December 7, 2010

Lonnieburger Baskets: Gabby's (Wyoming)

It's been a while, and I'm a little backed up with the burger stuff going here.

So we might as well throw down about Gabby's in Wyoming, OH as The Girl and I visited almost a month ago now.


Burger
  • Hey, at least the far edge of the burger is in focus.

    Gabby's makes a good burger.  Nice, firm patty without being too tough...good flavor with, admittedly, a minimum of spices.  It's beef, good, solid beef well grilled - with the marks and all to prove it.  This is a good, simple burger batty - thick without being ridiculously oversized - either 3/8 or a pound or 1/2, right about at the sweet spot.  Burger - 7

Toppings
  • I'm not particularly thrilled that I could kinda see through the cheese there, but the rest of the toppings were good and solid - pickles out of a jar, decent lettuce and tomato, onion somewhere under that tomato, good bacon, decent cheese.  The toppings weren't anywhere near to being the star of this show, but they were a decent accompaniment.

    A couple of pictures down there is The Girl's mushroom & Swiss burger there.  The mushrooms weren't closer to being fresh than to being the nice, dark, richly colored mushrooms that we'd make if we were caramelizing them at home.  I'm just saying.  Toppings - 6 

Fries
  • Personally, I like the battered fries, especially when the fries are lightly battered like this.  The batter is kind of a tempura batter, barely clinging to the fries.  The fries showed up nice and hot, crisp but thoroughly cooked.  Personally, I would've liked them just a little more well done, but they were done - just not quite as dark as I like things.  The batter also had no spice or salt at all.  Yeah, the batter on Rally's fries are a little too heavy, but I do like that those have some spice mixed in with the batter.  These had nothing at all in the batter, and I think they would've been a better with a little something - or with a bit of salt applied after the frying.  

    As an aside, The Girl generally hates battered fries - can't stand them, automatically pushes them to the side, but these she actually ate most of.  I'm guessing that's a compliment to the fries.  Fries - 8

Ambiance
  • When The Girl and I lived down in Northside, we loved Bacall's in North College Hill.  Nothing on the Bacall's menu was perfect, spectacular, wonderful.  Everything we had at Bacall's was good.  We knew that we'd always be getting something worthy of a seven on a ten scale.  No tens but no twos either. 

    Gabby's gives me the same feeling that Bacall's did.  It's a good neighborhood joint.  Decent booths with small pendant lights making each booth feel more intimate than they rightfully should with the layout of the six of them all back to back and side to side rather than along the perimeter of the walls.  The restaurant's in a nice area of town - the business area of Wyoming.

    Gabby's ambiance rating is about the same as its food - good, not great.  Ambiance - 7
Price
  • I'm looking for something under ten bucks, remember?  Burger with fries and two toppings (cheddar and bacon being my two, mushrooms and Swiss The Girl's) - $8.49.  Diet Coke - $1.99

    Together, that's within forty-nine cents of the sweet spot.  Price - 5
Other stuff
  • Gabby's is in a great part of town, admittedly one that was pretty much closed for the Friday night when we were there at 8pm or so. +1
  • Not much else to say here.  Seriously, good place - not great place...
Our total for Gabby's - 34 out of a possible 50.
  • Terry's Turf Club - 45
  • Cafe de Wheels - 44
  • Five Guys Burgers and Fries - 36
  • VanZandt - 34
  • Gabby's - 34
  • Quatman's - 32 / 34.5
  • Graffiti Burger - 27
  • Sammy's - 26
  • Arthur's - 26
Not a bad place to be but far below our stars so far.

Tomorrow, Roxy's...then The World!

Update: Feel free to check out another local blogger's take on Sammy's Gourmet Burgers to see that my review was about right.

1 comment:

calencoriel said...

How else do pickles come if not from a jar? Do you want pickles cured in an oaken barrel in the cellar?

And...you should have commented that even though you could kinda see through the cheese, it was because finally, it was actually melted on the burger.