Monday, June 18, 2007

Poag Mahone's

333 S. Wells
Chicago, IL 60604
(312) 566-9100

Poag Mahone's is an Irish pub-themed bar in the Loop at the corner of Wells and Van Buren, near the Harold Washington Library and Cal's, a much better bar. It's generally expensive and attracts traders. I'm boring myself just thinking about it, and thus, for a mini-burger, a mini-review, because I have next to nothing to say about these.



As CBP associate Eric Porges put it, "A slider is a subgenre, but a mini-burger is a gimmick," and that's what you've got here: small, unadorned beef patties, deeply charred, served on a kind of donut-hole shaped baguette.



They don't photograph well, but they taste fine. TOC dubbed them "the Bruce Springsteen of burgers" for being "unfussy, basic, rugged, and substantial," all of which are inarguably trademarks of the 57-year-old musician. Pogue Mahone's makes no effort to disguise their frozen crinkle fries as anything else, but they're redeemed by a nice mix of seasonings.

But as you can see, they come completely plain, just bread and bun, which is pretty disappointing. (How about some cherry tomato slices? Where are my mini-pickle sections? If you're going to do this, fucking do it, alright?) You might be able to get by with tabletop condiments if the cap of the mustard didn't look like this:



Come on; are you kidding?

Adam was so repulsed by this thing that he had to put it on the ground, under his chair, before he could finish eating.

It's pretty apparent that we're just skeptical of TOC's burger assessments, but Adam brought to light the news that venerable food critic Alan Richman had deemed Poag Mahone's regular burger one of his Twenty Hamburgers You Must Eat Before You Die. That's hype. Add to that this "Buger Eater's Bill of Rights" that appears on the menu:



So, who knows? We had to try the real deal. Adam had a basic hamburger, and a notable visiting artist and I both topped ours with grilled onions and bleu cheese. This is what I got:



Sunglasses is a must.

First of all, the pickle wasn't crisp, but it was a half-sour, which is a pretty rare thing to find outside of a deli. All of the other items on our Bill of Rights were not applicable, as we didn't order more fries, couldn't weigh the burger, didn't trust this place to eat rare ground beef, etc. The whole thing was fine, like a great on-the-grill burger made by a chef-friend. If you like char, this is a good burger for you. The whole experience was somewhat soured by a nearly $50 check for the three of us.





11 comments:

Ziggy said...

Nice to see you're drinking Newcastle Brown Ale there.

Hendrickson said...

Wife and I ate here because we were craving some out-of-this-world burger and we found this place on more than one list of the best burgers in Chicago.
We live in the burbs, so it was no trivial thing to go to the loop for this, but we did and all I can say is what a waste of gas. I've had better burgers at Wendy's.
I don't know who this Poag dude is paying off to get on these lists, but it must be costing him quite a bit.

Unknown said...

Well, Poag Mahone does mean kiss my ass (pog mo thoin) in Irish.

Al T said...

if you go on monday after 3 pm you can aquire you beefy good sandwiches for the cut rate of two dollars and fifty cents. I dont know maybe thats when they get thier new meat in but it tastes just fine to me. pouge mahone means kiss my ass in gaelic.

Anonymous said...

wait a second do you pay that price for that chihuhua burger? it's incredible I know that in the world there's hunger, but this is totally ridiculous, with prices like this is cheaper take a look in Viagra Online and consult first before end paying something like this.

Unknown said...

I like all the random viagra comments that this dakuro douchebag keeps posting on your site...

Anonymous said...

I work at generic viagra information center and it is located 3 blocks west from Poag Mahone's Restaurant, but I have never gone to this place, cuz I didn't know how food was. Today I'm gonna visit it for lunch.

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