Rehab Burger Therapy Patty Melt
Review of Rehab Burger Therapy USA Patty Melt
Website: http://rehabburgertherapy.com/
What they say:
2 relapse burgers grilled to order, cheddar cheese, green chilli’s saute’ed onions and 1000 island served on marble rye. Prepare to melt.
Price: $12.50.
Calories: Unknown.
I’ve been looking forward to this one for a very long time, for two reasons.
Firstly, I was instantly intrigued by the place having found it on the Internet. It’s what we in Britain might call a themed gourmet burger restaurant.
The theme is sort of surfing and it has a kind of California / Australia / Caribbean theme to it. A complete antidote to the desert location. I love it. Inside, the music is a bit reggae-ish.
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| Prepare to enter Rehab… |
The gourmet burger side of things – well, the large menu is made up almost entirely of burgers. Every kind imaginable. There’s loads.
There’s the spicy Ghost Burger, which Burger Lad® would enjoy. A Mac n cheese burger with a chilli kick. Hangover burger. You name it, it’s on here.
The second thing I was looking forward to immensely was my choice of burger today. The Patty Melt. This is something that is quite common in America but extremely rare in Britain. I have been wanting to get my greedy chops around one for a long time and now the day has come.
So, the thing on the top of my burger wish-list in a location that’s effortlessly cool. Here we go.
I settled into a seat, ordered a beer and took my time. This was to be a moment to savour. One mustn’t rush life’s momentous occasions.
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| Inside ready for my treatment… |
A bit of background first. A patty melt is the delicious offspring of a cheese toastie and a cheeseburger. In this particular case it’s a double cheeseburger, boosted with green chillies, 1000 Island sauce, sautéed onions and the cheese of choice is cheddar.
When it arrived at my table, my jaw dropped.
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| Behold the Patty Melt and sweet tots… |
There was a huge mound of golden crispy sweet potato tots, which I’d chosen as an alternative to fries. Tots are like tiny potato croquettes. These took up one half of the plate and on the other half sat one of the most magnificent burgers I’ve ever seen.
The essence of a patty melt is that it uses sliced toast instead of a roll. But Rehab didn’t just stick it in between two ordinary slices of toast, they’ve chosen a rye bread with a marbled effect, which is as easy on the eye as it is tasty.
Inside, “melt” was an understatement. The two patties were absolutely dripping in soft gooey onions, melted cheese, the sauce and even the large pieces of green chilli looked like they’d been to the sauna.
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| A finer thing would be hard to find… |
For once the woefully overused and cringe worthy term “awesome” actually seemed appropriate (but I’ll still never say it out loud!)
However, there was absolutely no question of picking this up and eating it with my hands. This was a job for the cutlery.
Even with the cutlery this was messy. I started with the tots first. These, at least, weren’t messy. Little almost-cubes of sweet potato in a crispy coating, these things are amazing. This is the sort of thing you could still snack on long after you were full.
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| Gooey, drippy, melty heaven… |
As much as I enjoyed these, I was eager to begin my burger moment. My first patty melt. I tried to cut a cross-section but found the contents slipping and sliding all over the place.
I eventually did get a solid cut and saw the link centres of the patties – cooked medium just as I’d asked. The cheddar was stringy and all over the place and it mixed with the sauce and soft vegetables to create topping heaven.
This burger was one of a kind. The meat was really tasty – the blurb in the menu says it is 100% something-or-other and whatever it is, it’s good.
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| Pickle the size of a Surfboard… |
I loved the gooey, stringy cheese. I loved the green chillies which were not got, but added a unique flavour that complemented the beef well. I loved the onions, all gooey and soft and very generous. I loved the bread. I loved the beef. And I even loved the slightly sour sauce which balanced out the sweet onions so well.
I also loved the place. A lot of effort has clearly gone into developing this extensive menu and creating a theme that’s unique in this desert city, and it all shows. I genuinely get the impression that I would have enjoyed my meal, whichever burger I’d chosen.
But today, I’d finally had a patty melt and my life is all the better for the experience. Thank you Rehab.
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| You cannot possibly pick this up… |
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