Hopping Along to LAX

Hopdoddy Burger Bar

830 North Sepulveda Blvd.

El Segundo, CA 90245

Yes, you guessed it, another trip up this way to take Chuck and Stephanie to LAX. For ardent readers of this blog, you already know they are flying off to North Carolina to see their grand kids for one of their 8 annual trips to the East Coast. With all of these trips up the 405 Freeway, we'd have run out of places to try, but just like OC, the South Bay always seems to have a new place opening up. This time, we sent Chuck and Steph off with a meal from Hopdoddy Burger Bar.

Hopdoddy is a burger chain from Austin, Texas, that just recently pushed into California. This chain established its first restaurant in 2010 and now has locations in Texas, Arizona, Colorado, and soon to be four spots in California. They have three already open and operating in the Golden State (Playa Vista, Newport Beach, and this one, El Segundo) and a coming soon sign hanging over Tustin. This South Bay location opened last August and has had some positive press, so the four of us were excited to try it.

I could sense Chuck's apprehension about us getting them to the airport on time when we pulled into this pretty busy shopping center on the corner of Sepulveda and Rosecrans. The shopping complex is called The Point, and its anchor stores are all pretty hip and include restaurants like True Food Kitchen, North Italia, and Mendocino Farms. Chuck's high anxiety about leaving here on time was not warranted because we almost walked up to the counter at Hopdoddy.

As you are waiting in line to order your food here, you are assigned a table by a hostess. I like this system, as it prevents people from staking out a table before they even order, which is one of my pet peeves. I felt this system helped the flow of customers, but this is one of the biggest complaints about this restaurant online.

The menu here is, of course, burger-driven, but there are three salad options for the two of you who are not into burgers. There are 15 burgers to choose from here, one of which includes a special burger, which is rotated frequently. Burgers run the gamete from beef, bison, lamb, chicken, turkey, tuna, and a black bean corn patty for non-meat eaters. There are also a few sides and a wider variety of shakes available. This menu brings to mind the one we experienced at Shake Shack in Vegas. Let's see if we'll like this place as much as we enjoyed that New York-based restaurant chain.

We started with these Green Chili Queso Fries ($6.75). The fries here are made with Kennebec potatoes, and tasted pretty fresh. They were fried well, with the absence of any grease. I would have liked them bigger because we had to dip them into the green chili queso dip. This dip had a slight punch, and I liked it. It resembled more of a soup than a dip, but maybe that's because I could have seen myself eating this with a spoon. It was that good.

We tried the Truffle Fries ($6.95) at Hopdoddy as if we did not have enough fries. These were not as good as the ones above. Yes, the fries were the same, but the truffle flavor failed to shine for us. Also, without grease, the Parmesan and green onion slid off these fries relatively easily and collected on the bottom of the basket. Stick with the green chili queso fries.

It was burger time, and up first was Katie's selection, the Magic Shroom ($9.75). This burger starts with an Angus beef patty and is then topped with goat cheese, mushrooms, tomato, mayo, basil pesto, white onion, and red-leaf lettuce. Katie really enjoyed how all these toppings played well with each other. The burger was juicy, and you can definitely tell that they grind their beef daily here. It's a very fresh-tasting burger and one that she'd get again.

Whenever we eat with Stephanie, she always scans the menu for the items with some heat behind them. That's probably why she got the ominously named El Diablo Burger ($9,25). Again, the Angus beef patty is in play here and is outfitted with pepper jack cheese, habanero and, serrano chilies, caramelized onions, salsa roja, and chipotle mayo. As is the case with most items she tries, she claims that it could have been hotter, but she did appreciate the heat that was there. Stephanie did make quick work of this burger, but that's probably because old man Chuck was prodding her under the table to hurry up, as they only had two hours until their flight.

Speaking of old man Chuck, he wanted a burger that reminded him of his boyhood, and since they didn't have dinosaurs on the menu here, he settled on this basic Classic Burger ($8). This basic model, with added cheddar cheese, also came with tomato, lettuce, and sassy sauce, and their house spread was made up of mayo, mustard, and horseradish. Not as strong as I was expecting, I rather enjoyed this sauce. Chuck was impressed with his burger, calling it one of the best he's had in awhile.

I had difficulty deciding what burger to have here, but ultimately went with the Terlingua Burger ($9.50). This burger had a meaty chili, cheddar cheese, Frito's, and sassy sauce. I did a little digging and found out why they call this burger the Terlingua. There's a chili cook-off every year in Terlingua, Texas, on the first Saturday of November. Still determining if this chili would win there, but this was a superb burger. The chili had a mild flavor, the Fritos added some crunch, and the Tillamook cheddar is always one of my favorites on a burger. The buns here are freshly made every day and do an excellent job of standing up to the insides of this burger. I would have liked more sauce on this, but that would be my only complaint with this burger.

The burgers at Hopdoddy are not going to wow you with their size. We all left here satisfied, but not overly stuffed. The burgers are a little bigger than the ones at Umami, but what they lack in girth, they more than makeup for with flavor. We all really enjoyed these, and would come back here in a heartbeat. I look forward to checking out our Hopdoddy at Fashion Island soon. I thought the prices were manageable here, but if you are hesitant to pay ten dollars for a burger, this might not be your spot. Service was good on this visit. The guy who brought our food to the table checked on us frequently and even got Chuck a refill on his drink, saving his arthritic hip a few steps. If we ever run out of spots to hit up when driving these two to the airport, we would definitely visit here again.

Out of five bats (because Hopdoddy started in Austin, Texas, in 2010, and one of that city's biggest attractions is watching over one million of these flying mammals fly out from under a bridge in search of that night's dinner), five being best to zero being worst, Hopdoddy Burger Bar gets 3.5 bats.

For more information about Hopdoddy Burger Bar, go to their website here: http://www.hopdoddy.com/