Better Burger
265 W 19th St
on 8th Ave
212 989-6688
After waiting for my bf to get off of work, I had a strong craving for burgers and fries. Luckily there was a burger joint that’s just a few blocks away, ’cause otherwise, I’ll have to settle for MaCDonalds, and I’ll be damned if I have to do so. Mind you, I’ve never heard anything about this place and just charged right in. =P
*I apologize for not taking a picture of the front of the fast food restaurant. There was a gigantic round orange sign in front with their logo on it, but I figure since it’s on their cups, it’s pretty much the same.
Upon entering the restaurant and staring up at the menu above the cashier counter, my eyes widened when I saw the price of their cheapest burgers -$5.95,1/3 lb meat for their classic burger. Yeah $6 for a Burger? Man it sure as hell better be the biggest and best dam burger ever. At Micky’s, I can get 6 burgers for that price! Then I ordered an order of small “air baked” fries for $2.95. Oh man, it’s either the whole neighborhood or rich, or this place is dam pricey, or I’m just cheap. Whichever the case was, I wanted to try it regardless.
So I later learn from reading the rest of the menu that the reason why their burgers cost so damn much is because they’re organic. Organic? Whaa? This means their meat doesn’t have any antibiotics, injected hormones, steroids, drugs, or any other chemicals that might induce the size of the bovine. Plus they say it’s actually 100% meat, since they claim that most burgers have fillers. Ok. And with their fries, it’s air baked, so it’s not fried up in a gallon of oil that makes it fatty. Sound very wholesome and healthy! But anyways, the burger is pretty good. The meat was very moist and clean. It needed some ketchup in there, but otherwise, it wasn’t bad. I actually liked it because I didn’t feel guilty eating it. It left my mouth with a grease-less taste. Yay!
What’s great about this place is that they give you a whole bunch of sauces for your fries. I believe they have honey mustard, dijon mustard, chili, ketchup, and something else. I picked the honey mustard because it’s just simply irresistible. I can tell you this much, organic fries can’t ever beat the crunchy goodness of the deep fries version. Don’t get me wrong, this is still very good, but it was a little sweet for my taste. The thing that I liked about this is that there’s a lot of potato in there. Sometimes I forget that I’m eating fries, but really, it has that awesome potato kick that I miss with deep frying fries.
I would definitely recommend this place when you see one. I heard that they make kick ass smoothies too! I can’t wait to try it next time.
Recommended!
Rating: 4/5
BETTER BURGER
265 WEST 19 STREET, MANHATTAN 10011
212-989-6688
Current violation points: 12/28
Inspection Date: 05/22/2007
Violations were cited in the following area(s) and those requiring immediate action were addressed.
1.) Single service item reused, improperly stored, dispensed; not used when required.
2.) Canned food product observed severely dented.
3.) Evidence of flying insects or live flying insects present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas.
When she was done, we were like, that sure as hell wasn’t 10. Then I told her, “su! su kway!” Then I held up my fingers and she held up her fingers and we got 10. Ahhh, so funny. Yeah I should be embarrassed, but I’m sure as hell not.
I apologize for the picture. This is the only picture I have of the Peking Duck because I was too hungry to take the picture when I got back to my bf’s place. But hey, I made this picture just a little bit bigger just for you.
I really love the environment here. When you are seated, feel free to get up and get some food. I started off grabbing some hot food and sushi:
There’s my cali rolls, my potato croquet (god i love it), fried rice, chicken wings, and stir fried string beans. Yum.
Ask the server to start up the grill for you, otherwise you’ll play with the gas knob all night and wondering how the hell does it work. When you first work the grill, please drizzle some oil on it. It makes the cooking process faster. I’m sure you all know, but just a reminder especially if you’re a newbie like me. Usually the server do it for me, but here, you actually do it yourself. And seldom a server will come by if s/he isn’t busy and do it for you too.
My parents love to come here when they want good inexpensive Chinese food. I grew up eating the food here before they became a restaurant. Back then, it was a very small take out restaurant that made all sorts of tasty dishes. Now it’s a big restaurant that looks pretty nice. The same owners are still here and I can see that they worked very hard to where are they are now.
Lychee Ice, $2.25
Iced Milk Tea, $1.75
Oh, my, goodness, this is a very good dish! Greasy, crunchy and lightly salted, just the way I like it!
Beef stew w/rice noodles, $3.75
This is the thing that you have to order here! I’m sorry for not taking another picture, but underneath it there are your rice noodles. Yum, the meat is nice and tender and the soup goes so well with the rice noodle! I used to order a lot of this when I was a kid!
Oh man, this is by far is the most unappetizing lo mein dish I have ever seen. At NYC Noodletown, their presentation is far better and it tastes better. I don’t like how they slice up my roasted pork like that and just about throw a bunch of food together.
This is my brother’s dish and it tastes a little better than my dish, previous one, because this is pan fried. But other than that, I didn’t like this dish because it tastes like everything was thrown in last minute.
Even after a long trip back home in brooklyn, the jerkies are still warm!! Yess. Anyways, this is the spicy pork jerky and it’s my first time having pork jerky. This jerky is very soft since it’s fresh, and it made it easy to eat. See even though it’s spicy, I honestly didn’t think it would be that spicy because it looks pretty sweet! But goodness, it was incredibly spicy! When my father took a bite of this, he was running to the kitchen for water because it was that fiery! Even though it burns, it was a very good pork jerky and it tastes a little sweet and it’s very spicy and tender as well!
This is the spicy beef jerky. Wow, this is the best beef jerky I have ever heard. This isn’t as overwhelmingly spicy as the pork, which is perfect for me. It’s warm, very sweet (probably they added a honey glaze) and subtly salted. I love it. You have to definitely try it for yourself!!
Well to my surprise, this place was awfully packed! My god! It is a really small joint here! Btw, be careful when you walk down the steps, you can trip and accidentally fall. Oh no, don’t think I fell. You know, I’m just saying because I saw a woman fall. =P Anyways, the first thing you’ll see when you enter is a couple of single tables for couples and a bar, as you can kinda see with my picture. After that there are a few more bigger tables and that seems to look like that’s it. The waitress asked me if me and my partner wanted to sit at the bar, and of course I said hell no because, #1 I’m claustrophobic, and #2 I wanted my own table and my own space. Apparently, that’s a little hard considering how small this place is!
So yeah, there’s probably like 6 tables in there. Believe me, it’s a very tiny room so it’s a tough squeeze.
Ahh so beautiful. Each page is more colorful than the last. Mm…if these pictures doesn’t make you drool, then I don’t know what will!
I never had a chicken meat ball before and had confused it with a crab meatball because of it’s soft texture. Oh let me tell you how each and every skewer taste like — perfectly salted and grilled. My god, the chicken and beef are so juicy and delicious. My boyfriend couldn’t finish this because it is so filling. My goodness, this is really good.
As I said before, the skewers of meats are amazing. It went really well with the kimchi rice, but I wasn’t fond of the ginger that you see on the top right. At first I thought it was carrot, but I was wrong. It’s definitely ginger and I did not like it one bit. But other than that, this is a very good bowl of rice and it’s incredibly filling!