does it feel like not a week can pass here without a burger? Do I get tired of them? No. I love handheld food. I found myself tearing bites of na’an off this week to deliver my butter chicken instead of a fork…but I digress. Another (?!) new burger ‘chain’ has opened recently in Orlando. I am beginning to understand that I moved here just on the cusp of what I heard called the great recession on NPR this week and the lull in places to go that were not chains may have come of that. With most of their locations in the Tampa area Burger 21, has now opened two locations in Orlando. I’m not sure about the name and didn’t find a reason for the 21 on the interwebs but recall they had 21 versions of burger? I’m not sure – they did have beers on tap but really appeared to specialize in shakes. They did seem to post a lot of b. this and b. that -like, b flavorful or b juicy. We ordered an Ybor City Double Espresso laden shake and enjoyed the buzz of sugar and caffeine. (Ybor City is an area of Tampa-historic) I was excited to have a Tex-Mex haystack burger topped with onion strings (can’t pass them by-ever), gouda, guac, lettuce, tomato and chipotle aioli. I was delighted by the height and super juicyness of the burger. I’ve only recently come to appreciate lettuce and tomato on a burger and this made it crunchy and bright. Hits of cheesy ale fries added their saltiness and upped the crave factor. Z had a philly cheese burger and I can’t overly comment on it. It had a gooey melty layer of cheese, onions and peppers. I don’t understand his ordering it as he doesn’t like green peppers at all. But he enjoyed it. They had a sauce bar for dipping and it drew me like a magnet. I didn’t realize when ordering the cheese fries that if I had ordered sweet potato I could have sauces specially for them – apple cider with cinnamon and toasted marshmallow. They might have missed a sale on that for not advertising it sooner. But we did pick up a sauce cup of the thai ketchup – yummy with eel sauce giving it a nice umami. We have looked in our local stores for this since and haven’t turned any up. This may well be my new favorite burger joint-other than home of course. That is saying something.