 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
|
|||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
The New York Times, August 2002
To a native New Yorker, Los Angeles is more than just the other city that bookends this vast nation. It's a peculiar state of mind. Like a country unto itself, they do things differently there, from valet parking to star-gawking to not jaywalking, there are some things it's just hard for a NY city girl to understand.
Consider, for example, the burgerless burger. Not a vegetarian garden burger and not a fancy tuna burger, the burgerless burger is a pervasive L.A. tradition that is little known east of the city line.
I first heard about it a few years ago from my friend Susan Rush, who lived in Hollywood. Before a trip to L.A., I called her to get restaurant recommendations. She directed me to the Apple Pan, an old-timey joint famous for their burgers and chocolate cream pie. She gave me the address and then divulged a secret.
"The regular burgers are good," she said, "but I always used to get a hickory cheeseburger without the burger. You won't even miss the meat."
Figuring this was the unique predilection of a former vegetarian, I ignored her, and ordered my hickory cheeseburger, burger and all.
But then I heard it again.
Driving down the freeway on another trip, my companion, a vegetarian, and I passed an In-N-Out burger. She pointed it out.
"That's my favorite burger place," she said.
A vegetarian with a favorite burger place?
"I get a cheeseburger without the meat," she said.
Only in LA, I thought. But it did bear further investigation.
I started asking around. It turns out that ordering a burgerless burger, either with or without the cheese, is popular in L.A., oddly, with both vegetarians and carnivores.
Tricia Rosentreter, 25, a native Angeleno and meat-eater, almost always prefers to order her In-N-Out burger sans the patty. "I love In-N-Out burgers," she said, "but you know sometimes after you eat a burger you feel kind of full and icky? So about five years ago I thought I'd try one without the meat. I was a little self-conscious at first because I thought people were going to be like 'what do you mean you don't want any meat?' but no one even blinked."
And how do they compare to the regular In-N-Out cheeseburgers?
"They're great, you get bun and melted cheese, and the taste of the special sauce and onion and pickles," she said, adding "I think part of the reason I get them is that I feel like they're a little less fattening without the meat. Then I don't feel so bad about eating the fries and the shake."
Although burgerless burgers are as much a fact of L.A. life as oversized SUVs, you won't see them printed on a fast-food menu. But locals know that they can find them at any hamburger stand. There's even a secret language for ordering them, one that changes with each venue. At Fat Burger, they're called "skinny fats." At Cassell's and In-N-Out Burger, burgerless cheeseburgers are simply called grilled cheese. And In-N-Out calls regular burgless burgers "wish burgers."
No one knows for sure when the burgerless burger trend started, but Carl Van Fleet, the Vice President of Planning and General Manager of In-N-Out Burger, said his customers have been ordering them at his chain for about 25 years. "It's not on our menu," he said, "and we don’t have it posted anywhere. It’s just basically something that customers know they can request."
Mr. Van Fleet suggested ordering the grilled cheese, animal-style, that is, with pickles and grilled onions. "The grilled onion gives it a little more flavor if you’re craving or feel like you’re missing that patty," he said.
Armed with all this information, I decided to check out the phenomenon on my next trip. I spent two days driving around the city, sampling from seven different burger joints. Cassell's near Koreatown was my first stop at 10:30 on a Friday morning. I piled their grilled cheese with plenty of onions, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, and ketchup. It was delicious and supremely satisfying even for a meat-eater like myself. The ketchup mingled with the burnt juices from the grilled onions, bleeding convincingly on the plate like true, rare-cooked beef. It was off to a good start.
The next stop was Jay's Jayburger, a tiny, sleek, chrome stand famous for their chiliburgers. My burgerless version came replete with spicy chili. Not exactly vegetarian, but I definitely didn't miss the patty. I also didn't miss it at the Apple Pan. Their hickory-sauced rendition, with lots of melted cheese, cost TK, the same as their meat-filled burger, but it was worth it. Plus a burgerless burger left me more room for chocolate cream pie. In-N-Out's grilled cheese was definitely cheesier and fresher tasting than Fat Burger's skinny fat.
Astroburger, a newer chain, was the least successful. Their menu lists burgers in every permutation, from buffalo to ostrich to turkey to garden, so they were obviously not used to serving a burgerless version. The cheese wasn't melted, a huge disappointment.
Although none of the counter people at any of the restaurants hesitated when I ordered a burgerless burger, I didn't see anyone else order one until I got to Original Tommy's, in Santa Monica. There, a short woman with huge gold hoop earrings and three-inch long purple-painted nails, ordered a "veggie burger, you know, no meat." I followed suit, with cheese.
"I've been a vegan for eight years," she said when I asked her about it, "but I still can't resist a burger."