The Artery Clogger

Amazingly, the very next day after posting about my deep fryer breaking, I arrived at home to find a note from my neighbor. UPS had dropped off a package for me that he had signed for and moved inside.

IT WAS MY NEW DEEP FRYER!

I had already planned a dinner that night, so I couldn't christen it yet, but the very next night I used it to fry up some fish, and it did it's job admirably. So don't worry, loyal readers, I am back in business.

But, for that painful month without a deep fryer, I had to actually leave my apartment to get my deep frying fix. Luckily, I had gotten a great tip about a burger place near me, Boston Burger Company, that sold a 1/2 pound burger that was deep fried, topped with American cheese, bacon, and covered in BBQ sauce. It's called the "Artery Clogger," and it's lucky number 13 on their menu. Obviously, I had to try this.

It was delicious, as if there was any doubt. Let's be honest, the degree of difficulty was not very high here. It's probably not the best burger I've ever had, but it was very tasty, very filling, and certainly unique. It has made me realize that beer battering is a skill I need to learn. That will definitely be an upcoming project. If I have a good breadcrumb batter, a beer batter, and a dessert batter, I should be able to handle everything.

I think they made the right choice to just deep fry the patty and then cover it with everything else, but part of me still wanted to see something like this.
The homemade chips they serve it with are really good too. I'll have to try something like that at home also. And my date and I split some sweet potato fries. These were very crispy, much better than the ones I made.The BBQ sauce was a nice touch. If I make this at home, I'll probably try to deep fry the bacon also. I'd also go with cheddar over American.

I think my favorite part about the whole experience was the waitress' reaction when I ordered it. She seemed genuinely excited that i was actually ordering the deep-fried cheeseburger, like it was a big deal and doesn't happen all that often. She also seemed excited bringing it out to me, and when I completely finished it she seemed impressed and was curious what I thought of it. Sure she was most likely just being friendly to get a better tip, but anytime I can be made to feel manly, courageous, and accomplished just by my choice of burger, that's a good feeling. We chatted briefly about deep frying, and I mentioned that I was doing research for this blog.

I've had a number of encounters with people discussing deep frying, and it has made me realize I should create business cards to hand out with my Web address on them. First I'll need to set up an email address, and I should also come up with a good slogan for the blog. Anyways, I'll keep working on all this, and feel free to send suggestions for a slogan!

All in all, I will definitely go to Boston Burger Co. again. I would also definitely eat this again, but maybe not for a while, because they had a number of other burgers that I want to try. None of the others are deep fried though, so that falls outside the jurisdiction of this blog.

For the next post, we'll get back to home cooked delicacies, although I'm not yet sure what it will be. Also coming up, I'll recount my recent pilgrimage to the southern New Jersey boardwalks, where the hottest new innovations in deep frying are born.