The Burger Off!

So much love for this event! I had a really good night at Infamous Diner with the other Yelpers. I was sat with a great group of people who made this night so much fun. The other half of our table was made up of pro Jenga players, serious skills. The colouring in is also always a winner with me!

Infamous Diner did a great job of looking after us so I want to say a massive thank you for them and their staff for the great service.

The burgers were all pretty great, if I'm honest the winner, All Star Lanes, was my least favourite, abit saucy and messy for my personal preference but it was a massive hit with the rest of the table! I loved Filthy Cows offering, you can't go too wrong with a good bacon cheeseburger! All in all great food, great beer and Matt was a great host as always.

Last night was the long awaited Burger Off! Part 2 of the Manchester Mouthing Off Series. The host for the evening was Infamous Diner, a relatively recently opened restaurant in the Northern Quarter. I have never been to Infamous Diner before but thought the idea of having a Burger Off in an American diner type place was the ideal venue.

After a welcome from Matt, I found my name tag/seat and sat down. I was offered either a beer or a cocktail and went for a beer. Personally wasn't too keen on the beer as it was very sweet.

There was about 40 Yelpers so we took up most of the restaurant. About half people on normal tables and the rest in booths. I am not really a fan of booths like this generally. If you sat on the inside, people have to stand up so you can move out the way - like being by the window seat on a plane!

Also, with booths, it did also mean it was hard to mingle and talk to other people. Not that there was anything wrong with the table I was sat with!! :)

Before the evening we were wondering how much of each burger we would get. Sliders? Half burgers? Would it fall apart? Enough to properly sample each?

The burger off contenders were -

Whats Your Beef
Infamous Diner
Gorilla
All Star Lanes
Filthy Cow

Like the Pizza Off, it was a blind taste so we didn't know which burger was from whom. Although people seemed to know burgers better and sort of worked it out. Plus an American flag on one was a clue! (Or it could have been a red herring!).

I have only eaten at Filthy Cow previously so was looking forward to trying burgers from the other places. And of course eat the Filthy Cow burger - I am a BIG fan of them. Always have good food there and nice service.

While we were waiting for each burger, we had plenty to keep us entertained with cards, Jenga, colouring in. The table next door had a pretty epic Jenga game - it seemed to be never ending!

My personal fav of the night ended up being from All Star Lanes - which was the overall winner of the night with its combination of nachos, peppers, guacamole. All the other ones were pretty good - most of them cooked medium (still pink). I was a bit unlucky with one of them where it was a bit more well done but everyone elses was medium - and I appreciate it was all very tough cooking so many burgers for so many people.

I can only imagine what the kitchen would have been like with cooks from 5 different restaurants, 4 of which using equipment possibly not used to. And also it wasn't just Yelp in the restaurant - they had normal paying customers.

While eating the burgers, we also got some fries. Although maybe could have done with a bit more as a basket of fries between 6 didn't last long! Our table seemed to miss out on curly fries too :(

Thanks to Matt, Infamous Diner for hosting and everyone else involved.

Yesterday the long and exhausting wait for the Burger Off was finally over, and it undoubtedly led to one of the best events I have ever attended. Once arrived at Infamous Diner, our hosting venue, and after taking our preassigned seat, we've been welcomed with drinks and entertaining games: jenga, cards and a burger picture to colour. (I take this opportunity to apologize to the other players for making the tower fall over!) Preparing a burger requires time, but luckily it's almost impossible to get bored when you can chat to lovely and friendly yelpers.

I cannot claim to be much knowledgeable about burgers, so I just followed the advice given by other yelpers: when you feel that it's amazing, that's THE burger. Unfortunately "amazing" almost coincided with "messy to eat"; still, I can't complain, since the winning burger coincided with my favourite. Yet, despite mild preferences, I must say that the quality of all burgers was very high and they were all delicious. Well done, contenders!

I'm really glad I had the chance to take part in this. A massive thanks to Matt, as always, for organizing such a great event and being helpful during the whole night. Nice to see new and old faces, and to have a taste of the best our fair city can offer when it comes to burgers! :)

This was my first time at infamous diner it's a great place i would like to thank them and Matt for hosting us.
I don't think the event worked that we'll I felt a bit out of it,I think the table should have been pushed together to get us all talking a bit more.

The games were a good idea to fill in the gaps between the burgers. I loved the first two burgers the other three wasn't really my taste but I'm glad I tried them. I liked the way the judgeing was done this time.

Overall it was a nice event but it seemed to drag a bit, I felt like I was out for a meal rather than a yelp event.

As an event goes this was excellent although the main stars (burgers) of the event were less interesting than I hoped I still have a lovely time, and it was good getting to know some of the Yelp members a bit better. My favourite burger of the evening did not win, but then winning is not everything and it was just interesting having a mini competition really.

The biggest star of the evening turned out to be the venue for me, Infamous Diner, who looked after us well, even provided fries as if on queue when other dynamic Yelpers on my table were really hoping for some. I missed having the ability to mingle with other Yelpers only due to being in a both with people, and also not really knowing what was happening in-between burgers. I suspect it is hard providing burgers in a strange kitchen or even in your own kitchen with a bunch of other people around, so at this point I should thank the competitors Infamous Diner, All Star Lanes, Gorilla, Filthy Cow and What's Your Beef, for taking part.

I think the evening was lacking something, but I am not really sure what it might of helped to have something else to focus on during the evening as well, maybe take advantage of having us already in small groups and do a quiz or something similar, we would of won... was on the table or the cleverest people :) (clearly, not competitive at all me).

Would be good to recognise the best puns of the evening in some way that we could all hear them, but can't have everything. Thanks to Matt for arranging the event, it was a lot of fun. I look forward to future events, and getting to know more Yelpers, if nothing else we all have food/drink in common :)

I had a great night at The Burger Off las night! Infamous Diner was a great venue to host the event and it felt like a big kids' birthday party! This time to save from shouting too much Matt had pre-printed instructions and details of the night's competition - talk about organised fun! Loved it! Great atmosphere with the other end of the table building Jenga skyscrapers over and over again, a game of the Chinese card game "Big 2" and some serious colouring in on our side with Emma helping us tidy the table throughout!

We had generous samples of burgers from the five competitors: 1. What's Your Beef?'s chilli cheese burger which was really good and worried Ryan about scoring it too high too soon! 2. Infamous Diner's texmex-style mini burger - who knew putting tortilla chips inside the burger would work?! 3. Gorillas double cheese burger was also tasty with their burgers thinner than the others but still managed to be pink in the middle. Helen loved that this one had sesame seeds on the bun! 4. The night's winners, All Star Lanes offered a mini nacho cheese burger which contained all the nacho works and a delicious pink burger - the guac made this burger a bit colder than the others but it was REALLY good and deserved to win. 5. Filthy Cow's own mini Filthy Beast - the bacon cheese burger which was covered in their signature Filthy sauce. They were also my other burger that got my 10 points!

Thanks to the burger guys and Infamous Diner and Matt for hosting!

What an event! Had a great time, this being my first yelper event and all I never felt left out. Plenty of activities to carry us through while we waited in between the burgers. Best activity was the Jenga we had plenty of laughs trying to stack this twisty tower to the max - great fun.

Of course the main event was the judging of the burgers this was the reason we were all gathered there, and I gotta say the competition was tough. The way the judging was set up was good but I wished I had a chart so that I could go back and change my mind on a burger after I had tasted it, because of this I felt I let my personal winning burger down. I wasn't the only one who felt this way.

The competing burgers were as follows -

What's your beef? (My personal favourite of the night)
Infamous burger
All star lanes
Filthy cow
Gorilla

All these burger brought there own personal style to the mix and it brought up some great conversations while deciding what to rate the burgers. But in the end all star lanes stole the show!, this wasn't my personal favourite no but i could appreciate why people thought it better from the crowd with its special guacamole and jalapeños to spice things up.

I had great fun deciding on the winning dish and I would most definitely recommend to any "yelper" to get involved.

The Burger Off brought me to Infamous Diner, a place that I've walked past many times but has been mostly off my radar.

I settled in with a beer, the Huber Bock, which if I'm being totally honest wasn't great, nor was the other beer offered from the same brewery. Then again, you don't go to an American diner for great beer do you?

My favourite burger of the evening was from the hosts themselves, Infamous Diner. The beef itself had the most flavour and it had toppings which were tasty but didn't overwhelm the burger. I'm excited to head back some time to try a full size one.

I was sadly disappointed by the offering from Filthy Cow. There was just too much sauce to know what was going on. This won't stop me from going back there though as from past experiences they are definitely my favourite burger in Manchester.

Baskets of fries and curly fries were a great addition to the evening - sorry to those who didn't get any curly fries, they were excellent!

Congrats to All Star Lanes, thanks to Infamous Diner for hosting and all involved for plying us with burgers, and thanks to Matt for putting together a great event!

I had never been to Infamous Diner but had certainly spotted the shiny, sparkly restaurant in the NQ. I was pretty excited to be able to eat five burgers in one sitting - who wouldn't be excited about such a prospect?

I sat down in my designated seat which was on the end of a long booth. Herein lies the problem of booths - they're not great for group chat situations if you're stuck on the end. Not that it really mattered but I do believe there were lots of yelpers at this event who I barely even saw, let alone spoke to!

ANYWAY. FOOD. We were served 2 beers during the night, both rather sweet but that's what one expects from an American brew. I wouldn't choose to drink them again but they suited the diner experience.

The burgers then started arriving and came as either a quarter of a burger or a slider. I would like to give a big congratulations to whoever was in charge of cutting the burgers into 4 and request their skills next time I need to do any sort of burger dissection. Each piece was perfectly aligned AND contained all of the ingredients found in the burger. Incredible!

Burger #1 was my overall favourite, with the other 4 coming in at varying degrees below that. I was a fan of the overall winner because anything filled with squished avocado gets big thumbs up from me. Overall I felt the quality of the burgers was really good although I have never really understood why adding random additions such as corn chips to a burger is necessary.

The voting was a smooth and simple process with some quick calculations from Matt. The games on the table added another element of entertainment with some very impressive Jenga towers creating all sorts of tension in the restaurant.

Overall a fun, delicious and entertaining evening with great food and great company. Oh my table did miss out on some curly fries though which was a tad disappointing but definitely better for my stomach!!

This was such a good event I can't stop telling all my colleagues this morning how much fun it was!

The atmosphere was really fun and lively, and everyone knew what the objective was- to have fun, be merry, enjoy the selection of burgers on offer and to rate them and ultimately declare a burger winner for 2016!

In between all the burgers being cooked and served there was plenty of good banter going on, along with things to keep you occupied such as cards, jenga and if you fancied it, a colouring in competition.

No shortage of laughs, and though my favourite burger (filthy cow) didn't win overall, all the burgers were cooked pretty perfectly.

Hats off to Matt for organising, Infamous Diner for hosting everyone and all the other burgeries for participating in this event.

A great showcase of how Yelp can bring in some healthy competition and provide a fun and enjoyable evening!