Burger Joint, Le Parker Meridien NYC

Alan and I had a rare opportunity to meet for lunch in the city last week. Looking around at our choices, we quickly decided it was a perfect day to head over to 56th between Sixth & Seventh Avenues to the Le Parker Meridien hotel for a burger. Now prior to meeting Mary & Steve, we never heard of the Burger Joint tucked away in this midtown hotel. But with much animation, they described this as one of the must try burgers in the city so it's been on our list ever since.

The first thing to note about the Burger Joint is that it's quite literally hidden away. Even knowing it was tucked into an obscure corner down a little hallway, we still couldn't find it and had to ask for directions from the concierge. Sure enough it's behind a long red curtain, down a dark little hallway and only marked with a small neon sign of a hamburger.

We got there right at noon - luckily - since this place is quite small. Getting a seat wasn't a problem when we arrived, but there was a line by the time we left our little, rundown booth. It's got the feel of a biker sports bar combo and looks like it's not been updated since 1974. The menu consists of three things: hamburger, cheeseburger and grilled cheese. They offer french fries and an assortment of beers, shakes  (after 1:30pm) and wine (hello, is this Taylor's Refresher?!?).

We ordered cheeseburgers with lettuce, tomato, ketchup and mayo plus I added mustard to mine. They cook to order and we got them done medium. We split an order of fries and a diet Coke. The bill came to $21.00 - we paid and grabbed a booth to wait for our lunch. It only took maybe five minutes before our order was up.

This is a no fuss, no muss kind of place. The burgers themselves were on the small side if you compare them to a Shake Shack or Five Guys. But the taste was very good - nice blend of bun to meat to condiments. I would have liked the burger to be a little juicier and a little bigger, but overall it was pretty good. I'd go back and get two of them and maybe order it medium-rare. The fries were better than decent so overall, a win. If you can find it and deal with the lunch crowd (go early) it's worth it!