Alice and I finally tried MSF's latest venture - lunchtime burgers served out of a corner in Duc Loi supermarket. After walking past the beautiful swan squash, Kern's horchata, and bottles of Mad Housewife, we patiently awaited our fried chicken sandwich and beef burger.
Now friends, this is no Bakesale Betty fried chicken. It's difficult to tell from the photo (greasy hands) but it ended up being exactly like the fried taro balls you can find at most dim sum restaurants. Kind of furry and full of oil, this sandwich was overwhelmed by the friedness and we could barely taste the chicken. We both regretted eating our entire halves after the meat sweats began.
However, Mission Burger was more than redeemed by its true star, the burger. Different cuts of meat from Harris Ranch were ground into a very coarse and perfectly molded patty. I don't think I've ever had a burger with such a coarse grain, but perhaps it's to maintain the integrity of the meat (who knows, it's SF).* The caramelized onions had a good amount of char on them which gave a lot of flavor, but almost overpowered the meat. As a whole however, the burger was delicious and I wish I had gotten only that.
We capped off the meal with a cookies n cream cookie from Anthony's Cookies. $1 is a bit steep for a small cookie, but hey there are bills to pay.
* Their explanation: "granulation is our term for the process popularized by Heston Blumenthal, a michelin 3-star chef based in London. Blumenthal combines strands of ground meat to create a loosely grained 'meat column' (not Blumenthal's phrase), then slices the column into patties. The result is, well, a delicacy."
