Restaurant Review: Ray’s Hell Burger, Washington, DC
In a city full of great gourmet and fast casual (and fast casual gourmet) burger joints, it still wouldn’t be a stretch to call Ray’s Hell Burger the heavyweight champ. Like any good competitor that’s enjoyed a reign of success, Ray’s Hell burger its legions of fans and pockets of detractors & haters alike. But even the most ardent critic of the place would have a hard time arguing that any competition for the best burger in the DMV would have to include this place.
My wife, parents, and I hit Ray’s on a sweltering Sunday afternoon during the 4th of July long weekend, arriving to lunch just after noon. Even with a large part of the city gone, the place is nearly full when we sit down.
When you take a quick look around of your surroundings, it’s apparent that this place must serve a damn good burger. Why? Because half the tables here have a mix of guys and girls under 35, and the majority of those girls didn’t exactly seem the type of girls you’d find stuffing a 1lb+ hamburger. Or how about this: just seated behind us was a amptjer table of four Indian people; anyone who knows anything about people outside the good ol’ U-S-of-A would likely know that Indians aren’t exactly well known for devouring large cuts of cow (present company obviously excluded).
While waiting for our burger, with even the most lackluster of eavesdropping, I easily hear two or three different groups of people seated at adjacent tables mentioning how President Obama actually dined at Ray’s Hell Burger (twice, actually; once with Vice President Joe Biden, and a second time with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev). You want to talk about free advertising? I’d say it’s a pretty good thing when the (much-missed) former leader of the free world decides that he wants to get a burger from your place. If the head of the state thinks this place is good enough to visit twice, you know you’re really doing well.
I go ahead and order an Au Poive burger (you can choose how your meat is cooked and seasoned) with cheddar, lettuce, onions, roasted garlic, and charred jalapenos. I also order my burger cooked medium rare, partially because the waiter indicated that the chef recommends all burgers are cooked to that temperature, and also because im banking on the fact that if I order the burger medium rare, it’ll probably come out a little closer to medium, since nobody in this town really seems to understand how to cook a burger exactly how the customer originally ordered it.
When the burger arrives, I swear on my life, the first words out of my mouth were: “holy shit.” The burger was HUGE, no other words to describe it. I was absolutely ravenous to the point of gnawing off my own arm when I walked into Ray’s, and even given that, I knew I was going to have my hands full trying to put away this burger. After the first bite? The burger was cooked a perfect medium rare, which was worth the theoretical price of admission alone. The meat was incredibly moist, juicy, and filled with that simple but rare meaty deliciousness. It was seasoned decently — just a touch of salt — which worked well with the flavors I got from the au poivre.
The bun was definitely above average. It was soft and perfectly bready, but it did border on potentially overpowing the burger, which was no small feat given the fact that the patty was simply massive. And the cheese was just simply there; It really didn’t bring anything to the table, and it didn’t take anything off of it either. I definitely wouldnt call it a difference maker in any capacity, especially considering the rest of the burger was outstanding.
I dinged the presentation of the burger a bit, because it looked like it was constructed on a table where one of the legs was taller or shorter than the rest: the meat, lettuce, cheese, and toppings were all slanted in different directions on the burger, hurting the aesthetic appeal of the burger slightly.
And a personal word of advice for any fans of spicy food: the charred jalapenos were HOT. They were cooked with the seeds still on — and as everyone knows, the seeds are where the heat is — and you felt it. My wife actually had to remove a good handful of the jalapenos off her burger, and she’s someone who can certainly hold her own with really spicy foods.
As far as other accouterments: the Ray’s Hell Sauce: I wouldn’t exactly say they reinvented the wheel with their sauce; my stab is that it was nothing more than ketchup, mayonnaise, relish, and horseradish. The fries were tasty and had a good balance of seasoning, but I wouldn’t call them outstanding either.
Overall, there’s a reason this place gets the notoriety it does: this was a great, textbook burger (even if I did order a couple of extra bells and whistles on it). The meat flavor was outstanding, even when juxtaposed with a symphonic blend of all the other parts of the burger.
The champ is here, and I don’t see how this burger is going to be beat.
