The wife and I were doing some house-hunting on Saturday morning and, after an unsuccessful showing, our realtor asked whether we wanted to try a new burger place. Being that I edit a blog that's more or less devoted to chronicling every sizzle produced by every patty of wet meat from Waco to the Oklahoma border, I sincerely doubted that this new burger would be new to me.
But it was. I'm slipping. This Meatless Monday shit has me off my game. Wanna know how bad it is? I ate quiche last night. Do you know what quiche is? I don't either, but there was a perceptible lack of cheese-covered ground beef in it. If things keep going in this direction my arteries are going start to worry I'm depressed or something.
Anyway, the new(ish) burger joint: Liberty Burger. It's at the corner of Forest and Inwood, and it was slammed by noon Saturday: No tables, line out the door. The seating system's sort of weird: You get in line, but you can't order if they don't have enough tables. So we had to stand by the cashier and wait for a table to clear before we could order. I took this awkward moment to ask the cashier how business was. He told me they were quickly becoming one of Dallas' best burgers.
We'll see about that, Mouthy Guy Running Cashier.
They offer a bunch of fancy burgers, as you'll see on the menu below. I went with the namesake, as I always do. It's hard to judge a burger with too much shit on it; a burger smothered in bacon and barbecue sauce tastes like wild west whether it's here or at Carl's Jr. But the basic cheeseburger reveals all.
Stories like Scott's Smashburger breakdown make me hesitant to really rate a burger, since he knows more about burgers than any human should really know. But I'll say that found this one solid: Everything around the burger, from bun to veggies to condiments, tasted fresh and lively, and it was presented in perfect balance. The burger itself was pink like I'd asked. It wasn't exactly bursting with flavor, but fast-casual spots with eyes on expansion never seem to have the gall to let the juices flow.
And, yes, while Liberty's only 11 weeks in, its owners, the folks behind Snookie's, are already talking expansion. With lines out the door, I don't imagine it will take long.
Here are some more photos. I didn't get photos of the 97 kids who were running around, but trust me: They were there. In force. Take note.
