ATTENTION!! On the left hand column, you will find links to search by cuisine or city. You will also find a restaurant index of all of the places I have written about on the column on the right. If you enjoy the site, please bookmark the site and tell a friend! You can also subscribe to be notified when the site updates by entering your e-mail address in the box on the left. Happy Eating!

Please visit our partner sites DiningOutInOC.com for info on OC restaurant openings and special culinary related events, Booze It Up OC for info on OC 21+ events and Brunch In OC for info and reviews on weekend brunches.

Griffin Eats OC's Fan Box

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

DG Burger (Damn Good)


3333 Bristol St
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
(714) 361-4264

I was invited down to the media tasting of Charlie Palmer's newest restaurant today. DG Burger is a small, fast casual restaurant that occupies the private dining room of Charlie Palmer restaurant by day. The usual hours of DG Burger are 11:30 AM-4:00 PM. At night, the room is transformed back into a private dining venue for Charlie Palmer. If there are no events booked in the room though, they may choose to randomly keep DG Burger open for dinner as well.

When you enter the small DG Burger space that seats 40, you will order your food at a front counter. You will then be given a number and directed to the dining room. You place your number on the table and wait for your food to be delivered. You have the option of getting your food to go as well.

Chef Charlie Palmer spoke to us about how it took him months to perfect his burger. He worked closely with a local bakery to produce a bun that he was happy with. He then tried several blends of ground beef until he found a blend of ground chuck, shortrib and hangar steak that he was happy with.


The menu at DG Burger is small, with the burger obviously being the main item. The burger comes simply dressed with cabbage, tomato, red onion and "DG Sauce" for $7.95. Additional toppings of fried egg, bacon, aged cheddar and avocado are available for $2 each. Get all four and you're looking at a $16 burger. The burger is served on a buttered and toasted Potato Bun.

I was pretty surprised when I wasn't impressed by the burger. While the meat was juicy and cooked to a perfect medium rare, it seemed to lack a little flavor. The patty itself was pretty average. It might be because Chef Charlie Palmer hyped it up so much, but I expected this burger to be magical. Instead I feel it fell a little flat. I'm sure the burger is a lot better with bacon and cheese, but again, this makes the burger much more expensive. The burger was also pretty small.

The fries here are not really anything special by themselves. DG Burger offers four different dipping sauces for the fries. You get your choice of Curry Ketchup, Bacon Mayo, Roasted Garlic Sour Cream or Chipotle Aioli. My favorite was the roasted garlic sour cream. I want to carry around a container of this with me so I can have it whenever I get french fries somewhere.

Other items on the menu include Citrus Glazed Skewers (beef, chicken, veggie $7.95), Sausage Sandwich ($6.75), Fries ($5), Salads ($5) and Milkshakes (strawberry or malted chocolate $5). Soft drink, beer and wine are also available.

DG Burger on Urbanspoon

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

All your post start out with "I was recently invited"

mix it up a bit they all read the same

Griffin said...

Anon-I apologize. With money being tight these days, I rarely go out to eat unless I'm invited to a media event. I also feel that it is necessary to disclose at the beginning of an article when I am invited down to a media event and eating for free vs. going to a restaurant anonymously. I'll try and change up the intro in the future....

ukdissertation.co.uk said...

It's very attractive blog post Griffin Eats OC , my son likes it very much, thank you for your giving out,