{"id":2922,"date":"2009-08-14T00:10:25","date_gmt":"2009-08-14T07:10:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/?p=2922"},"modified":"2009-08-14T00:10:25","modified_gmt":"2009-08-14T07:10:25","slug":"the-first-meeting-of-the-burger-crew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/?p=2922","title":{"rendered":"The first meeting of the burger crew."},"content":{"rendered":"

What happens on the day after a hard workout at the gym? ANOTHER HARD WORKOUT AT THE GYM. Sheesh. Fortunately, we planned to cheat on our non-existent diets today and start up a weekly trip to a burger joint. Turns out my love for cheeseburgers is spreading and we’re going to try the best high-end burgers in town. Sean and I went to “Lovely Hula Hands” and the “Slow Bar” and I have to say those are two of the best burgers I’ve had. For cheap burgers, “Five Guys Burger and Fries” is pretty good but that still isn’t matching “In-N-Out”.<\/p>\n

Back to today’s trip, we went to Yakuza. I must admit that as a real Asian, I’m not a huge fan of pan-Asian food. Heck, I usually have problems when I go to a Japanese restaurant and the chefs are not Japanese. It can be good, but it’s not Japanese food. I texted my sister when I got there and she said, “What are you, white?” But we went to judge the burger on its own merits and not on the service, the atmosphere, or the clientele.<\/p>\n

The burger, with very fresh and quality ingredients was possibly innovative, but was disappointing. Check out the review on Portland Monthly<\/a> and you can see the self-indulgent review. A Kobe beef burger with chevre and shoestring onion rings infused with togarashi and yuzu with probably homemade ketchup on a creamy bun. Everyone else liked it but I wasn’t impressed. Why not? Well, the first thing I like on a burger is to taste the meat. The meat was well cooked and of high quality but IT DIDN’T TASTE LIKE ANYTHING. It’s the same complaint I have with poorly done filet mignon: it can be exquisitely tender but lack flavor. That’s how this burger was. The tasteless meat was doctored up with the spicy fried onions, but I think what it really needed was some aging and someone with a salt shaker.<\/p>\n

\"yakuzaburger\"<\/a><\/div>\n

I wouldn’t go out of my way to avoid the Yakuza burger, but I surely wouldn’t go out of my way to get one either. I’m very wary of the rest of their menu, as it had “creative sushi” as well. I have my own suggestions for creative sushi and they lead you directly to Gaya Gaya on West Burnside.<\/p>\n

But people watching at Yakuza was pretty funny as well. Not only was there a mismatched couple next to us (a guy my age with a woman who could be his daughter if he was pushing it) and a tipsy cougar who knocked her fancy Yakuza plates to the floor while dining with her boytoy. So really, go for the fun if not for the food.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What happens on the day after a hard workout at the gym? ANOTHER HARD WORKOUT AT THE GYM. Sheesh. Fortunately, we planned to cheat on our non-existent diets today and start up a weekly trip to a burger joint. Turns out my love for cheeseburgers is spreading and we’re going to try the best high-end burgers in town. Sean and I went to “Lovely Hula Hands” and the “Slow Bar” and I have to say those are two of the best burgers I’ve had. For cheap burgers, “Five Guys Burger and Fries” is pretty good but that still isn’t matching “In-N-Out”. Back to today’s trip, we went to Yakuza. I … Continue reading The first meeting of the burger crew.<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2922"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2924,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2922\/revisions\/2924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}