Last night after work I met Kuniko in Sannomiya to check out a burger shop that we walked by the other day. That day we had already made reservations somewhere else, so there was nothing we could do but note the name of the burger joint and move on. Last night we had a chance so we went inside and grabbed dinner.
I’m picky about burger places. If I’m going to go out to a burger restaurant instead of making custom burgers at home, it has to be a good place. The gold standard for burger joints was “Starchild”, a great little place that was in the Kitano area of Sannomiya but went out of business years ago. Starchild featured large, grilled beef patties, with plenty of veggies and big giant buns to mop up all the juice.
The place last night, SB Diner, had very good buns, but the patties were a little on the small side, they were fried, rather than grilled, and the toppings were good but not great. My topping – blue cheese – was very good, but Kuniko’s avocado and cheese was a little off. The avocado was great, but the cheese was not so delicious, maybe because it wasn’t the sharp cheddar that we’re used to.
So, a little disappointing, but not bad. We’re holding these places to a pretty high standard, so it’s not going to be easy. We’ll still make them at home and aim for perfection there. The challenge for us at home is finding buns that are the right size. Normal burger buns are sometimes available at the supermarket, but sizes big enough to accommodate our giant patties are almost impossible to find. Maybe we’ll have to take another shot at making our own…
