Vizzies (or "I don't have a clever title like Laura...")

Name: Vizzie’s

Location: Kenmore Ave, Tonawanda, NY

Claim to Fame: The $6 Burger

Food:  Said $6 Burger, only $2 more because I wanted bacon

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

So, technically, the $8.95 burger.  The meal consisted of a 1/2 lb. hunk of beef grilled and resting atop a toasted Costanza roll (the local King of rolls), with lettuce, cheddar, and bacon (tomatoes and onions optional for people who aren’t secretly 5 years old like I am.  What? They’re ICKY.)  With the burger came your choice of potato, macaroni salad, or pasta salad.  Seeing as I was already ruining my diet for this burger, I opted for the fries.  They were homemade and arrived in a heaping pile of greasy, salty goodness. Please see the below photo.  This was one of those burgers where, when down to the last few bites, you fight to swallow them with every fiber of your being, because you just can’t handle leaving anything left over.  The spices, salt, pepper, onion, garlic and I believe a hint of Worcestershire, accentuated the flavor of grilled beef, instead of trying to mask it, as so many do.  The taste of grilled beef is a work of art, don’t hide it!  The fries had clearly been fried in well-seasoned grease, and were perfumed with the flavors of a thousand batches of their forbearer fries.  Absolute deliciousness.

 

Why then, you ask, the 8.5 rating?  Well, there were a few problems.  While the overall burger was delicious, it was not cooked properly.  When asked, I specifically stated I wanted my burger done “medium.”  I do enjoy a pink burger, none of this well-done nonsense.  Plus, E. coli O157:H7 isn’t near as common as alarmists would have you believe.  Well worth the risk.  What arrived, however, was very much “medium well.”  Minus 0.5 points.  My eating partner’s burger did arrive her requested medium, however (see Vizzie up the Burger).  Secondly, the roll was not adequate for the burger.  Costanza rolls have an almost cult-like following in Buffalo, NY, and in any other case would have been an asset, but their standard roll size was just not enough to handle a half pound of grade A beef.  Also, even though I had been assured that my roll would be toasted, it was barely so.  The sliced side was hard, but there was no change in color to indicate it had been toasted.  In other words, it had been thrown on the grill for approximately 5 seconds, then removed. Minus another 0.5 points.  Lastly, the bacon.  Now, it takes a lot to ruin bacon.  Well, ok, it takes a lot to make bacon inedible, and thankfully, they did not reach this point.  But it was a mass in the center of the burger, clearly cooked hours beforehand and dehydrated to the point of a jerky-like existence from sitting in a stainless steel container on the grill all day.  Granted, I still ate it, because bacon is bacon and it takes a lot of abuse to make bacon taste bad, but it was not what I was expecting, or at least not for a $2-price increase.

Overall, the burger was delicious, was a decent price, and was accompanied by some incredible fries that I still mourn not being able to finish.  Vizzie’s was a dive, but as everyone knows and Guy Fieri has made a lot of money from, dives have the best food.  Would I have improved on a few things?  Absolutely.  Will I go back?  Absolutely. And this time, I’m gonna finish those damn fries. 

Oh, and there was a dill pickle.  A dill pickle always makes everything better (see Pickled cucumber for concise explanation of said edict).