Monday, July 14, 2008

A milkshake that brings all the boys to the yard...

I need to write about the Micheal Pollan books I read in Florida. That will come. In the meantime, my husband is insisting that I review the place we went for dinner last night: The Counter

The Counter describes itself as "the 21st century's bold answer to the burger joint". I'd say that's pretty accurate. It's an upscale burger chain, where you can create your own custom built sandwich, chosing from four different patties (beef, chicken, veggie and ground turkey) and an array of high quality cheeses, toppings, sauces and buns. They claim to have more than 312,120 different burgers on their menu.

Higher quality custom burger joints seem to be the hot thing right now. We sampled one in Vegas last year that had Kobe beef and truffles as options. The Counter offers "certified humane meats, fed on all vegetarian diet". I assume this means the feedlots didn't supplement with beef tallow and bone meal, the way McDonald's beef does. It doesn't mean these were happy cows in pastures before they were conked on the head and ground up. (No, I'm not a vegetarian, why do you ask?)

In addition to burgers and sandwiches, they also serve up fries (both regular and sweet potato), onion straws, salads, and turkey chili. They also serve up fantastic milkshakes, which I am no absolutely in love with.

Together, we split an order of "half and half fries", half sweet potato and half regular that was more than we could finish. I had a beef patty that was thick and juicy, cooked medium, topped with blue cheese, mixed greens, tomatoes, dill pickle chips and peppercorn steak sauce on a wheat bun. My husband ordered beef with corn and black bean salsa, scallions and shredded lettuce. We both decided to wash them down with a couple of shakes. I ordered a chocolate malted and he ended up with a cherry pie shake, made with cherry pie filling and graham crackers.

Now, granted, I don't drink a whole lot of milkshakes these days, but I have to say I don't recall when the last time I had one this good was. I'm craving another chocolate malted right now, actually.

The service at our location was spotty. Maybe it's because they just opened, but they didn't seem to have things down yet. We waited at the unmanned hospitality station for seats. Then we waited to give our drink orders. Jimmy had ordered an apple pie shake, but they brought him cherry. He declined to make an issue of it. Once our food was ordered though, it came out hot and fast and was very, very good. So if they can get a handle on the service, this will quickly become a favorite for us.

The Counter: Custom Built Burgers on Urbanspoon

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Malted milks are Addictive!!!! My daddy used to make them every weekend for us at home. And then I had a stint where I had to have a chocolate chip cookie dough malt from DQ at least once a week. I was dancing every day then so it didn't matter.

I'd say that anyplace that serves sweet potato fries is a winner with me!!

GSUDude85 said...

I happened to see your blog and let me tell you, I went to The Counter in Cali and its totally different then what it is here. Your so right about the service its horrible. Had to wait at the door for almost 10 min before anyone even said anything to us. They weren't to busy, but did see I guess what you would call a manager sitting at the "counter" with servers all around him eating. I do have to give props to the food, its very good, but for the price I could make the same thing. Even Fosters Grille would be better price wise. The counter works in Cali because of the decor and music, but in Roswell, GA the prices, decor and music just doesn't fit. Not smart on Owners part