Gott's Roadside / San Francisco

But the sauce…

This place is nestled within the Ferry Building Marketplace, which fells like a cross between Borough Market and the arty-farty food court at Stratford Westfield. Only more awesome. Than both. See #AmericansDoItBetter. It has a canteen/trendy bar/workshop vibe about it, which works since it does indeed manage to be both trendy and comfortable at the same time.

I like that they are attempting to blur the line between the restaurant burger and the fast food burger here - It was pretty quick to arrive and looked great, the yellow colouring of the bun innards popping on first glance.

It was a solid effort. A well cooked patty and wicked gooey American cheese with all the necessary extras. But the sauce… well, the sauce just added a *meh* factor.

Yeah, most ‘special sauces’ have their basis in a version of Thousand Island. But, don’t just use Thousand Island, which it tasted like Gott’s did. Maybe I’m being harsh and they do create their own sauce, but it’s so uncannily Thou’land that it just detracted from the positives of the rest of the burger.

I’d go back to try their other offerings, and their bacon cheeseburger, because it’s such a neat place, in a really neat place.

gotts.com

• Rob.

Roam Artisan Burgers / San Francisco, CA

“You’ve got to do something pretty remarkable for the hyper-connected SF populous to notice you…”

Straight off the plane after a delayed flight, we dump the bags at the hotel, hail a cab and head straight for Roam Artisan Burgers which sits more or less in the middle of Union Street. The next time you’re in San Francisco, I recommend you do exactly the same thing because Roam has my top burger of 2011. It’s called the French and Fries, and here it is:

A luxurious combo of creamy California avocado, dijon mustard, melted gruyere and watercress with a few truffle-oiled parmesan fries poking out just for the sheer hell of it. This thing was a fucking revelation. Roam aren’t scared to shift from burger tradition and introduce a few unorthodox ingredient combinations, and frankly they nail it every time. You’ve got to do something pretty remarkable for the hyper-connected SF populous to notice you (and form the consequent, ever-present queue out the door) and Roam have done that with laid-back aplomb.

Each burger is put together with genuine care, and all the individual ingredients are the best they can be. The bun is firm but squidgy, the patties are flawlessly cooked and the meat flavour is never masked by the addition of various homemade sauces.

To gush further, all of Roam’s speciality burgers cost eight bucks each.

Eight dollars.

It’s so unfair.

I’ve not had anything as confidently brilliant as the F&F anywhere else this year.

For the sake of comparison, we tried the Heritage burger. It’s a slightly more traditional bacon cheeseburger, albeit with fontina cheese instead of Swiss or American. It was also effortlessly competent.

A quick mention must also go to the ‘Fry-fecta’, a selection of all three types of fries: russet potato, sweet potato and courgette with onion. Supermodel looks, salty more-ishness and not a hint of grease anywhere to be found. Sharing them almost broke out into a fight. Heaven as starch.

I cannot stress enough how much of an SF must Roam is.

EIGHT FUCKING DOLLARS!

• Simon.

Roamburgers.com