This week inPhiladelphia Magazine’s Restuarant Club Newsletter.

• Our Better Burger Guide
  20 creations that will keep you chomping until you’ve tried them all.
• First Bite: The New New New New Marigold Kitchen
  Now, Marigold is under new ownership. Can it be successfully reinvented again?
• Ticket Giveaway Alert!
  Interested in having dinner with the all-star Borgata chefs Bobby Flay, Wolfgang Puck, and Michael Schulson?

Restaurant Club Newsletter [Philadelphia Magazine]

It’s a comprehensive comparison of New York’s/Danny Meyer’s Shake Shack and Philadelphia’s/Stephen Starr’s SquareBurger on Always Hungry NY.

AlwaysInvestigating: Burger Square-Off, Phily vs. New York [Always Hungry NY via The Illadelph]

Philadelphia Weekly delivers the shake, boon and drag of eating at P.Y.T., SquareBurger and Elevation Burger.

Burger Smackdown [Philadelphia Weekly]

Drew Lazor checks out Elevation Burger, the environmentally friendly burger chain that has opened its first local location in Wynnewood. Here’s hoping he took the train.

Single-source, organic, free-range, grass-fed beef is the restaurant’s biggest point of pride, so I tried it in the signature Elevation Burger, a double patty layered with cheddar and your choice of toppers (I picked lettuce, tomato pickles and a zingy balsamic mustard, but there’s also stuff like caramelized onions, hot pepper relish and the tomato-based “Elevation Sauce”). The burger’s lean ground-in-house meat was round in natural beef flavor, but my patties tasted slightly dry — likely a result of their across-the-board cook-to-well policy. I easily squished the bun into submission, and it didn’t draw attention away from the main meat attraction, the way a good burger bun should.

Get Lifted [City Paper]
Elevation Burger [Official Site]

Village Whiskey has been open a week now and there’s been a lot of discussion of the $24 Whiskey King burger but none of that talk has been in the form of a Haiku. We fix that now!

An Exemplary

Juicy Bomb of a Burger

Hail The Whiskey King

Village Whiskey [Official Site]

Trey Popp tries to cut through the buzz to review P.Y.T. this week. What he may have done is crank up the hype and bluster meter to 11. But first the review:

Popp refers to P.Y.T.’s burger as “a juiceless nugget on a grocery-store bun with mass-market potato chips on the side.” Ouch! He wasn’t much more impressed with the fries or veggie burger. He did however call the onion rings a “title contender” and to his own surprise, he enjoyed the $10 “adultshakes.”

And if you thought Tommy Up would stand idly by while Popp smacked his Pretty Young Thing you haven’t been paying much attention. The first comment on Popp’s review was of course from Tommy Up. Within two hours of that, an e-mail was sent out to Up’s mailing list highlighting the positives and critiquing the critic’s take on the burger. And being the master of promotion that he is, print or tear out Popp’s review between now and the 10th and you can get a free PYT Burger to try for yourself.

Hype Beast [City Paper]
P.Y.T. [Official Site]

It might not be a clone of Good Dog but it’s good to know the burger’s at Swift Half has got Adam Erace’s back.

As at Good Dog, the Swift Half menu hinges on the almighty presence of a great burger. The beef is the same at both gastropubs: an 80/20 sirloin blend that cooked up pink and implausibly juicy. The cheese selection is luxe (Boucheron, Sardinian Pecorino, etc.); slabs of Stilton sat on my burger like slabs of Carrera marble with fine indigo veining. It melted slow, mingling with the toppings on its descent, depositing drops of smoky bacon and beef fats into the slightly sweet, sponge-like Wildflour brioche bun. If all that sounds a bit rich, there was also a piece of bibb lettuce and some tomato.

Swift Half [Philadelphia Weekly]
Swift Half [Official Site]

Oh that Tommy Up. He has ways of making us talk about him. In his latest move, he’s giving away a free PYT burger if you bring in a receipt for Butcher & Singer’s $5.95 Best of Philly burger.

Well played Mr. Up, well played.

Tommy Up [Twitter]

Philly Mag has given us a peek at 10 of its Food and Drink winners for Best of Philly and the winner for gourmet burger is Butcher and Singer.

And yesterday Starr tweated that the burger would be available at lunch for just $5.95. Grub Street hypothesized that maybe this was all related to Tommy Up’s Twitter smack talk but maybe it’s just in time marketing to capitalize on the Best Of win.

Whatever the reason, it’s worth biting into.

Starr Restaurants [Twitter]
Stephen Starr Walks Softly, Carries Big Burger [Grub Street]
Gourmet Burger: Butcher and Singer [Philadelphia Magazine]

As we mentioned in our Metro column, P.Y.T. has sure created a lot of buzz since its opening. The latest angle involves Tommy Up channeling Rocky foe, Clubber Lang and challenging Stephen Starr’s SquareBurger to a showdown. It was a one-sided smack talking fest last night on Twitter and it is continuing today.

But Up is not the only one going crazy over his P.Y.T.

Staying in the Twitter realm, Shola Olunloyo, Philadelphia’s most respected chef without a restaurant says “Tommy up’s PYT chicken burger rocks.”

The menu at P.Y.T. is of course right up Unbreaded’s sandwiched alley. It appears they tried everything on the menu and have the photos to prove it.

Fidel Gastro got the invite to try out P.Y.T. on Sunday and called the burger the best he’s tasted since his honeymoon (he remembers the burger from his Honeymoon) and placed the onion rings in his all-time top 3.

And with all this meat love it might be a surprise to learn there’s treats for the vegetarian too, in fact there’s a whle Bogus Burger section. Living on the Vedge is planning return trips for the ‘Shroom Burger and to find out just how many boozy shakes it takes to get toasted.

Just a reminder though, P.Y.T. is closed until this weekend so you have to hold off a couple days to try all these eats for yourself.

Pretty Yummy Thing: Tommy Up’s Burger Lounge at the Piazza [Unbreaded]
Sunday Vacation [Fidel Gastro]
First Times: PYT [Living on the Vedge]