The Crow Bar and Kitchen
2325 E. Coast Highway, Corona del Mar, California 92625
(949) 675-0070
I don’t know who Grandma Jane is. But I do know that the hamburger named after her is delicious! I went to The Crow Bar and Kitchen on Thursday and ordered the ‘grandma jane’ and their Duck Fries. As well as a bottle of Harney & Son’s organic black iced tea. There were a bunch of burgers on their lunch menu and I wanted to try something that sounded unique. Here’s a link to their lunch menu. The grandma jane burger consists of a toasted english muffin with herbed cream cheese, sliced red onion, vine ripe organic tomato, onion sprouts and let’s not forget the hamburger meat. The meat is cooked to order. I ordered it medium and they did a great job. The burger patty was 1/4 pound and so it wasn’t very big. Also since the thing was all inside a large english muffin the burger was truly lunch sized. You are probably thinking what I was thinking, “What’s cream cheese doing on a hamburger?” Well, lemme tell you, it was tasty and snackariffic! The herb cream cheese was high quality and tasted smooth and it really accented the flavor of the meat. It wasn’t overpowering like I thought it was going to be. There are a lot of sprouts on this burger. So if you don’t like sprouts you might want to say something to your server. I personally like sprouts so I didn’t mind. I can’t remember the tomato that much. It mostly added to the texture of the burger. But I’m glad it was there. Tomatoes are a great addition to any sandwich. The onion was the perfect thickness and had a fresh taste. But the real winning combination of the Grandma Jane was the crispiness of the muffin combined with the full flavor of the meat, mixed with the creaminess of the cheese. It had this very unique flavor that made me want to savor every bite, and eat my burger as gentlemanly as possible. This I was able to do because of the sublime french fries.
The fries I ordered didn’t come with the burger. I had to order them separately. They were called, Duck Fries and at first I thought they were going to be large flat fries like steak fries or something. But in fact they were of slightly wider thickness than a shoestring fry and what made them get their name was that they were actually cooked in duck fat. I’ve eaten duck before and I remember the stuff was interesting but not ridiculously remarkable. The meat was tender and juicy. But I remember that the duck meat was fatty. So when the bartender/server told me that the Duck Fries were cooked in duck fat I decided to give them a try. And I wasn’t disappointed because they were fried very accurately and had ninja-like precision of brownness and crispness. The duck fries were slightly salted and they had some seasonings on them. The potatoes used were great quality and were substantial enough to eat slowly, one-by-one and savor. They gave me some kind of homemade-looking ketchup and it had a puree texture. But I didn’t use the ketchup on the fries. In fact I used this creamy ranch-ish dipping sauce that was white with greenish-yellow specks. That was really good. The duck fries with the Grandma Jane burger was a great combo.
The price of the grandma jane burger was $7 a la carte, and the price of the duck fries was a whopping $6. Six bucks is a lot of money to pay for fries…I don’t care if they are cooking in duck fat. They could be cooked in leviathan lard for all I care. But the fact is, I really liked them. And I will probably buy them again the next time I go to the Crow Bar. Besides, you don’t really go to the Crow Bar to dine for cheap. It is relaxed, higher end.
The decor of the Crow Bar is very cool and wooden. It has a classy interior that looks good during lunch hours and I bet it is a lot of fun at nighttime.
-Tyler