Black Bear Diner is a local chain of diners that started in Mt. Shasta, CA and has spread across the western United States. They’ve had a location in Davis since 2009 but I’ve never eaten at the place. I had an old room mate who worked at one of their locations to the north who said that their desserts were really good, sadly I am not looking for the best banana cream pie in Davis (though I should be because I always need more banana cream pie in my life.)
Here we are though with Black Bear Diner’s “Classic American Cheeseburger” it’s a 1/3 of a pound of ground beef patty on a brioche bun with onion, lettuce, tomato, mayo, and thousand islands dressing. It can be purchased for $8.49 and comes with a side of french fries or onion rings. I deferred and asked for a side salad.
The Review
Patty (12/35) – The meat appears extra lean. Almost dry. I was unable to detect any seasoning on the patty. I asked for medium rare, it came out done. The patty looks like it was preformed and precooked. Considering how quickly it came out. Hard to tell if the patty is truly tasteless or if it is just being drowned by the sauce (see Condiments below)
Cheese (6/25) – Tasteless. Seriously, I couldn’t taste the cheese in a single bite. When I tore small pieces of it off and tasted them I still couldn’t detect any flavor! I don’t know if it was real or not. I think a slice of American Cheese might have been better.
Bun (10/15) – The bun is soft and fluffy. It was not dry. Not much more to say. The top of the bun was absorbing large amounts of Thousand Islands sauce.
Toppings (10/15) – A single leaf of lettuce, tomato, and red onion slice were in the burger. No pickles! All looked and tasted fresh.
Condiments (0/10) – The menu said that the burger would have mayo and Thousand Islands dressing on the burgers. I could detect no mayo. Also, why is there no mustard on this burger? Why is there no mustard on the table? The burger was literally drowning in Thousand Islands sauce. It did not taste like a house made sauce either. The sauce overwhelmed every aspect of this burger.
Ambiance (0/*) – Lots of pictures of bears, psuedo-rustic, I get the feeling they wanted the diner to look like a log cabin. Very generic “diner” look and feel.
Total (38/100) – Boo. How I suffer in pursuit of knowledge! This burger barely rates higher than the one I had at Sudwerks. I suppose if I had to look for a silver lining it’d be that it was cheaper than the one there…
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