Cheeseburger Haiku - Paul's Da Burger Joint

I don't know who Paul is, but I like his Da Burgers. Today on the burger blog, the featured burger is the St. Mark's Burger from Paul's Da Burger Joint at the corner of St. Mark's Place and 2nd Avenue.

I think I should start this post by mentioning that any burger self applying the moniker of 'Da Burger' has lofty expectations to live up to--at least in the eyes of this cheeseburger haiku-er. Well, let me tell you that dis da burger was da bomb. Smothered in American cheese and covered with grilled mushrooms and onions, this was 8 oz. of pure badass burger. This thing was so sloppy that no mortal could woof it down without a heavily greased pile of wimpy napkins, or staining his denim so much as to give even Mr. Clean cause to scratch his melon and go 'Hmmm.'  One time Thor son of Odin tried to eat a burger from Paul's and he left the place with two grease gauntlets running all the way up the back of his hairy arms; after leaving his fingers were so greasy that he couldn't even manage to hold his grip on Mjollnir. In short, Thor was not worthy enough after eating a da burger from Paul's Da Burger Joint. What chance would I, a mere burger aficionado--or anyone for that matter--have against this beefy beast?

Cheeseburger Haiku - Josh Burger III

Hey y'all, we're back. And this time with another Josh burger attack. What we're serving is probably the finest of the homemade burgers I've made since coming to enyce. (Side note: I was on the subway today when I saw this dudebro wearing a shirt that said enyce. Before I moved to New York, I used to look at that logo and think, 'hey, that's a-nice shirt.' Only today did I realize that it was just a hip spelling of the initials of my current city. Now that we've established my relative coolness quotient, I return you to the regularly scheduled edition of Cheeseburger Haiku, already in progress.) ...and then I twisted it until the handle fell off. Not too much later, there was my grandmother riding by on a bicycle, giving me the finger.

Whoa! Now that was an amusing anecdote. I don't think the good folks at google blogger will ever let us air that one again.

Alright, let's get to busy. The burger: worcestershire infused patty with havarti cheese on a brioche roll. About 4/10 of a pound before griddling and cooked to (circa) medium. A light smattering of ketchup. As you can see this was a relatively no-frills meat sammich, which means that the meat had a very important role in the ballet of burger. Ne'er you mind about the fancy sounding cheese and bread, I was at the Trader Joe's and who knows what the heck is going on in there. Back to the meat (hey, that sounds catchy. When I run for re-election next year perhaps that'll be my running platform. I can see it now: 'Back to the Meat - Josh for Burgermeister.') I was saying that the meat had a job to do. I had a success with the meat. The meat was good. Usually I'm a flat-patty type gentleman, but since the Griddler has the duel cooking surface, I had to reassess my grill strategy. So I made the patty thicker and only left it on for a few minutes. It tasted a lot less like the inside of a microwave than previously, and the woostleheisen sauce added enyce touch.

This burger gives me great hope for the upcoming grilling season, even if my grilling will be done inside. To combat my inside grilling blues, I think next time I'll open up a window and look outside as my meat is getting 'r done.

To wash it all down, I had a Dunkelweizen from Trader Joe's, a wonderful style of beer that is just not getting as much love as it should. Why are there not more dunkels in my life?

Note: the pickles are a lie. I took them off and ate 'em on the side.

Books is Good, Mostly - Volume 3

A Game of Thrones - George R.R. Martin

This book was a maelstrom of awesome and ranks as one of my favorite reads in a long time. My interest in this book was slowly building to a head after seeing all of the rave reviews it (and the other books in GRRM’s epic saga known as A Song of Ice and Fire) was getting on various websites which I frequent. That little pebble snowballed when I heard it was being adapted for an HBO original series, and finally avalanched when I starting seeing some promotional ads for the show. Add all that together with a well timed and much appreciated gift from my long time cohort, pen pal and DM, and boom! I had no other option but to read this book right now.

I’ve always loved the sword and sorcery genre more in theory than I actually partook in it. My knowledge of fantasy goes only slightly beyond the extended editions of the LOTR films and the ⅚ of those books that I’ve actually read. Beyond that, I only have my four years of Dungeons-and-Dragonsing in my repertoire. Well, that and Conan the Barbarian. Looking back at my fantasy resume, it seems misguided of me for my first attempt at authoring a novel to be in this very genre. Uh, whoops.

Back to Game of Thrones, otherwise known as book one of A Song of Fire and Ice. This book has exactly what I want out of my fantasy gritty realism, intrigue and political scheming, sex, copious amounts of violence, wolves, winter and great characters. The greatest strength of this book is far and away the characters within its pages. From the too noble for his own good Eddard Stark, to the cunning Imp Tyrion Lannister and the boiling beneath the surface badass-ness of Jon Snow, every single point of view character is worth cheering for.

Movie Time 4.11

The Client - I remember as a youth reading some John Grisham novels. I don’t know why I read them, as I’ve never had an interest in law thrillers, but I did nonetheless, probably because he was immensely popular at one time and all of his books were being adapted into movies. As is the style of our times, I only read the books for the movies I had seen adaptations of. Because, I mean, who wants to imagine what characters look like when you can just go off of the Hollywood selections? As it turns out, every character in books I read nowadays looks like Don Cheadle, kind of like that creepy Malkovitch scene but with more boom-swagger-cool. Back on topic, all of that was just to say that I’ve never seen this movie, and now I have. It was okay.








The Departed - You’ve seen this movie, you know how good it is.