Gourmet Guys

What went wrong was this: The flavors just don't go together. It didn't help that I received one of The Burger Guys' infrequent well-done burgers (most patties verge on medium-rare to medium), which had all the charm of a charcoal briquette. But even doing away with the meat and trying to eat the papaya and dressing on the bun was a no-win situation. The dressing tasted rough and uneven, as if the kitchen was still experimenting with the flavors. And the papaya had no taste at all.

Worse, my bacon apple pie shake — "It's our best flavor!" promised the bright young thing working the cash register — was exceptionally thin and gritty, with almost no hint of apple, or even of bacon, for that matter. But I will say this: The guys take their food seriously, especially if you aren't eating it. Every time I've gone, I've seen Mazzu making his way around to check on people's meals, while Fisch keeps an eagle eye on the patrons at the counter as he mans the grill.

Troy Fields

Sheer bliss: The Houston Burger.

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The Burger Guys

12225 Westheimer Road
Houston, TX 77077

Category: Restaurant > Burgers

Region: Memorial

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Hours: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, 11 a.m. to midnight, Fridays through Saturdays.

Houston burger: $8

Phuket burger: $8

Sonoma burger: $8

Dublin burger: $8

Buffalo burger $8

Chicago dog: $8

Belgian frites: $3

Booberry shake: $3

Bacon apple pie shake: $3

Soda fountain: $2.50

The Burger Guys

12225 Westheimer, 281-497-4897.

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More About

• Houston (Texas)
• Brandon Fisch
• Dublin (Texas)
• Food and Cooking
• Eating Out

Fisch took notice that I wasn't drinking my shake and had, in fact, pushed it as far away from me as possible. "Is everything okay?" he inquired.

I answered honestly and told him how I felt about the shake. He picked up the Styrofoam cup and took a look at it. "This isn't right," he said. "This isn't right at all. Please let me get you another one."

Already stuffed from the basket of frites I'd demolished with The Burger Guys' housemade ketchup (you can choose two sauces for your fries from a list of about eight), I declined. Fisch was cheerfully insistent, but I managed to put him off. I could come back for a shake another time. Instead, I asked him about that ketchup I'd fallen in love with.

"A lot of people don't like it," he answered. "You really do?"

"I do!" I said. It tastes absolutely nothing like regular ketchup, smacking of ginger and punchy sugar amidst the bright tomato flavor, but on those fatty frites it's pure genius.

Undertaking the process of making ketchup is extraordinarily difficult and time-consuming. And if you're crazy enough to perform this arduous task on a daily basis, you might as well make something exceptional — something that doesn't taste like Heinz ketchup. The Burger Guys succeeds in this area mightily, although traditional ketchup fans should take note. And, as Fisch told me that night, patrons are welcome to BYOK.
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By the time I got back to The Burger Guys a few months later, the burgers and the shakes had improved drastically. And this time, I also made my way over to the soda fountain, not a fixture in normal restaurants but a fascinating time warp here.

"Those sodas you're ­serving," remarked­ a businessman to Fisch as he ate his burger at the counter. "Those aren't American sodas, are they?"

I shook my head and bit my tongue, intent on minding my own business. Fisch patiently explained to the man that Dublin Dr Pepper is simply Dr Pepper from Dublin, Texas, made with cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup.

In fact, all the sodas in the fountain are made with "real" sugar and many of them are a trip back in time for people, including my dining companion that day.

"I haven't seen Nu Grape since I was a little girl!" she crowed, filling her cup up with the stuff as 40 years dropped instantly away. We traded sodas and burgers back and forth that day, which is probably the best way to enjoy a meal here. The Dublin Dr Pepper was perfect for washing down a Dublin burger, coated with not-too-sweet barbecue sauce made from the plummy soda, while the grape soda was ideal for quenching the tiniest tinge of burn from the blue cheese-covered Buffalo burger with hoppy Tabasco mash aioli. Both patties had that sweet ooze, although both buns were utterly demolished about halfway through once again.

On a subsequent visit, I tried the shake again and found that it, too, was miles better. The Burger Guys makes shakes of two varieties: those made with ice creams that Mazzu has dreamed up and those made with cereal. The cereal milkshakes, like a gritty Booberry I tried, aren't up to snuff yet. But the ones made with ice cream, like the cafe sua da milkshake that night, are enough to turn me off 59 Diner's butterscotch malts for good. All the layers of traditional Vietnamese iced coffee were there, but blended together in a not-too-thick concoction that turned the drink on its ear.

And it's that aspect of The Burger Guys I like best: Taking solidly Houston flavors — Thai here, Vietnamese there, all bundled together with Texas beef and beer — and local ingredients like Dairymaids' cheese and Hatterman's eggs to knock you for a loop and make you rethink what a burger could and should be, despite a sometimes mystifying menu. With their blissfully scenester-free location in west Houston and the infectious joyfulness they take in their work, I have hope that The Burger Guys and their breathtaking burgers will be around to enjoy for years to come.

I have a feeling that's how long it will take to work my way through the constantly evolving and alluring list of burgers and hot dogs.

katharine.shilcutt@houstonpress.com