NJ Dining: The 2009 Feedbag Burger Summit

The First Feedbag Burger Summit, hosted by Citysearch‘s Josh Ozersky, was held on July 26, 2009.

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I feel very, very queasy. And I know that God is punishing me. I have proof of this, because the act of punishment, served in Biblical fashion with ketchup, mayonnaise and and pickle slices was witnessed by hundreds of people.

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It started off innocuously enough.

Nice pretty girls. If it has nice pretty girls, it can’t possibly be bad, can it?

Oh, wait…

Water Taxi Beach’s Harry Hawk cooks up sweet onions in butter to go on his classic Schnack burgers.

Plates being readied.

While Burger patties had many different shapes and sizes at the event, all used various burger mixes from Pat LaFrieda, one of the premier burger meat purveyors in New York City.

Where we saw tremendous variation was on toppings. This is a mushroom duxelles with cream sauce and foie gras, used by BGR on one of their “Haute” burger entries.

BGR’s “Wellington” burger.

This huge tower of American Cheese was symbolic of the Tower of Babel in ancient Babylon. And you know what God did to the Babylonians, right?

These LaFrieda patties are more uniformly shaped.

Bistro Laurent Tourondel’s (BLT) burgers.

With Biblical disasters you usually start with fire and brimstone.

The BLT team putting some finishing touches on a plate.

And this is usually preceded by gluttony and sexual perversion.

By now, I was starting to get a little dizzy.

Then the organizer of the event, Josh Ozersky (center) showed up at Wildwood Barbecue’s booth.

A closeup of Wildwood’s Pepper Jack Cheese and Mushroom Sliders.

Here they are being topped with caramelized onions.

By now I have sampled quite a few hamburgers. Any sane person would have stopped as they suddenly noticed they were getting quite full.

But like David Duchovny or any other sex addict, I could not stop.

Ozersky followed me, like a little devil on my shoulder. “Hey Perlow, do you mind helping me out? The judges are going to start getting tired from eating all of those burgers so we are going to need to bring some relief judges in. Can you help out with the judging in a little while? Great!”

This is the Abe and Arthur’s burger, which while simple in presentation was definitely one of the best burgers in the event. Really juicy and beefy.

FIRE! MEAT! BACON!

More burgers. A little voice in my head was screaming out for help. But I refused to hear it. “STFU!” I said to the little voice in my head.

These are more sliders being prepared, swimming in a pool of burger juices.

Caramelized Onions.

Caramelized Onion “Black Label” Sliders by Minetta Tavern

This is really, really where I should have stopped.

More… BURGERS.

What’s this? This looks different.

And it tasted so GOOOOOOOOOD. “El Doble” from Txikito restaurant.

Some burgers were very simple in style but were just as compelling as the fancy ones.

Stop. Now.

But wait, there’s more! Alma restaurant decided to make Cuban Style “Frita” burgers like you get in Miami. Cuban? Burgers? I’m so all over it.

Alma’s Cuban burgers had some spicy pork mixed into them to give it that Latino punch.

Alma’s head chef giving his Fritas some tender love and care.

Frita Sliders being readied for plating.

Alma’s Cuban/Miami style sliders.

I loved this shot.

This is when things started to go very badly. I joined the judging panel, as an alternate relieving Eddie Schoenfeld, who decided he had enough burgers for one day. This was a bad, bad idea.

Within minutes of me joining the judging panel, we got hit by a tremendous rainstorm followed by hail the size of golfballs. If this wasn’t the wrath of God from eating way too much red meat in one sitting I don’t know what is. But maybe it wasn’t just my gluttony, I couldn’t have been the exclusive cause of this torrent.

Surprisingly, many of the attendees stayed around as we all got soaking wet.

After the rain subsided, the judging resumed. Here’s a Mexican-inspired burger with guacamole and tortilla chips. This was tasty but I was really getting queasy at this point.

OH GOD NO! WHAT IS THIS?

Are you really going to make us eat this thing?

Oh God, they are. They really are.

The judges, amazingly enough, still looked pretty hungry.

This guy admitted to me that he had about enough, and the meat was from his meat company!

This was the portion that was given to me. I could barely look at the thing without getting nauseated, let alone eat it. But I did take a bite, it was surprisingly tasty.

Citysearch’s Josh Ozersky, also known as Satan.