Bobby’s Burger Palace

Paramus, N.J.

Eatontown, N.J.

Lake Grove, N.Y.

Uncasville, CT

As reviewed by Foodies Like Us Guest Blogger, Sue Candland.  

Contest Winner!!!!!

The world’s finest chefs tempt your taste buds with fabulous menus in gorgeous restaurants. Just don’t let your pocketbook find out. That is where it gets ugly. Fortunately, the new trend in affordable eating seems to be going towards “Good Food Fast” and away from just “Fast Food”. As a mom of a toddler and married to a loveable man-child I probably won’t make it to the fancy restaurants of Food Network’s finest. But if all of them go the way of Bobby Flay, I might find a way to enjoy their culinary delights in a way that my taste buds, pocket book and family can all enjoy.

Large Menus that suit the even LARGER burgers!

I was a little disappointed at having to order at a counter. But I guess even good food fast has to make its concessions to service. Gigantic menu’s display all of Bobby’s Burgers.  Bobby’s burgers are each a salute to a little piece of America.  The trouble is picking which one you don’t want to try! What I wasn’t aware of, and wish I had known, was that any of the burgers can be substituted with a turkey burger or chicken breast instead of the certified Angus beef or can be “topless” and served on a bed of lettuce. (Bread is an annoying conduit for me and I would have definitely gone topless!) The next choice to be made is if you would like your burger “crunchified”. Since I had done my homework before I knew that Bobby will add potato chips on top of your burger ….free of charge. I love free! Just when I thought we were done making choices it was on to the sides! Would I like French fries? Onion Rings? Sweet Potato Fries? I stuck with an order of fries and offered to share with everybody. I was really in it for the burger experience.   It was at the soda fountain I found another reason to love Bobby…. Fresca.  Hey, it’s the simple things that woo me!

Lovely communal seating

The dining room is set up with extra long tables that take up the length of the room which makes dining neighbor friendly. On a busy night you would be forced to rub elbows with your neighbor whether you knew them or not. The colors were warm and simple and were a muted tribute to condiment colors red, yellow and green.  Enlarged paintings of burger topping served as artwork.  I have a 3 year old and a 36 year old that really don’t care to take in the atmosphere and sit still while doing so. It was a great relief that the restaurant lived up to the “fast food” moniker.

A variety of sauces--would you expect less from Mr. Flay?

 There is something satisfying and annoying about food that is so large that you cannot possibly fit in your mouth. There is no doubt that the tower on my plate was mouthwatering. The bottom of the burger’s bun was not even visible through the runny blue cheese and buffalo sauce. Neither was the burger for that matter! It was a gigantic mess topped with a generous handful of potato chips and the top half of the bun. The poor dear couldn’t even stand straight with a gigantic wooden dowel driven through it! I will admit, my promises to document the experience with pictures were almost forgotten. I was ready to dive into the burger when I had to move the camera out of the way. If it had not been blocking my way to burger bliss you would be viewing a picture of my empty plate!

The burger that ate New Jersey

I am a small girl and if I was standing toe to hoof with this burger it would have at least been up to my waist. I have no business eating a burger this large. I normally would have eaten half and saved the rest for later. I don’t even know if I took a breath during the obliteration of this burger. I know I closed my eyes for most of it. I chewed the food and rolled it around in my mouth to savor the flavor. All my favorite flavors couldn’t have been better. Pungent blue cheese melted and runny, tangy buffalo sauce a top of fresh Angus beef that is just cooked enough so it won’t run off my plate! Bobby shouldn’t have stopped at “palace”. He could have called it Bobby’s Burger Heaven and totally gotten away with it!

After I opened my eyes and stopped myself from licking the plate, I dutifully tried all the ketchups in front of me on the bucket of fries. Sorry, I am not a ketchup girl and so none of them did much for me. I guess the selection is a nice thought. In addition to regular ketchup, Bobby offers a chipotle ketchup (not too spicy), burger sauce (steak sauce) and jalapeño hot sauce (the jalapeños just kind of walked through it, didn’t really linger) and a barbeque sauce (self explanatory) and with the fries comes a fry sauce. All of these sauces (and the burger rub) can also be purchased at the restaurant.

Fry Goodness!

I wish I can say I had room to even think about an ice cream shake. Rumor has it that Bobby was determined to make the perfect shake and spent months trying to figure out how much ice cream it would take. The answer is probably something I don’t really want to know since I would like to have one in the future!  And then it was over. My perfect burger experience had ended and although stuffed to the point of uncomfortable, if someone had set another one of those messy towers of goodness in front of me….I would have found a way!