Bareburger in Long Island City

Bareburger Hits LIC – But Will It Be a Hit?
by Daniel Sennet

If there’s a saturation of one thing in Long Island City 
it’s Burger joints. With kingpins like Corner Bistro, the fast and furious keepsakes including Burger Garage and Petey’s and just about every other restaurant offering their own take, one might argue that the addition of another hamburger purveyor is overkill. This reviewer, however, thinks quite the opposite. In fact, as the population continues to swell, the demand for more variety coming from more restaurants will grow in tandem. And so enters the popular Astoria chain Bareburger onto the corner of 49th and Vernon.

The ostentatious sign on the façade is enough to draw you into the restaurant, where you will immediately notice a chic collaboration between restored and reclaimed Barn wood tables, floors and high exposed ceilings and recycled vinyl-laden booths. Looking around, the entire place is covered in cute framed pictures of cow heads on human busts. You then notice how deceptively small it actually is: there is only space for 40 diners at once. The bar is towards the back of the space, but it is currently dry, as they don’t have their liquor license. Little known fact: they will never be able to serve hard liquor (only beer and wine) since they reside within 200 feet of a church. We get seated after about a 10 minute wait into one of the booths for four and are greeted by possibly the friendliest server in the history of the service industry. He’s wearing a shirt that ironically points out his love of grass (a pun on the restaurant’s certified organic status), and I wonder where I can get whatever he’s been having.

After quite a while deciding which among the numerous very tasty looking bareburgers we should order, I land on the Matador, a bison meat burger served with  queso fresco, jalapenos, guacamole, green leaf, spicy pico de gallo and brioche bun ($12.65). My companions both ordered the Socal, a turkey burger served with aged cheddar, pickled red onions, alfalfa and guac on a sprout bun ($10.85). The beauty of Bareburger lies in their comfort level with altering the order. The first Socal was changed to include vegan cheese (extra charge) instead of the cheddar and to be served in a kale wrap. I fought off my inclination to make a snide remark, which I would have lived to regret, because it was delicious; even the vegan cheese was perfectly melted. Now, it’s easy to come off sounding like a burger snob with so many neighborhood alternatives, so it will suffice to say that the Matador was refreshing in its use of alternative meat, but not altogether worth repeating. The bun was soft and welcoming, but oversized relative to the patty, which was warm, not hot. It was spiced in a way to accent the leanness of the bison meat, but the mountain of guac almost entirely eclipsed the sandwich. Each component was pretty good, but when assembled as a whole, it gets demoted to alright.

As sides, we got the wasabi carrot slaw, a mayo-based concoction with a little heat and not too creamy and the combo of onion rings and sweet potato fries. The onion rings maintained a great batter to onion ratio, were crisp and large enough to be very satisfying. The sweet potato fries were ok. Just ok. The highlights were the dipping sauces that included a habanero mayo, a smoke sauce (aka bbq sauce) and ginger ketchup that was rich and chunky. These were additional complements to the table standard Sir Kensington Ketchup and Mustard that were similarly rich and perfect additions to the burgers.

Finally for dessert, we get suckered (and by suckered, he asked if we wanted to try an ice cream sandwich) into the highlight of the meal – the ice cream cookie sandwich. We four-way split a snickerdoodle which was nothing short of spectacular. Just the perfect dessert, no matter how cold it is outside.

You could make a very good argument for going to Bareburger for a milkshake and ice cream sandwich and it being a very successful meal.  I’ll chalk it up to new jitters, but the burger portion of the meal left a little to be desired if it’s going to fight in the same ring as Corner Bistro. But for the sake of having alternative places to dine or to get delivery from – Bareburger is another refreshing add to the neighborhood and I wish its staff and owners luck. Based on my experiences at other locations, they’ll come around quickly to become one of the neighborhood’s staples.