The Whiskey King

For a city that has its share of exceptional burgers, how does one make his new entry stand out? For an Iron Chef Kitchen Stadium winner with several successful restaurants, how is he launching a new eatery in the ever more crowded Philly dining scene?

You do something over the top.

The Whiskey King burger at the Village Whiskey is a 10 ounce blend of sirloin, chuck eye roll, and chuck sustainable beef from Wolfe's Neck at Pineland Farms in Maine, sitting on a pile of maple bourbon glazed Cipollini onions, two pieces of Applewood bacon, lettuce, a nice thick slice of tomato, and the Guinness potato roll, baked in-house. The burger is topped with smoked blue cheese from Rogue Creamery, and a slice of sautéed foie gras!

If you don’t think that’s over the top already, the price tag will push you over the edge. At $24.00, it is currently the most expensive burger in the city.

Jose Garce opened his newest place next to his Tinto restaurant as a neighborhood corner bar that features a nice selection of whiskeys with a small menu of homey comfort food. The selection of 51 whiskeys on the opening menu, however, has been overwhelmed by this Whiskey King burger. Everybody has been talking about it since the publicity picture was released in July, two months before the opening of the restaurant. The Garce PR machine successfully generated another round of buzz when it released the restaurant menu a week or so before the opening with the burger priced at a staggering $24.00.

Never turn down an opportunity to try something outrageous.

A few early reports prompted me to break my own rule of not visiting new restaurants within months of its opening. Given that the food was coming out of the Tinto kitchen and Garce runs a very tight operation, and my own weakness to resist the temptation; it was a justifiable move.

Drinking a Founders Dirty Bastard with the bar behind.

The restaurant is pretty, much like an old fashioned bar from years ago. It is rather small; smaller than the bar section in a lot of the multi-million restaurants around town. There was not much standing space and the hostess tried pretty hard to keep people out unless there was a confirmed seat.

The juice bomb.

The burger was bigger in real life than what it appeared in photos. It stood a good 4 plus inches with the bun. It only had one piece of foie topping instead of the two pieces that were in the promo photo from July; but it was also a 12 oz patty in the picture vs the 10 oz clearly stated in the current menu.

It smelled really good. After a few seconds of staring while composing a plan of attack, I went for it. I had been warned by a few who already had the burger that it was very juicy; so I held it far away from me over the plate with both hands before diving in.

My first bite hit the patty and the bottom half of the burger. I was rewarded with the tenderness of the meat seasoned just right, the sweetness of the onions, the freshness of the tomato and lettuce, and the softness of the potato roll. My second bit hit the top half. I liked the taste of the blue cheese tremendously. It went so well with the meat. The burger was charbroiled perfectly to medium rare as I had requested. I loved the smoky taste of the slightly brunt outside edge meat with the sweetness of the perfectly grilled Cipollini onions, and the taste of the blue cheese all together. It was a match made in heaven.

Look at the first picture on top. Now look at the picture above taken a minute after the first one with the juice already accumulating. Left: The juice kept coming out even halfway though the burger.

After a few more bites, I realized that I wasn’t tasting the foie gras. It was lost in the meat and the cheese! May be they should have put that extra piece of foie back? May be it was masked by the strong blue cheese which sat directly underneath? May be the soft delicate texture of the foie just couldn’t resist the meatiness of the beef? By this time, my hands were drenched with the juice and the plate was also having a nice amount of liquid swimming in it. This burger was a juice bomb! I decided to take the remaining foie off the burger, put it on the bun, then dip the whole thing in the juice, French Dip style. My eyes bulged out of their sockets. My mouth left open and speechless. My mind had gone to heaven for a few seconds. That was SO GOOD!!!

Duck fat

Everything tastes good fried. Everything tastes better fried in duck fat. I couldn’t resist but get the fries fried in duck fat. What is a burger without fries? Being a man of excess, I had to get the one with the cheese, although I did ask for it to be on the side. I was so intrigued by the fact that this cheddar cheese was made with Sly Fox beer. I did want to get the cheese fries with the short ribs but that might just be a bit too overkill with the burger, even for me.

 The fries came in a nifty little silver container. There was some sort of herb seasoning on them which was nice. But, excuse me…, I couldn’t quite discriminate that slight different flavor from the duck fat. Were my taste buds getting numb from the burger juice or was the Founders Dirty Bastard I was drinking starting to affect me already? There were a few very crispy pieces but the majority was just OK. They were not soggy but definitely could use a bit more time in the fryer. It was a slight letdown from Garce after he delivered such an outstanding burger….until I dipped the fries in the cheese.

O…M…! That cheese was unbelievably heavenly! An intense cheddar tang followed by that slight hint of bitterness you would expected from a beer in just the right creamy smooth consistency. The fries might have not been what I had expected but it served a great purpose as a vehicle to scoop the cheese into my mouth. I never found out which Sly Fox beer was used in the making of this cheese. Nor did I find out if the cheese would solidify when it cooled down. We were eating it so fast and furious that it never had the opportunity to give me the answer.

Don’t get me wrong, the fries were good. I just think that there is room for improvement to make it a “Wow!” Since the chemical composition for duck fat is closer to olive oil than butter or lard*, I at least feel less guilty about eating them.

So was this juice bomb of a burger worth its $24.00 price tag? That depends on your perspective. Tourist Tree had the regular Village burger with an 8oz patty for $9.00, plus the a la carte $3.00 Jasper Hill Cheddar and the 50 cents caramelized onion. It’s the same blend of meat, minus 2 oz; a smaller bun; less the $2.00 bacons and a piece of foie gras; but with everything else pretty much the same for almost a $10.00 difference. I did notice that there were much more juice coming out of my burger than hers. Yes, there were a few things that could be improved. Both the bacons and the fries could be crisper; the pickles were nothing special(don’t think it was made in-house); and I could use that extra piece of foie gras. My bun was huge but I did use the excess bread to mop up the juice on the plate. Some people may say that this burger is an exorbitant consumption and is not worth the premium, but I enjoyed eating this hunk of meat with all its trimmings in my hands and the bragging right that comes with this debauchery (OK, I didn’t get the fried egg on top of it). If God were to have a burger, this might very well be the one.

* “Fatty Acids in Food and Their health Implications” Ching Kuang Chow, Editor. Marcel Deekar, Publisher New York, 1992.

* Tourist Tree had Ommegang Hennepin with her burger.