Oinkster's Burger Week 2015

I've made mention in a few other mentions about Oinkster in Eagle Rock, including a post chronicling my first visit back in 2007. The place is a little pricey, but totally worth it. This year, they were having (though not for the first time, just the first time on my radar) Burger Week in the first week of June. This year all the creations are inspired by movies and television, a different one each day. Buy all seven, & you get a T-shirt. You know I'm a sucker for a T-shirt!!! Challenge accepted!!! I'd been planning on doing it all solo, but I told my wife about it, and she wanted in on it, too. OK, my free T-shirt price just doubled!!! Coulda been worse, though, if the firstborn wasn't off in boot camp!!!

This meant that after getting off work and going home to get my wife, it's after 8 by the time we get there. Even at that hour, there is still a line going out the door and around the side of the building. Burger week brought 'em out in droves!!! So, it's kind of late by the time I eat, but I'm good and hungry for it. I missed getting a shot of the first day's burger, the Krusty Klogger, from the SImpson's movie. Ironically, that was the catylist for this post. Took one of my random, use 'em up, vacation days today, and FXX had The Simpsons Movie on, and I had to watch it. It's a double cheeseburger (homemade cheese) with bacon, bourbon-bacon jam, bacon dressing and even a side of pork rind dust!!! It was a worthy burger, and for all what's on it, a fairly pretty good deal. Of course, we had to get an order of fries and extra of their incredible garlic aioli sauce!!!

Day two they have the Atomic Hot Pepper burger from Dumb & Dumber. I was a bit worried about this one, sounds SUPER spicy!!! It has a HUGE cheddar-filled jalapeño popper, marinated red peppers, housemade chorizo nacho cheese, chipotle-garlic aioli, shredded lettuce, chopped onion and tomato. The first few bites I managed to avoid the popper, and it wasn't prohibitively spicy, actually VERY tasty. Finally, I bit the bullet & bit into the jalapeño popper... Nope!!! My mouth is on FIRE!!! I had to tap out and remove it to finish that burger, so I fudged a little on eating every burger in it's entirety. My wife, however, is a fiend for spicy, so she ate all of hers... which ended up being her undoing. The next day she had a doctor's appointment, and he advised her to cut out a lot of the bread in her diet to help lower her blood sugar, and the jalapeño had made her sick to her stomach all day. She bowed out after the second day, making it so I could head over directly from work and not be eating quite so late at night.

Day three has Bet it all on Black Garlic from Bob's Burgers. Black garlic cream cheese, black garlic aioli, onion and mixed baby greens on a black garlic butter-toasted black burger bun. You know how I feel about garlic!!! Not only was this possibly the most visually stunning of the week, I think it may have been my favorite. Without my wife along, I ended up taking my younger son, so didn't save any time getting over there. He's not much of an adventurous eater, but he'll have one of their pulled pork sandwiches, albeit without the purple slaw on it. He loves his chili fries, so we got an order of those, a first for me. Why would I deviate from their Belgian fries & garlic aioli???

Day four has the Ulti-Meatum from The Regular Show, one of my favorite shows. This sounded like it was going to be one of my top favorites in burgers, too. On this burger there's pastrami, pulled pork, Swiss cheese, blue cheese cole slaw and Himalayan ketchup. Don't even know what Himalayan ketchup is!!! It was pretty good, but it didn't wow me like I thought it would. DId I over hype it in my mind??? Maybe. This time I picked up some of their Piggy fries, kind of like In-N-Out's animal fries, only better.

Day five was a pair of Red Castle Sliders from Harold & Kumar go to White Castle. OK, like the movie, and it's a decent concept, but in my opinion it was about the most pedestrian burger of the week. Also, it was the best price of Burger Week. This was my day off, and my wife accompanied me on this run again. She opted for their Chinese chicken salad, and declared it great.

Day six was the Big Kahuna burger from Pulp Fiction. It had charred pineapple, kalbi-marinated Spam, kimchi pickles, green curry mayo and teriyaki sauce, and it was delicious!!! I'd thought they would have gone with the Royale with cheese, since that is mentioned in that movie in a few places, but they've already got a Royale on their menu, and I think it would exceed the one described in the movie. Also thought they should have done a promo shake that day, the "I've like to know what a five dollar shake tastes like" shake.

For the final day, they had the Krabby Patty from SpongeBob Squarepants. It has a crab AND shrimp patty and cocktail and tartar sauce, butter lettuce and tomato. My wife also got in on that one, too, against her doctor's advice.

And there's my wrist full of wristbands, reflected in their window (while waiting in line) on the last day.

Also got their Burger Week cupcake on the last day. Pretty visual, and tasty, too. Quite a bit like a twinkie in flavor.

A shot of the Piggy Fries. Tasty, but I think I'll stick with the Belgian fries & garlic aioli!!!

So I ate seven days worth of burger week, spent something like $95, and all I got was this freakin' awesome shirt!!! Well, that's not all, I got a belly full of tasty food every night, and, as I always appreciate, a good story to go with it!!!