Great Burger, But Chuck The Bun

If you haven't yet heard about Umami Burger, it's a chic, but comfortable, high-brow burger concept by Adam Fleischman—four joints that focus on making burgers that emphasize umami. Supposedly, Fleischman's goal was to recreate the "craving he gets for his two favorite burgers: the In-N-Out Double Double, and the Father's Office burger."

The Umami Burger patty is great. The loosely packed meat glistens, pink and juicy with flavor as if someone was perpetually basting the inside as it cooked. On the sloppy joe to burger scale, it's squarely on the burger side, but just a few notches over in terms of ground meat cohesiveness. While the burger loses points for its bun (too dry), the eye-catching Parmesan tuile is a blast — it looks sharp, but breaks like soft cheese treacle when bitten. It's also topped with Umami ketchup, roasted tomato, and shiitake mushroom.