Hamburger economics
Rob Price

Do you like hamburgers? I certainly do, but I have to draw the line at the $175 burger I just read about on the Internet during a busy morning at the office.

This hamburger is for sale at a restaurant in New York City - where else? - called the Wall Street Burger Shoppe. The restaurant isn't located on Wall Street. According to my research, it's located on Water Street, between Broad Street and Coenties Slip. If you worked on Wall Street, you'd go to the intersection with Broad Street and turn south until you came to Water Street; then you'd turn left and walk up a few doors.

But would you want to do that? I wouldn't, just because I don't want to spend $170 for a hamburger. On the other hand, if anyone wants to buy me lunch, I would try this extraordinary hamburger in the spirit of adventure and report back to my readers. Any takers?

Just for the record, here's what makes the Wall Street Burger Shoppe's prize hamburger so expensive: First of all, it's made with Kobe beef, which traditionally comes from a very expensive steer raised under very comfortable circumstances in Japan. I just looked up Kobe beef on the internet and a 10-ounce ribeye steak consisting of domestic Kobe beef costs $35. Throw in the cost of paying rent in lower Manhattan, and the price goes up.

But wait! there's more: The hamburger comes with seared goose liver - yes, foie gras - on top, along with chopped exotic mushrooms, shavings of black truffles and a mayonaise with a golden truffle base. I've occasionally been in restaurants where the waiter offers some shavings of black truffle on top of my pasta, and I'm not surprised this hamburger costs $170.

The question I have is, does it taste any good? I don't mind mayonaise on my hamburger, but I prefer ketchup. And mayonaise with a truffle base makes me really skeptical. A friend of ours once gave my wife and me some olive oil laced with truffles, and I didn't care much for it. Truffles have a strange flavor that, I'm told, requires some time and experience to learn to enjoy. The problem is, they're so expensive it costs a fortune to get over the initial phase of not liking them.

That brings us to the seared goose liver. Once in a restaurant where someone else was paying the bill, I ordered a helping of seared goose liver, and it was one of the most terrifying foods I have ever encountered: a fist-sized lobe of blacked liver that ran bloody when I cut into it. If I ever ordered the super burger at the Wall Street Burger Shoppe, I'd have to say, "And hold the foie gras" - which is something you don't hear every day in a restaurant.

The Wall Street Burger Shoppe does offer a more sensibly priced hamburger, a $4 char-grilled burger, which actually sounds pretty cheap for New York. It makes me wonder how much meat is inside the bun. In restaurants around these parts, you pay between $5 and $7 for hamburgers packing half a pound or 10 ounces of meat. How does a restaurant in lower Manhattan get by charging $4 for a burger? One suspects by omitting the cow.

Speaking of hamburgers, my wife and I are having a running argument over how to make our own. A few months ago, I read an article about hamburgers that suggested mixing a little water and milk into the ground meat. My wife insists this is too complicated; in fact, judging from her tone of voice, she is of the opinion a little water and milk would destroy the entire hamburger experience. Generally, I just go along with her troublesome prejudices.

We grilled hamburgers last Saturday for lunch. "How about letting me mix in a little milk and water?" I said.

"Would you just make the damn hamburger?" she said.

"Right," I said, and fired up the grill - a compact Weber tabletop we bought a couple years ago, and it's an ace of a charcoal grill.

"And don't overcook the meat," she added.

Because I do have a tendency to overcook meat - ever since that terrifying meal of seared foie gras. I don't mind hamburger with a pink center; quivery, raw hamburger or steak kills my appetite.

I slapped the burgers on the grill, then hung out with my wife, sipping a pleasant afternoon beverage.

"Aren't you overcooking the meat?" she asked at one point. And of course I had. But we ate the burgers anyway. The first grilled hamburgers of spring taste great, even if they are a little overcooked.

Hey, at least they weren't made of Kobe beef.