Sunday, September 4, 2011

Daily Grill Burger, Ground Twice Daily

Often, chain restaurants get automatically passed over - sometimes, they shouldn't be. With about twenty locations, Daily Grill is almost a big chain/corporation, but they're certainly not franchises. Not too long ago, they decided to up the ante by installing meat grinder in their restaurants and start grinding meat for their burger twice a day.

Burger Cross Section
My fellow bloggers have tried this burger and said that they are actually pretty good, so I accepted their invitation to taste them myself. I joined Daniela, who recently started working for Daily Grill's PR company, for lunch at their downtown location.

We started with some Garlic Cheese Bread ($6.95) w/ grana padana on toasted levain bread (because who doesn't like garlic cheese bread?)
Cheese Bread
Nice crunch and weren't overly heavy. A good opener and side dish.


The Grill Chop Salad ($8.75): chopped iceberg wedge, blue cheese, bacon, red onion, tomatoes, and creamy blue cheese dressing (the picture shown is half of the salad- they had split it for us)
Grill Chop Salad
They used fresh produce here and the tomatoes were sweet and juicy.

Pepper Bacon Burger ($11.95): hand formed 1/2 lb Angus Beef ground fresh in the kitchen twice daily, topped with double cheddar and pepper bacon with thousand island dressing. Served with potato salad, shoestring potatoes, or roasted peanut cole slaw.
Pepper Bacon Burger
Since the burger is freshly ground and hand-formed, it's less dense than usual. The texture may be different (it falls apart easier), but the burger was cooked to a perfect medium rare. Yes, surprisingly good indeed! And not only do I not have to pay $16 for burgers like I would have to in many places, I ended up finishing the other half of my burger for dinner. For the side, I tried the peanut cole slaw out of curiosity, which I ended up liking quite a bit. The slaw wasn't overly doused with mayo as most places do it, just lightly creamy and the roasted peanuts added a nice crunch and flavor.

Half pound of meat is a lot of food. But still, there's a separate stomach for dessert, right? Especially when there's a cobbler/crisp/crumble involved.
Apple Crisp
When we went, the fruit cobbler of the day was apple strawberry. It wasn't really a cobbler, or a crisp, though. There's a bit of crust and oatmeal, but they seem to have been place on top instead of baked together with the fruit.

For a big chain restaurant, Daily Grill still maintains the use of good, fresh produce and their burger can stand its own. Bottom line, don't automatically dismiss them without trying.

Daily Grill
612 S Flower St
Los Angeles, CA 90017
(213) 622-4500
www.dailygrill.com
Daily Grill on Urbanspoon

Disclosure: this meal was hosted.

1 comments:

kish

can't wait to try this burger. looks insanely good. i always get the chicken pot pie at daily grill. i don't know of a better chicken pot pie. do you?

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