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Burger review: Jimmy V's Steakhouse

Can the Jimmy V burger go all the way?

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The Straight Beef
By
The Straight Beef
DURHAM, N.C. — Listen, Baby, when Jimmy V was coaching the Wolfpack, he knew the thrill of finding of a hidden gem … a diamond in the rough … a hidden … seriously, where *is* this place located? I’ve driven through hotel parking lots and traffic circles and strip malls, is Jimmy V’s still in Cary?

Assuming you do eventually find it, there’s plenty of reasons to be excited about Jimmy V’s. It has all the ingredients to be Awesome, Baby, with a capital A. We arrived fully expecting the V Burger to light up our scoreboard.

Turns out, nothing is lit up at Jimmy V’s. As burger guys, we’re not used to fine dining, and the complete and utter lack of ambient light associated with it. It was tough for us to find an open look all night.

Then the food came, and our table was rocking, baby. Are you kidding me with these wings? They’re All Appetizer in my book. They have size, the taste has strenth (basketball speak for “strength”).

And then there’s the burger. It’s packed with talent – Jimmy V brought in some blue chippers with house-ground angus beef and chuck, pecan-smoked bacon, fresh tomatoes and lettuce. It has all the ingredients to be a prime time player in the burger big dance.

Speaking of being blue about chips, we were excited at the prospect of cottage fries, which was a diaper dandy on the All Mystery team. Were they hash browns? Waffle fries? No one knew. When they arrived, however, they were basically the equivalent of Lay’s potato chips.

The burger game is a team game, though, and all the talent in the world doesn’t matter if it can’t come together and execute. Meat, bun, condiments and vegetables need to set each other up.

Instead, while the components were supremely talented, the V Burger was a group of individuals. Combined with its hefty $16.50 price tag, the V Burger couldn’t bring home a championship. instead, it rode the individual game of each of the team members and saw it’s run end with a Final Four … point 0, from each of us.

More about the authors:
Scott Blumenthal, Michael Marino and Reverend Donald Corey are The Straight Beef, professional burgiatrists who review, rate and rank Triangle-area burgers on their award-winning blog. You can read more about The Straight Beef, including their education and scholarship, ratings system, and burger categorization method on their official website.
Shawn Krest picked up his burgiatry on the streets, unlike the East Coast elite with their advanced burgiatry degrees. After graduating from the school of hard rolls, he moved south and still doesn’t understand the concept of barbecue. Shawn would never pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today, so don’t lend him money.

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