Full-Napkin Burger
Nice Matin
201 West 79th St (@ Amsterdam)
New York, NY 10024
(212) 873-6423
[map] [subway directions]
Rating: 3/5
Notes:
- Burger: Nice Matin’s famous Five Napkin Burger might not quite live up to it’s name, but it’s definitely enormous, decidedly juicy, has a great meaty flavor, and an even, crumbly texture. And, it was cooked just right.
- Bun: With a burger this juicy, finding a bun that can hold it together is a real challenge. Unfortunately, they’ve chosen a soft, seeded brioche that is no match for the juice that spurts from the first bite of this burger.
- Garnish: Garnished with a sharp, crispy radicchio, a thick slice of beautiful, red tomato, hardly discernable comte cheese, and an overwhelming mound of sautéed, caramelized onions that contributed more to the mess than they did to the flavor.
- Mess factor: Testimony to the juiciness of this burger, after the explosive first bite, the waiter swooped back in and replaced my plate with a dry one. Despite the name, they don’t deliver a quintet of serviettes with this burger and we both ended up with one very fully-used cloth napkin.
- Fries: The fries were the standout here – deliciously flavored with garlic and rosemary and cooked to the perfect level of crispiness.
- Price: $17.50
- Bordeaux: The wine list at Nice Matin is surprisingly extensive – it isn’t the kind of place where we expected a sommelier to rush over to help us choose the right wine to pair with our hamburgers. We declined her assistance and selected a Cousino Macul Antiguas Reservas Cabernet Sauvignon from 2006. It had a nice, rich fruity flavor that went great with the burger and fries and opened up nicely over the course of the evening.
- Atmosphere: You could take a girl there, if you knew her pretty well.
- Overall: With the recent unveiling of the Five Napkin Burger restaurant in Hell’s Kitchen, we decided to try the original sandwich that inspired it. Unfortunately, we were a little disappointed. The patty itself is as tasty and juicy as we hoped, but the overall experience suffers from too many faults – most pointedly, the messy mass of onions, the flavorless cheese, and the soggy bun. The décor is like an American bistro that has forsaken the traditional bistro trappings – instead of a tile floor or faux-vintage mirrors, Nice Matin is decked out in patterned wallpaper and tall light fixtures that look like giant flat-top mushrooms with light bulbs. The space is light and airy with nice large windows overlooking the corner of 79th and Amsterdam.
Add comment June 29th, 2008