The Beauty's in the Bun With Top Knot's New $5 Happy Hour Burger

It starts with a good roll.

Every morning, Top Knot makes fresh Parker House-style buns. The result is a butter-sheened cloud with a delicately thin shell. With a few flakes of Kosher salt on top, you have one of the best damn bread bites in Dallas. You’ll find the roll bookending the hot fried chicken sandwich — rice-floured chicken thigh, double dredged, fried and sauced with cornichon gastrique — right now on chef Angela Hernandez’s nightly menu.

Then, there’s the new happy hour burger, served daily from 5 to 6:30 p.m.

It’s five bucks, a humble little sandwich, and on the night I’m at Top Knot, it’s the last one they had made. I’m drinking crisp, cold sake and biting into chicken tacos, too. The double cheeseburger comes in a small bowl, with a slice of designer paper underneath. It's artistic without forgetting the fact that it's a double cheeseburger. You're meant to dive in recklessly.

Chef Hernandez, who happily relays the joy of putting anything between these rolls (you might be able to put a mouse pad in between their buttered Parker House rolls and experience some happiness), is “by no means trying to compete with the best burgers in the city,” she says.

This solid double cheeseburger, a little bigger than a slider, comes with two Angus beef patties (spiked with a little ground pork), cheddar, bacon, pickles and Miso-infused mustard that will make you want to arm-wrestle someone for the recipe. There's a touch of head-clearing spice in there, and you’ll want more.

“It’s a double patty because why not?” Hernandez says of the guilty pleasure of the whole thing. That Parker House roll, an oval-shaped, pillow-soft bun, forces people to stop mid-sentence and behold the bread. Macy's should sell this bun alongside their bedding. How often do you feel that about buns? It soaks up juices, too. The bacon lends a crunchy texture. The beef is salty and fatty and tender.

So whether or not she’s trying to compete, this is a four-bite sandwich that’ll leave you wanting to order quadruple the burgers for the table. Grab some cold beer (or sake) and share.

Top Knot, 2817 Maple Ave.