Westchester Burger Co.
106 Westchester Ave.
White Plains, NY 10601 (Map it!)
Attendees: Jeffrey, Pat, Shelley, Sylvia
Someone had the bright idea to go for dinner at the Westchester Burger Company. Seeing how we, the Westchester Breakfast Club and the Westchester Burger Company, share the same initials, I thought it a grand idea. So, a review of the WBC by the WBC is warranted. Here it goes.
Yum yum. The Westchester Burger Co. knows how to make a burger. I had a slice of their signature WBC burger from Shelley’s plate as well as an entire chicken burger from my own plate. The seasoning on the chicken burger was great and it didn’t feel like I was eating a fake burger, much like other chicken burgers. It was indeed not the real McCoy, but it didn’t have to be. It was good on its own.
My only gripe about this establishment was the side ordering. All burgers came with fries, but you’re not allowed to substitute the fries for other types of fries. I feel like we should be able to, even if it required a small fee. But on the same token, if that were true, I’d be complaining about the fee. Well, WBC, it seems as though you’re in a pickle with this reviewer. Also, I’m sure it’s been mentioned in other reviews, but the fried pickles were delicious.
What I Had: The Firehouse Burger, fried pickles
What It Cost: ~$20.00
Worth It: No
The Rating: 2.5/5
The Details: I’m going to eschew the whole WBC pun that I’m sure my fellow reviewers made and get right to the food. My hopes were high when I entered the restaurant, which has a definite sports bar-feel. With TVs on virtually every wall, I had immediate visions of Sundays filled with delicious burgers and football. I perused the tattered menu and settled on the Firehouse burger, an eight ounce patty with cheddar cheese, onion rings, and chili. My hopes were raised even higher by the fried pickles we ordered as an appetizer, which came with a dipping sauce and were a pleasant starter.
The burger arrived on a toasted sesame seed bun, and it looked delicious. Looks, however, can be deceiving. With my first bite, I detected two huge problems: the patty was unseasoned, and the chili was cold. How could they do that? How could a burger joint screw up the two beef aspects of a burger? The cold chili sat like a lump, sogging into the otherwise crispy onion ring and essentially ruining the burger. Or it would have, had the burger patty been, you know, salted, seasoned–you know, made to be enjoyed, instead of endured.
And ultimately, that’s what the meal became: an endurance test. Each bite was more laborious than the next, until finally I had to scrape the chili right off the bun like I was six years old.
I wanted so much to like the Westchester Burger Co. Too bad the food wouldn’t let me.
The Bottom Line: Unseasoned meat, cold chili, flavorless burger.
It was time for another WBC dinner outing, and what better place for the WBC to have dinner than at the WBC.
The other WBC is the Westchester Burger Company, a recently-opened establishment located across the street from The Westchester Mall in White Plains.
I was the first to arrive; fortunately the place is relaxed and doesn’t have any of that “we won’t seat you until your entire party is here” nonsense. I was shown to a table for 4 toward the back of the restaurant and was promptly brought a water glass and a carafe of water. Service was off to a good start.
As I waited for my fellow WBCers to arrive, I surveyed the surroundings. I think the Westchester Burger Co. can’t really decide which way to go with its decor. The base is nice, with exposed brick walls and hardwood floors. But along the back wall there are large photos of the Manhattan skyline at night. This doesn’t really make sense for a place called the Westchester Burger Company. It’s like the owners wish their restaurant was located in Manhattan instead of White Plains. And the place is part sports bar, with flatscreen TVs lining the walls of the place (not just in the bar area, I mean in the whole restaurant), all tuned to different games. What’s it going to be WBC? Sports bar? Upscale, downtown chic restaurant? (And, if the place wants to go the upscale/chic direction, they’ve got to replace the generic Manhattan skyline photos with some abstract art or something.) I think it would better if the place focused in on one theme, as it were, instead of trying to do too much.
The same goes for the menu at the WBC. While burgers are the main focus, there’s a section of the menu devoted to pasta. Pasta? At a burger place? I think if you’re going to be a burger place, be a burger place, cut out the distractions and just focus in one one area to do really well, perhaps add even more burger options. Thsi is not to say that there aren’t a good number of burger choices. There are. There’s a full page of different kinds of burgers, but the names of the burgers left me wondering whether HBO is a silent partner of the restaurant: among the choices are the “Entourage,” the “Soprano,” and the “Ba Da Bing.”
I was intrigued by the Soprano burger (a chicken burger), but then decided that I didn’t come to the Westchester Burger Company to have a chicken burger. I came to have a real, 100% beef burger. So the Original WBC Burger it would be, hold the tomatoes.
As an appetizer we chose pickle chips, which came with a remoulade dipping sauce. What the menu didn’t say was that the the pickle chips are fried. The fried pickles dipped in the remoulade were a tasty, if not very healthy, way to whet our appetites for our main meals.
No sooner had our pickle plates been cleared than our main meals arrived. The presentation was good, with my 10oz burger and generous portion of fries served atop a crisp white plate. The sesame bun was lightly toasted and my burger was cooked correctly, medium-well as I had requested. The burger came with frisee, and I had forgotten what exactly frisee was until I saw it and remembered that I don’t care for frisee. It gets caught betwen my teeth and I don’t like the bitter flavor. So I scraped off the frisee, leaving my burger with just the smoked mozzarella cheese, pickles, and WBC sauce (which, as far as I could tell, was either remoulade or, more likely, just mayo mixed with ketchup). There wasn’t enough WBC sauce and it wasn’t especially flavorful, so I added some ketchup to my burger as well. Unfortunately, the mozzarella cheese that was supposed to cover the burger was undetectable. It’s possible they forgot to add it. The burger itself was flavorful, with a nice smoky taste. The fries were a bit too salty.
The good service that began the moment I was seated continued throughout the meal. Despite how busy the restaurant was (I believe every table was filled), service was prompt and efficient. We were in and out of the place in just under an hour. My burger was $13, but I don’t deem that unreasonable for a well-cooked, 10oz burger. I just wish the accompaniments to my burger had all come together better–a little more cheese, a bit less salt on the fries. That said, I wouldn’t mind a repeat visit to the WBC to try another one of their intriguing burger creations.
The Westchester Breakfast Club convened this week for dinner to try an establishment that shared our initials.The Westchester Burger Company is a relatively new addition to the White Plains dining scene. The location is a little out of the way from the busy streets of downtown, but does provide free parking in the rear.
The choices and variation of burgers were impressive. Not just beef burgers, but veggie, salmon, tuna, chicken, and lamb were offered for the non-beef eating population. After studying the menu, I settled on something a little unusual, the lamb burger.
The lamb burger was excellent. I had asked for it to be cooked medium rare, and it came about medium, but was still super juicy. It was also layered with caramelized onions and thinly sliced zucchini and a rosemary aioli. It was a very good combination.
My biggest complaint about this place is the fries situation. All meals come with julienned fries, which, because they are so thin, were not substatial enough for me to consider them fries. I personally prefer my fries with a little more potato substance to them. Substitutions are not allowed, so I had to get a side of sweet potato fries for an extra $3. What I got was maybe six sweet potato waffle fries in a ramekin served with a maple type syrup. The sweet potato fries themselves weren’t bad, but I just didn’t like that I had to pay extra for barely even a handful of something I wanted more than the usual fries. Why can’t I pay extra and just get a nice helping of the sweet potato fries instead of the julienned fries?
The czar says: As much as I liked my burger, I don’t know if I will be jumping at the chance to come back to satisfy any burger cravings I may have. It was a bit more expensive than the also very good places on Mamaroneck Avenue that serve burgers, and those places let me substitute my fries. I like the free parking, but it’s not something to bank on. Good enough to slip into the rotation, but until the Westchester Burger Company relaxes about their fries, it’s not good enough for it to be at the top of my list.