Burger Tank — Restaurant in Philadelphia

Ah, Burger Tank. It's been on campus for years. I give it a try every few semesters. Mostly, I avoid it, but only because a burger is just too much meal for lunch on the go.

This time, I ordered the Mocking Burger which is their take on the Big Mac: cheese, red onions, lettuce, pickles, thousand Island dressing. Tater tots as a side. Total price $12 (marginally cheaper than Five Guys). Overall, it was good. But this is a food review, so let's scrutinize the details...

The brioche bun is the right choice. I'm thankful that pretty much everyone switched to brioche buns around 2005. In Philly, it was Le Bus that started the trend, distributing them to all the local joints. Soon everyone was serving them for good reason. These buns are substantial enough that you can grip a sandwich, but they still retain the pillowy cloud like texture of the mass-produced potato bun. In other words, they have enough structural integrity to hold up under the pressure of beef grease, but they're not too hard or crusty. Good choice.

The fixins: Crisp green lettuce. Bright red onion without too strong an allium-sulfur kick. The pickles were just okay; texture was spot on, but there was very little brine flavor.

I couldn't taste the cheese at all. I could see it; it was dripping out of the sandwich and looked like it was going to be stretchy and gooey. But there was very little flavor and not much creaminess. I think they're using a cheap yellow cheddar--they either need to upgrade to a high quality sharp cheddar, or use American cheese instead. Similarly, the Thousand Island dressing needs to be bolder; maybe there just wasn't enough. I was hoping for that sweet and sour richness (everyone's "special" sauce), but I couldn't taste it.

Unfortunately, the burger patty itself was dry. I mean it tasted fresh, but it was overcooked so that almost all the juices had evaporated. Also, it was under seasoned. Rule number one for burgers: be liberal with salt and pepper, it helps all the other flavors shine. Burger Tank failed here, and as a result the patty was just a crumbly and chewy texture in the midst of all the fixins. To be fair: the same can be said about the Big Mac patties, so if that's part of their mocking approximation, it works.

Finally, the tater tots. Nothing special to say here. Average frozen tots, deep fried. Burger Tank needs to season these better, too. Sea salt and pepper is all you need to elevate the tot. At $4 an order, they should add something to make them special (Parm? Truffle oil? Cajun seasoning?). I only ate half the order.

Bottom line: Burger Tank is just okay. But I'll go back again. It's really nice to be able to get a fast food style burger from a small, local business. I don't want to live in a world where all the burgers have been scaled, standardized, and corporatized. Burger Tank keeps the dream alive.

The service is great. Friendly,...

Let me start by saying the burgers are very good!! The place unfortunately is ran by people who aren’t friendly at all and it’s like a free for all no waiters so it’s kinda set up odd. Then I asked to substitute my fries and pay the difference if there was one for onion rings instead and I was told no it’s not cost effective lol which didn’t make sense to me because you can order the onion rings for 4$ and the regular fries are 3.50$ so I pointed out that the healthy box which has sweet potato fries instead of regular fries are the same price as the onion rings ($4) so I said can I get one of those boxes and substitute the sweet potato fries for the onion rings and again I was told no. That really didn’t make any sense to me at all so I unfortunately won’t be dining at the burger bank again. Not to mention it takes forever to...

Came here one time after a long day (and night) of walking in the pouring rain. Great atmosphere, fantastic food. I myself ordered the barbecue bacon burger, a large order of fries, an orange soda with no ice, and a piece of hot apple pie, as was recommended to me by a one-man cheeseburger apocalypse. The neon sign was fantastic for signaling Virgil. The roof is also good for fending off Tanks. 10/10 would visit again. Rochelle got thrown off the dock by a Charger at the end, but it's an...