Friday, August 31, 2012

Rare burgers legal tomorrow!

You can, as of Sept. 1, order a burger rare in North Carolina! (Food editor Kathi Purvis writes about details in Saturday's paper.)

The Liberty, in response, will offer 50 percent off all pub burgers ordered rare this weekend. 1812 South Blvd.; 704-332-8830.

The Harper's group also plans celebrating what its Tom Sasser calls "an historic occasion!" He's at work with his brother, who raises beef cattle, to get a Wagyu animal ready to use for ground beef, and all the restaurants have a burger on the menu: Upstream, both Harper's, Zink and Mimosa Grill. Sasser says he's prepping a promotion and considering a contest among the restaurants for best burger.

In a quick survey of other known-for-burger locations:

Brooks' Sandwich House won't do anything differently: "We cook to well done all the time," said a server.

Frank Scibelli's Bad Daddy's Burger Bar group is making plans now, though DNC business will delay it a bit: Figure the next week or two before you see signs posted and rare burgers offered.

At fast-service Pinky's Westside Grill, partner David Rhames says "We're not going to mess with it; we move too quickly ... going to temp (offering burgers cooked to different temperatures) is way too much trouble. But we're all for it!"

The Crepe Cellar's Jeff Tonidandel, caught in a deli out of town (smart man), said they hadn't kept up on that, "but we'll be rocking that out, for sure."

7 comments:

Bill said...

There is now way in heck, that I would order a rare burger at a restaurant. Sorry, but the chances for contamination are incredibly high within any restaurant.

Patricia Hines said...

Very good news. Since moving to North Carolina in 2003, I've rarely ordered hamburgers in restaurants because I don't like them well cooked. I trust establishments like the The Harper's Group, FireBirds, etc. to ensure food safety standards are adhered to.

Anonymous said...

What you might not realize is that 98 % of the time when someone gets a foodborne illness it is from eating at home......

Anonymous said...

Can we find a way to make sure all the DNC idiots manage to eat an e-coli burger this week?

Jason said...

Hooray! I don't want a rare burger, but I'd appreciate a medium one!

Anonymous said...

All the DNC idiots get ecoli? Nice post, fella. Glad to see you really stand behind the first amendment. I mean, as long as people agree with you, you do.

GeorgeB said...

"Wagyu animal ready to use for ground beef"

This is one of the biggest marketing schemes in foodieland. First, a Wagyu steer raised outside of Japan is like Chateau Lafite grown in North Carolina - not quite the same thing. And the essence of a Japanese Wagyu steak is its extreme fattiness and tenderness, something literally ground out of recognition in the grinding process. Wagyu/Kobe ground beef is indistinguishable from any other made with the same proportions of scrap meat, fat, & gristle trimmings. It's a clever use of the 90% of the carcass remaining after removing the "prime cuts," but a noticeably better burger it's not.