Burger Photo Gallery (click pictures to enlarge)

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THE JOINT

My wife and I were about to embark on a week long road trip to celebrate our wedding anniversary.  Luckily, we have some awesome family that we can trust to take care of our kids while we’re away doing coupley things.

I was tasked to do all the planning for this trip, which means that the romantic getaways would need to be within a close radius of some great food burgers.

Our first stop before we began our foodie romantic journey was a visit to Paul Martin’s American Bistro in Roseville, CA.  My wife’s family met us there for a Sunday brunch and childcare exchange combo. Paul Martin’s is a new American restaurant that features locally sourced ingredients, organic produce and humanely raised meat.

THE BURGER

I ordered the Bistro Burger which is described as using fresh ground Meyer Ranch natural Angus, black pepper aioli, with your choice of 12 point reyes blue cheese or tillamook cheddar.  I went with the Tillamook cheddar and added all natural bacon for an extra buck fifty.  Since it was brunch, I asked the server if I could get a fried egg on the burger and she quickly said “sure”, before she was even sure how to ring it up.  I like that kind of service :)

There’s a noticeable difference between a fresh ground burger and one that has been cooked from a frozen patty. I don’t know if “freshness” is a taste quality, but I swear the beef tastes extra fresh when the restaurant either grinds their own burgers or works from non-frozen ground beef.

My burger came cooked to a perfect medium rare. Browned (but no char crust) on the outside and nicely pink and juicy in the middle. The black pepper aoili was sufficiently spicy and complimented the beef patty like a single guy working the bar on ladies night. For produce, they used shredded lettuce, diced red onions and sliced tomatoes to top the sandwich. With my added fried egg, two strips of bacon and a bacon Bloody Mary to chase it down, it turned out to be a beautiful brunch burger adventure.

THE VERDICT

When rating burgers, the bottom line really boils down to a couple of key questions: “Would you go there again” and “would you recommend it”. The Bistro Burger allows me to easily answer yes to both of those. The black pepper aioli allows me to check yes to an important third query “do you crave this burger”.  In this burgerjunkies opinion, cravability is what separates a “good burger” from a “great burger”.  If you’re around the Roseville area, take a trip to Paul Martin’s American Bistro for a great meal.

Tags: bacon, featured, fried egg, roseville

4 Responses to “Bistro Burger – Paul Martin’s American Bistro – Roseville, CA”

1. 

   Ross October 12, 2011 at 9:51 am #

   Wow! That first image is a HOT one! It needs to go on a T-shirt. ;)

   Reply
2. 

   Sean October 27, 2011 at 9:59 pm #

   Great review. Photo question for you, did you use flash? And if not, what are your settings / lens choices? I was pushing my 50mm f1.8 and ISO to the max in here, and still did a little exposure bumping in Aperture!

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     Rodney October 28, 2011 at 10:35 am #

     @Sean I know a lot of photogs don’t use a flash for their food photography, but for that first photo (my favorite of the bunch), I did use a flash.

     For the 4th, 5th, and 6th photos above, I didn’t use a flash and my ISO was bumped up to about 1000 at f4.0 and I used Lightroom to help me out a bit exposure-wise. I took these shots before I started using Lightroom though, so I’m finding a lot more of my so-so photos can be improved with a little Adobe help :)

     Reply
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       Sean October 28, 2011 at 2:39 pm #

       Huh, maybe I just had a particularly dark table. I just looked back and my ISO was cranked to 5000 at f1.8. Turns out I didn’t adjust the burger shot much in Aperture, but I know I probably did bump some of the others up.

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