Burger Photo Gallery (click pictures to enlarge)

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THE JOINT

Since I launched this burger blog, one of the burger joints that has come up time and time again when talking about LA Burger spots has been Slater’s 50/50. Their claim to fame being their signature 50/50® burger patty that is a blend of 50% ground beef and 50% ground bacon.

My family and I recently took a trip to Disneyland and my first stop after the drive from Sacramento to Anaheim was to check out this casual, full service restaurant that I had heard so much about.

THE BURGER

They actually have 5 different kinds of meats to choose from when ordering your hamburger, but for this first visit I decided to try the namesake 50/50.  If you’re like me, you’re thinking “how could you go wrong with grinding up bacon INSIDE the burger?”

The menu description of the signature 50/50 was even more appetizing. It was topped with a fried egg (always a win in my book), an avocado mash, pepper jack cheese and a chipotle mayo. Everything about that just sounds so RIGHT.

Unfortunately, the burger was so wrong.

If it’s even possible, there was an overload of bacon flavor. I feel almost blasphemous for even saying there could ever be an overload of bacon. If ever there was an oxymoronic phrase, it’s bacon overload. There was none of the sweet pork flavor or the smokiness of a well cooked slab of bacon, there was just this abundance of saltiness and grit that made every chew a chore.

The burger also seemed to be cooked way too long, leaving the patty itself dry and lumpy instead of each bite being juicy and buttery as a beautiful burger should be. I was notified beforehand that because of the heavy bacon content in the burger patty, that they always have to cook this particular patty to well done to insure the pork is cooked all the way through.  I took my chances thinking that they would have nailed the preparation of their specialty burger no matter how it was cooked.

Although I’m not a huge fan of avocado, the fried egg and avocado mash added some good flavor and succulence to the top hafl of each bite. I don’t remember if the burger had tomato and lettuce, but it felt like the burger could use some produce to round out the decadence of the sandwich.

The bun held up well, but the initial presentation came with the bun looking overly shiny with grease. The petty jack cheese was a nice choice to give the cheeseburger a little kick. The cheese selection also helped to balance out the saltines of the burger patty.

For sides we had onion rings, fried pickles and french fries. My wife loved the onion rings and pickles. I thought the fries were pretty good. My chocolate peanut butter milkshake was fantastic though! Real spoonfuls of peanut butter were swirled throughout the shake and surprised me each time I took a sip. I also ordered their Bakon Mary (spicy), but it could have used a bit more bloody mary mix and a bit less vodka (did I really just say less vodka??)

THE VERDICT

For a burger that I had such high hopes for, I don’t know that I’d give the 50/50 another shot. On paper it shouldn’t been an easy homerun. A grand slam even. However, I’d have to give my 3/3 pound hybrid pork/beef patty a single at best. This was a case where the separate ingredients were actually better than the sum of its parts.

I really dug the available optionis for their build your own burger menu, so I could see myself going back to try a regular beef burger (or that intriguing FIRE patty) done to a nice medium rare as all burgers should be.

Tags: bacon, featured, fried egg