Burger Bistro

I bought a Living Social deal to Burger Bistro, so before it expired (I have a tendency to wait until the last minute on these things!) I made a trip out to Brooklyn to eat a veggie burger at this restaurant I had never heard of until I saw the Living Social email in my inbox one morning.



The menu was one of those check-the-items-you-want style ones, like at The Meatball Shop (I don’t know where they originated from, but that was my first experience with them). It was exciting having so many toppings to choose from! I picked the veggie burger (vegan), with guacamole, pickled jalapenos, lettuce, tomato, and chipotle mayo (not vegan) – all on a whole wheat bun (which is not vegan - if you want your vegan patty to be on a vegan bun, the only option here is the lettuce wrap). I also ordered a side of house-made chips, because I had Living Social bucks left to burn.



Hmm… my burger arrived with the “frizzled onions” instead of the jalapenos, but I had places to be after my dinner, and didn’t want to be late, so I didn’t complain. The onions weren’t bad, kind of like very fragile onion rings, or pieces of one of those “blooming onion” monstrosities. My burger was already pretty overloaded though, so I ate them separately. The rest of the toppings were tasty too – plenty of guacamole!



The patty was a nice blend of vegetables – carrots, corn, spinach, peppers, soy beans, and herbs. It had a unique flavor that I hadn’t tasted in a veggie burger before, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Unfortunately, despite its fried-to-a-nice-crisp exterior, the inside was quite mushy and it smushed together with the plentiful toppings and then oozed out of the bun.

The bun itself was way too dense and thick – trying to wrap my mouth around it only resulted in compressing the patty and toppings more, until they oozed out and I was just left with a mouthful of guacamole-soaked bun. It seemed slightly stale, too. I ate half of it, and then dissected the other half – eating the patty and the toppings with a fork, and leaving the bun on the plate.

My stomach was full the rest of the evening – so I certainly got my money’s worth from my Living Social deal. And that was from the burger alone - the homemade chips I had ordered as a side tasted delicious, but were way too greasy for me to eat more than a few.

Cost: $8.00 for just the burger with lettuce and tomato (total for my burger and toppings: $12.75), chips $4.25 extra
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
Burger patty: 3       Bun: 2      Toppings: 4

Burger Bistro
117 5th Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11217
718.398.9800
locations in Astoria, Bay Ridge, and the Upper East Side too, check website for addresses

YumVeggieBurger review #107