Fine Dining - Septemburger 2026 Begins NOW!

Episode Date: September 2, 2026

Fill out the Septemburger 2026 Bracket here by 11:59PM PST on September 15th, 2026!! 🍔🏆 Septemburger 2026 Begins: Five Burgers Enter the Tournament! 🏆🍔 SEPTEMBURGER 2026 IS HERE! Five returning guests join me for the official kickoff as we revisit the burgers entering our first batch of tournament matchups. Luke Pace, Sandy Rose, Bennett Cohen, Seif Rahoumi, and Joyce are back to defend their respective restaurants, talk an unreasonable amount of trash, and find out which burgers survive the opening round. Before the patties start flying, I break down the full Septemburger rules, how the bracket works, and exactly what these chains are competing for. Then everybody channels their inner pro wrestler and cuts promos on the competition. This is apparently a wrestling podcast now (for real though, I'd be okay with that). Fill out the Septemburger 2026 Bracket here by 11:59PM PST on September 15th, 2026!! 📜 The Official Rules of Septemburger 2026, Explained! 👑 Five Returning Guests Represent Five Different Burger Chains 🍔 The Habit Burger Grill vs. MOOYAH: Who Survives Round One? 💥 Smashburger vs. Five Guys: A Better Burger Showdown 🎤 Everyone Cuts Wrestling-Style Promos on Their Competition 📊 BurgerFi Gets Its Official Septemburger Score 🏆 Two Winners Move On, But You'll Have to Watch to Find Out Who 👀 BurgerFi Has a Date with Burger King Waiting Next Week 💬 COMMENT BELOW: Who are you picking to win Septemburger 2026? Fill out the Septemburger 2026 Bracket here by 11:59PM PST on September 15th, 2026!! 📢 SUPPORT THE SHOW & JOIN THE COMMUNITY: 🎉 Patreon (Bonus episodes, extended Yelp segments & more): patreon.com/finediningpodcast 💬 Discord (Food talk, memes, cursed Yelp): discord.gg/6a2YqrtWV4 🎥 Watch full episodes: youtube.com/channel/UCLbraNhL6KhDPkdSWt2yiuw 🔗 All links: linktree.com/finediningpodcast 🎤 Guests: Luke Pace, Sandy Rose, Bennett Cohen, Seif Rahoumi, & Joyce Patreon Producers:Sue Ornelas, Joyce Van, & Robert McLaughlin Patreon Subscribers:David Ornelas, Kellie Baldwin, Jeremy Horwitz, Herbert Amaya, Simone Davalos, Scott Bennett, Amy Reinhart, Josef Castaneda-Liles, Travis Langley, & Michelle Elmer Free Patreon Followers:Joe Warszalek, Lauren Cummings, Grace Krainak, Keri Estes, Robert Duran, Patrick Elliott, Dave Plummer, Nicholas Volney, Michael Gerard, Tracy Molino, Phuong Duong, Tyler Robinson, Brandon Gully, Mason Cruz, Michael Milito, Mez, Aaron Hubbard, Steff, Renae Michael, Crystal C., NiZ, Science Broe, Jahid Ahmed, Jewell Hermann, & Macky Markar 👉 NEXT WEEK: Burger King with Andrew Carter, which will face off against BurgerFi for a spot in the next round! Fill out the Septemburger 2026 Bracket here by 11:59PM PST on September 15th, 2026!!

Eight burgers enter, one burger leaves. It's not just the lyrics to the theme song, it's the spirit of September. I'm Michael Ornellis, host of the Fine Dining Podcast, and welcome to part one of the fourth annual and final September. 24 burger chains have entered the gauntlet in years past, but only Outback Steakhouse in-and-out burger, and Wendy's have gotten their legends etched in silver on the side of the grandest prize in the world of hamburgers, the Septemberger Championship. This year's field covers some of the biggest names in the game, along with some of the more obscure.

Will a dark horse contender like Muya or BurgerFi go all the way? Or will corporate powerhouses like Burger King and McDonald's prove why they're so prevalent? The rules of Septemberger are as follows. Each burger chain will be evaluated on the strength of three hamburgers. Each burger is given a score to two decimal points by both my guest for that episode and I. with the average representing their final score. The pre-tournament seating was determined by my history with these places, or, in the case of spots I hadn't tried before, my excitement level going in.

The first round will be the number one on their menu, usually the most basic version of a burger. You can't advance past the first round if you can't do meat, bun, and traditional toppings well. After four chains advanced to the semifinals, we're grading on consistency. The lower-scoring specialty burger will prop up the second round, as you don't deserve to go to the finals if only some of your burgers hit. And finally, the third burger will come into play for the chains that make it to the finals. This will be the highest-scoring, most touted, or interesting specialty burger. And that's it.

I've already covered five of the eight chains this season, with the remaining three to be covered over the next few weeks. Here's how the bracket will look. The bottom seat, the one with the worst odds, in my opinion, McDonald's. But with billions and billions served, who am I to doubt them? The number seven seed, based on having them one time in an airport terminal, is Smash Burger. At number six, Yum Brands earns their place in the pantheon of mediocrity with The Habit Burger. Number five, on the strength of char grilling a patty, comes the only place that lets you have it your way, Burger King. I flew all the way to the suburbs of Chicago to try our number four.

four seed for the first time, BurgerFi. Number three has a silly name, but the online reputation alone excited me. It's Muya. The second strongest contender is arguably cheating because they're basically a small gang. It's five guys. And the odds on favorite elevates the char-grilled offering, but makes you feel ashamed in the process. It's Fat Burger. Check the description of this episode or go to Fine Dining Podcast.com to fill out the Google form and make your predictions for who will go all the way in this tournament, but you've got half a month to follow along and learn some answers before locking anything in. Anyone who filled out a bracket will be entered into a drawing where you can pick any chain restaurant in America that I haven't yet covered for the show, and I will review it in season five of the podcast if you win. Not only that, but I will write a rap song about you or any food or restaurant-related topic of your choice.

Okay, enough with the preamble. No more stalling. September burger is here. Let's get our tournament started with our banger, seasonal theme song. Hit it. Lentah, one burger leaves. Take a look at the mena.

See, I can see that hunger. See, wasn't that good? Before we get to scoring the first burger, real quick, if you're watching this on YouTube, give it a like, a comment, or send it to someone you think will like it. It really helps. If you're listening to this on audio

and haven't already, it'd be incredible if you could take a second and give it five stars and write a review on whatever platform you are on. All right, without further ado, it's time for our first matchup. The Habit Burger is going face to face with Muya. Let's hear about the Habit Burger's Char Burger with my guest Luke Pace from the April Patreon episode. So our first round, we got the Char Burger.

For people who don't know the Habit, they are known for charbroiled-style burgers. Think Carl's Jr. Think Burger King. But I've got to say, allegedly, you know? Yeah. It's hard to tell. About the char. Not to spoil how we felt about it.

But first up is the charburger. So this is a charred burger with caramelized onion, tomato, pickle, lettuce, mayo, sesame seed bun? Yeah. What'd you think? The most common word, if you like, control left in my notes, was wet. I think, but, and I think you would agree that the mayo plus caramelized onions plus, well, I guess maybe just that I don't know, well, lettuce and tomato are also sort of wet. They carry water.

They carry water, yeah. It was a, it was a damper burger than I'm used to. It was a really damp burger. And I'll tell you this It was one of those like It was mayo more in the sense of like How Coleslaw has mayo To where it's like drippy and thin

Yeah Yeah And I think that's because of the way it interacted With the lettuce But it made such an imprint on my beard Yeah It left remnants This was like a many napkin burger

And typically like there's places I'm forgetting where But I know places will like brag about like You need a lot of napkins for our burgers And I think they're typically talking about how greasy they are. And I will admit, a greasy burger tastes great. This was not greasy. By the way, psycho take to assume the greasier the better. There is a, there is a limit for sure. It drops off at a certain point. But when a place is bragging about

napkin use, which the habit is not, but required many, I think about the grease, not the condiment wetness. And I think in the way that a greasy burger maybe tends like savory, the wetness here tended sweet, which I didn't hate. In fact, I kind of liked. I still don't think that a burger should be sweet, or at least that shouldn't be sweet forward primarily, but that was like aside from the wetness, that was like the main thing I noticed was that it was just sweeter than I'm used to. You look so uncomfortable saying the words that accurately describe your experience with this burger. The wetness. Yeah, I know it, it just, yeah, it was drippy. It was yeah. That said, like, I didn't hate this. I didn't think this was even a bad burger. I have it

over five in my scores. Me too. But there's just so much about it that could have been improved to live up to the idea of it. But zeroing in on what I think the promise of the burger is, it's called a charburger. And this just didn't taste like flame-licked, so to speak. Like it genuinely didn't feel like it touched fire. It felt like it touched a griddle, which is different. Touched heat. But fire, I'm skeptical.

You want your charburger to be like the food that the Gorons eat in Legend of Zelda. Yeah. If it's called a charburger, it should be, it should have an element of flame to it. I should have to throw a bomb in a teapot to like a one-story tall teapot to unlock this charburger. Yeah. Yeah. You want your burger greasy. I want mine covered in gasoline.

And then you go eat rocks. Yeah. I fully agree. The char the thing was like nothing. I didn't. And again, not like a knock on the burger, but it just tasted like your average.

Grittled burger. Yeah, exactly. So the one compliment I will pay to the produce, despite being moist, it was, it was wet in like a fresh, like,

you know, like morning dew on like the grass and you go out. Of course. Like, There is something like a freshness to morning dew. Yeah. And the pickles, lettuce, tomato had that. Yeah. Well, yeah, I think good produce should ideally retain the water.

It shouldn't have sweat it all out when you're eating it. And I think this was more of the former. So, yeah. What did you score it? I scored it a 6.73. A 6.7.3. a 6.73, I scored the Char Burger a 5.91. So I think plenty of work that this needs to do.

But with a 6.32 average between our scores, their hopes of making it to the next round, not impossible. 6.32 for a first round burger, not terrible. Okay, Habit, you're up again. to Muya, what do you have to say about that? What'sahaha, muya? You feel that? You feel that ocean wave coming in?

That tidal wave of pure beef and energy coming in from Santa Barbara, California, all the way down to Los Angeles for September, to pound and smash your burger into the earth? That's right. The Habit Burger. I'm addictive, baby. You can't get enough of me. What are you?

Muya, cow. cows, animal. It's not a burger. Makes no damn sense. Makes me so angry. Makes me want to go to the beach with my boys. Shirts off. Sun tan lotion, slathered.

Muscles rippling. We're about to bounce this volleyball into your damn face and knock you off the planet. That's right. The power of Poseidon's coming for you, baby. Power of the ocean. What are you, muya? A bunch of cows.

About to take you out. a pastor. Wow. Muya, are you just going to take that lying down? It's me, Muya, and you are the habit. The habit, more like bad. It is bad. You're bad, and you're going down, okay? The habit, do you think I want to make a habit out of eating there? I'm not. All right, you know what? I'm coming for you. That's right. You better what. Move out of the way. All right, enough talk. It's time for more talk. Roll the chat with Sandy Rose from my Muya episode as we cover the MDH, the Muya double hamburger.

Muya. Beautiful. I'm joined by Sandy Rose. How's it going? Good. Very full from food. Yes. We need to talk about the first round burger, kind of the most basic thing on Muya's menu.

They call it the MD. They do. For our purposes, it's the MDH, the Muya double hamburger. I. No. This is not a platform for that. This is not. This is such an anti-che-space.

Yeah. You know what? I'm going to go back to bleeping gits just for this segment. You should. You probably should. Yeah. So we had their basic burger. Could you pull up and tell everybody what was on this burger specifically?

The MD. H. Not called that on their menu. Was double certified Angus beef, American, well, we didn't have that. That was so shady. American nothing, lettuce, tomato, muya sauce, and their signature potato bun. So I think what this proved, and we're not going to mention anything comparative to the later burgers that we had, But what this proved is Muya's strength is the patty and the bun. Bun, I thought.

Such good buns. It had like a, it had just a little bit of that. It was fluffy, but there was a little crisp. There was just like a little moment of like, yeah, this was warmed. Yeah, yeah. And it was like buttery kind of like not flaky, but like, yeah, just soft is a good word for it. Yeah, yeah. So their buns are made fresh in house.

No way. That is kind of one of the things about Muya. Do they have like... Part of the reason they're very expensive. Do they have like a professional potato bun maker in the back just like slinging them? You can see them through like a window? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wish you did.

Just a guy. It's like at like Dintai Fung where you can like watch through a window and it feels like kind of like a zoo and it makes me uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable. But like it is cool to see the process. Yeah. I wish they had that at Muya. They do not. But what I wrote, uh, my words were my guys were my guys.

God, this may have been the tastiest basic burger I've had in all of September or history. Whoa. I mean, that's big praise, but usually you expect the basic burger to be like a good starting point. And then the burgers build up from there with like specialty burgers and stuff like that. I think back to year one, outback, I really like their basic burger. But once you add the bloomin onion petals and blooming sauce to it and bacon to it,

that to me just becomes a stronger burger. And so for starting at such a good baseline, I thought very highly of the MDH. I wrote Juicy. Like that stood out to me. Get ready to bleep even without sh-h. It was just if I was worried that it would be a little dry, but it was really delicious. This is the one I wanted to finish this burger. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Did you? I did. Okay. Yeah. Good job. You set a goal. I ate on my food. You set a goal and you reached it.

I thought that the meat was just greasy enough. Because like greasy is a word that some people use very negatively and totally understandable when something is like permeated in grease. This was like kind of that because like it is grease. When you say juicy, it is. That's true. It's not fucking coconut water coming out. It's not pineapple juice.

Yeah, yeah. And you said that these. were smash burgers. Mm-hmm. Which they kind of were. They advertised them as such, but these were not in, like, the way where, like, there wasn't a char on it. They weren't smashed. Like, that's number one in my mind.

And I guess that was the main thing that they weren't, in my opinion. They were just really thick for better or for worse. Because with the smash burger, I mean, that's part of the allure, honestly. They're just like a grease pile and they're smashed together. Goes down your arm. Uh-huh. She's grilled onions, some sauce. Like, delicious.

Grilled onions. And the other part. Yeah. I went so high on this. I gave it an 8.06. I fear I have you beat. Yeah? I went 8.95.

You went 8.95. And that's without the C. I edited for you. I went 8.95. I would have this burger again. It was just, it was, I wasn't that hungry going into it. And again, I wanted to eat the whole thing. I wanted to keep going back from.

It was great texture, great mix of flavors. It didn't have too much on it. It was just right. Well, it may not be a smash burger, but with an 8.51 doing head math is the score for the MDH. Muya smashes the Habit Burger out of round one. Nice. It smashed. Muya.

Smash your pass. It smashed. And with that, Muya is going to be in the semifinals of this year's tournament. Tune in September 30th to see how that goes for them. But now we have another first round match. Number seven seed smashburger is going against not one, not two, not three or four, but five guys. Let's hear about the classic double from Smashburger from my episode a few months back with Bennett Cohen. I am here with Bennett Cohen, my guest from the Smash Burger episode, to talk about the very first burger that we had, the round one burger from Smash Burger.

And they call it the classic double. The classic double. So Smashburger is the seven seeds. So it's a little bit of an underdog where that's the understanding. Well, so the way that I seed these is they are based on the best burger I've ever had there historically. Understood. Got it. And the one time I had Smashburger was in an airport terminal.

Okay, interesting. That's something I wanted to talk about maybe in the other part is like some airport restaurants are not always the same as. No, they're not. So that did paint its seating. And that's a big reason why we drove all the way to Manhattan Beach instead of going to the LA Live location of Smashburger near us. Because that felt like it would have been kind of an equivalent of an airport terminal type location. Makes sense to me. So it like I had a limited menu and all that.

So we wanted to give Smash Burger. It's Fair Shake. So we went to one that actually had a pretty extensive burger menu. And as per the September rule, round one, you're judged on what's number one on the menu. What's your most basic burger? And here it was called the classic double. This had two beef patties on it, lettuce, pickle, tomato, red onion, smash sauce, and ketchup. Of course, no.

Cheese. Cheese wasn't necessary here. I think the classic double is a good burger. Me too. I thought that the bun was kind of a star throughout all the burgers. Yeah, I noticed instantly that the color was more like yellow or gold, like kind of. It seemed like an egg bun. Like an egg bun, which was pleasant surprise.

And yeah, the bun was good. Speaking of things that were yellow in the burger was the smash sauce, which I would say was the star of the burger, almost the overpowering. Just something that made its presence known. Sure. I'm the type of person who when I like something, I do it too much. Okay. Pokemon Go.

Yeah. Board games, all of that. I like the smash sauce. Therefore, there was no, I mean, yes, there is a threshold where to me it could be too much. But given that to me, it was probably one of my. favorite elements of the burger. I didn't even notice it maybe overstaying its welcome in the way that you might be implying. Totally. Yeah. And I think this is a classic burger. So something needs to, you know, be the star player. So that didn't really upset my enjoyment of it. Okay. It was just

probably the only thing that I could hold against it. Otherwise, I think that we're looking at a really good burger. Yeah. I was going to say an excellent burger. And I guess what I mean by that is just a burger that accomplishes the goal of being a burger. Sure. It accomplishes what it is intending to do. Yes. Yeah. I wrote that.

Yeah, the bun was a nice texture. It was soft. The burger was beefy. And I think a beef flavor, like, yeah, all the burgers reading are beef. Some of them are understated. Some of them are ashamed to be beef. This burger was proud to be beef. And God bless it.

But false advertising a little bit. Yeah, my understanding of a smash burger is like the flattened charred sides, like a very flat, flat burger. And I wonder, because look, I did a history write up when you and I actually recorded the episode. We talked about the history of smash burger. and the intent is that. So I'm wondering is this location not executing the intent well? Are they going rogue? And I don't, and I, that sounds mean.

I'm not accusing anyone of anything. But yes, it has there been a loss in translation? Yeah. But does that impact the score? Because whether or not it is what it says it is, it is still a tasty burger. It is just not a smash burger, which is what was offered. I don't know the answer to that. I think my brain going in expecting a smash burger and then not really getting it paints the way that I perceive it, but negligibly so.

Yeah. I mean, I think that's fair because they are a free enterprise. They get to choose how to market themselves. So I think if they themed their burger and. that made us like it more, they would get credit for it. So if they, if they theme their burger in a way that makes us slightly confused, I think it's not unfair to, to apply to doc them, to dock them slightly. You know what I mean? I feel like I've been seeing that in sports lately, this argument where it's like, if they would get credit for the good version of it, then you all, then it's fair.

Yeah, even though my, yeah, even though I think like my, my baseline is normally being like, Oh, like would be to not doc, but that argument in sports has been making me think about it. Like, if I would give someone credit for the converse, do I also have to take away credit for the... Sure. I thought this was very nice for a basic burger. I went 7.16 out of 10. I'm up there as well. I, what I wrote in the moment was 7.43.

7.43 and 7.16, when you put those together, will average to a 7.30. Not a bad entrant for round one. Let's throw it to their competitor, the number two seed five guys, and see who will advance. Good luck. Good luck. No, you know what?

You need to talk shit. So we're going to cut to that. Hey, five guys, it's me, Smash Burger. I heard we're going head to head in the Septemberger tournament, and I'm here to let you know you're going down. I'm going to smash you like I smash patties on the grid. until the sides are burnt and small. Here's the thing.

When I win this tournament, it will prove that Smashburger is the best burger joint out of the eight that were arbitrarily chosen for this year's tournament. Here's the thing, five guys. You don't even sound like a burger joint. You sound like a group of friends

from high school that peaked too early. Smashburger's a much better name. So count your days, five guys. Just like you count your gun. What I'm saying is you have five days. Oh, look, that just became four days. Your days are running out, is what I'm saying. Oh, do you have three days? No, it hasn't been a day yet.

But if you think about it, the weeks are long, but the days are short. Skathing. Five guys? What do you have to say? A smash burger, get ready to be smashed by the combined weight of five guys. You're going to be so flat, even your mother's not going to recognize you. You got nothing on us. One, two, three, four, five guys versus zero. You're a loser, smash burger.

You're a loser. All you're ever going to do is lose to the superior burger. You're trash. You're trash. Kill yourself. All right, maybe a bit too far. But let's see if the smack talk holds up. Five guys.

Let's talk about your hamburger with Safe Rahumi. I am here with Safe Rahumi, and we are covering five guys. And our first round burger for five guys, we kind of just went as basic as most of the other places do. We got a standard burger, which they do is double meat. And we got lettuce, pickle, tomato, ketchup and mayo. What were your thoughts on this? This was a good burger.

I thought this was a great burger. That feels dramatic. It was like a good burger. I ate it and I felt joy. Yeah. It wasn't a revelation. Yeah. I don't think great is a revelation.

I think a revelation is a revelation. Oh, is that on your list? Revelations like an eight. Yeah. Okay. I was really impressed with this. I wrote that the beef tasted super fresh. I thought that it was greasy in a good way.

Yeah. Like juicy, I guess. Yeah, it was juicy. Yeah. The sesame seed bun hit with me. And they all had sesame seed buns. But the bun was really good. I do agree.

But my beef, no pun intended, was that. He intended it. He told me he planned on it. He told me he planned to do that. No, there was a lot of stuff on it, as we said. I didn't really taste anything. I just tasted the burger. Do you have COVID-19?

No, I tasted the burger. No, no, no, no. You're going to be hearing me talk a lot about how I didn't taste anything. I know. I'm just like, I watched you eat. I swear, I didn't taste a pickle. It was there. I saw it.

I didn't taste it. Tomato was on there, you said? Yeah. I didn't taste a tomato. I don't know why. Maybe it's just not fresh. Well, also, when you're doing a double patty, that's going to take up most of the real estate of the bite.

That's true. That's true. And then my only note with this was, I thought it could have used a little bit more moisture. You said it was juicy. It was. But like. Oh, like sauce? Like maybe.

Like the juiciness was kind of dripping onto the bun. But like the center of the burgers. Sure. Could have been a little bit. But like this wasn't a major issue, but I noticed it most in this burger specifically. Yeah. But I did think this was a great burger. I don't think this was like.

Oh, really shit. This is not in the revelation. No, no, no, no. But I went pretty high on this burger. I don't know. Other than I didn't taste it, despite the fact that I watched you taste it. I tasted the burger. It's just we put so much stuff on it, and I was pretty much just tasting like the meat and the bun.

You know? So it was like, there are all these other things perfunctory. Here's the thing. I think bread and meat are the best parts of burgers. Sure. So I'm not mad with those being the, And you can feel differently, but like, that is what I want in a burger. That is what a burger is.

Yeah. So I get that. And it was good and I would eat it again. Yeah. I believe if I remember correctly, our scores literally reflect what you would call good and what I would call great. Yeah. I think so. I went 7.97 on this burger.

Okay. I thought it was very juicy. Okay. It was great. What's keeping you out of that eight? That's my question. It didn't feel like an 8 out of 10 burger. That's fair. That's fair.

It's like right there. Yeah. I did a 7.23, I believe. Which is like, yeah, it is good. It's like dead center of it's a good burger. Yeah. It's just like I'm not like blown away. Sure.

You know? Yeah. It's fine. And look, for a round one burger to score this well. Yeah. Not bad. I'm sure that's very good. It's usually those specialty burgers down the, the stretch.

Yeah. That tend to be more impressive. Yeah. Like you're truffly, whatever. But to get out of the gates, you got to prove you can do a basic burger well, and I think five guys did that. I agree with that. And when you put our scores together, you get a 7.60, which does mean that Smashburger is eliminated. Oh, just like already.

And five guys advances to round two of the September Ger tournament. Oh, who. So we've got one more burger review for you in this kickoff episode. tune in at the end of the month to hear the semifinals and finals, which we now know Five Guys has advanced at least to the semifinals, where they will be facing Muya. Wow, a competitive fight as Smashburger actually had a very respectable showing, but alas, the number two powers through and Smashburger is eliminated. Five guys will face Muya on September 30th.

We've got one last burger to profile before the match resolves next week. So let's talk about the number four seed, Burger Fy's hamburger with Joyce, who's honestly a bit of a dummy this week. You'll get it if you're watching on YouTube. All right, I am here to talk about the number four seed in the September 2, 26th tournament, Burger Fi. Burger Fi is a better burger chain in the same vein as like a muya five guys. Shake shack, stuff like that, kind of the fast casual realm, a little bit more expensive. They present themselves as a little bit elevated in terms of the burger experience.

I personally don't mind paying a little bit more if the burger is going to be noticeably or substantially better than your normal drive-through fast food burger. To get to BurgerFi, I went to Chicago with my guest for this segment, my girlfriend, Joyce, who you can see here is totally a real person. Say hi, Joyce. Hello. How's it going? Good, good.

Is there a reason that you look like a dummy? Because I know that's how you like your women. Crazy. I'm just kidding. I don't even know what that means. That's funny. We went to Glenview, Illinois to go to this Burger Fi location because we had a trip to Chicago planned. And I put Burger Fi into the Septemberger bracket before even knowing if there would be one accessible to me.

There wasn't one within driving distance of Vegas, within driving distance of Austin, or within driving distance of San Francisco, which are the cities that I tend to go to and factor in when I'm trying to reach places. So I was relieved when our Chicago trip was in close enough proximity to knock out an episode on BurgerFi. If you want to check out the full episode on it, that is my June Patreon episode. So you can go listen to our full breakdown of what it's like to. eat at BurgerFi. But this is about the Burger-Fi burger, the round one burger, which will be going up against Burger King. So we'll see if this can win or if Burger King can advance. The Burger Fi hamburger is all-natural hormone and antibiotic-free Angus beef, lettuce, tomato, and fie sauce. And all of this comes on their bun, which is branded with the Burger Fi logo, which was a touch

that I liked. I liked it too. I like the stomach of it. Oh, that's a little bit more elevated than a quick fast food chain. It's like the way Umami burger used to be, um, which was a staple for a while in the LA food scene. They were in the very first September Ger tournament as the number one seed. And they were eliminated in round two because they fell off hard. But they used to brand a U onto their burger buns.

and it was a really fun, cool little touch that just made it feel artisan, I guess, is the word that I would use for it. Yeah, I used to go there when it first came. So I remember it being really good. Oh, Mommy Burger. Yeah. Yeah. So Burger Pie, a little bit reminiscent of that. I liked how soft the buns were.

I liked the fie sauce. It wasn't anything like super special, but I liked it enough. But I think my favorite part about this burger is that the flavor of the flavor of the fries. the beef itself is what was most prominent. I agree with you. I think I actually taste the patty flavor. But this was my favorite burger because I like just the basic. Of the three at Burger Fine.

And just any burger place, I always really enjoy the basic lettuce, tomato, onion, if they have pickles, that's like, if I don't see anything fun, I know that that's my go-to. Like chocolate chip ice cream. Mitten chip. My go-to. I don't know if I know chocolate chip. Min-ship, yeah. Yeah, I feel like that's that's kind of like the backyard barbecue burger. Not in terms of barbecue sauce, but like when you go to someone's hosting a backyard barbecue,

those are the fixings you get. You get pickle, tomato, lettuce. Onion. Did I say onion on this? No, you just said lettuce and tomato. But I know. There is not onion on this burger. No, I know.

But I just like, I just want to add that. Okay. It would have been better with an onion. Sure. The burger fry sauce, like when I say I liked it, like it was fine. it wasn't a stand out. It wasn't like, oh my gosh, this is a delicious. It's not like raising cane sauce or Dave's sauce from Dave's Hot Chicken where it's just like,

can I steal packets of these and bring them home with me? They're all variations of Thousand Island, I feel. They are. Which is not my favorite. So it's like, I don't remember having that sauce on that burger. I just remember the flavor of the meat and just the vegetables. Yeah. I thought the bun was nice.

The toasting, it had like a little crisp to it when you bit down on it, which is my favorite. it sensation to feel when biting a burger bun is just like the edge crisp. But yeah, a nice beefy burger. I would say this is comfortably good. I went 6.84 on the BurgerFi burger. I did 6.7. I really liked it.

So that means that the BurgerFi burger will have a 6.77. You're going to have to wait until next week when I cover Burger King to see how they fare to see who wins between Burger King and Burger Fy. But in the spirit of September, one last little call out. We need Joyce here to call out the Burger King. Let's cut to that. Burger King, more like Burger Loser or Burger Peasant.

What makes you think you can lead a country? I don't think so. You are a shame to the entire nation of burgers. Burger Phi, I'm going to stop my name on your buns. Get out of the way. Get out of the way. I'm coming to your town. All right, and that's it for the kickoff show.

Five guys got past Smash Burger while Muya eliminated the habit. Burger Phi versus Burger King will take place as I'm reviewing BK next week. In the meantime, update your brackets to reflect these results and get them in after next week's episode. Again, that's in the description of this episode or at fin dining podcast.com. Thanks to all my guests for joining, and thanks to all of you for listening.

You can follow this show on Instagram and TikTok at Fine Dining Podcast. You can go to my Discord if you want to chat about anything. There's also a link to that in the description of this episode. Or you can go to my Patreon if you want to support the show directly. That's patreon.com slash fine dining podcast. Every single dollar goes to supporting the show, and it helps me tremendously.

I appreciate and love you all. Thank you so much for listening. I'll see you next week for the next covered episode, Burger King, in the September Ger tournament. Thanks for watching. Have a fine day.