McHale’s

8th Avenue @ 46th Street
citysearch

I realize the above CitySearch link says that McHale’s is closed, and indeed, when I went in January, McHale’s had been slated for closing the week prior to the week I’d gone. 

I guess they just keep pushing the date back…

A good friend of mine had insisted to me that McHale’s had the best burgers in the city.  I scoffed since he still has yet to try Shake Shack, but agreed to go, despite his fairly disgusting description: “The burgers are like the size of a CD, but thicker of course, and so juicy that the grease soaks right through the entire bun and drips down your wrist.” 

Despite all this, he insisted I try it out before they close (which, as I mentioned, is still undetermined if they’ve closed yet). 

As McHale’s is a standard pub (looks like a cross between pub and steakhouse; dark wood, very “manly”), we ordered up standard pub fare.  I should warn you though, the wait can get crazy, and the tables are tiny.  Oh, and they won’t seat you if you have an incomplete party; we decided to grab a table before the place turned madhouse and got a table for 3 while waiting for Craig to arrive (my friend had invited another of his friends out).  They seated us at this tiny round table, and wouldn’t allow us to squeeze over when Craig arrived.  Like, seriously, the waitress came over and told us flat out that it wasn’t allowed.  He had to leave.  I was pretty pissed off over that. 

Aside from that, we’d ordered up some fried calamari to start for the three of us.  This was generously sized, and pretty good (at the time it was good, but I’ve since experienced fantastic, amazing, unbelievably great fried calamari, and am comparing it thusly).  The sauce was a bit lacking- as in, there wasn’t enough of it, but it tasted fine.  Very standard, nothing stood out about this. 

I should note here that I am no burger connoisseur.  I only know what I enjoy (this actually applies to most foods, although there are some foods that I know I’ve had the best or close to the best in the world, or foods that I’ve had so many times repeatedly that I have a fairly good idea of what the standard is and whether or not a dish meets, exceeds, or completely falls short of that standard), and this of course varies from person to person. 

But I should also note here that I generally eat my whole burger, when I order one.  I rarely come across one that I can’t finish, unless I also eat a lot of other stuff or I started off not hungry to begin with. 

This was not such a case.  I actually ate just the burger (and a bit of calamari, to be sure), with bacon, Monterey jack cheese (your choice of cheese!), bacon, tomato, and mayo (yes, my secret is out. I eat mayo on my burgers).  The burger was good, yes, but not the best I’d ever had.  I’m not a fan of steak fries (which is why I didn’t eat the fries), but the burger was a touch too oily/greasy for me, though the bread was definitely good (although… well, they’d accidentally given me two bottoms, and my friend’s friend had gotten two tops), and the burger was huge.  I give it a rating of “Pretty darn good, but no need to go out of your way for this burger” which is pretty high in my book. 

Yumm.  But this is definitely a “man’s burger”- I wound up leaving a little less than 1/4th of it behind, to my dismay, while my two male companions easily finished theirs, their own fries, and started on mine (you fatty mcfatfats!). 

Yvo says: Enjoyable, if you’re in the area, though this is by no means out of the way, since it’s close to a lot of theaters and is walking distance to Port Authority, Times Square.  I recommend giving it a try if you’re nearby and/or in the mood for heart clogging fatty goodness burgers.  PLEASE CALL AHEAD TO MAKE SURE THEY ARE STILL OPEN since there is a possibility they may not be.