The Krave Kobe Burger Grill
21133 Newport Coast Dr.
Newport Coast, CA 92657
It's burger time again on this blog. Early in the life of this blog, every other restaurant review was about hamburgers. A quick check of the categories listed on the right-hand side of this page bears this out. We have reviewed 138 burger restaurants where I had a burger. Yikes, that's a lot of burgers. I have slowed down on my quest for the perfect burger, though. We are almost halfway this year, and this will be only the sixth burger I have reviewed on these pages. See, I've evolved.
Anyway, it was time to try out another burger place that's been on my list forever. Krave Kobe Burger Grill landed on my list because they had invited me to their grand opening, but I could not go. That was almost two years ago now. Man, time is flying by. I also noted that they were featured in Orange Coast Magazine's Best Burgers of the Year issue last October. They were mentioned in the $10 or less category, which in this neighborhood is a steal.
Katie had some business to tend to after work one evening near Fashion Island, which is definitely close enough for us to make it to Krave. Just so we are clear, and there's no confusion, this is not affiliated with Krave Asian Fusion in Irvine. That place specializes in Korean fried chicken, which we've tried, and it is really good. This Krave is all about burgers.
Located in a shopping center I did not know existed until this evening, Krave is situated on the corner of Newport Coast Dr. and San Joaquin Hills Road. There's a Pavillion, a Zov's Restaurant, First Class Pizza, two banks, a nail salon, and, of course, two Starbucks in this shopping plaza. I guess people can never get enough coffee around these parts.
The idea for Krave started when Co-Founder and CEO of Krave, Ardy Farokhirad, traveled abroad and found out that in other countries, people were pretty concerned with what they put in their bodies, unlike at home. He decided to create a burger spot that provided a high-quality burger with nutritious and safe-to-eat products at an affordable price. That means they get their beef from independent farmers who do not add hormones and raise their cows humanely. This must have been a hit with consumers because the company said they are set to open up 10 locations this year and have 60 up and running within two years. These are lofty goals; we'll see how it all goes.
Back to our present visit, though. We arrived here just before 6pm on a recent Wednesday evening. The restaurant is bigger than it appears from the outside. To the left of the registers where you place your order, there's bar seating, which allows a good view of the happenings in the kitchen. Plenty of TVs turned to sports around the dining room, many of which were ignored by the relatively thin crowd this evening. Most people were ordering their food to go. We, of course, got our food for here, so let's see how everything turned out for us this evening.
Starting things off for us at Krave was this Trio ($8.99), which allows you to try all three of their sides; French Fries, Onion Rings, and Sweet Potato Fries. The best of the bunch were the onion rings. They had a very crunchy panko breading, which did not tear away from the onion inside as easily as other onion rings tend to do. A big plus in my book, as it's nice to have the salty outer shell with the sweet onion underneath. The fries were standard on this visit. The Kennebec potato could have been better here, as these fries came out lukewarm at best. They might have been better if they were seasoned a tad more with salt and if they did not cool so quickly. I'm not a big fan of Sweet Potato Fries, but Katie liked these. They were warmer than the fries, but the menu claims these are great with their marshmallow sauce, which we did not get with our order. You may have to ask for the sauces to get them.
Katie was not feeling a burger, so she went with this Chicken Breast Sandwich ($7.99). This sandwich is made with free-range chicken and then topped with Swiss cheese, tomato, lettuce, caramelized onion, and garlic aioli. She had asked for avocado, but they forgot to put it on, which was a problem this evening. Katie was not a big fan of this sandwich. She thought it was plain tasting, the chicken was dry, and the garlic aioli did not shine on this. They might have needed a heavier condiment hand to make it more noticeable and spice this sandwich flavorwise. She would definitely get something else here next time.
Now, the reason I was drawn here is the Kolossal Burger ($11.24 with cheese added). The burgers at Krave come with only tomato, lettuce, caramelized onions, and garlic aioli. Bacon and cheese are additional upgrades of $1.25 and $1.50, respectively. This Kolossal version features two patties, and I opted for cheddar cheese and bacon, although the bacon was missing from the burger. I decided I did not need the bacon with a burger this big, so I let it go, but it would have made this burger even better than it already was. I loved how the cheddar cheese melted across the patties, and even though they put way too much lettuce on this (I had enough for a salad after I pulled more than half of it off), I was pretty stoked with this burger. You could taste the freshness in the meat, and the patties were very juicy. The bun did an excellent job keeping things together, but more garlic aioli would have been appreciated. It is a very clean-tasting burger. It is not good enough to crack my top four burgers in OC, but it is better than most. I see why this is among the top 40 listed in Orange Coast Magazine.
I left Krave Kobe Burger satisfied, but it could have been better if they had remembered items on Katie's and mine's entrees. The bacon and added aioli would have made this burger even better, while the missing avocado could have moistened the chicken sandwich to make it better than average. Except for the exquisite onion rings, the sides could have been more impressive this evening. It may be an off night for them, but with an aggressive expansion plan in the coming years, they might still have some kinks to work out.
Out of five bags of beef jerky (not because of the meat here, but because there's a brand of beef jerky called Krave, which was bought by the Hershey Company in 2015 for 240 million dollars), five being best to zero being worst, Krave Kobe Burger Grill gets 2.5 bags of beef jerky.
For more information about The Krave Kobe Burger Grill, head to their website here: http://kravekobeburger.com/
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