Beltline

The Beltline Bar in Grand Rapids, MI is one of my favorite places to eat because they have the most amazing Brownie Sundae. It is HUGE, and, well, I'm a sucker for lots of chocolate, so I'll leave it at that.

On to the burger I had the other day... a good old fashioned Bacon Cheeseburger (I have a thing with bacon too, mmm mouthwatering).

THE TOPPINGS
American cheese, sheet of lettuce, un-cut dill pickle, and two slices of bacon. I wasn't feeling very green, so I did not try the lettuce or pickle (not a fan of pickles anyway). I can only imagine that the lettuce would get a little soggy after a while seeing as it was in sheet form instead of shredded.

However, the bacon and the cheese were absolutely PERFECT. The cheese was melted onto the burger and it was the most perfectly melted cheese I have seen to this day. There were no places on the burger where there was too much cheese or too little cheese, it may very well have been some sort of spreadable cheese it was so even on the whole burger (it did not, however taste like spreadable cheese, unless there has been a spreadable cheese miracle in the past few months that I know nothing about).

The bacon added crunch to the burger. It was cooked perfectly, there wasn't too much grease on it, and it didn't hang off the bun so that at the end all you had was a couple bacon ends. It complimented the burger so well in this case... simply superb.

THE BUN
A toasted Kaiser, also added some crunch to the burger. It didn't stick to my fingers, it was light and buttery tasting, and fit the burger well. It had some grain on it that you couldn't taste (used to keep the dough from sticking to everything, kind of like flour, but more granulated like sugar). What more can I say? I really enjoyed the bun on this one.

THE MAIN EVENT
This patty is typical for a restaruant patty. 3/4 in. (roughly 1.9 cm) cooked, and this sucker is charbroiled. It looks almost burnt when you take off the bun to add ketchup, mustard, and whatnot, but it really isn't. around some of the edges there was a little crispy part of hamburg goo that had gotten in the way of the burger, but for this burger, it just added more to the flavor. It was a little lighter brown in places, which is a big turnoff for people who like their meats very well-done, but I'm still alive and I've eaten a lot of meat in my day.

OVER ALL?
On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being a shit burger to 10 being ultimate sensory delight burger, the Beltline Bar's Bacon Cheeseburger deserves a 7.8. We're close to sensory overload on this burger, but it is just sooo good.

Happy Eating!