Andy R.
Yelp
I went to Mason Jar Kitchen tonight with some friends and my wife, and the menu appeared to be very intriguing and promising. When we got there it had all the vibes of a modern trendy restaurant. The restaurant started out strong with the craft cocktails, which were very good. They were mostly gin and vodka drinks, but I was able to imbibe in the two mescal and tequila drinks which were excellent. They only had one whiskey drink which was basically an Old Fashioned by a different name. They could have had more than one whiskey drink, which is somewhat surprising because whiskey is popular right now but whatever.
Appetizers came and they were decent. Nothing spectacular, but still pretty decent and better than normal chain restaurant fare. That was where the decent rating came into play. It was downhill from there. And by "downhill" I mean falling off a cliff.
I ordered the Birria Burger, which is described as:
"seasoned fresh beef patty topped with richly seasoned house-made birria beef, Oaxaca cheese, onion, cilantro, chipotle aioli; brioche bun; served with dipping consomé"
So let's start with presentation...as you can see from the photo it was terrible. It looked like a cheap park cookout burger and just by the looks of it, it appeared to be a frozen food product patty mashed between a bun. I opened it up and saw the poorest excuse of birria meat I've ever seen. It was about a tablespoon in size. Beef birria is usually made with brisket, chuck roast or bottom round, all of which are very inexpensive cuts so there's no excuse for skimping because of cost. The Oaxaca cheese was miniscule and barely detectable. The photos show how poorly the burger was constructed and how little they put on the burger.
I didn't taste any onions or cilantro in the meat. The chipotle aioli was on the bottom bun and it was barely there. I didn't even taste it. Listing it on the menu was basically a reminder of what was missing.
So let's get to the meat- in short, it was disappointing. The meat was perfectly round and heavily compressed, and it looked and tasted like a pre-packaged food product. They say that it was "seasoned fresh beef", but it tasted like frozen patty. If it was actually fresh meat, it was heavily compressed to the point where it was a brick. What made it worse was that they cooked it to the point where it was well-done and completely grey and dry. There was no juice coming out of the meat, so any person could clearly see that it was drastically over-cooked. My wife, a vegetarian, even commented on how poor the burger looked. I would have sent the burger back if I thought they would have done a better job, but another friend at the table also got the same Birria Burger and his looked the same. The burger overall was an absolute disaster to where if I ever served that at my house to guests, I would be embarrassed. I hope management sees these photos and is embarrassed by them as well. It says a lot about a business when I have such little faith in a restaurant that I don't send terrible food back because I have no faith in them doing any better the second time.
The beef birria itself was dry and flavorless to the point where calling it "birria" is an insult to birria. I don't even think they know what birria is- they probably just slow-cooked some beef in a stock pot and called it birria. I am both a competition barbecuer and Chicano, so I know what good meat is, how to cook it, and I know how to make juicy, moist birria. This burger was none of that.
The saving grace was the birria consomé, which was very flavorful. It was vey salty, but that helped with the burger patty which was lacking in any flavor. The cilantro and onions were an added bonus. If it wasn't for the consomé, the burger would have been a complete bust. I will give them credit for the consomé, but it's too bad they couldn't produce any consistency in the rest of the food. Without the consomé this would have been one of the worst burgers I've had in a long time.
The Parmesan garlic fries were decent, but you don't get very much. I dipped them in the consomé and they were even more tasty. Certainly nothing that rectifies the sin that was this burger. My wife got a margherita pizza and it was a Neopolitan style that was very mediocre. Overall this place isn't worth the time to try.
The only saving graces here were quick service and good drinks. However, the drinks were even challenged because they were out of three of the beers on their menu. They even ran out of their rotating seasonal beer, which is just ridiculous given that there are 233 registered breweries in Minnesota alone. It's mid-October and there wasn't one single fall beer like an Oktoberfest or autumn ale. This is a restaurant that just doens't seem to care.
If I had one piece of advice, it would be to go somewhere else.
