Burger Photo Gallery (click pictures to enlarge)

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

THE JOINT

Ella Dining Room and Bar is an upscale restaurant located in downtown Sacramento, CA. They specialize in serving a seasonally aware menu that highlights local and sustainable farms, ranches and growers.  Ella opened its doors along the Capitol Mall in September of 2007.

I think I first heard about Ella after dining at The Kitchen (one of the Selland Family’s other Sacramento area restaurants) for my wife’s birthday. Then, I had the opportunity the visit the restaurant during Sacramento’s first DishCrawl. I was very impressed by the large open dining spaces and luxurious interior of the restaurant that all it took was one tweet reminder to spur a trip the very next day to try out their Wagyu Beef Cheeseburger special.

THE BURGER

The cheeseburger at Ella is made from Wagyu beef, topped with peppered bacon and covered in a Gruyère cheese. The first time I had Wagyu beef was only a week or so before at the Selland’s Kitchen restaurant.  Their they served the rib eye cut as a thinly sliced entrée and I loved it immediately. After Googling a bit, I learned that it was the intense marbling in Wagyu beef that give it its uniquely delicious beef flavor.  I was pretty stoked when I heard they were using Wagyu beef for their burger special.

There are some burgers you love for their outrageous ingredients (like the Behemoth) and some burgers you love for their simplicity. The Wagyu beef bacon cheeseburger from Ella was definitely the latter.  A classic bacon cheeseburger made classier by using a superior quality of beef cooked to a perfect medium, adding a creamy, slightly nutty, almost sweet cheese and topping it all with a wonderful peppered bacon that gave the sandwich both the saltiness and zing that a good burger needs.

With all  my burger eating, it was nice to have a burger served with a great side salad to give me my fix of ruffage.  The french fries on the plate made me think of those old cereal commercials back in the 80’s that always proclaimed that their cereal was part of a well balanced breakfast.

THE VERDICT

The lunch special at Ella certainly felt well balanced and at $15 for the burger, fries, salad and drink, it was a well balanced deal as well. I know a lot more restaurants are using Kobe beef on their burgers these days, but personally, I prefer the flavor of Wagyu beef hands down.  I can see my wife and I heading back to Ella during a date night or two. Although they probably won’t have the burger on the dinner menu, I’m sure I’d be satisfied by some of their other succulent seasonal selections.

If you’re lucky enough to catch the Wagyu Beef Bacon Cheeseburger on the lunch menu at Ella, don’t pass it up!

Tags: farm to table, featured, national hamburger month, sacburgermonth, wagyu