Aaron Stroot | astroot.info

Ah, the glorious hamburger. A staple of American cuisine. For a product so simple, it’s amazing how different two places can make a hamburger taste. My standard burger is a double cheeseburger, with bacon, ketchup, and pickles. All of the burgers ranked below will be based on that combo, unless otherwise noted.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve visited quite a few “renowned” hamburger locations, so I feel like I am now well-qualified to rank American hamburgers. My friend Matt has really broadened my horizons and taken me to places that I probably would not have visited otherwise, mainly due to location. Hopefully over the coming years I can check out additional places.

My rankings, in descending order:

5. Shake Shack — New York City. I had some high hopes for this place. Word on the street was that this place was legit. It was pretty good, but just didn’t live up to expectations. I would probably list In-n-Out with the same ranking. Too much hype, not enough substance to deliver. Of course, that won’t stop me from visiting both places.
4. Burger King. I know, seriously, Burger King? No joke, though. Of the “low-end” fast food chains, Burger King is my favorite. I look at McDonald’s as almost an imitation hamburger, at this point.
3. Spangles — Wichita. A local delight found in Kansas. I don’t know what it is about this burger that makes it so good, but it really hits the spot.
2. So Long Saloon — Manhattan, KS. Another local place, but it’s impossible to leave their burger off of any list. I literally feel bad for people who don’t live here and can’t experience this place. Plus the small, intimate atmosphere and typical long wait just seems to make the experience that much better. Their Saloon Burger comes with one patty.
1. Five Guys Burgers & Fries. No doubt about it, the best burger in the land. What is it about this burger? It’s not hard to explain… the burger is just damn good. Plus, I love how minimalistic the ordering process is. You pick the number of patties, you pick your toppings, they make the burger, end of story.

Honorable mention to some burgers that narrowly missed the cut: Wendy’s is not far off from Burger King in terms of fast food, a local place named Big D’s has a quality burger that upon first taste was quite high on my list but hasn’t held up as well upon repeat visits, and 8oz. Burger Bar in Los Angeles makes a fine burger. You really can’t go wrong with any of these.

With the start of a new year, I decided I wanted to do some data tracking to get a handle on some things as well as be able to quantify them. The first thing that came to mind was tracking my soda intake. I typically drink a soda per day, so I knew it wasn’t going to be pretty. I created a basic Google Docs spreadsheet that I could access anywhere and started entering data on January 1. Doing some data entry once per day wasn’t all that bad and I think I can keep up with it for the entire year.

Now that I have some data to refer to, I can start to make adjustments and set goals. The good news is that I had already started trying to drink diet soda whenever possible, but in practice I am not doing a great job at that. That will be one of my goals throughout the year.

After the first month, here is what the data for January said:

Poor blog, how I’ve neglected you. Your hipper younger sibling, Twitter, gets all my attention. A few things did happen in the last few months since I’ve updated. They are outlined below:

• In August, I visited New York City for the first time. What an experience. It seemed like I walked 30 miles in four days, but I saw so much. From the Empire State Building to Wall Street to the Seinfeld restaurant, I felt like everywhere I turned there was a famous spot. Many photos were taken. Will definitely go back at some point. I must say that the compass/GPS combo on the iPhone 3GS was incredibly handy in a big city.
• In September, I was lucky enough to be able to see one of my favorite bands, Phoenix, live in Omaha, NE. They played an awesome set and were genuinely excited to be performing in an unfamiliar place. Note that Phoenix is from Paris, France and doesn’t see the Midwest of the United States very often.
• Halo 3: ODST came out and many hours of fun were had by all.

So I guess that’s about all that was noteworthy. For now, enjoy a video I shot of Phoenix performing “1901” with my chrome Flip MinoHD.