As I've likely said before, I'm not a huge burger craver but we went bouldering and decided to get some food afterwards so we walked towards the west loop and ended up at Umami Burger because I've never been before.
LOCATION: 945 W RANDOLPH ST., CHICAGO, IL 60607
Of course this restaurant is fairly well known so it's been on my list but we didn't want to waste a meal in LA on something we could get in Chicago so now was a good time to try it out. I decided to just go with the basics and order an Umami Burger seeing as it's the namesake of the place and I added shoestring fries and I truffle'd 'em (if that's the right way to say it). The umami burger comes with parmesan frico, shiitake mushroom, roasted tomato, caramelized onions, and Umami ketchup and while I'm not a condiments person and dislike ketchup I decided to leave it in knowing that was the intention of the dish and also that they must've added some sort of twist to ketchup to call it their own.
I was overall pretty happy with this burger. Christel pointed out that it's such a clean burger to eat because it doesn't drip all over your hands and the bun holds everything in so nicely it didn't even really fall apart or slide around which is extremely rare for a burger anywhere. I'm in love with the parmesan frico which gave everything a nice crisp texture. I didn't really taste or see the shiitake mushroom and the tomato was also pretty subtle too so they didn't really have any sort of impact for me which is disappointing because I love shiitakes. The umami ketchup itself was pretty unobtrusive and I was fine keeping it in and Christel and I speculated that their 'umami' flavor just comes from truffles. As much as I love potatoes and fries, shoestrings always make me a little sad because they're so crisp they loose their potato flavor. I found the truffle fries themselves to be a little too salty, not being balanced enough with how much truffle cheese and salt they put on the fries overall. Naked fries tasted much better and were more fun to dip in their sample of garlic aioli and diablo sauce.
Overall, not a bad experience though nothing to rave about. Pretty basic mid-level burgers that are perfectly fine to eat but Au Cheval has nothing to worry about here.