This is a clear winner in my quest for the ultimate veggie burger. Not THE winner...there will be many winners...such as Emma's of Salisbury, Bang Bang Burger, and The Cafe @ Williams Hardware. Today I was pleased to find a fantastic, house made black bean burger just a short distance (albeit long drive, with Ballantyne traffic) from my house.
I heard about Brazwell's Pub last week, when a former student stopped in at school to pick up a transcript. He said he's one of the chef's at this pub in Ballantyne. His story is like many great chefs: he started as a dishwasher and his boss found he had talent in the kitchen. This was not news to his Foods teacher at school.
This loosely formed(which, to me, proves it's house made, and not full of fillers and commercial additives, like this place), well-seasoned black bean mixture overflows a wonderful bun that has been lightly toasted to a pleasing crunch. It's topped with melted pepperjack cheese, sour cream, slices of avocado, a pretty decent tomato slice, lettuce and red onion. Even the red onion won me over. Often people serve too much red onion on their salads and sandwiches, causing them to overwhelm (and maybe mask?) flavor, dry your mouth out, and cause you to burp onion for the rest of the day. This one had two slices of onion. I still took off one, but I wasn't shoveling ring after ring to the side of my plate.
And the FRIES! They were well-salted and had a couple other seasonings on them. They were slightly wilted, but forgivable. These are the fries that come with the sandwich and I can't imagine wanting to pay more to take them off and sub for something else.
As a side note: that beer is Old Mecklenburg Brewery's Hornet's Nest. It's the brew in season right now, and it's very delicious.
Back to the food: both my lunch companions had the black and blue burger and loved it. The Friday special was fish & Chips and I'll probably have to go back for that. They are often my bar food of choice.
