The Best Burger My Bucks Can Buy!!!

I am a bachelor. What does that have to do with a story about food? Well, my friend, read on and you shall see.

Other than the presence of a wife, there is a distinct difference between how a bachelor dines and how a married man dines. The married guy and his wife share the dining duties. They tend to cook for each other or they may just choose to dine out. Either way, each one depends on the other. The bachelor only has one option-himself. If he chooses not to cook, he starves. He has to find a way to eat. And THIS is where my story comes in.

Having been a bachelor for almost 62 years, I am fully qualified to put together the greatest food list any bachelor has ever seen. For the purpose of this article, we will look at the basic food of any fast food joint-the simple burger. Your basic burger consists of a circular slab of mini beef encased between two halves of a burger bun. Toppings like ketchup, pickles, and maybe onions can be considered standard toppings, but they could be just extras depending on where you go.

For this article, I will look at a few places. Keep in mind that I simply cannot visit every place out there, but I do trust the ones I will mention here.

The first place I would look at is McDonalds. They are a nice place with an extensive menu. You can have almost anything you want, but we want to look at burgers. Their burgers are nice, but the first thing I noticed is that what I see in the ad is not the same thing placed in my hand. In other words, the pictured burger looks like it was pumped up with steroids while the one handed to me looks like it was completely soaked. That is not to say that it tastes horrible. On the contrary. It tastes very nice. For my money, I prefer getting the biggest burger I can afford. That means that I want a triple Big Mac. Yup, three burgers in between the buns. It has some special sauce, pickles, lettuce, and tomatoes. It is like a meal in between a meal. McDonalds likes to make sure that you get some bang for your buck. For $5, you can't really go wrong.

Ever been to Arbys? I have. I started going there a few months ago. Their TV ads are nice. They claim to be experts with meats. Although I am talking about burgers here, I have to confess that I have never tried one of their burgers. Instead, I went for their barbecue Bourbon Brisket sandwich which looks like a hamburger that had been sliced and neatly placed on a hamburger bun. What makes this item truly stand out is the fact that it also comes with bacon and a sweet barbecue sauce. It also has onion rings on top of the meat. Sometimes, I will order it with curly fries, but that is another story. This sandwich costs about $8 and change. It is definitely worth the money and the effort to get there to try it.

I also like White Castle burgers. The nice thing about them is that these are small burgers. They are basic burgers that can have onions, ketchup, or cheese on them. In fact, you can order them with the single condiment or all three on them. The funny part is that they are sold by a quantity. In other words, you can get a pack of 20 burgers and not feel guilty about eating them. That does not mean that you will eat all 20 at one sitting. You might have enough room in your tummy for only 6, 7, or maybe 10. You can store the rest for later and not feel guilty.

I think that the king of all burgers resides at-where else-Burger King. When I started eating at BK, their motto used to be "Have it your way." They used to custom make your food. Don't want ketchup on your burger? Tell them and you won't have ketchup on your burger. Lately, I ordered a Bacon King burger. You have to see this monster. At $8, you get something that requires two hands to lift. It is that heavy. The first time I tried one, I could barely breathe with a bite of food in my mouth. Before I finished it, I decided to lift the top of the bun to see its contents. There was bacon, barbecue sauce, a few onion rings and, of course, the MASSIVE burger. This was a meal fit for a king.

As a bachelor, I am a mood eater. That is, I like what I like at that moment. I don't like to eat whatever it is at that moment. If my mouth feels like it wants just onion rings, if I have the money in my pockets, I will go out and buy some nice, tasty onion rings. It is the same with my burgers. If I want a particular burger as described above, I will drive to a place to get just that burger and no other. I once bought something I wanted by lunchtime, but I did not find the time to eat it. I thought that I would have it for dinner, but by then, I wanted something else instead. The item sat in my fridge for six years (Remember, I am a bachelor. I rarely get to clean out an empty fridge.) I was going to throw it out at some point,m but it was nice enough to crawl outta the fridge and jump into the garbage bin for me.

Because I am a mood eater, I like to buy not one, but 3 or 4 burgers at a time. No, I do not eat them all in one sitting. I always have just one and put the rest away in the freezer. That way, when the mood strikes me on another day, I can pop one of those babies into the microwave and enjoy my meal in the privacy of my living room while I watch some TV. That is the nice thing about the burgers I mentioned earlier. They hold up very nicely in the microwave and no taste is ever lost.

I have been to restaurants-fancy restaurants-and tried what they call a burger. Theirs seem to not be burgers, but beef surrounded by other stuff to take your mind off their expensive beef. For the price at Arbys, McDonalds, Burger King, and White Castle, there is simply NO comparison. I looked at my restaurant meal and had to search for the burger. When I found it, it was a lot smaller than I thought it would be. It was surrounded by fries, lettuce and something else. Apparently, the burger was taken hostage by the rest of the sandwich. As far as taste was concerned, the fries were delicious. The burger? The jury is still out.

The very last option for me is to cook my own burger. Let me share a secret: I HATE COOKING!!! If I can't prepare it with the microwave oven, it just won't get cooked and eaten.To this date, ever since I tried traditional cooking, I have NEVER cooked a burger correctly. I just can't get it right. I panic when I see a burger bleeding. I figured that I needed to cook it longer. I once fried one so long that the neighborhood dogs wouldn't eat it. They used it as a mini frisbee instead. Thank goodness that White Castle has take-home burgers in the local supermarkets. Pop them in a microwave and it's like you just brought them directly home from White Castle.

I know that you want to add to my list. I also know that there are other places that I have not tried out there. Perhaps, I will write an updated article after trying out a few of those places. For now, these will suffice. I am not picky, but I do have my favorites.

Now, go enjoy and find yourself a nice wife. Maybe she would like to go out and share a burger with you.