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Thursday, September 23, 2010

THE HOLE IN THE WALL: FILLING A CHEESEBURGER SIZED GAP IN WEST L.A.
























I have actually been very well behaved in the last few weeks.

I have managed to drop 10lbs of unwanted blubber, thanks in part to regular sprint sessions on the treadmill and by moderating my diet a little.  Sybil and I have even invested in a juicing machine and can be found most evenings having earnest discussions about how much carrot we want to add to our orange juice.  It’s all terribly Californian, of course, and I can imagine many of you thinking, “can liposuction and Botox be more than a few months away in HS’s future?  

Well,  just in case any of you dear readers think that I have lost any of the Iron in my John, let me reassure you that some things are very much as they were and top of the list remains the love of a decent hamburger. 

Today, Sybil suggested sushi for lunch.  Normally, I would have leapt at the offer, the sushi in Los Angeles being so, well so bloody good.  However, the urge for a burger was just too close to the surface, it being nearly six weeks since I had indulged in America’s greatest contribution to world cuisine.  I pouted a bit, huffed a bit more and whined to the point where she gave in and suggested we head to Sepulveda and Santa Monica Boulevard to check out the Hole In The Wall Burger Joint.

The Hole In The Wall burger joint is, apparently, situated in the same space and run by the same people, who operated Dainties Cupcakes.  According to my beloved, Dainties served the best cupcakes in town.  My views on cupcakes are well expounded on this blog, so suffice to say, I am pleased that they came to their senses and changed tack.  Not only that, they appear to have changed tack with considerable success as the cheeseburger offered up at Hole in The Wall is one of the very best I have eaten in Los Angeles. The line for lunch, while we ate, grew by the minute, so others obviously agree.

As seems almost de rigueur right now at modern hamburger restaurants, much is made of the quality of the ingredients. There’s the obligatory reference to Angus beef, articsan bread and house made pickles etc. But, here at least they don’t shove the provenance of every last item on the menu down your throat until the whole thing becomes unpalatable.  Likewise, although I am always very wary of restaurants that allow the doltish public to construct their own menus, the choice here is limited so that people are not able to hurt themselves no matter how hard they try.

The ordering process is simple.  Pick up a Sharpie, add a few crosses to a printed list to indicate what kind of meat, bun, cheese and toppings you want, hand over your wedge, pick up some of those house made condiments and take a seat until your name is called.  Ten or so minutes later, after your name is bellowed through a Tannoy, your fresh to order hamburger is offered to you in a brown paper bag.

The end result, in my case, was a pleasingly juicy slab of medium cooked beef, with toppings of red onion, sharp pickles and apple wood smoked bacon (for an extra $1). Sybil chose a chicken burger with mushrooms and for an added $2.50 we shared a bag of fries.

The burger and toppings were excellent and the fries greaseless and crunchy.  I did think it more than a little odd that the strip of Swiss cheese I requested had been placed on the bottom of the burger and also thought that the whole wheat bun I chose could have done with a good toasting.  Those small points aside, the hamburger at The Hole In The Wall was a very good addition to an already impressive list of hamburger joints I have visited during my time in The City Of Angels. 

There are still lots more to go, of course, but I have another 10lbs and at least another 100 miles of running before you are going to hear about my next beef in a bun.

So there.

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4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

The bun is wrong. Don't bother to argue, it's wrong. Some weird, brown, wholemeal, whatever. Look at it! It's all arse about face! People just fuck burgers up so badly by messing about with something that relies on a basic formula. It has to be a white bun - All this "Artisan Bread" bollocks is sacrilege! I've recently seen people using Focaccia too - WRONG! White bun, preferably with sesame seeds on.

I have become a burger Nazi, but it is necessary - there's just too much messing around going on, and I'm taking it upon myself to stop the rot!

Rant over. Enjoy the weekend.

Friday, September 24, 2010 7:49:00 pm  
Anonymous Paulie said...

That burger looks like a london burger tbh.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010 1:41:00 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

If memory serves me, I seem to remember Wimpy serves it's burgers on wholemeal. Nuff said.

Friday, October 01, 2010 10:22:00 am  
Anonymous Tom H. said...

Never with sesame seeds!-these are the Frankenstein invention of McDo.The origin of this was that McD wanted to prevent their buns from "creasing" their shell when being stacked. The addition of sesame seeds is an abomination foisted on us by mass production fast-food.As such,it has no place in a true burger.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010 11:41:00 am  

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