The Seattle Burger Tour: March 2010

About a month ago now, we ventured out to a seldom-visited land called Interbay, which sits somewhere between Ballard, Queen Anne, Magnolia, and Downtown, to probably the most famous burger joint in Seattle.....Red Mill Burgers. Red Mill has been mentioned in GQ magazine, was featured on the TV show Man vs Food, and has even been mentioned on the Oprah Winfrey Show. It is always part of discussions about the best burger in Seattle, so it was our turn to find out.

Red Mill offers an essentially classic burger selection. You can get a single or double, with our without pepper bacon. Other burger options include a blue cheese burger, bbq burger, and a red caramelized onion burger. They also offer veggie or chicken burgers for those who don't eat red meat.

Pair of Bacon Deluxes w/ Cheese

The beef in the burgers at Red Mill are 1/4 pound, flame broiled fresh beef patties. The Deluxe burgers come with lettuce, tomato, pickle, red onion, and mill sauce. The Bacon Deluxes come with Red Mill's famous pepper bacon, which you can smell the second you walk in the door. Interestingly, Red Mill uses American cheese as their standard on the cheeseburgers. This is all served on a simple seasame seed bun.

I ordered the Double Bacon Deluxe with Cheese. My first thought was that beef patties seemed thin and unsubstantial....and they were. Since I ordered a double burger I had plenty of meat, but I'm sure a single would not have been enough for my large appetite. Additionally, the beef was a little over cooked, not too juicy, and not very flavorful. Where this burger really shined was in the fixings. The burger is heaped full of fresh lettuce, tomato, and onions (there are also pickels, but I removed those). There were plenty of veggies

to get me through the entire burger. The Mill Sauce adds a nice smokey flavor and keeps your bites moiste, and the entire things is topped with a perfectly melted slice of, yes, American cheese. Normally I would take cheddar over American any day of th week, but the American cheese works great in this burger. Finally, the highlight of the fixings was the pepper bacon. The bacon was cooked perfectly; not soft and greasy, and not overly crunchy. I didn't count exactly how many stips topped the burger, but the strips were huge and I seemed to have bacon in every bite. The bun was a standard sesame seed bun, substantial enough to hold all the fixings together the whole way through the burger, and light enough to not take away from any of the burger flavor. Cathy and I shared a choclate chip mint malt which was like sipping minty deliciousness through a straw. The fries on the side were a good compliment to the burger, but the better option for a side is the onion rings. There were thick, not overly battered, and the entire onion didn't pull out with each bite. I definitely enjoyed this burger and would go back in a heatbeat. There are a couple other burgers I would like to try, mainly the Red Onion Jam Burger & BBQ Burger, but the Double Bacon Deluxe will remain a stable. My personal ratings for this burger, using our new rating system, are...

Meat: 2.5

Bunnage: 3.5

Fixings: 4.5

Overall: 4

We had an awesome turnout for this Burger Tour dinner....10 burger eaters.

Top row: Jason, Dave, Cathy, Julie, Mike, Brad,

Bottom Row: Elaine, Alice, Annie, Tod

Before I give you the results of everyone's ratings, take a look at a quick video taken with the Flip Cam.

And now what you've all been waiting for....the results of our new rating system.

MEAT:

BUNNAGE:

FIXINGS:

OVERALL:

Pretty darn good scores for Red Mill Burgers. I'd say that Red Mill lived up to its reputation, and the bacon seemed to be the best part (sorry Annie, you'll have to go back and get a bacon burger). One aspect of Red Mill Burgers that I didn't mention is that it is an excellent value. All their burgers are under $7 (less than the happy hour burger price at El Gaucho), and you're getting a very good burger.

Here's a few more pics from Red Mill.