Looking for a Burger Hookup

Hook Burger

1731 N. Victory Pl. 

Burbank, CA 91502

Sometimes the best laid plans kind of go a little haywire. We were up this way for the wedding of Katie's cousin, which kind of went a little long into the night, and then of course we headed to her Uncle Tom's famous garage, for the after party. We did not end up getting back to our hotel until about 2:30 in the morning.

Too tired to go to any of the restaurants we wanted to hit up in this neck of the woods, we looked for one of the highest rated on Yelp, that was nearest our hotel. Something that would sustain us for the 2 hour plus drive that we had ahead of us getting back to OC. That's how we ended up at Hook Burger in Burbank.

Hook Burger is a mini chain, with five locations open, all in LA County. They started in Oxnard five years ago, and are run by the original team behind one of my favorite burger places, The Habit. The ordering process is the same here. You order at the counter, then the food is brought to your table. They characterize their burgers as upscale, in a fast and casual environment.

They are also pretty big into doing things the right way. They use humanely raised beef for their burgers. They also use locally sourced produce and bread from local bakers. Even their decor in the dining room comes from reclaimed wood. This is all great, but I was really excited to see how their food would taste, and if it would help soak up some of the libations I had the night before. Let's see what we thought about Hook Burger.

Much like the Habit menu, there's more to this place than just burgers, as Katie can attest to. She selected their Fresh Tuna Albacore Melt ($7.75) from their five kinds of sandwiches on the Hook Burger menu. This sandwich usually comes with cheddar cheese, but Katie subbed out Swiss to go along with the lettuce, tomato, and mayo that also came on this sandwich.  Served on a toasted sourdough bread, Katie really enjoyed the freshness of the tuna here, and was happy she went the Swiss route instead of the cheddar. She also remarked that the toasted bread helped make this sandwich, by adding a crunchy texture to it. She definitely would get this again.

Of course if you have been reading this blog for any length of time, you know I was going to try a burger here. None of the pre-made burger options really spoke to me on this afternoon, so I got their Prime Burger ($8.25 with all the enhancements that I added). The prime burger comes with caramelized bourbon onions, lettuce, tomato, and honey Dijon mayo. I also added bacon, cheddar cheese, and avocado. This was a pretty solid burger, and definitely what the doctor ordered on this afternoon. I liked that there was plenty of avocado on this, and the bun was very sturdy, but still soft. The hamburger patty was pretty tasty, but the bacon kind of got lost here. I wish they were as generous with the bacon as they were with the avocado. The Dijon mayo was actually pretty good, and I had my doubts about it before having it. The Dijon was downplayed just enough for me to really enjoy this condiment. Not just a pretty looking burger, but a good tasting one as well.

I always love when places offer a sampler platter of some of their side items, and at Hook Burger they call it The Trio ($5.95). This hat trick of fried food included french fries, sweet potato fries, and crispy onion rings. My favorite one of the three was the onion rings. A very good breading, which crunched when bitten into, and most importantly it did not break apart from the onion. The fries were good, but a little on the small side for me. I would have liked them better if they were the same size as the sweet potato fries. I'm not really a big fan of sweet potato fries, but Katie liked these well enough, and I thought they were okay. All of these items were fried nicely, and not overly greasy.

Job well done Hook Burger. You sustained us until we got home, helped clear my head from a night of adult beverages, and I'll even give you credit for the mostly clear sailing that we experienced on the freeways of Southern California. The burgers here are pretty good, but I'd like to see maybe a basic bacon cheese burger on their menu of the already made burgers. The burger did not blow me away, but you can tell that it was made with quality ingredients, and that goes a long way in my opinion of this restaurant. The quality is definitely on par with The Habit. The price point is also a big plus for this place as well. They only have one item, a steak sandwich, which is over ten dollars, and even that's only over that mark by two quarters. Service at the register was very good, and they answered all of our questions. The table side service was fine as well, and I even saw a manager going from table to table making sure everything was going all right. A very nice touch. Hook Burger was not what we had planned on having this day, but we are glad that we ended up eating here.

Out of five hockey sticks, (because hockey season is right around the corner, and some of the players will be called for hooking using their sticks), five being best to zero being worst, Hook Burger gets 3 solid hockey sticks.

For more information about Hook Burger, go to their website here: http://hookburger.com/