Filed under: Lunch, Dinner, East Coast, West Coast, Restaurants, Beef, On the Blogs, Lists, Food Quest, America

Back during the summer last year, I remember reading an article in GQ by Alan Richman. (You don't want to know why I had my hands on a copy of a men's magazine.) In the article, Richman listed the Top 20 Hamburgers You Must Eat Before You Die, and called out the California Burger at Houston's as Number 6. When I read that, listed in there with the likes of Peter Luger's Steak House in New York and The Counter in Santa Monica, I balked. Houstons?? It's a chain!

But apparently, New York Times restarautn critic Frank Bruni found himself at a local outpost of the chain, tried the burger, and liked it. He said, the burgers, made with eight ounces of ground chuck, were extremely satisfying: slightly charred, very juicy, cradled by a fluffy bun, cooked precisely to the requested medium-rare doneness."

Who knew? And to think the man didn't even like In-n-Out.