Punch Burger - Revisit

The males in my household have a thing for burgers lately, and frankly, I was getting kind of tired of going to the same places that we always go, even though I like them.  We decided to take a little road trip downtown and revisit Punch Burger with the kids.

Ok, so maybe the secret real reason I wanted to go again so soon is because I know Punch recently changed their bacon to Smoking Goose bacon and I wanted to go in there and show some support (and eat some of that bacon).  I have also been hearing about this “burnt cheese” option which intrigued me, so that is also what I ordered—the burnt cheese burger with a runny fried egg and bacon (of course) ($9.24).  I sort of screwed it up because I really just wanted those things on the burger, and they gave me the regular burnt cheeseburger that also has a bunch of other stuff on there too (lettuce, ketchup, onions, etc.). No biggie, I just picked them off, but I need to be more careful about how I order my burger.

Ok, it looks messy, but tasty!

So first off, the bacon was great. Soooo much better than the old bacon option there. I will say, it is slightly pricier, but this is certainly a case of you get what you pay for. And it is totally worth it.  The burnt cheese was very interesting. I sort of expected the cheese to be melted regularly on the burger with just edges that were burnt.   These were actually crisps of cheese that were cooked until crispy and then placed on top.  They were tasty, and had an interesting crunch to them, but I can’t say this would be a regular order for me because I missed the cheesiness of the cheese on the burger. But a very interesting concept.  The burger itself was good. The quality of the meat is high—I just wish they wouldn’t cook it so much. I was so busy ordering all the extra things I wanted (and screwing it up), I didn’t even think to ask to have it cooked to a particular temperature. Next time I would see if they would do it. They did ask if I wanted the egg runny or not, and they cooked it perfectly.

Hubby ordered a “build your own” (what I was trying to do) with cheese, grilled onions and bacon ($7.54).  It was really, really good. He got even more bacon than I did and had the right amount of cheesiness that I missed. He did love my little fried bits of cheese and added a few on top of his (hmmm…wonder if you can just order a side of fried cheese).  We shared waffle fries.  They’re waffle fries, so you know they are not making them fresh, but they were done exactly how they should have been. Hot and crispy—and they season them with a seasoning mix that is pretty tasty.

The kids each got a kid’s meal, which comes with a smaller slider and a side of waffle fries.  They thought they were fine, but because they were pretty small, they were even a bit drier.  (My daughter also informed me that the buns were just a bit too big for the size of the meat). I think next time they would just split one regular burger and be happier.  The kids also enjoyed the fancy soda machine where you can mix up different flavors into your soda (even though they don’t drink soda).  They made different flavors of lemonade and were happy.

I would say overall, Punch has taken a pretty solid burger and made it even better with the addition of kick ass bacon. It’s nice to have a local place downtown serving this kind of more casual food.

Punch Burger

137 E. Ohio Street

Indy 46204

317/426-5280

www.punchburger.com