Five Leaves Burger is Salty Burger But Delicious

Nestled at the long-neglected corner of Manhattan Avenue and Bedford Avenue, the Brooklyn meeting point of the two formerly distinct but now inseperable worlds of Greenpoint and Williamsburg, lies Five Leaves, a diner with the carefully and successfully constructed ambiance of an imaginary simpler American rustic past.

On to the hamburger:

Five Leaves Burger

The beef is grass-fed, which calmed my own stomach considering my very recent screening of Food, Inc., in which an industrial cow researcher sticks his hand elbow-deep through a port drilled into the side of a fully-conscious cow, giving him access to the contents of one of its stomachs, where he mashes around and shows off the rotting corn (i.e. not grass) inside.

But for full disclosure, I am working on the assumption that, as I believe is necessary for gastronomical honesty and integrity, judgment lies mostly in the hamburger, not in the contents of the cow’s stomach (which is nowhere to be found at Five Leaves) at the moment of its murder.  And in this department, the Five Leaves Burger is a great mashup, regardless of whether the long dead, extruded and now medium-rare cooked cow of questionable upbringing had arugula or rubber tire as its last supper.

The bun at Five Leaves was very well educated, and had a crispiness to the outermost layer of refined white flour that did not seem to be the result of any significant toasting.  The innards of the top bun were doused in mayo mixed with red pepper powder.  Then came the perfectly cooked sunny-side up egg with no evidence of any frying visible on either top or bottom.  Beneath the egg was a solitary slice of beet, lying astride the meat patty itself.

The first bite released the unfertilized juices pregnant within the egg, which flowed through the home-made prophylactic of mixed salad I surreptitiously inserted directly beneath, and were eventually lapped up greedily by the soft absorptive inner lining nascent in the bottom bun, spilling out the overflow mixture of blood and amniotic fluid onto the fresh green side of salad.  The meat patty was crispily overcooked on a few rough outer edges, but soft and tender medium rare on the inside, exactly as requested.

Conclusion:  delicious burger, but the meat was oversalted such that I would be remiss in not mentioning it in this otherwise perfectly good review.