Thurmanators and Other Excessive Hamburgers

[Chris Amirault]

I came across the Thurmanator the other day, a big stack of food that you can get at Columbus, Ohio's Thurman Cafe. As described on this blog entry, it is

bun, mayo, lettuce, tomato, pickle, hot peppers, 12 oz burger, bacon, cheddar, another 12 oz burger, sauteed onion, mushroom, green pepper, ham, american and provolone cheese, and a bun to top it off.

It got me to thinking about this phenomenon of massive, over-the-top burgers, which seems to be a category but one I don't completely understand. Depending on how you describe the category, they can range from the Carl's Jr Bacon Cheese Six Dollar Burger to foie gras burgers on brioche buns. There also seems to be a built-in eating contest with many of them; if you click on that blog entry above, for example, one diner is hailed for plunging two Thurmanators down his gullet.

Are there any must-try excess burgers? What counts? What doesn't? What are the rules?

[Darienne]

Was just relating this morning's posts about fast food, Thurmanators et al to the DH and he replied...what about those 'free if you can eat it all' 40 oz steaks you see advertised on the billboards in Texas and other States? Yummm...

Not a burger, but still worthy of mention.

[JAZ]

Sometimes what's interesting is not the size of the burger so much as all the stuff that's on it. I was having lunch at a not particularly good bar and grill the other day, and the "burger" section of the menu didn't even have a plain cheeseburger listed, much less a hamburger. Rather, there were increasingly complex accretions of toppings, culminating in the "Kitchen Sink" burger, which had (as I recall) bacon, mushrooms, some kind of pepper, two cheeses and a fried egg -- and I'm sure I'm forgetting a few things.

I think that when the burger itself is not great, a restaurant will rely on excessive toppings to try to cover that fact. But exactly why a giant mediocre burger would be a better thing than a small mediocre burger is anyone's guess.

[Lisa Shock]

As a vegetarian I find many of these burgers amusing. It's as if the establishment is admitting that the meat isn't an important component for flavor. Many of these concoctions make great veggie sandwiches if you just hold the burger.

[mizducky]

As a vegetarian I find many of these burgers amusing. It's as if the establishment is admitting that the meat isn't an important component for flavor. Many of these concoctions make great veggie sandwiches if you just hold the burger.

Y'know, I would have thought the same thing (even though I'm an omnivore, I do low meat/no-meat meals on a regular basis). However, there's a great vegetarian cafe here in San Diego (VegNout) that specializes in big overloaded veggie burgers, and it's proved to me that the burger still matters. Not because I miss the meat from their sandwiches, but because they have a choice of veggie patties, and I definitely prefer one type to the others -- and I can tell the difference even with all the other stuff piled on top. By the way, if you click through to their menu I'll point out my favorite of their burger topping combos, their Western burger; they make good onion rings, so they're good on the burger.

This leads into my personal rule for excessively-topped burgers: I really really do want to taste the burger under all that, and I want it to be a burger worth tasting. One of the reasons why, if I am stuck for late-night food and have to do a fast-food drive-through, I wind up at Carl's, because at least IMO their burgers taste more burger-like than the other options. It's also why I have never quite gotten the mystique of the In-n-Out burger -- I've done the animal-style thing, and it's fun to have a secret password thing going on, but the patties themselves strike me as ho-hum, so why pile all the other stuff on?

Likewise, there are some excessive burger-toppings that I have mixed feelings about, regardless of where I've ordered them. After several encounters with blue cheese-topped beef burgers, I have come to the conclusion that the way most places pile on the blue cheese, its flavor completely blots out everything else -- and while I adore blue cheese, it's the combo of that and the beef I was yearning for, not just the cheese swamping the beef flavor. So I figure, if I want that combo, I'm going to have to make it at home where I can control the amount of cheese going on top. Yeah, I know it flies in the face of this whole excess-burger thing, but sometimes less is definitely more.

Another by-the-way: my personal favorite for excessive beef burger here in San Diego remains Hodad's. The double bacon cheeseburger is ridiculously huge -- but the patties are also very good, and expertly cooked.

[gfweb]

Two Fat Guys in Northern DE has a humongous Fat Guy Burger and, naturally, an eating contest.

What is on this giant burger? "What isn't?" is a better question. It is gross in all senses of the word.

[Chris Amirault]

Article in the food issue of the NY Times Magazine about Jamie Oliver's little social engineering experiment, and the lead focuses on, well, read on:

On his first day in Huntington, W. Va., Jamie Oliver spent the afternoon at Hillbilly Hot Dogs, pitching in to cook its signature 15-pound burger. That’s 10 pounds of meat, 5 pounds of custom-made bun, American cheese, tomatoes, onions, pickles, ketchup, mustard and mayo. Then he learned how to perfect the Home Wrecker, the eatery’s famous 15-inch, one-pound hot dog (boil first, then grill in butter). For the Home Wrecker Challenge, the dog gets 11 toppings, including chili sauce, jalapeños, liquid nacho cheese and coleslaw. Finish it in 12 minutes or less and you get a T-shirt.

[Toliver]

Another by-the-way: my personal favorite for excessive beef burger here in San Diego remains Hodad's. The double bacon cheeseburger is ridiculously huge -- but the patties are also very good, and expertly cooked.

Amen to Hodad's. Once my brother gets a grip on his Hodad burger, he doesn't let go for anything. He even gets his daughter to feed him french fries (or their great onion rings) so he doesn't have to free his hands up. He has it down to an art, to say the least.