Favorite Burger

Houston's 9 favorite burgers to sink your teeth into

For most of the categories in the CultureMap Tastemaker Awards, we pick a winner of the year. Awarding Chef of the Year, Restaurant of the Year, etc. suggests that certain establishments and individuals have done a little more than their peers to stand out from the pack.

This category, however, is called Favorite Burger. The notion of a “burger of the year” is somewhat absurd; how could one burger stand out from its peers in any given year? Also, choosing the right burger for the right mood is so personal that “favorite” just feels like the more appropriate word.

Besides, “best burger” would just lead to a lot of arguments in the comments section. We’ll get those anyway, because people just see the headline, skim the list, and rush off to pontificate about which obvious entry has been unjustly excluded. Fire away.

Whose favorite? Our panel of judges made up of former Tastemaker Awards winners, of course. We think they eat enough burgers both to know where some of Houston’s best options can be found.

Who will win? Find out at the CultureMap Tastemaker Awards party presented by Woodford Reserve on March 27 at Silver Street Studios. We’ll reveal the winners, sip cocktails, and dine on bites provided by the nominees. Tickets are on sale now.

B.B. Lemon
Like most of the dishes on the menu at this casual sibling of B&B Butchers, this burger at B.B. Lemon takes its inspiration from the classic New York restaurant J.G. Melon. It’s a very pure experience — just a grilled, 80-20 wagyu beef patty with a coating of cheddar cheese on a toasted bun. Sliced onion and pickles add crunch and acidity, but it’s really all about the delicious alchemy of good beef and gooey cheese.

Bernie's Burger Bus
From a bus serving burgers at Lizard’s Pub to four brick and mortar restaurants, there’s no stopping chef Justin Turner’s sophisticated burger concept. Bernie’s makes everything (except its buns) in house: all of its sauces, including ketchup, pickles, and its custom-blended beef patties. While the Detention, a double cheeseburger that uses grilled cheese sandwiches for buns, gets all the social media, no one can deny the simple pleasure of a classic Principal burger: the slow-roasted garlic tomatoes really tie the whole sandwich together.

BuffBurger
Husband-and-wife duo Sara and Paul “Buff” Burden have a straightforward ethos for their three restaurants. Start with great ingredients like 44 Farms beef and buns that are baked in-house. Then add thoughtful toppings like goat cheese from Pure Luck Farms, mango chutney, and espresso barbecue sauce. Sides like tater tots and non-beef options like a great fried chicken breast mean BuffBurger offers something for just about everyone.

burger-chan
Speaking of husband-and-wife teams, Diane and Willet Feng have created something special at their Greenway Plaza burger joint. Willet’s fine dining pedigree — he worked at Oxheart for awhile — means that every detail has been precisely tweaked for maximum deliciousness. Thin patties that get cooked on a griddle to achieve crispy edges get served on slightly sweet Sheila Partin buns and topped with creative sauces like scallion aioli and sambal mayo. Of course, the restaurant’s real genius is that diners may combine different cheese, bun, and toppings options — even the number patties — to achieve their perfect combo.

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The Burger Joint
Although its name implies that it keeps things pretty classic, The Burger Joint isn’t afraid to mix things up a bit. Chef Matthew Pak’s food truck pedigree reveals itself in options like the kimchi burger (also topped with a fried egg and garlic mayo) or the BBQ, which ups the ante on a regular bacon cheeseburger with barbecue sauce and an onion ring. Even a classic cheeseburger is solid here thanks to the hefty, six-ounce patty that oozes in exactly the right way. Soon, the restaurant’s second location in the Heights will open, which will give even more Houstonians an opportunity to experience TBJ for themselves.

The Hay Merchant
Chris Shepherd’s famous Cease and Desist burger utilizes a classic formula. Two patties made with beef from 44 Farms, two slices of American cheese, pickles (housemade, natch), and lettuce provide a little crunch, and a slice of tomato provides a little sweetness. The secret is in the quality of the beef and the precise ratios of each component, which allows the whole to transcend the sum of its parts.

La Lucha
Some parts of the menu at this Heights restaurant take inspiration from legendary Texas restaurant the San Jacinto Inn, but Ford Fry looked a little closer to his River Oaks roots for the restaurant’s burger. Named the Pharmacy burger after the Avalon Diner, the yellow paper wrapped around the burger also serves as a clue that Whataburger serves as a major inspiration. Greasy in a good way and dripping with beefy juices, this retro burger checks all the boxes.

Rodeo Goat
Houston has enough quality burger options that a restaurant from DFW wouldn’t seem to have much hope of breaking through, but Rodeo Goat has been luring diners to EaDo since it opened last year. Credit goes to the creative toppings that enhance the patties made from high-quality beef from 44 Farms that are ground in house. Candied bacon, grilled peaches, caramelized onions, arugula, and jalapeno jam sound like they’d be a clash of flavors, but darn it if the Sugar Burger doesn’t nail its sweet and spicy combo. A beef and chorizo patty topped with avocado, pico de gallo, a fried egg, and more makes the Chaca Oaxaca one of the menu’s standout options. An extensive selection of craft beer — fitting for a sister concept to craft beer bar The Flying Sauce — an expansive patio, and good potato chips help round out the experience.

Shake Shack
Haters gonna hate, but Shake Shack has become a global phenomenon for lots of good reason. Inspired by classic roadside burgers, the basic combo of a squishy, slightly sweet potato bun with good beef (a custom mixture developed with legendary New York butcher Pat LaFrieda), American cheese, and ShackSauce (Thousand Island, more or less) proves essentially impossible to resist. Best of all, they’re petite enough that eating one is more of a snack than a meal, making it the perfect way to satisfy an afternoon burger craving without spoiling one’s appetite for dinner.

Rodeo Goat utilizes creative toppings.

Photo courtesy of Rodeo Goat

Rodeo Goat utilizes creative toppings.

burgers tastemakers

eat real food

Houston DJ-turned-TikTok star cooks up a cult following one recipe at a time

Courtesy of Uncle Dibbz

Uncle Dibbz, a.k.a. A.H. Bowden, has built a devoted following for his viral recipes.

For the past month, Uncle Dibbz has been, shall we say, going ham on social media with the myriad videos of alternative Thanksgiving dishes. He’s dropped how-to clips for such recipes as Cajun-roasted turkey, honey-baked ham/hens, oven-bag turkey, and six-piece fried turkey (to go). Basically, if you don’t want to cook a bland ol’ Butterball this Turkey Day, Dibbz has you covered.

Who is Dibbz, you say? Well, he’s a North Jersey-born, Georgia-bred, Houston-based chef who’s been building quite the foodie rep online. Several videos across his TikTok, Instagram and YouTube pages, from his Cajun-boiled fried chicken (2 million on IG) to his “Propose to Me Pasta” (12.3 million on TikTok), has amassed millions of views. But Dibbz (government name: A.H. Bowden) wasn’t always a culinary content creator. He used to spin music back in Atlanta as DJ DiBiase, named after retired wrestler Ted “The Million Dollar Man” DiBiase. “DiBiase is a mouthful to say, so people just always call me ‘D’ or ‘Dibbz’ for short,” says Bowden, 37, during a Zoom interview.

@uncledibbz PROPOSE To Me PASTA 💍 🍝 Trust your Uncle! This SEAFOOD Pasta will seal the deal 👌🏽 Get my recipe below ⬇️ or on uncledibbz.com [@uncledibbz Link in Bio] 🌐 **Ingredients:** - 8 ounces spaghetti - 1 lb mixed seafood (shrimp, scallops, crab meat, etc.) - 2 tablespoons olive oil - Fresh chopped basil - 2 cloves garlic, minced - 1/2 cup white wine - 1/4 cup heavy cream - 2 tablespoons unsalted butter - Salt and pepper to taste - Uncle Dibbz Delta Dust [link in bio] - Fresh parsley, chopped (for garnish) - Grated Parmesan cheese (for garnish) **Instructions:** 1. Cook the spaghetti pasta according to the package instructions until al dente. Drain and set aside. 2. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the minced garlic, chopped basil and sauté for about 1 minute until fragrant. 3. Add the mixed seafood to the skillet. Season with Uncle Dibbz Delta Dust to taste and cook for 2-3 minutes until cooked through. Remove the seafood from the skillet and set aside. 4. Pour in the white wine to the skillet and let it simmer for 2 minutes, allowing the alcohol to cook off. 5. Stir in the heavy cream, butter, Uncle Dibbz Delta Dust seasoning, salt, and pepper. Cook for another 2-3 minutes until the sauce thickens slightly. 6. Add the cooked spaghetti and cooked mixed seafood to the skillet. Toss everything together until well coated with the sauce. 7. Remove from heat and garnish with fresh parsley and grated Parmesan cheese. 8. Serve hot and enjoy the flavorful Seafood Spaghetti. That's good Shawty! #UncleDibbz #ThatsGoodShawty #Pasta #marryme #proposal #bride #wife #husband #relationshipgoals #datenight #easyrecipe #seafood #cajun #cooking #fyp #foryou #viral #houston ♬ original sound - Uncle Dibbz 🍴

He was making a nice living as a DJ, even serving as rapper Big K.R.I.T.’s touring DJ for a while. But when the pandemic hit, the gigs obviously dried up.

“I was living in Miami at the time,” he says. “And, you know, when you have a lot of time on your hands to think – but also need to figure out a way to, you know, sustain an income and everything like that – the ideas start coming,”

Like most DJs at that time, he was doing live mixes on Instagram. But his days throwing cookout parties in Atlanta inspired him to start doing his cooking videos, where he used his very own seasoning. Of course, he had a lemon pepper blend, which he used in a lemon pepper hot wings video that currently has over a half-million views on TikTok.

“I'm about to go live to DJ later that night, and my phone was just going off with orders,” he recalls. “So I'm like, where are these orders coming from? And it's not from my friends. I'm seeing the cities and the states. I don't know these people.”

Thanks to his videos, which usually end with him saying his signature line “That’s good shawty!” (that’s also the name of his cookbook he released last year), Dibbz went into the seasoning business full time. He eventually hired another person to help send out the piles of orders he was receiving.

He even got an order from former Dallas Cowboy Emmitt Smith, one of his favorite athletes. “I remember doing a book report on him when I was in fourth grade,” he boasts.

Although Dibbz has a flair for making meals that border on decadent, he’s an ardent practitioner of cooking with natural ingredients, especially in his seasoning. He has several low-sodium seasoning, including Bebe’s Salt Free – named after his mother, who had open-heart surgery a few weeks before the pandemic started.

“I don't think a lot of people understand the amount of toxins and chemicals that go into a lot of these seasonings,” he says. “You're starting to see it in the news now. A lot of the foods with certain dyes are being taken off the shelves and things like that.’

Soon, Dibbz moved himself and his new business to Houston, a favorite place to perform as well as a town whose hip-hop got him into music. He cites local chopped-and-screwed gods DJ Screw, Michael 5000 Watts, and OG Ron C as his holy trinity of influences. To give props to the music of his new home, he created a hot sauce – called HXT Sauce – whose uncharacteristically large bottle resembles Promethazine cough syrup (aka the key ingredient in lean, the preferred purple cocktail for the city’s rap community).

“It's not necessarily about promoting that usage,” he says. “But, at the same time, it’s just a homage to one of the factors and influences of screwed-and-chopped music.”

Dibbz still indulges in spinning records from time to time. The Waxaholics’ DJ Big Reeks has gotten him to break out the vinyl a few times during his Thursday-night sets at Alley Kat Bar & Lounge in Midtown. But creating new recipes, dropping delicious content and proving you can eat and live in a hearty, healthy fashion still remains his full-time mission.

“I’m not just talking about eating cauliflower rice all day and every day, but just eat real food,” he says. “We're eating fake food. That's the bottom line. We're eating fake food and my whole purpose is to inspire people to eat real food and that starts with real ingredients, real herbs, you know – real natural seasonings.”

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