Restaurant review: Burguesa Burger in Dallas

by The Law Reviewers of The Law Reviewers

Burguesa Burger is the newest franchise hopeful in the ever-growing waistline of the DFW burger belt; an interesting, if unnecessary, foray into the same-but-different world of fast food. We were unsure what to do with Burguesa Burger, to be honest. (Does this mean we’re usually not honest? Answer after the jump (just kidding, there’s no jump).

In the end, we realized that we’re just happy that there is no current forum for amateur lawyer reviewers to print and post whimsical reviews of the scores upon scores of attorneys ‘round these parts. Lawyers, it would seem, are like burgers: messy yet convenient, alternatively good and bad for you, sometimes a good deal and sometimes expensive, gourmet and also proletarian, and – for better or for worse – ubiquitous.

All this is to say, that while Burguesa’s burgers are good, they are neither great nor terrible, although anything doused with Cholula sauce is worth trying. Oh, and like our middle school football coach said about us, the fries have potential, but are terrible.

Burguesa, so we’ve read, is the brain child of the creator of the Which Wich and Genghis Grill chains. Genghis Grill, of course, has the distinction of introducing Dallas to the most awkward of tipping situations: What do you tip a server who brings you a drink but otherwise does NOTHING since you are the one directing the $13 grilling of genghal meats? Burguesa brings its own unique payment quirks to the table – it accepts pesos as well as dollars, and all prices are rounded off to the double ought or $0.50.

Situated in a parking lot across from St. Paul Medical Center/UT Southwestern and 100 yards from the original Sonny Bryan’s, you can’t miss Burguesa’s tiny, drive-through-service-only building. Just look for its bright orange sheen that sets it apart from the bleak neighborhood, like a giant Sunkist can.

There are two types of burgers at Burguesa: the anti-Marxist Burguesa (it's Spanish for bourgeois) Burgers ($2.50, $3 with cheese) and La Monumental™ ($5). Yes, kids, it’s already trademarked – burgers are also like lawyers in that they know how to cover their buns. A few words about the Burguesa Burgers and then we’ll get on to La Monumental: Think In-and-Out with a spicy secret sauce. That is, a thin patty with shredded lettuce, tomato, onion, and the “secret” sauce. And what of the secret sauce? Wethinks Cholula is the secret behind the sauce. By itself, Cholula is probably too hot and tangy for a burger. But mixed with mayonnaise, its heat gets knocked down to the level of a love email from Governor Mark Sanford. Snarfed in your car, the burgers are good, not great, greasy but not-too-filling, and must be eaten quickly cuz ur in ur car drvng and txtng whle eatng lol bff jill.

La Monumental is a great gimmick burger but be warned: If you’re off your Plavix or Lipitor, you should probably stay away from its “Two all beef patties, two slices of cheese, ham, avocado, lettuce, tomato, onion, refried beans, crunchy tostada and special creamy sauce on a Bimbo® sesame seed bun, crowned with a whole jalapeno pepper.” Sound familiar? Someone at Burguesa is a Simpsons fan (“We take eighteen ounces of sizzling ground beef, and soak it in rich, creamery butter, then we top it off with bacon, ham, and a fried egg. We call it the Good Morning Burger.”). Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster this place is across the street from a hospital!

So, we’ve established that the Burguesa Burgers are both serviceable and a neat novelty/health risk/tool for exploiting the proletariat. So what of the fries? They were The Suck, probably the worst in DFW, and we mean that in the nicest way possible. Someone smartly decreed that the fries were to be long, skin-on, and lightly seasoned. That person was then fired and replaced with a jar of Cholula sauce, who promptly decided that all fries in this to-go-only restaurant are to be served in a Styrofoam cup. You know, the type that doesn’t allow for moisture to escape? Burguesa includes a fork so you can eat the greasy, wormy, cold fries at the bottom of the cup. Your remaining open artery rejoices. Then closes.

On the other end of the idea spectrum, Burguesa also serves its own house-made “Burguesa Mexicana” sodas. Choose from Cola, Orange, Lemon-Lime, Grapefruit, or Cholula (ha ha, they wouldn’t really make a Cholula-flavored soda … Would they?). The house sodas are crisp and refreshing, and we hope this concept lives long and prospers. Cane sugar Coca-Cola and Jarritos soda are also offered.

The basic menu also offers donuts (three fer a dollar), which were slightly better than your standard vending machine mini-donut. Three flavors of milkshake are also available ($3), but frankly, we stopped at ordering those; gotta watch those calories, you know?

On our Marxist dialectic five gavel scale, where one gavel is the extraction of surplus value from the proletariat by the burgeois capitalist class and five gavels is the inevitable revolution wherein the proletariat control the means of production, we give Burguesa Burger two and five-eighths gavels or the surplus value of a Burguesa Burger on every street corner. No doubt this is exactly what the creator of Burguesa had in mind – burger franchises of the world unite!!

• Staff
• Verified User
• Anonymous