I have said often, in life and on line, that I love beef. I love cooking it; I love eating it. Of course, I also love vegetables. And fruit, I like fruit too. Also carbs–I’m crazy about carbs. It should come as no surprise, then, that I’m kinda sorta fond of hamburgers.There in one bite I can get my beef, my veg (lettuce and onion), my fruit (tomato) and my carbs (the bun). Time was, any hamburger would do: you’d as soon find me in the drive-through of a fast food place as sitting down to eat my burger. These days, I’m somewhat pickier. Oprah never scared me with her Mad Cow segments, but Jamie Oliver’s divulging what goes into some ground beef has definitely made me wary. Thus, I’m only eating hamburgers at places where I trust the source and the state of the beef.
Last night, I was at deVere’s Irish Pub in the heart of Sacramento, which advertises that they butcher their own meat and grind their own hamburger. It was the culmination of National Hamburger Month. I had been to deVere’s several times before, and I assumed it was an old Sacramento landmark. I figured that the original deVere came over to pan gold, ended up as one of Sacramento’s First Families and started their restaurant-cum-pub back in the mid ‘50s. I tell myself stories like this all the time, and sometimes I’m actually right. This time, I wasn’t. deVere’s is all of two years old, and Henry deVere, one of the two brothers who own it, was the only member of his family not born in Ireland.
My own Irish connections are much hazier. Despite having lived in England for most of my twenties, the closest I ever got to Ireland was a twelve hour layover at Shannon Airport, which I spent drinking with a fellow passenger who was Greek. Oh, and the Irish boyfriend I had for a couple of years in London. So really my qualifications to judge deVere’s standing as an Irish pub are relatively meager. To judge the Prime Rib Burger made in honor of National Hamburger Month–that I feel somewhat more qualified to do.
But first, let’s talk about the why the photos illustrating this post are so dreadful. Take a look at this bottle. 
That’s what I was drinking, and I took the picture after I’d been drinking it. It’s Balvenie, a 12 year Scotch, just one of the many many many whiskey’s deVere’s has to offer. I should have had the Balvenie neat, the way it was meant it to be, but I’m American and a girl, so I drank it in a glass chockfull of ice cubes. Still, it was incredibly smokey and spicey, both at the same time.
The Prime Rib Burger I had straight. The hamburger was topped with thinly sliced, medium rare prime rib, on which were caramelized onions, mushrooms, manchango cheese, horseradish mayo and au jus, all on a pretzel (yes, pretzel) bun. If it sounds messy, rest assured it wasn’t. deVere’s obviously understands that more is sometimes less.
My idea of an appetizing hamburger is not one where the fixings slither out of the bun into my lap. Moreover, I want to be able to taste each element of the dish and not just get some generalized mashup of ingredients. This Prime Rib Burger passed all my tests. Including the one where I bring half of it home to have lunch the next day.
deVere’s is very proud of their authenticity as an Irish pub. That may be true, but what I’ll go back for is the food. They’re another place in Sacramento that takes the source and preparation of food quite seriously. As well as the whiskey.
All Top Stories 
