Food: Crave Burger

Crave Burger
Branch: BF Southville



Alright! Here we go with the first "real" post in my blog!

My wife, Idan, gave birth to our baby Gab last Monday (April 18,2011) and we had to stay in the hospital for around 3 days.  As well all know, hospital food blows a lot and Las Pinas Doctor's Hospital is not an exception, they are actually the worst I have tasted but I have to eat.  I have already ate at McDonald's for my breakfast and lunch and needed something else for my dinner plus the fact that my parents came to visit. I wanted to eat a little more than McDonald's for dinner but my 5 year old Joaquin is screaming burger! Those two in mind, I remember a little burger joint nearby that I have always wanted to try, Crave Burger.

My Dad, Joaquin and I went to the nearest branch which is BF Southville.  As you would expect in a small village restaurant, you have to park on the street.  Went inside, the place was cozy and laid back, kinda like a friend's condominium instead of a usually busy and modern burger place. Good. Since I guess they will have to cook the food after you ordered they had a lot of magazines for customers to read, good? NOT. The lastest mobile phone featured in the magazine is the Nokia 7610 (What is a N 7610? Exactly.). All the magazines are friggin five to four years old, I would have minded it if I didn't to wait for my food.  Word to tha management, if you do not have the cash to shell out for the latest issues of magazines, try Filbar's, they sell within year back issues for 2 for 100.  Please do your customers a favor.  Naman kasi puro techie magazine pa na five years old. Anyways I guess that's it for the place.

The food.  I ordered three (3) CC1 with cheese, that's basically cheese burger, "slim" fries and a 25ml drink (200Php) and two (2) CC2 which is the basic burger but with two patties stacked on top of each other, "slim" fries and a 25ml drink and 5 pieces of crave classic chicken wings. Look at the pictures for a better idea:

Crave Cheese Burger
Photos above from:  Food Notebook (sorry I was not able to take pictures since I'm on the go that time)


Crave double burger
Photo from: flavoursofiloilo

If you look at the photo, I'm sure your thinking, fat, calories, weight gain or just maybe "sa-rap".  For you guys who first thought of fat, calories and weight gain, the 2nd question is, "is it worth the extra hours of run?". To answer your question now, NO. Why? Read on. One of the reason why I am craving for Crave Burger is that I thought they flame grill their burgers and I found out that I could never be more wrong.  The burgers is fried, fried with FAT. Seriously.  I have not eaten a fattier burger than what is served in Crave Burger.  The patties were cooked in lard not just from the burger that you ordered but from the whole days worth of frying if not more.  At that point, I just prayed hard that the burger will actually taste better.  Orders served.  I rsthad the double burger with blue lemonade and slim fries.  The slim fries, they are not actually slim, not by a million mile.  As you can see at the image above the fries are about 2cm thick.  The fries are actually good, crunchy on the outside but still quite soft inside and it also tastes like potato. hahaha I know it is made of potato but when is the last time you ate fries that tasted like a potato? WHEN? lol. Fries = Good nearly great.  The Blue Lemonade, well, it's powdered lemonade (the kind you get from the grocery) with artificial blue coloring, why the blue? I don't know. Moving on. Oh wait there's the other drink, the red iced tea. hahaha the same regular iced tea with red food coloring! It is not the real red ice tea. Why the fake coloring? Moving on. The Crave Double burger, two half pound patties stacked on top of each other sandwiched in a bun with a few veggies.  The veggies is a disappointment, for the price they could have given you more greens and slices of tomato.  What is inside? 1 lettuce leaf (not even a whole) and 1 slice of tomato, wow.  So they effed up the veggies but whatever it's the patty that counts, right?  So let me tell you about burger patty, it is everything I wished it not to be.  The first bite broke my heart in a million pieces, the burger tasted like OLD OIL. You know, the kind where after you deed fry we store the oil, leave it for a long time and try to deep fry with it again? The brown dirty cooking oil you have at home? That's how it tasted like.  I do not care if the burger was 100% pure beef or that each burger patty is cool 1 inch thick it tasted like crap. It is very oily as well! I have never eaten a burger oilier than it fries. And for the price their charging? not worth it. See I'm a person that easily appreciates things so this burger pissing me off is beyond tasting crappy.  My Dad did not finish his, my Mum took one bite, Joaquin ate half, the other CC1 (cheese burger) was left unopened and I ate most of mine just to see if I can appreciate it. After the horrendous experience with the burgers, we each ate a chicken wing.  It was a surprise that the chicken wing was boneless (because it really looks like that it has bones and all).  The wings does not have any flavor, at all. It tasted like eating a breading of flour without any seasoning and deep frying it. Seriously, like paper battered with flour. This one my of most disappointing eating experience and to think that I was actually excited eating here.

The service. The cashier that takes orders messed up my order 3 times. Great. And what's funnier is that after 15 mins I checked my orders and the ones the cook is cooking and it is still not correct. I corrected her for the fourth time, then she even had nerves to get mad at me when me, the supposed to be angry customer is talking to her very calmly.  She realized how wrong she were and apologized to me, then she told the cook this: "XX, nagbago ng isip si sir, gusto niya daw double hind na yan" I was like, WTF? You messed up the order and now your putting the blame on me?? so I talked with the cook and mentioned what happened. The cook apologized and scolded the cashier. So anywho bad customer experience.

So all in all:

Place: 7 -- It cozy and nice, the parking is forgivable but for a store that knows the customer will wait, the old magazines are a NO-NO.

Food: 4 -- Those craving to try crave burger, don't. Other than the price, the taste is just not worth it.  For the same price you can get a good burger at Brother's and Army Navy.  For less the price you can eat a Burger King and it will still be much better.  McDonald's burgers are also better.  If you want to taste Crave Burger for less the price, go to your local buy 1 take 1 burger get two, put in lettuce and tomato and that's it.

Service: 6 -- The cashier may be annoying as hell but the cook (I think she is the supervisor) took charge of everything and all was smooth sailing.

And if you are wondering, NO they did not to mess up the food that I ordered since customers can see what's going on inside.

So I guess that solves my question as to why Crave Burger (despite looking mouth-watering) never had a full parking/customer queue, they are not worth lining up for.

Craving for Crave?

Disclaimer: This is my own personal opinion based on the experience and the food that I tasted.