BEEF BRIEF: Holy Cow’s End of the World Burger

By Jody in burgers, Virginia Burgs with 0 comment Tags: alexandria, del ray, egg, end of the world, fried, holy cow, pork belly, sriracha

Dec
2012

During our day-to-day adventures, we plow through so many burgs and we fail to share a lot of them here at Burger Days. We think that's just wrong. So in an effort to spread more beefy goodness, we introduce Beef Briefs, short, brief looks at more of the burgers we take to the face. Where's the beef? It's right f**king here.

Sure, it may look like your typical fried chicken sandwich, but rest assured, there ain't no bird under that batter. That, friends, is a deep fried slab of beef-- the foundation of Holy Cow's tribute to the never-came-to-be Apocalypse.

Last Thursday and Friday, the new burger joint in Del Ray, Alexandria put together one disgustingly beautiful combination of all things that are good with the End of the World burger. The description alone is enough to kick start a bout of arrhythmia: a breaded, deep-fried beef patty topped with pork belly, provolone, cheddar, a fried egg and sriracha aioli. Take note, burger lovers, this is how you kiss the world goodbye.

Unsurprisingly, this wasn't the first time we've taken on a deep-fried burg, though our first experience was just so-so coming courtesy Mother's Federal Hill Grill in Baltimore. Holy Cow's interpretation was much more successful with a far tastier batter on the beef that delivered a completely unexpected taste upon first bite. Not different bad, mind you, just different. The breading was the kind you'd find on a fried chicken sandwich, and when first biting in, that's the initial impression. But it doesn't last long as the beef quickly rises to the surface with a flavor very reminiscent of chicken fried steak. Yup, that's a winner right there.

Now a common misstep far too many burger joints make is offering a fried egg as a topping, but then completely screwing it up and only cooking it over hard or "well done." That totally defeats the purpose of having an egg on a burger. Nobody wants a crumbly, chalky yolk fuckin' up the party-- you either do the egg up runny or don't do it at all. The Holy Cow people get it-- a little pressure on the top bun and soon our fried beef, cheese and pork belly were swimming in a pool of beautiful, runny yellowness. And that pork belly? Delicious. There's nothing like a fancy-ass hunk of bacon to set a burger off right. The sriracha aioli wasn't bad, but we found it a bit distracting from the rest of the mix and if we could do it all over again, we'd leave it off.

Since we didn't go out with the Mayans last week, after taking this thing to the face, there's still a pretty good chance we won't make it to the New Year. But don't take that the wrong way-- the End of the World burger was 100% last-meal worthy, and if we're going out, at least our bellies are going out happy.

Holy Cow | 2312 Mt. Vernon Ave | Alexandria | holycowdelray.com | @holycowdelray