Maple and Motor

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Saturday, 09 January 2010 11:59
Maple and Motor Doesn’t Need a Catchy Headline
It’s That Good, Says the By-Line
By The House-Ground Law Reviewers
 
There have been two recent developments in the sometimes wonderful and always artereosclerotical (note: made up word) world of hamburgers.  The first was a not-so-Earth-shattering-but-still-kinda-frightening article in the Sunday New York Times several months ago about the dangers of some types of ground beef. This disturbing and revealing article got us to put down our ground beef hamburgers for a couple of days and subsist solely on lamb kebabs and turkey burgers (which taste great for breakfast, btw), just to be safe. Less noticeably, your Law Reviewers have been on a mission for the past five months to rate the best burgers in the area, and invited some of our hard-core followers (the ones who go through our garbage and have Law Reviewer tattoos) to join us. We call it Burger Court, and you can read all the rules, rankings and summary judgments here. Unless you enjoy a thorough grilling on cross-examination, you do not want to be held in contempt of Burger Court! Burger Court would be a total success, except for the fact that our two choices rank near the bottom of our burger rankings so far.   We blame the NYT article.  
 
We’re not total failures when it comes to judging burgers, however: We hereby declare the latest contender for best burger in Big D to be the burger at Maple and Motor. Large, but not too much so, hand-formed and grilled to greasy medium well (medium rare, if you ask nicely), M&M’s standard burger ($4.50) comes with lettuce, tomato, a red onion slice, mustard and pickle relish. M&M grills both sides of the buns too, which, while being tasty, adds controversy to this almost-perfect burger because the outside of the bun is a bit greasy, thus defeating part of the purpose of a fluffy bun. Optional add-ons include American or cheddar cheeses, grilled fresh jalapeños (as opposed to pickled ones) and a fried egg. The jalapeños are the key to this burger. The freshly grilled slices don’t overpower the beef, but add a spicy layer to the sweet pickle relish and cool tomato. This, ladies and germs, is a Burger worthy of being referenced with a capital ‘B’ (that means it's important!).
 
Maple and Motor keeps the rest of the menu simple, so as to focus on the burgers: tots, fries and beer battered onion rings, all $1.75 each, are crispy and fresh and just a little seasoning short of great. The menu also offers other meal items in the $4-6 range: a grilled chicken sandwich, a Texas toast grilled cheese, a fried boloney sandwich and something called the flat-top brisket sandwich, which is "not your Daddy's brisket sandwich" – how did they know?!? We tried the fried baloney sandwich served Cincinatti-style, which means with lots o' mayo, lettuce and tomato. That sandwich is for Yankee mayo lovers and Stephen Colbert only; next time we'll stick with the cowboy-style version of the sandwich covered in chili, cheese and onions like any other true Texan dish. But don’t ever forget that you’re here for the burgers; we suppose the other menu items are for those customers who are patronizing M&M for the fourth time in a week because they are bringing in everyone they know, and want something different. 
 
Despite the simple menu, simple décor, and small building (there are about 20 table crammed into about 700 square feet), the interior exudes an invitingly dive chic atmosphere. Hey, any place with a picture of Billy Dee Williams selling Colt 45 on its drink cooler is okay by us. Located in a former taqueria on Maple, near Wycliff (almost across the street from Elliot’s hardware store), Maple and Motor is proximately located in good company – Avila’s, Herrera’s, Sal’s and Oishii are chip shots away. But this isn’t your padre’s stretch of Maple. At one recent Thursday lunch, the potholed parking lot was crammed with the Acuras and BMW’s of downtown yore, with a couple of Bentley’s thrown in to class the joint up.
 
The Law Reviewer mobile isn’t as fancy (think the Oscar Meyer Wiener mobile crossed with the Batmobile crossed with Herman Munster’s car crossed with the Millenium Falcon) but we chugged away satisfied and raring to come back soon. Sorry, arteries. So on our famous end of the decade useless news event five gavel scale, with one gavel being the Y2K debacle that wasn’t, and five gavels being TIGER WOODS TIGER WOODS TIGER WOODS, we give Maple and Motor four gavels, or bald Britney brandishing an umbrella. 
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Maple & Motor
Carrie 2010-01-09 08:32:52
How did you forget to mention the thick-sliced, perfectly cooked bacon as a
topping? I am very disappointed in you guys. And more props need to be given to
the tater tots - perfectly fried bites of potato heaven!
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