4300 North Lincoln Avenue
Chicago, IL
Neighborhood: North Center
Bad Apple's website
Craving burgers and beers last Saturday night, we ventured to The Bad Apple, a fairly new bar on Lincoln Avenue in North Center. The Bad Apple is known for their creatively topped burgers and an immense and impressive beer menu. There are 15 burgers (2 are veggie) to choose from such as Elvis's Last Supper (bacon & peanut butter) and The Edmund Fig-Gerald (Edmund Fitzgerald porter, fig and bacon relish, goat cheese and smoked onion).
I had a hard time choosing from the many creative burger choices, but ended up picking the El Dorado, a burger topped with spicy corn and black bean salsa and freshly sliced avocado. The burgers are crafted with hormone-free all-natural beef, and despite the wide array of toppings, the the flavor of the beef was not overwhelmed. The burger was juicy and flavorful and the toppings worked excellently with the beef. This was one excellent burger.
El Dorado Burger
Jenn got the Strange Famous, a house-made wild mushroom, seitan, chick pea and corn burger topped with spinach, goat cheese, carmelized onion and Sage marmalade. The "burger" tasted freshly homemade and not frozen or pre-packaged. All burgers are served with house-cut fries, which can be upgraded with seasonings such as curry, creole and sweet & spicy chipotle. We somehow overlooked this on the menu, so we only got the regular non-seasoned fries, which were ok.
Strange Famous veggie burger
In addition to the great burgers, the customer service was also excellent and the beer menu was immense and reasonably priced for a hip, up-and-coming bar (several micro-brew bottles were around $4). The burgers are reasonably priced as well, with most around $8 or $9. Hopefully they will stay reasonably priced as this place will undoubtedly become more and more popular if they continue doing things right. We will certainly be back for more. We give The Bad Apple an 8.6 out of 10.
Quality of Food: 8.9
Value: 8.3
Atmosphere: 8.5
Customer Service: 8.8
Overall: 8.6
We went there for the first time a couple of weeks ago. I had the Earthy Sandwich and it was, seriously, hands down the most delicious sandwich I have ever tasted. I haven't stopped thinking about it since! I even tried to re-create it at home, but failed pitifully. *sad sigh*
ReplyDeleteAnd the Ms Pac-Man game in the back room was a fun touch, I thought. :-)