Big Jud's is a small chain of Idaho burger joints whose chief claim to fame is the 1lb Burger and multiples thereof, as seen on Man Vs Food. Call me a wuss but, I didn't fancy ploughing my way through one of those bad boys (1lb of beef isn't a problem, it's the 1lb again of topppings, sauces and cheese that puts me off) I compromised and went with a Double Rodeo Burger (basically an onion ring, bacon + homegrown BBQ sauce, layered twice as it's a double).
What gave me hope is the fact they prepare all their burgers themselves and proudly offer fresh hand cut fries. Similar to Ford's back in Sacramento, Big Jud's (I went to the 'branch' in Ashton) is an old time classic burger diner, lots of memorabilia on the walls, no uniforms on show, no frills and the food arrived presented 'honestly' if a little haphazardly.
The stack was impressive to say the least and my gob frankly couldn't cope, which resulted in full marks for getting sauce all across my face. The patties were rough and ready in a pleasing 'I've been made by humans' kind of way if a touch overcooked. Flavour was there, but texture was on the dense side with not a lot of tender juice type action going on. BBQ sauce ok, bacon ok, onion rings did that low rent thing whereby the onion pretty soon slipped out of the batter and escaped in a slightly greasy fashion. The Bun was big enough but, in a foretaste of my trip to Yellowstone, developed an annoying habit of allowing sauce geysers to erupt from it's surface and didn't last the distance.
Fries were fresh and hand cut as advertised, good chunky chips like how your mum would probably make them, very potatoey, but missing out on crisp and fluffy gold standard. I suspect they would have benefitted from double frying, but they helped lift the meal beyond average.
Maybe I'm being hard on Big Jud, but with the bar now set so high, what transpired as the first decent burger in a long while was, whilst good and something to be proud of against the lacklustre competition, not enough to trouble the top of the table.
And so we score; remember, 0 is for not present, 1 is merely functional, 2 is adequate, 3 is good, 4 is really good and 5 is OMG-can't-talk-eating.
KBI-1 : Quality of Burger | 3 / 5 |
|---|---|
| (Beefiness, quality of cooking, not getting lost in the extras) | |
KBI-2 : Distinguishing Features | 3 / 5 |
| (i.e. The 'headline' variation e.g. Bacon, Chilli, BBQ) | |
KBI-3 : Ability of Bun to Maintain Order | 2 / 5 |
| (size, freshness, flavour, keeping it all together) | |
KBI-4 : Condiment Enhancement | 2 / 5 |
| (variety, suitability of extras) | |
KBI-5 : Fries Counterpoint | 3 / 5 |
| (portion size, crispness, potato-ey ness) | |
KBI-6 : Other Supporting Actors | n/a |
| (quality of side orders) | |
Total Score | 13/25 |
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