the side so he was surprised to see them as part of the burger. The burger, upgraded to Kobe for $4, was medium (only slightly pink unfortunately), juicy, and full of beefy flavor. The toppings jived so well together and Danny swears it’s killer. So killer, in fact, he thinks it should be renamed Heart Attack Burger.
The Boomer Burger in its goat cheesy creaminess
I got the Boomer, a burger with mushrooms and goat cheese, sprinkled with truffle oil. Surprise goat cheese. Man, I’m so predictable. It was cooked more than Danny’s and wasn’t pink, so that was a disappointment. Because of that, it wasn’t as moist as I had hoped. What the burger lacked in “doneness,” it gained in flavor from the toppings. The mushrooms were sautéed nicely and the burger was coated with a nice smathering of goaty cheesiness. The truffle oil? Just the right amount to add that nice earthy kick that you can only get from truffle oil.
Overall Impressions
Burger Bar & Bistro has really improved their service, offerings, and food since changing owners. The burgers are not the best we’ve had, but they’re solid. They may just need to spend less time on the grill if they are ordered pink. The sides are very good overall and worth ordering a bunch of. They have a nice beer selection to boot, with Danny downing some Oskar Blues Gubna–that’s 10% abv, wusses. Just as great and so much cuter is the dog menu. Seriously, can anybody compete with that? Top it off with Wednesday Dog Nights, free wi-fi, Trivia Tuesday, Karaoke Thursday, and a Football Tailgate menu Saturday-Monday nights and you’ve got an awesome spot.
Noms: 3.5
Cost: $$$ Burger Bar & Bistro Address: 60 North Main Street South Norwalk (SoNo), CT Phone: (203) 853-2037 Site: http://www.burgerbarandbistro.com FB: https://www.facebook.com/BurgerBarSono?sk=wall
Dan and Kristien Del Ferraro
OmNomCT 
Just tried Burger Bar and Bistro for the first time tonight. While a cute place and a very friendly server, the food was not worth the price paid for it. In fact, it wasn’t good at all. First off, it took quite a long time for our food to come out. The people behind us got their food and were almost finished by the time we received ours. The frickles were soaked horribly in grease to the point of dripping. No amount of sopping up with the cloth napkin would do it. Only the top two were edible. My bacon on my kobe burger came out almost on the raw side and when I sent it back, I was told that the owner, “likes to cook things on the soft side.” Well, I ordered my burger well done, why would I want raw bacon? And no offense to the owner, but HE wasn’t going to eat it, I was. The meat itself was flavorless and only the bacon (recooked) gave it any flavor. (note: I always order well-done and have had some great, juicy burgers. This was not one of them.) And 50 cents extra for bbq sauce that tasted bottled? Wow. The onion rings that our server RAVED about, were just as oily, had no seasoning and after the one I tried, I turned down the rest. My friend got the jalepeno mayo for his burger and he said that it tasted like regular mayo with barely a hint of the peppers. We passed on dessert and just wanted to get out of there.
I was really looking forward to going here after all the rave reviews, but unfortunately, that was my first and last time there.
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That’s really sad, Christie. We’ve been hearing that it’s been going downhill over the past few months. Some bad reviews have been piling up on Urbanspoon and other sites. It was good food at some point, promise. :)
Hopefully they get their act together. :(
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