Wednesday, March 24, 2010

500 Degrees (From the other Fatty!)

Yes, KK is a former Rouge-ette. This definitely makes her more of an expert on this place. But let's be honest, I love me some burgers. And I like any joint where I can stop in quickly, order, and make a quick escape. 500 Degrees is soon to be this new spot, I am almost assured of it.

Yesterday was not a quick stop, unfortunately. Lots of people had gotten wind of the awesome deals they were running (first 100 burgers for free and buy-one-get-one-free after that)... And they wanted in on the burger madness. So did we. So for the sake of good blogging and the sake of our perma-hungry bellies, we waited a little over an hour to snake our way around the corner and into the doors of 500 degrees.

Was it worth it? Maybe not on a normal day. But is it worth a manageable line and the money on any day where they'll have a pretty regular amount of business? Absolutely.

I heard a lot of comparisons to Five Guys while we were waiting. This is not Five Guys. And I love that place. This is just different, so stop comparing apples to oranges, my friends.

First of all, the burger is made with that delicious secret blend that they use over at Rouge and I'm pretty sure they're never going to tell us what it is. But I can tell you that it's delicious. Due to the ten billion people that were crowding the door, my burger was closer to medium well than medium rare. But damn, they were cranking out a lot of food, so this is permissible. And you know what? It was still delicious and juicy and tender and topped with swiss cheese that made my little fat girl heart sing with joy! (Can you believe that this fat kid has actually pursued vegetarianism as a viable dietary option in the past? She repents and bows at the knees of the burger gods now.)

I got a milkshake with my meal that brought my total purchase to just about $14. A little more money than you're going to pay at the typical fast-food burger joint. But as I stated, this is not the typical fast-food burger joint.

The milkshakes are made with local Bassett's ice cream and they are rich and creamy and compliment the burger in a beautiful balance of savory and sweet. Pretty much the Laverne and Shirley of burgers and shakes.

And the truffle fries? Maybe I should have ventured out and gone for plain or spicy, but you throw out the word "truffle" and I'm gonna run. Mostly because I like to see that truffle is done right. Sometimes I feel like food establishments go heavy on the truffle and make a meal overwhelming. Not so at 500 Degrees. As Krystina noted, there was an expert mix of salt and truffle and the fries were delectable, especially with the aioli that accompanied them.

In fact, this morning I stuck my left-over fries in our oven and re-heated them. Not many fries can stand up to that torture, but they made a delicious Elevensies snack (yeah, I eat the meal between breakfast and lunch, and I say that everybody should).

Things I really loved about 500 Degrees: The quality is definitely worth the price. It is quick (I'm assuming, on a normal day) and cooked to order. Less expensive and less indulgent than a meal at Rouge, it still stands up to their level of deliciousness.

Things I didn't love: Uhhh, just the fact that apparently everybody in Philly was onto their awesome opening day deals and beat us to the punch when it came to getting in that ridiculous line!

Fat kid Moira approves and that means that we have an official thumbs up for 500 degrees. Ohhh sweet burger heaven, we're coming back for seconds!

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