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| - SLS? Seriously Lacks Satisfaction.
This is no more obvious than at Umami Burger, destination for our latest foodventure. But foodventures are not always successful, as Umami (Japanese for something) would prove. When Mama R wanted a burger for her birthday, Emijandro and I found it as our opportunity to try the much talked-about burger spot at SLS and off we went.
My thoughts on SLS itself are... sub-par at best, but this review strictly focuses on Umami Burger, which we found along the wall fairly easily. Walking in, there was a very... recycled... feel to the place, which I thought was supposed to be an urban hipster sports bar vibe. But one glance at the CHECKERED FLAG CEILING ABOVE revealed they just gutted the NASCAR Cafe and didn't bother to redo the ceiling.
When we were seated, we were handed small, trifold menus. Mine was dirty.
Seriously, your F&B department could have printed a ton of those, but you're giving me a dirty one?
Maybe it was to hide the fact that the basic burger was $12. No fries. NO GAWDANG FRIES. **flips table**
I ordered the Manly Burger, without the beer-cheese (?) as I don't care for cheese on my burger. The (dirty) menu said it had "bacon lardons" on it. "Ryan," you may be asking, "what in the Sam Hill is a 'lardon?'" I didn't know either, but it's somehow related to bacon, so I took the risk ($$) along with an order of Tempura Onion Rings ($) and water (HAH TAKE THAT CORPORATE MURRKA!). Emijandro ordered the Jose Andres Burger ($$$) and Mama R ordered the basic burger. Well, basic according to Umami's standards.
The burger is an art form. I know. I'm a burger connoisseur. A burger gourmand, if you will. Its art is found in its simplicity. A patty made out of some meat, toppings-a-go-go, and a bun. Delightful. But at some point Umami just made it all too fancy-schmancy. First off, lardons are apparently cubed bits of slab bacon. I suppose that's fine, but some thick strips of bacon are just as tasty and probably less expensive for the restaurant so they can lower their prices. Secondly, would have liked some barbecue sauce on this type of burger (also had onion strings), not their Umami Ketchup (Japanese for something ketchup), which really was just ketchup, nothing really different.
The burger was too pink for my taste -- apparently my waiter heard "medium rare" instead of "medium please." Or he was just dumb or hated his job -- the service was unsatisfactory, he spoke too quietly for a sports bar atmosphere during the third quarter of Monday Night Football, and dropped items repeatedly (fortunately not our food). When we could hear him, he was being pushy about us ordering dessert.
Listen, dude, I know you're supposed to upsell, but when my bill is already about $19, don't give me a look when we say no to dessert.
Which I could have gone for, by the way, because for that type of money, the burger was small. To be fair, I didn't leave hungry, but I didn't leave with that OMG NO MORE FOOD IT WAS TOO GOOD kind of feeling. It just left me with a general MEH. I shouldn't leave with MEH for $19.
A few positive notes: The onion rings were tasty, though I could have used a dipping sauce beyond the four tiny little ladles of sauce they provide, one being the Umami Ketchup (something ketchup), and one being HOLY CRAP MY BUTT WILL REGRET THAT TONIGHT kind of spicy.
Umami should be Japanese for "overhyped." If you want the best burger on the Strip, it's still at Holsteins at The Cosmopolitan. Or stay off-strip and you can find a lot of high-quality burgers at a much lower price point. Either way, maybe SLS stands for Satisfaction Low, Sorry.
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