For my final review, I found it appropriate to go to a New Hampshire staple. As such, I went to the Common Man in Merrimack, one of the classic restaurants in the state. The style is colonial, with paintings and lighting fixtures meant to evoke a high-class house in the Revolutionary era of America. I quite like the style, and I think they pull off the 18th-century aesthetic very well.
With all that being said, the meat of these reviews, both literal and figurative, is the burger itself, much moreso than the decor. I ordered the Mighty Mac Burger, which is a cheeseburger topped with mac and cheese and bacon. The mac and cheese alone makes up about half the volume of the burger, and the burger as a whole is quite large. Unsurprisingly, the flavor is very heavy on the taste of cheese. Not only is there cheese as usual, but the mac and cheese enhances the cheesy flavor. The cheese flavor is a little much, but it isn’t overwhelming. What keeps the cheese from being overwhelming is the crunchy bacon, which balances out the soft texture of the cheese and has a meaty flavor that goes well with the sour-sweet cheese. Finally, the patty’s crisp, grilled flavor and the hearty buns round out both the flavor and texture, creating a very refreshing and unique burger experience. The sizable stature of the burger, combined with the sheer amount of mac and cheese, both build a very large burger, one that I could not get through all of in one sitting.
Regarding the burger’s originality, the mac and cheese is somewhat unique. I personally had never had mac and cheese on a burger before, and thought its addition to be a nice spin on the old classic of a bacon cheeseburger. However, it is not wholly original, since it is only a spin on an existing concept, not distinguished enough from its predecessor to be completely new in my eyes. It scores highly in originality, but not enough to get full marks. In summary, this is a very strong and somewhat original burger, although the cheese is a little too much for me and it isn’t quite unique enough to be wholly new.
How the scoring system works:
There are four categories I grade a good burger on: its size, its flavor, how original/unique it is, and the overall mood of the restaurant. Each of these is graded on a 10-point scale, then weighed individually to create an overall rating out of 100. Flavor has a weighting of 4, originality has a weighting of 3, size has a weighting of 2, and restaurant ambiance has a weighting of 1.
Size: 16/20
Flavor: 32/40
Originality: 24/30
Restaurant Ambiance: 9/10
Final Score: 81/100
In a word: “Despite the name, this burger is quite uncommon.”
