Getting a 'Medium-Rare' Burger at Fuddruckers

Fuddruckers, when the burger is cooked properly, serves up a damn fine burger. On occasion I overindulge and order a delicious one pound three cheeseburger and load it with my favorites at the topping bar.

Recently there have been a few problems - allow me to elaborate. Fuddruckers does ask how you want your burger cooked, but they recently seem to be ignoring that request and cook all burgers well done. I had been doing some soul searching – what had happened to Fuddruckers???! After a few more visits I unfortunately found the well done experience to be consistent, so I started to experiment with the verbiage I used while ordering.

“I would like my burger medium-rare, and could you emphasize that – my last few burgers seemed to be well done.”

“Sure.”

And there it was – a perfectly cooked medium rare one pound three cheese burger to which I added shredded lettuce, diced onions, tomato slices, mayonnaise, and hot liquid cheddar cheese (because the three varieties of sliced cheese didn’t cut it).

I figured it out!! You just need to add emphasis to your cooking selection. I tried the same thing on a second visit and it worked flawlessly.

On a third visit I ordered with a friend on the same order. I went first, and expressed my medium-rare emphasis. He ordered a 2/3 lb burger medium-rare and asked for the “same emphasis”. My burger came out perfect and his was well done.

I speculated with my good friend that it was possible that you could not piggy back onto someone else’s emphasis, but instead needed to re-emphasize for yourself. We also pondered the possibility that because his burger was smaller (and therefore inferior), that they cooked the two for an equal amount of time resulting in his being over cooked.

Is this a new trend? Do we need to emphasize all meat orders?

Q: “How would you like that cooked?”
A: “Medium-rare please”
Q: “How would you like to emphasize that?”
A: “Strong emphasis please”

Or maybe . . .

Q: “How would you like that cooked?”
A: “Medium-rare please”
Q: “How would you like to emphasize that?”
A: “Just traditional emphasis please”

Which might result in a medium or unpredictably cooked product.

jrapacz wrote:Is this a new trend? Do we need to emphasize all meat orders?

Maybe it is at Fuddrucker's. Last time I was there it reminded me of going to Chuck E Cheese.. speaking of cheese... liquid yellow cheese... uhh uhh

Honestly, Fuddruckers is one of the few places that pretty consistently gets medium-rare down. Most places I go to, I have to order "rare" to get anything resembling medium rare.

dddane wrote:

jrapacz wrote:Is this a new trend? Do we need to emphasize all meat orders?

Maybe it is at Fuddrucker's. Last time I was there it reminded me of going to Chuck E Cheese.. speaking of cheese... liquid yellow cheese... uhh uhh

Without the fun plastic balls to play in though. Honestly, I think Fuddruckers has a good burger. Chuck E Cheese does NOT have good pizza.

This is one of the most emphatic threads I've seen lately.