Oh, Anacortes. Your spacious main street, your quaint shops, and your various options for burger critique. I believe this is the fourth burger we have eaten in Anacortes on the record, and well, at least the beer was good.

It was a breezy, rainy weekend, and Kurt and I were looking for a place with a burger for us to consume. Unfortunately, we still haven't gotten it together to make a list of the places we have yet to eat a burger and plan that out, but I figure, hey, it will happen when it happens.

We decided on H20, a place we have frequented often for a beer when we want to watch a game, but not a place we have found to be particularly reliable for the food they serve. This visit would be no exception.

I ordered the H20 burger, which came with lettuce, tomato, onion, mayo and melted smoked cheddar, (for .85 extra), and Kurt ordered a pasta dish.

H20 is an interesting place; sparsely decorated and spacious with images of different forms of water on the walls, they do a lot of house-infused liquors, and very often have some decent beers on tap. They also have bands, do different tasting events and show movies on Monday nights. It is a pretty cool place to grab a beer or cocktail to be sure.

The burger came with a chunky steak knife sticking out of the top, on a square white plate (wondering when this trend will die), next to some delicious smelling golden fries. As per our agreement, I ordered the burger M, but it came out quite well done. the vegetables were fresh and delicious, the bun was perfectly grilled, and the fries were completely yummy. But, as Kurt stated, "the hamburger patty ruined the burger." And he was right. There was a strange taste to the meat, like it had either been frozen too long, or it was just too old. Either way, it would have been a whole different scene if the meat had been fresh and cooked to the proper temperature. Then again, if the meat was as old as I suspected, it was probably safer that it was cooked to the temperature it was. The scores were as follows:

KURT:

• Flavor: 5
• Juiciness: 6
• Vegetables: 8
• Bun: 9
• Source: 2.5
• Synergy: 6.5
• Value: 8

SCORE: 6.5

SARA:

• Flavor: 4
• Juiciness: 7
• Vegetables: 8
• Bun: 8
• Source: 1
• Synergy: 6
• Value: 7.5

SCORE: 6

The burger was priced at $8.99, which is less than most burgers in pubs and bars cost, even with the additional .85 cents for the cheese. The burger was sourced from Sysco, a food service company which provides restaurants, pubs, and bars food nationally.The burger would have scored much higher if the meat had been prepared well; if it had not tasted strange, because really, everything surrounding the burger was quite well prepared.

Walking into The Brown Lantern is a little bit like walking into a schizophrenic's daydream. There are decorations of all sorts covering every available space on the walls, none of it relating to any thing else, but for some reason it works well together, and gives the pub a cozy hometown feel that makes you feel welcome.

As I looked over the menu, I noticed that The Brown Lantern had the honor of being named the place with the Best Burger in Anacortes in 2015. Between that and Kurt letting me know that one of his friends told him the burger was good, I figured it was going to be at the very least, a pleasant experience.

I ordered the Brown Lantern Cheeseburger, which consisted of 1/2 lb (?!) of Double R ranch, hand-formed ground chuck, raw onion, pickle, lettuce, tomato, onion and mayo. Kurt ordered the Cobb salad. 

One of the things I love about doing this project is that 9 times out of 10, Kurt orders some kind of salad or light fare and I order the burger, and almost every single time our food is brought out, the server assumes that he ordered the burger. This did not happen at The Brown Lantern, but my expectation that it woud made me realize that our size and sex differences usually override any memory the server has of who ordered what. Oh, life. It ain't nothin' but a funny funny riddle.

Anyway, the food arrived BIG. The Cobb salad was impressive to behold, packed with tons of avocado, bacon, and all that other stuff that comes on the Cobb, and the burger was artfully arranged on a gigantic oval platter, with perfecty cooked fries and a mound of fixings for me to pile on my burger in any way I chose.

This is where I made the obscene error of not putting ALL of the veggies on the burger. Kurt later noted, as he was eating the burger, that it would have scored higher had I not made that egregious error. I just figured that maybe next time I would order the Cobb salad and he could put all the veggies he wanted on his burger. Anyway, the scores were as follows:

KURT:

• Flavor:  9.5
• Juiciness: 9
• Vegetables: 8
• Bun:  6
• Source: 8
• Synergy: 8
• Value: 8.5

SCORE: 8


SARA:

• Flavor:  9
• Juiciness:  9
• Vegetables: 9
• Bun:  6
• Source: 8
• Synergy: 7.5
• Value: 8

SCORE: 8

The burger was well-seasoned and flavorful, the cheese was not too melted, and the bun, while toasted perfectly, was pretty standard and all but flattened as we ate through the burger. The vegetables were fresh and tasty, though the pickle was a bit mushy. Kurt stated boldly, as he is known to do, that this patty was in fact the best tasting patty so far, and I had to agree with him. The seasoning perfectly celebrated the wonderful juicy goodness of the meat. It was just too bad I didn't put all the veggies on that burger. Live and learn, I suppose.  The price, (10.99) for this quality of burger was very good. 

In general, this was a very good burger. A lot of meat to it, which most likely contributed to its higher score. You know what they say: when it comes to meat, more is always better.