March 27, 2011

Live, from New York, it’s Saturday Night Cheeseburger! Tonight’s host is Whitmans in the East Village and featuring the ready for prime beef player, Marty Wombacher. Ladies and gentlemen...Whitmans!

And here we go down Fifth to 9th, hang a left and off we go to the East Village.

Oh jeez, this fucking poster is going to start haunting me. A second after I shot this photo a voice behind me shouted out, "There'll never be someone who can play Arthur like Dudley Moore." I spun around and agreed with...

This fellow, Metal Mike. We had a nice chat about movies, Paul Giamatti and New York. That's one of the things I like about doing this blog, all the different people you meet. Okay, onwards towards the cheeseburger, I'm starvin' like Marvin over here!

And here we are at Whitmans. I hope it's not crowded in here.

And look at this, not crowded at all. It's unseasonably cold out and I think a lot of people stayed home tonight. All the better for us!

I decided to start out with a can of Genesee and Claire behind the counter was happy to serve it up. Cheers!

There's tables next to the brick wall on one side.

But I opted to sit at the marble topped counter facing the white tiled wall on the other side of the room.

Here's a shot of my view from where I was seated.

The place is named after writer Walt Whitman, here's a drawing of him on the brick wall.

Guests are welcome to draw portraits of Walt which Whitmans will hang up. Here's one hanging in the back. Note the tin ceiling, nice!

Rose was working downstairs, but made a trip upstairs and I snapped a photo of her showing off the tip jar. If you eat here, throw something in here, the staff is nice and deserves it.

And before you know it, Mick shows up with tonight's meal. Let's check it out.

This looks like one tasty cheeseburger. And the orange coloring at the top isn't the cheese it's mustard. The cheese is...

In the middle of the burger. Oh my God, I think this is the best cheeseburger I've ever had!

Afterwards I decided to check out the lower level of Whitmans.

It's dark and the walls are a wooden brown down here. Kind of a romantic setting.

Speaking of romantic, here's a couple that's making out down here. Let's give them a little privacy and go back upstairs.

Here's Claire with Alex, I thanked them for the great service and cheeseburger and...

Glanced out the window and wished spring would get here. It was a chilly walk home. Goodnight everybody and see you tomorrow after dark.

My Meal
I had the specialty of the place, The Juicy Lucy, along with an order of homemade potato chips. For a beverage I had three cans of Genesee beer. The Juicy Lucy is a cheeseburger with the cheese stuffed inside of the burger, supposedly this was invented at one of two bars in Minneapolis. At Whitman’s they stuff it with pimento cheese, and add carmelized onions, lettuce, tomato and a special sauce. The homemade potato chips were also very tasty. Everyone that works here is super-friendly in a genuine way and it's a cozy little cheeseburger emporium with table and counter seating upstairs and a dining room downstairs. if you followed the 365 blog and have been following this one, you know I've been to a lot of cheeseburger places in the last 14 months. Well, I'm declaring their Juicy Lucy as the best cheeseburger I've had so far. It is the cheeseburger to beat and the one which all future cheeseburgers will be judged by. You have to check it out. I’m instituting a new rating system here at MAD for Cheeseburgers. It goes from one Wimpy (poor) to four Wimpy’s (delicious!)

MAD Cheeseburger Rating For Whitmans:

Whitmans
406 E. 9th St. (Near 1st Ave.)
212-228-8011

Further reading: Grub Street, Serious Eats, MenuPages and God Bless Burgers.

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An on-going Twitter conversation between the King and I.

Find out what the King suggested, this Monday at the Papaya Wars!

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A couple weeks ago Fat Al, one half of the fine team over at The Half Empty Glass, wrote a post about a company that names its bottled water, Fred. That is a really stupid name for a bottle of water. But it got me thinking about other names that would improve with the inclusion of the name, Fred. And so here a list of a band, a hairstyle, a movie and a shoe product that would all sound better if they incorporated the word “Fred” into their respective names.
Fred Zeppelin
Fredlocks
Fred
Freds

My, my the clock in the sky is pounding away,
There’s so much to say.

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