Vanilla Cupcake w/ Chocolate Icing

by Celia Sin-Tien Cheng
July 11, 2006

BURGERS & CUPCAKES
458 9th Ave
(35th & 36th Sts)
New York, NY 10018
212-643-1200

When I first heard about Mitchel London opening a place that specializes in burgers and cupcakes, I was so excited. It’s hard to screw up these two American staples, especially if that’s pretty much all you are serving. Plus it’s Mitchel London, the gourmet prepared foods chef (formerly Ed Koch’s personal chef) who has two other stores around town.

I tried a burger and two cupcakes for lunch. It was beyond disappointing. I felt like I was at Johnny Rockets. The food certainly didn’t taste any better than Johnny Rockets, and the service was slow and unattentive. The one thing it had going for it was that it smelled and felt cleaner than Johnny Rockets.

I ordered a bacon cheeseburger with avocado, medium rare. My burger came out well-done, and the beef was completely tasteless. That’s pretty hard to do, because even unseasoned beef straight from the butcher should have a distinctive taste to it. The cheese was a half-inch thick clump stuck to just the top half of the bun — a little uneven, I’d say. I also ordered large fresh cut fries and a green salad. I’ve tasted better fresh cut fries at In-N-Out on the West Coast. Even the salad, which was supposed to have cherry tomatoes but arrived with slices of regular tomato instead, was a display of the lack of effort to create something more interesting and tasty than straight meslcun and tomatoes in a bowl.

The cupcakes aren’t much of a treat either, especially considering that Cupcake Café is just five blocks away. The fresh blueberry with buttercream icing cupcake sounded promising, but alas it wasn’t particularly moist, and the icing was kind of icky. I also got a vanilla cupcake with chocolate icing to try a different combination. I normally don’t like chocolate icing, but its richness was a winner in contrast to the disgusting buttercream icing.

Saddened by this first excursion, and thinking I might have caught them on an off day, I decided to give Burgers & Cupcakes another try. So I went back for breakfast. I guess you could say that the breakfast here is more pleasant than at a diner — less greasy and more refined. But do you really want to set your benchmark as your local diner?! I tried the scrambled eggs with chorizo, jalapenos and roasted tomato, and I had a bite of my companion’s bottomless stack of Elaine’s pancakes. Both good but not amazing. Service was as lacking and slow as on my first visit.

My two trips to Burgers & Cupcakes were not validated, and I am a bit confused. How is it that people can be so checked out? The waitresses at the joint are checked out and could not care less. Those cooking the food clearly seem to be checked out too, since they’re making the food so lopsided and tasteless. Mitchel London was there both times and seems to spend a lot of time there, but there’s a clear lack of attention to detail. Or more befitting, it’s just lacking.

Also in American, Burgers, Cupcakes, Hell’s Kitchen, Sweets