Picture courtesy of Houston
My mom was by no means very fascinated with meals. “I eat to stay; I do not stay to eat,” she would say with a flip of her lengthy blond hair. Cooking wasn’t his factor, however he all the time took us to one of the best eating places. Certainly one of our foremost bases was in Houston, primarily positioned close to West Paces Ferry Street, however generally one in Lenox, which closed in 2018. I all the time order a cheeseburger, considered one of my favourite burgers in Atlanta.
Houston began quickly after we moved to Atlanta for my dad’s job at Coca-Cola. My mother shortly added it to our rotation, together with PoFolks and Umezono Japanese eating places on Cobb Parkway, folding in eating places on Buford Freeway as that culinary nirvana grew and grew. However Houston was the closest to our home, and our ballet class was in the identical purchasing heart, so we ended up there rather a lot. Again then, the costs have been a lot decrease, and the restaurant seemed subtly totally different. It was additionally first-come, first-served—one other factor of the previous. My sister ordered the rooster tenders or the generally loaded baked potato soup. However I not often deviated from my cheeseburger order.
Andrew Knowlton, its former deputy editor Get pleasure from your mealwho grew up in Atlanta, Hillstone Restaurant Group known as it “probably the greatest cheeseburgers on the planet” in 2016. As a restaurant critic, I’ve had plenty of nice burgers world wide, however Houston’s burger is one thing particular.
This burger is a correct restaurant burger. What do I imply by that? It is a dense, juicy single patty in a burger panorama cluttered with skinny doubles. The burger is big, and so big that they slice it in half for you within the kitchen to make it simpler to eat and spear each halves with a choose. The patty is produced from chuck and brisket, floor in-house each day, and the sesame-topped buns are baked recent every morning. They gently swipe the restaurant’s hickory barbecue sauce on the toasted bun base, including sweetness. It is countered by vivid mustard, loads of chopped iceberg lettuce, diced uncooked white onion, melted cheddar cheese, tomato slices, and pickle slices. Houston’s juicestring fries, which have gone by many incarnations and portion sizes over time, accompany each burger and by no means fail to fulfill. They’re dry, crisp, and even higher with the proprietary seasoning salt they carry to the desk in a shaker.
Folks complain that Houston is pricey, and it’s. The burger, at $20, isn’t any exception.
There are different unpleasantries: getting a desk to eat a burger is a ache, except you make a reservation on the web site, and now that there’s a strict costume code, I can not simply cease by with my children of their soccer uniforms, as a result of my mother did with us. . In 2017, rapper TI led a boycott of the Lenox Street location in Houston after diners accused the restaurant of racially biased enforcement of its seating coverage; It was quickly known as off, though TI has since known as off the boycott, citing “troublesome however fruitful negotiations”. As with all love story spanning many years, I do not see my beloved by rose-colored glasses.
Nonetheless, I’m going again as a result of it is my consolation meals spot, a restaurant the place I have a good time small wins or steal away for lunch on the bar with my husband or a pal. Burgers are all the time there for me. I usually joke with buddies that that is my emotional help burger, however I will be damned if I do not really feel a darkish cloud rising upon the primary chunk.
This text appeared in our October 2024 situation.
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