Lonnieburger Baskets: Sonny's Three Meat Burger

Three meat burgers...how can that sound anything but good?

A burger with two extra meats...and I'm gonna order it with bacon? There's nothing but positives there, but let's look at how the concept of multiple meats turns out.

Burger

• Let's get right to the heart of the matter by checking out the burger patty itself. It's ground beef, lamb, and chicken all stuck together which is a little freaky. Beef and pork, I'm kinda okay with because that's meatloaf, but the beef/lamb/chicken frankenburger had me a little freaked out before I took a bite.
  
  From that first bite, I was a convert. The Girl pointed out that trying to pull off a bite of the burger is a little tougher because the patty sticks together more than a thicker beef-only patty doe. This didn't, however, result in a tough chew in the mouth. The patty did have an odd, almost a little sausagey flavor to the patty, but I don't know that there was much spice more than salt and pepper. The sausagey taste seems to be purely from the meats. It's an odd taste, but it's one that totally works.
  
  Outside of the tri-meat composition, the burger patty is substantially similar to a Steak 'n' Shake patty - fairly thin, crispy edged, cooked through and through. I'm liking this burger patty. Burger - 8    

  Toppings

• Only a couple of cheesy options here, so I didn't get to go the cheddar with bacon route. Instead, I went American and bacon because lamb/beef/chicken just screams AMERICAN cheese, right? I threw in lettuce, tomato, pickle, onion, and banana peppers with the house sauce on the side. The Girl went similarly but with cheese, bacon, and not too much else. She's a straight burger kinda gal.
  
  The cheese was rockingly melted - as American is wont to do. The lettuce was chopped, but it's the big chop that comes from actually chopping the lettuce in house rather than just dragging it out of a bag of shredded crap. The onions were nice, fresh, red ones. The tomatoes are heading toward being good summer stock. The bacon was good stuff - better than average but certainly not Applewood smoked or anything.
  
  The house sauce was wacky. The woman taking our order said that the house sauce was mostly vegetables and spices, nothing remotely like a standard 'secret sauce' Thousand Island dressing that McDonald's and everybody else claims is their secret burger sauce. This one's kind of like a roasted red pepper humus (appropriate for a burger place with lamb in the patties) but without anything like chick peas mixed in to thicken it up. Instead, it tastes primarily of roasted red peppers and a little spice - not much, though. I didn't care for it, but The Girl liked it on her fries - not on the burger oddly.
  
  They do offer a nice spread of toppings as you can see in that bottom photo up above a bit. Toppings - 7

 Fries

• We'll get to the fact that the cost of fries is included with the burger cost in another couple of sections, but that is awesome. The fries are wonderfully fried, served hot and tasty in a little butcher paper sack right there next to the foil-paper-wrapped burgers. There's not much taste other than crisp, potatoey goodness. They had a tiny bit of salt - enough but could have used a little bit more. These were fairly light and good and crispy. No heavy oily feeling or taste here. Good stuff across the board. Fries - 8 

 Ambiance

• Admittedly, ambiance isn't the selling point of Sonny's. They're sort of at the end of a crappy, two-business strip mall kinda thing with the other business being a car stereo place. They're right on the busy Becchmont Ave strip of craptacular commerce, so that's not exactly a selling point. The place isn't all that big - only twenty some-odd seats, two with comfy chairs, six or so at high stools on a window counter, and lots of two- and four-tops.
  
  This is an order at the counter kinda place, and they have a couple of behind the counter steam tables that they weren't using and that didn't appear to have been used in a while - so I don't know what those are for. They then brought the burgers out to us on a tray - a la Five Guys - wrapped up in foil paper. I was all happy with that aspect.
  
  The decorations are a little not too thrilling with a few wall hangings and a television that makes for an absolutely nothing theme to the decorations. It's clean and plain, the people are friendly. It's all good, but it's not thrilling. Ambiance - 5  

Cost

• Good burger...cheap prices...nothing wrong with that. The burgers come with a side - fries, chili, or soup of the day. A bacon cheeseburger with fries is $6.20 ($5.95 from the menu plus a quarter for the cheese). The single cup of Diet Coke is a bit shy of a couple of bucks. To that's cheap as can be short of going to Herb and Thelma's. Cost - 7 

Other Stuff

• The house sauce isn't thrilling enough to earn a bonus point. It's distinctive but kinda meh...
• The whole three meat thing (with bacon to make it four meets, of course) makes me feel impressively carnivorous. That's worth a point. +1 
• They offer Fanta and various other wacky drinks off on the side in a separate case. This lead The Girl to teach me the Scottish slang term Fanta pants, of which I was not aware. That's totally worth a point but more for The Girl than for Sonny's.
• The Girl commented that  the unique taste of the burger wore on her by the end of the burger. The first bite drew a big compliment from her, but she was tired of the burger by the end. I didn't run into that in the least, but she didn't want to go back by the end. -1

Math, of course, must be done...1+7+5+8+7+8-1 = 35 points for Sonny's Three Meat Burger. Considering how similar to Five Guys Burgers & Fries the burger kind of was - other than the unique meat combination - that seems about right. Little cheaper but marginally better than Five Guys...fewer toppings but fries almost equally as good.

Rankings at this point...

• Terry's Turf Club - 45
• Cafe de Wheels - 44
• Senate - 43 
• City View Tavern - 40 (scaled from 32/40)
• Stuffed on Vine - 38
• Five Guys Burgers and Fries - 36 
• Roxy's - 36 
• FlipDaddy's - 35.5
• Sonny's Three Meat Burgers - 35 
• VanZandt - 34
• Gabby's - 34 
• Oakley Pub & Grill - 34 
• Quatman's - 32 / 34.5
• Troy's - 32 
• By Golly's - 32
• Wildflower Cafe - 31.25 (scaled from 26/40) 
• Sidetracks - 31
• Virgil's Cafe - 28 
• Tank's Bar & Grill - 28
• The Pub at Rookwood Mews - 28
• Smashburger - 28
• Habits Cafe - 28
• Graffiti Burger - 27
• Arthur's - 26
• Sammy's - 25 
• Skinny Legs - 25
• Gordo's (Fairfield) - 20 

Here's another review of Sonny's that provides a bit more detail.