Burger Week — Nouveau Palais

SAME OLD, SAME OLD: Nouveau Palais
Photo by Lucas Wisenthal

Last night, when my Nouveau Palais-prepared Burger Week hamburger arrived at my table, a single question crossed my mind: Will this thing give me a fucking heart attack?

As a 30-something with a family history of heart disease, you’d think this concern would colour all my meals. But you’d be wrong. I eat like shit. I love starch, and I love deep-fried foods. I also love burgers — especially from Nouveau Palais.

And though it was Burger Week (an event rivaled only by the 12 days of Christmas, or, in my case, the eight nights of Hanukkah), Nouveau Palais’s patty-and-bun offering was the same sandwich it serves all the time, a meal I enjoy a couple of times a month. But I was still spooked by the prospect of dropping dead from grease-clogged arteries.

Maybe it was the act of photographing my food. It seemed so earnest, so deliberate, as though I was documenting a special meal — my last, maybe. But the flash — yes, I used a fucking flash in the restaurant — didn’t trigger a heart attack. And I dug enthusiastically into my burger, juicy, peppery patty, tasty cheese (gruyère, I think) and all. And I liked it. Oh, and the lightly toasted brioche bun, and the caramelized onions. I don’t usually go for poppy seeds, and I’m not much of an onion dude, but I liked those, too.

Yes, I ate it all, and I haven’t died of a heart attack. Yet. 8/10