Sunday, December 11, 2011

Good Burgers Great Spuds: Short Order at the Farmers Market

Short Order is the new Nancy Silverton burger spot at the Third and Fairfax Farmer's Market. It features a fairly slim menu of grass fed beef burgers as well as pork, lamb, tuna burgers. A brunch menu will be added in January. And they are working on too sister establishments: Short Cake - a bakery and Single Origin - a coffee bar.

I tried the Frisee Lardon Raft, an open faced burger topped with frisee dressed in a light vinaigrette, lardons and a fried egg. The components were all very good, but the burger didn't come together. It felt like an egg on top of a salad on top of a burger, not a single composition. I also sampled the patty melt with pimento cheese sauce, which was good but not any sort of revelation.

I liked these burgers, but they didn't blow me away, and when you are paying $14 for burgers during an LA burger renaissance, you expect greatness.

Now, the "Short Order Spuds" were a different story. These fabulous nuggets are tater tot sized, deep fried potato chunks (including skin). You can get them with a sour cream and chive dipping sauce or with truffle salt. Fried to a golden brown, the shape of these things (almost like mini-potato skins) maximizes the surface area giving you plenty of crunchy crust. They are highly addictive. I could have eaten a much larger serving than the little pail.

I'll probably head back to Short Order, but I may just get a beer and some spuds.

Short Order
6333 w. 3rd st. (The Original Farmers Market at Third & Fairfax)
Los Angeles, CA 90036

5 comments:

Jason Pyle said...

Obviously I don't live in LA, but I think this burger craze is all over. We have new ones opening up left and right here in Nashville. So far, NONE of them have blown me away. I make a far better burger, and with each trip to one of these disappointing spots I remark to my wife, "Maybe we should open a burger joint."

WHen you pay $14 for a burger you expect greatness. Those potatoes however look as good as you described them.

sku said...

Jason, I agree the gourmet burger thing has probably run its course, but new ones keep coming. I keep expecting McDonalds to come out with sweet potato fries, which would surely be the death knell of this trend. That being said, I've had a few that are really good, though they tend to be the ones that opened earlyh in the trend.

SteveBM said...

We have burger joints still opening up like mad here in Miami too. I judged a burger contest a few weeks ago - http://blindtastes.blogspot.com/2011/11/3rd-annual-burgie-awards.html

The contest was brutal in terms of how many I had to judge and by the total lack of quality in many of the contestants. It all starts with the patty for me - gotta be ground properly, seasoned nicely, and cooked to the appropriate temp (med-rare for me but many like medium). Most of the time, toppings like the fried egg on top of salad just get in the way and that ends up being what you paid for. I pass on those burgers.

Damn, now I'm hungry...

SinoSoul said...

It seems you've joined the consensus: for that kinda $, it needs to be awesome. And the spuds are good.

I'm going to wait for them to drop their prices, maybe around 2013. Thanks for being the final nail in the coffin! (and going back to Sku's recent EATS, dude.)

sku said...

SinoSoul, point taken, I've been blogging more about the liquid diet these days.

I'm dying to get to some of your ice cream places though.