Michael M.
Yelp
Two stars for the counter girl only. She was great and knowledgeable, though I could barely hear her over the overly loud music being played and sung loudly along to by the terrible chef in the back.
I say terrible because I ordered a rare burger and got one well done. The fries were cold and had clearly been sitting out so he didn't have to keep making them fresh. This was my first time going after doing a delivery from there and thinking the food smelled good. It was at night and at the other location and was most likely some chicken wings and fried seafood actually made fresh I was delivering.
But I wanted to try a burger. You figure the place is called Island Burger, so when you order the Island Burger it's going to be great right? Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. This was maybe a four ounce patty that is about a centimeter short of filling the cold lifeless bun it was served with. For the over $13 asking price they're asking, this should be a nice 8 ounce patty you would expect from a place specializing in burgers. Part of what shrank it size is the blatant well-done cooking. This burger was also not hot and was most likely precooked and being kept warm somewhere that continued to slowly cook it over time. And it's not like I'm the annoying customer asking for a burger rare when they all come they same way - at a fast food place for example. The counter girl asked how I wanted it cooked. One of the best things about beef is you can eat it rare because a seal forms around it when you cook it to keep you from getting salmonella like you would in chicken. This is why I rarely eat out and cook my own food because so many in the service industry in this area don't care about the customer and you're better off saving money and doing it right yourself. In this business - which I'm a part of - every customer count and you should be striving to put your best foot forward especially with a new customer there like myself. Anyone willing to choose your establishment to spend their hard-earned money should be appreciated and your work should reflect that.
This chef needs to stop forcing the counter girl to play overly loud music he can sing to to the point of it hindering her customer service and focus on refinement. Refinement is rare these days. Refinement means you take what you've been doing and constantly find ways to make it better. This is how entire cultures and civilization itself has advanced throughout the centuries, and what makes NYC such a great food and culture Mecca for all people. But this chef simply doesn't care. He should have more pride in himself and his job.
I tried to call to give him a piece of my mind and no one answers the phone. What a great way to avoid accountability for your awful work.
All in all, this place pretends to be a specialized burger joint when it's really glorified fast food. I ordered the grilled shrimp salad and the size of the shrimp was very disappointing. Instead of just a normal size shrimp you might expect in a $15 salad, you get the shrimp you'd find in a Chinese food fried rice straight from the pollution filled bogs of Thailand where so many of them come from. If I had known this was the shrimp it came with I would not have ordered it as they are hazardous to your health.
Nothing on this menu should be over $10, yet everything is 15. Everything about the salad could have been a notch up better quality. You expect a bountiful tropical salad with mango and the added avocado and you get what looks like a prepackaged salad from McDonalds. The fries were cold. The bacon had been sitting out like a bodega because the chefs not a professional, and we had to heat the whole thing up, cooking the burger even more. The tomato needed work, though I will say the lettuce on the burger was strong and fresh.
The sauces were good, and there's a lot of potential there, though some like the garlic aioli (garlic sauce) seemed watered-down as if they were being cheap.
The counter girl was excellent and gave me two of every sauce and dressing to try as a new customer. She was knowledgeable about what items had breading in them or dairy and made a nice suggestion for the Asian wings, which have no breading, only to find out they didn't have the sauce for it. Because the chef is extremely lazy and has no idea what pride in his work is.
This food will technically fill you up, but if you're expecting a tropical culinary adventure rather than overpriced fast food, you're in for the same mistake we made. We apologize to the counter girl for this review and wish her the best, but we won't be back since no one answered the phone so we could maybe get a discount for being completely disappointed with the burger in particular. It's sad when a place has so much potential but then falls so short of the mark because of a lack of pride or knowledge of what refinement means.
