Black Iron Burger

There's a fairly popular site that I would often use to share my opinions on food. I would also use said site to get a pulse for what's going on in the food world around me. Using said site to garner opinions is often a useful tool considering the sheer amount of opinions listed should give you a good enough sample size (with the +/- margin of error needed in any poll) to make an accurate judgement (there's that E again! With the requisite squiggly line.) I digress, polling, such an informal science yet so heavily relied upon to shift opinions and sway beliefs. Where was I going with this? The lower east side of course! LES if you wish.

Anyway, the LES is how to so many famous things like mega sized potholes that bend my rims, a himalayan restaurant (the only one in Manhattan as far as I can tell), and this burger joint. Rest is marsh land as far as the eye can see. One evening, my buddy and I boarded a pontoon with our mohawk adorned guide who offered us a ride to this alleged burger paradise for three cigarettes and a shark's fin. No small order considering sharks are apparently not indigenous to the East River but who knew? Now you do.

Arrival at this Black Iron Burger Shop was swift and we entered for the new "IT" burger - why is EVERYONE in NY always ready  to hype ANYTHING up as a must have in a city that is overflowing with actual good food? Sad, so sad. More sad b/c it takes me til nearly 4am to realize that each post praising this place references the same thing - BEER! Liquid courage that makes you think you're tougher than me and obviously makes this food taste better. Well, this guy was not drinking that night and let me tell you, the burger here was pretty brutal. The waitress, I'm fairly sure it was a girl but what is gender? (Another question I struggle with as I dive through the quagmire called the Internet at nearly 5am. How you ask? Just look around and you'll see.)

Burgers. Focus. OK, so yeah, helper/servant whatever, asks what I want. I figure a burger and some beans would be a nice meal. So I did just that. In my charming, happy voice I ask for a burger and a side of beans. No reference from the servant as to how I want it cooked and I sank in my chair. I felt like standing up and yelling in her face "Cook it however you see fit since you are the experts of this marshland and I am a mere visitor here to eat your fattened calves!" There was no yelling. There was also a scant amount of beans. $3 for roughly a tablespoon full of beans. LITERALLY bro. I was given a Styrofoam shotglass full of beans that tasted no different from some Campbell's beans. Don't get me wrong, I love me some pork n beans but $3 for this? I felt like I was wallet raped. It made matters WAY worse that I was brought these beans prior to the burger's arrival and it just seemed very embarrassing. Was I secretly at NOBU eating off their tasting menu? I think not. So gimme some mutha-flubbing beans marshpeople! Oh and another thing, if the big chains are vilified for their use of foam containers, why are they used? Marshpeople are eco-killers if you asked me.

Oh yes, back to the burger. So, sober me gets his burger. Comes wrapped in foil (eco-killers part 2), as if I am being shown the door. Mind you the place is rather empty and I'm tamed down like I'm on church behavior. I open the foil and find another lil hockey puck masquerading as a hamburger. The bun was ok. The overall burger was hard and cooked to hell so it tasted like nothing more than overcooked, dry meat product. What a bad experience. How'd I make it worse? I'm pretty sure I hit up one of the pseudo-cheesesteak spots that are popping up in NYC. If I was a cheesesteak blogger I'd set you straight on those. Maybe I'll branch out and get ambitious one day. Maybe not, so get off my back.

Rating - 1/5. Still not sure if I can give a 0. Maybe the food is better with booze? But if you need booze to make it better, is it really better or are you just imagining it better? Similar to your last relationship, only edible.

Their site - http://www.blackironburger.com/

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