Short Order

I have been wanting to try Short Order since I first heard Nancy Silverton was opening a burger joint. I am a huge fan of Osteria Mozza and Campanile, which she was also a part of. The restaurant took a little longer to open than expected, but it was worth the wait. It definitely fits in with the Farmer’s Market. It is a two story restaurant, but it is not very big so we had to wait a little while to get seated. There are a few patio seats which will be very nice during the summer. Aside from the burgers, we ordered the pickle chips (which were a special appetizer) and the Short Order Spuds with truffle salt. I highly recommend the spuds. They are basically potato wedges made from a baked potato and definitely opt for the truffle salt, it is well worth it.

Now for the reason the we are here. I ordered the Ida’s Old School burger. The meat is grass fed from Magruder Ranch in Mendocino County. The meat was very fresh and had good flavor. The one weird thing is that you can only order your burgers either Medium Rare or Medium well. I usually order my burgers medium. I ordered it Medium Well because I do not like it too rare. Funny thing is that they cooked the medium well patty to a perfect pink on the inside with a little char on the outside. The bun was a standard brioche bun. It served its purpose, but the burger was a bit messy and the bottom of the bun got soggy and did not hold the burger together. The burger was topped with cheddar cheese, SQIRL handmade pickles, rosso bruno tomatoes, griddled onions, iceberg lettuce and secret sauce. I didn’t get a lot of the cheddar flavor but the pickles and the secret sauce (which was a little like thousand island, but with a special twist). I also usually don’t like tomatoes on my burgers, but the ones used on this burger were very good. Overall, the burger was good and I recommend it. I look forward to trying some of the other burgers there. I also need to go back when it is warmer to try the shakes.

Burger Kitchen

I have wanted to try Burger Kitchen since I found out about it. I think I originally found out about it from an ad on this very blog. Since then it has been gaining momentum and even appeared on some best burger lists. So as a birthday / finishing a half marathon celebration for my friend Ngoc, we decided to check this place out.

Trying to keep to my baseline of burgers prepared similarly, I ordered The Natural. This burger is made from 40-day aged prime beef and is served with butter lettuce, caramelized onions, tomatoes, and your choice of camembert or white cheddar cheese. All of this is served on a brioche bun. I was worried about the brioche bun as it reminded me of the Umami burger, which was too greasy for me. This bun was fortunately not greasy and had a nice buttery flavor. Overall the burger was good but not great. The cheese was overwhelming and the prime meat tasted too steak-y and not enough like a burger for my tastes.


Ngoc's boyfriend Matt ordered the Mountain Burger. This burger had BBQ sauce and jalapeño peppers. I noted this because it looked impressive and came with the peppers pretty much whole on the burger.

We also ordered the Australian meat pie. Every review I read about the restaurant, mentioned the great burgers but also said to get the meat pie. We shared the meat pie for the table and it was also a bit underwhelming. It was exactly as expected, meat surrounded by puff pastry.

Overall, the experience was underwhelming and did not inspire me to want to go back to try the other burgers.