burgers

It’s Friday morning, and you’re craving some burgers, right? Right?! I knew it. I’m a mind reader, you know!

Let’s hop to it.

A few weeks ago, I was invited to the soft opening of Smashburger. It’s a small restaurant chain that has a few locations around the country. However, this was the first location to open in the St. Louis area. Exciting, right?

With its only location in St. Charles, Smashburger was quite a drive for me, but if there’s one thing I don’t mind, it’s traveling for food! Dedication, yo.

 

The place was pretty spiffy! Lots of bright colors. They stuck with the red and white motif throughout the entire restaurant.

I took a few minutes to study the expansive menu. Smashburger offers a ton of specialty burgers, as well as the option to create your own burger by picking the buns, toppings, cheese, etc.

I wasn’t feeling particularly creative, so I selected a few of their specialty burgers to try.

 

The St. Louis burger came highly recommended, so I started with that. It contains provel cheese, garlic grilled mushrooms, grilled onions, and sweet bell peppers on a pretzel bun.

Before I go any further, I must state that I was extremely wary about this burger. Want to guess why? One word: provel. Remember my experience at Imo’s? I’m not a fan of provel cheese.

But I’m a trooper, and I figure I’ve eaten stranger things (chicken feet, anyone?), so I went with it. I also had an order of smashfries with this burger.

 

 

The burger itself was quite tasty! The pretzel bun was ridiculously soft and delicious. And the flavors of everything else melded together wonderfully! I even *gasp* enjoyed the provel cheese! That’s a first.

The smashfries were fantastic! They were tossed with rosemary, olive oil, and garlic. Perfectly crispy and hot. Yum.

I had a few bites of the burger and a couple of the fries. No, I’m not on a diet! (As if!) I was saving room for my next burger: The BBQ, Bacon & Cheddar.

This burger featured Maull’s BBQ sauce (a local favorite!), applewood smoked bacon, cheddar cheese, and haystack onions on an egg bun. Combining my favorite condiment (BBQ sauce) with my favorite meat (bacon!) on a burger? There’s no way you can lose with this combo!

It was delicious. I could have used a lot more barbecue sauce, but perhaps that was done intentionally. The lack of barbecue sauce on the burger allowed the flavors of the burger to shine through. Yum.

I ordered this with a side of sweet potato smashfries. Like the original smashfries, these were also tossed with rosemary, olive oil, and garlic.

While I love sweet potato fries, I wasn’t a huge fan of these. I think the rosemary gave them a really weird flavor. No bueno.

Again, I just took a few bites of the burger and a few nibbles of the fries, because I was saving more room for this:

Looks like just a plain vanilla shake, right? Wrong. This, my friends, made my tastebuds do a little happy dance. It made me practically cry tears of joy. It made me want to stand on my chair and pump my fist in the air.

What could make me do this (other than bacon?)

 

A Gooey Butter Cake Shake. Yes. YES. An entire piece of gooey butter cake from Park Avenue Coffee here in St. Louis was blended into vanilla Haagen-Daz ice cream to create this rich shake.

If you must try one thing while at Smashburger, it’s this. I don’t care if you’re on a diet; break it! It’s completely worth it.

After chowing down on this delicious food, I was a happy girl. And then something awesome happened.

The owner came out and asked me if I wanted to go in the back and try my hand at smashing a burger! Winning! Of course I said yes.

I donned an apron and said hello to the kitchen crew.

He explained to me how the burger smashing process worked, as well as a few interesting facts about the meat itself (it’s fresh and never frozen!)

He demonstrated the burger smashing for me first. He used a piece of parchment paper to grab a ball of meat.

Smashed it onto the grill,

Used a special smashing contraption to completely flatten it…

 

Added some seasonings…

 

And then when it was ready, the fun part – flipping the burger!

 

After letting it cook on the other side, this was the finished product!

Go ahead – lick the screen. I won’t tell anyone.

Now it was my turn! I never worked fast food or anything similar to it as a teenager, so this was completely new and exciting to me!

I threw the burger on the grill and smashed it. Then came the challenging part – flipping it!

 

I think the kitchen crew got a kick out of my lack of burger-flipping skills.

Finally, I was able to get it!

 

Woohoo!

I have a new respect for those who work in fast food. They make it look so easy! And it was hot back there.

Anyway, Smashburger was a great experience. I loved the food, and while I’m not sure I’d make the trek all the way out to St. Charles for it, I wouldn’t be opposed to visiting again if a friend wanted to.

So there you have it – I ate a burger (or two), and then I flipped one! How fun!

See you next week with another fun review!

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