Burger Mania
274 W. 40th StreetSo I wasn’t only going to eat pizza while I was in New York. I could have though. There were enough pizza places around that I could have eaten pizza for every meal and never went to the same place twice.
Our first day in town was a little hectic. We had an assignment about 5 blocks from our hotel in the morning. Then we had to get my car out of the parking garage and drive to Queens for an after assignment. Then we were back in Midtown for an evening assignment before calling it a day.
We were really worried going from Midtown to Queens and back was going to eat up a lot of our day but we actually got back to the hotel with about three hours to spare. I put the car back into the (very expensive) parking ramp then we both went back to our rooms to relax for a little bit before the evening assignment.
It was around 2:30 and I was getting pretty hungry. The great thing about where we were staying was that it took longer to get an elevator at the hotel than it did to walk some place to get something to eat.
I was planning on pizza for dinner again so I looked at Google maps to see if there was anything else in the area. I saw a burger place about a block away and thought burgers sounded good so I headed that way.
Burger Mania is on 40th Street east of 8th Avenue in Manhattan. The small burger joint between a pizza place and an eyebrow threading spot looks to have went in to this spot just off the corner sometime in 2021. Before that, it was a small cafe.
Like most places in New York City, this restaurant isn’t big. There is a small order counter right inside the door with four TV’s turned vertical displaying the menu.
There are no regular four top tables in the brightly painted space but there are some counter seats jammed into a small space off to the side of the register and there was one high top table next to the pop cooler where I plopped down to wait for my order.
The menu has burgers like you would expect a place called Burgermania to have but they also have chicken wings and tenders. All of the food is Halal Certified.
I didn’t look over the menu before walking in the door so I needed a few minutes. I was the only one in there ordering so I didn’t feel rushed.
I ended up picking the Atomic Burger and got it as a combo with Cajun fries and a Coke. The cost for the meal was just over $20 and took less than 10 minutes to be handed over the counter.
I took the sandwich back to the hotel to eat because I did have some work I needed to do.
I started with the fries first. There was actually a pretty big take out box stuffed with beer battered cajun fries. This type of fry always need some kind of condiment for me. I don’t lover the battering of fries..just a personal preference. It didn’t stop me from eating them all. The Cajun seasoning gave them a little something extra than the typical bland frozen battered French fry
The burger was a sloppy mess and I love it that.
The Atomic Burger is 3 smash patties topped with cheddar cheese, sautéed onions, jalapenos, lettuce, Chipotle BBQ sauce, and a house made ranch. The jalapenos were the first thing I noticed and they threw me. They were long slices instead of round coins. I thought at first they were bell peppers then remember, no, this is the Atomic burger…those are jalapenos. There was quite a bit of the ranch and BBQ sauce on the sandwich which made the buns job of holding it all together pretty impossible. I was eating alone in my hotel room so no one had to witness the mess I was making of myself. The burger was delicious though. The smash burger patties were super juicy and fresh tasting. The cheddar cheese tried to help out the bun in keeping things together but everything was sliding around. I could have done without the ranch because all it really did is dilute the Chipotle in the BBQ sauce. The sandwich was still really delicious..I just needed a few wet naps to clean up once I was done.
Burger Mania is a solid quick service burger joint in a very busy section of New York City. There are a lot of the big fast food chains all around this area but just take a quick jaunt down 40th Street to find something local and unique.
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