Restaurant review: GoGo Burger in Frisco

by Chow Hound of McKinneyNews.net

With its mod orange tables and green chairs – and orange and green-painted walls – the smallish joint had one of those Austin Powers retro vibes going on. Thankfully – or perhaps regrettably – there was no shag carpet.

For this week’s installment of perhaps one of the Metroplex’s most prized (and revered) (and highly anticipated) (and, oddly, loathed) weekly restaurant review columns, Chow Hound made his way west of McKinney to a little town called Frisco.

For those of you with diminished mental capabilities marked by a severe inability to discern direction or distance, Frisco is a municipality located about seven miles east of Stonebridge Ranch. (For those of you who have no idea where (or what) Stonebridge Ranch is, well, sorry, you’re SOL.)

As Chow Hound was saying, the GoGo Burger’s aesthetic sensibilities appear as though the toothy one himself (A.P.) jets in from England every now and again for a quick bite between shagging assignments.

Moving along…

It seems GoGo has developed a certain bit of acclaim not so much for its burgers, but for its shakes, with some journalistic joints (that will remain unnamed) suggesting GoGo has the best shakes in the Metroplex.

Wow. Heady stuff. The entire Metroplex? Hmm.

And so it was with high hopes and taste buds screaming for copious amounts of disaccharides – uh, sucrose infused ice cream – that CH traveled to Frisco (across from Pizza Hut Park).

The first thing that CH’s astute powers of observation noticed was the surroundings.

GoGo Burger is planted right in the middle of yet another one of those urban renewal projects – you know, the projects that after years of intensive sociological study have (brilliantly) determined that human beings generally will live – and probably WANT to live, particularly if they’re single -- in urban areas that provide things to do and places to eat – and drink. Imagine that.

And so it is in Frisco that GoGo Burger sits in a freshly stamped urban utopia replete with several restaurants and bars within walking distance to a rather vast, newly erected apartment complex.

Once inside the joint and, as mentioned above, greeted by a pretty heavy (and trippy, man!) dose of orange and green, CH cast his gaze upon the menu hanging upon the wall. As is the fashion these days, the menu at GoGo says no-no to extravagance. This is a burger, fries and, shakes kind of joint and, save for the “cheddar taters,” nothing more.

CH approached the order counter and engaged a friendly, yet bored looking, young lady. The Dog ordered one GoGo Burger ($4.49), one cheddar tater ($2.29), and one Sno Ball “extreme shake” ($3.99).

After ordering, CH quietly took up position at one of the six or so tables in the modest joint and waited. Several minutes later, the order was ready.

Upon visually inspecting the GoGo burger and judging by the Dog's wet mouth, CH’s hypothalamus obviously instructed CH’s salivary glands to begin producing copious amounts of saliva. Indeed, the burger looked damned good with the glorious, and clearly homemade bun collecting the lion’s share of CH’s ocular attention.

But the love affair, dear readers, as most love affairs are wont to do, lasted merely until lips touched meat.

It was precisely at this moment that CH’s lacrimal glands, stimulated by strong emotional stress, began to produce embarrassingly bountiful amounts of tears. The two thin hamburger patties buried within the lusciously soft homemade bun reminded CH too much of the scrawny 99-cent (and remarkably unflavorful) burger patties from McDonald’s. What a shame, really. All dressed up with a big, fat and soft bun and no place to go except down a less-than-thrilled gullet.

Things took a decided turn for the better as CH averted his tear-ravaged eyes toward the “house made with Wisconsin cheese” “cheddar taters.” The “balls” -- for lack of a better descriptor -- were so good the Dog almost forgot about the skinny burger debacle.

Clearly homemade, as the menu so proudly proclaimed, these jobbers weren’t the traditionally cylindrical frozen disappointments that typically show up in joints like Sonic. Oh, no, these deep fried babies were nicely rolled into balls of shaved potato mixed with cheddar cheese. CH is happy to report that in all his travels he has never had a warm and creamy -- yet crunchy -- creation such as this. Very nicely done.

The shake…

“It’s hard to suck,” said CH’s GoGo Burger date as she (attempted) to slurp on the Sno Ball shake. (God, where is Steve Carrell when you need him?)

CH grabbed the shake for a suck. She was right, the shake did have that vein-popping-out-of-your-forehead thing going on. But didn’t she see this coming, CH asked his GoGo girlfriend? After all, she had stood idly by and smiling as not one, but two Sno Balls (those weirdly synthetic globules of chocolate cake wrapped with some sort of rubber coconut sheathing) were folded into about 20 ounces of soft serve vanilla ice cream.

As mentioned previously, GoGo Burger has garnered a modicum of regional fame among foodies for its supposed shake brilliancy, a brilliancy marked by mixing Twinkies or gobs of chocolate frosting or chocolate Zingers with ice cream – all these making for a for surely sugary sweet shake, but nothing, as far as Chow Hound was concerned, beyond that.

Upon hearing of this celebrated miracle confectionary breakthrough, CH had to quite frankly sit down and soberly ponder the average person’s C.Q. – creativity quotient. THIS is what things have come to: someone “brilliantly” smashing a Twinkie in a heap of ice cream and consequently celebrated as the shake guru of North Texas?

For God’s sake, CH has been mixing not only white (vanilla) cake with chocolate ice cream since he was a young pup, but – get this – chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream and sometimes even vanilla ice cream with vanilla cake, too.

But then again, CH was never smart enough to understand that such mundanity might move the mass of creativley impoverished men (and women) to throw $4 at the Dog’s feet for the pleasure of sucking down cake and ice cream in a cup.

CH’s GoGo Burger Milk Bone rating: 2 bones out of 5.

Shagalicious? Uh, that would be a confirmed "not really."