Top o' the Mornin' to you!

I'm a huge, lazy bum.  I wrote this a few months ago, but never got around to posting it because...well, I'm a huge lazy bum.  Enjoy!

Now this blog is about burgers around fabulous Denver, but I happened to be in sunny Gainesville this particular weekend.  I left my house, complete with eight inches of snow, at about 4 AM for my flight out of DIA.  The roads were okay, but the drivers were being overly cautious.  If it's 4 AM and you're maneuvering around in the snow, you'd better know what the heck you're doing.  The plows haven't gotten to everything at this point, so you're going to have to muster up some courage and drive your car.  After passing a few dozen cars, I finally arrived at the Pike's Peak lot.  My flight was still scheduled to leave on time, but half of the remaining of the flights were flat out cancelled.

My flight didn't leave on time, but it left early enough for me to catch my connection in Atlanta.  Friday evening was spent at a local brewery here in Gainesville called Swamp Head.  They had some decent beer, but I'm definitely a Colorado beer snob at this point.  We have such good beer through liquor stores and small breweries that it's just plain hard to compare.  I did have fun though and really enjoyed the brewery.

Sunday afternoon, Liz had some classmates come over for a study session, and the plan was to hit up Big Lou's for some pizza.  Lou, however, wasn't in on the plan and didn't open until 2PM.  So, we kept walking down Main Street until we hit The Top, a fun, hippy-filled bar.  Going to school in Boulder, I've experienced my fair share of hippies, and I've learned a few things.  G Love, dreadlocks, and non-Starbucks coffee is about 1000% cooler in college.  The instant you move out of <insert college town here>, you'll delete your bad college music from your iPod, get a haircut, and start ordering coffee from one of the seventeen Starbucks locations within a square mile of your square job.

Waitaminute, I was supposed to write about burgers.  Brunch was on at The Top for a few hours, but on the backside of the breakfast menu was a list of burgers.  I was in the mood for a burger, but I didn't really have much of a breakfast earlier.  After scanning the list of burgers, I found my solution in the Good Morning burger.  It bridged the gap nicely taking care of breakfast staples with a fried egg and bacon, yet hit lunch notes with beef and cheddar.  All of their burgers come with lettuce, tomato, onion, and pickles as well.  After this burger, I've started to sour on that.  Pickles, though I love them, have no business on a burger with an egg.  The onions didn't make the cut either, and I was iffy on the tomato and lettuce, but kept them.  I may be a burger lover, but the people creating the menus are the burger experts.  They're the ones that have designed their top burger prospects, and I feel that they should dictate what accompanies the food.

To recap, I had an angus patty, fried egg, crispy bacon, cheddar cheese, lettuce, and tomato.  All of this came on a pretzel bun.  Yeah, a pretzel bun.  Sounds kinda weird, right?  I'm used to salty pretzels when I'm drinking a beer or at a ballgame, but I had never eaten a pretzel bun.  To be honest, the pretzel bun was pretty tasty.  It was firm on the outside, but the inside was soft.  I'd definitely eat another burger on a pretzel bun someday.  The last ingredient, which was not on the menu, was hot sauce.  I always eat my eggs with hot sauce, and the waitress at The Top was happy to oblige.  I didn't drown the burger in Hot Sauce, but I added just enough to give it a kick.

My first bite hit the yolk and made my burger a mess.  It also made my burger really tasty, but combined with the juices of the meat, the yolk ensured that I wasn't high fiving anyone for the next fifteen minutes.  Not that I had anything to high five about, but I like to have the option just in case.  I'm quickly becoming an egg fan outside of breakfast, and this burger was one more vote for the cause.  The creaminess of the yolk was really nice with the bacon and beef.  Honestly, I could take or leave the white part of the egg.  The flavor of an egg white is so delicate that just about anything overpowers it, and the texture was lost as well.  The yolk, however, was fantastic and I'd definitely have an egg on my burger again.

The meat was cooked to slightly over medium, so I don't have any complaints with that.  The outside of the burger, however, was charred quite a bit.  I was actually surprised that the inside could be cooked correctly with the outside bordering on being burnt.  It didn't ruin my burger or anything, but the charring was a bit too much in spots.  The bacon was crispy and delicious.  Two massive strips did a pretty good job covering the majority of the burger.  Looking back, the lettuce and tomato might have been unnecessary.  I'll be looking at the egg burgers in the future to see what toppings are added by most other restaurants, but it seems like the focus needs to be the egg as far as toppings go.

Overall, I'd say this was a pretty good burger.  I was full, happy, and ready for the day.  So, if you're down in Gainesville for a Tebow pilgrimage (let's be honest, there isn't much else going on here), stop by The Top and have a burger!  The clientele will take you back to your college days, and the burger will take your belt out a notch.