District Burger

I visited District in Portland, Maine, back in March and reviewed it a couple months ago, but the last time I was in Maine I couldn't resist hitting it up again...a couple of times. I had heard how absolutely amazing their bacon cheeseburgers were supposed to be, and I needed to see for myself.

Just look at this burger. You know you want to eat it. The bun glistening with a smear of glowing oil, the bacon bursting forth beneath it, and all on top of a savory hunk of ground beef.

Beautiful. 

What makes a District burger so good? One glaringly obvious aspect of the District burger is its simplicity. Sometimes restaurants try so hard to reinvent the burger that they forget that sometimes the best burger is the basic one. The District just a burger--a bun, meat, cheese, bacon...I think there was some lettuce on there too. When you have quality ingredients, these basic components are all a burger really needs to be (although I can't really complain about the decadent Apocalypse Burger either). And the fries that accompanied it were crispy, salty, and a great companion for my tasty burger.

Another aspect that makes the District burger great is that when you order a specific doneness it is actually served to you that way. This virtue is rare these days. Most of the time if you want a burger done medium, let's say, you have to order it rare otherwise the chef will cook the juicy interior until it's done all the way through. No fun. At District, however, rare is rare, medium-rare is medium-rare, and so on. If you want your burger dripping with the lifeblood of the cow, then I'm sure they can serve it to you that way.

So go. Eat the burger. Enjoy.