Review: Boom Burger {Rochelle Park, NJ}

It all started with a Groupon.

Two burgers, two orders of fries, one jumbo cupcake, and one 38 oz (super size!) alcoholic drink.

$27

A new restaurant that we hadn’t yet visited. Boom Burger.

A bit out of our local area, but not too bad.

Easy decision.

The restaurant is very easy to find, right off the Garden State Parkway and near IKEA and the Garden State Plaza Mall. Ample parking in the lot, and we were greeted as soon as we walked in.

We asked for a booth, if available, and since there weren’t any on the “restaurant” side, they suggested a half booth in the bar area. Perfect. But holy short seats, Batman! I swear I felt like my knees were hugging my chest the whole time during our two hour stay, and it was definitely a little bit of a challenge when we got up to leave.

The waitress came over to take our drink order, and we asked for her suggestions on burgers. Although she pointed out several menu items that she loved, we ended up going with different selections, but kudos to her for being helpful and knowing the menu and offerings. Some days, that’s a rarity! The menu, while not huge, offers enough of a variety that everyone should be able to find something easily. I personally find the huge menus too overwhelming. Odd that the online menu doesn’t include prices. The burgers were between $7-10 each.

When we saw the Guido Burger (with roasted red peppers, mozzarella, and a balsamic basil spread), we felt it our obligation, as born and bred Jerseyans, to order it. We also ordered the traditional Boom Burger, which featured two patties with cheese in the middle, and Boom Sauce on the side (sauce that you may more commonly know as Thousand Island).

For the fries, we went with the Parmesan and Rosemary version, and the standard version.

The alcoholic drinks are all named by color, and we chose the “pink.” Good and strong. They also have Sangria Towers available, which are perfect if you’re going with a large group.

The restaurant decor is very sports-bar-like, with tvs playing different sporting events, natch. Our section had a handful of booths lining the walls and a big empty space in the middle. The actual bar area (two of them) is huge, and there is more traditional restaurant seating on the other side of the bar. The lighting is quite dark inside the restaurant, the restrooms were very clean, and although they take credit/debit cards, there is also an ATM inside the restaurant as well (convenient, I suppose, if you’re settling up your tab and sharing the cost with a friend). As it has a lot of bar seating and tvs (40!), it does get loud and crowded, so plan your visit accordingly.

Our burgers and fries came out ridiculously fast, although we had to remind our waitress about our drink. The fries are a very generously sized portion, but really nothing special. No discernible seasoning, and there was no overwhelming rosemary taste on the Parmesan Rosemary Fries. It was really just their regular fries with a bunch of Parmesan dumped on top. They were thin cut, pretty greasy, and we barely touched them. If you are going with others that want fries, save your money ($5) and at least split an order.

The burgers? Delicious. They are made from 100% black Angus meat from Pat LaFrieda, which supplies a lot of high end restaurants, cooked on a flat top and smashed into the grill, very similar to how Smashburger does it. You can’t specify how you want your burger cooked, they are cooked “juicy,” and that was, surprisingly, perfect.

*The Boom burger that I ordered does not come with bleu cheese, that was my addition

There were a few different cupcakes to choose from, and we went with the caramel one (other options were Red Velvet and S’mores). They are not made in-house, but rather are from Mr. Cupcakes. It came out with a lit sparkler in it, which was fun and unexpected. I noticed that on the side of the sparkler, it says “smokeless,” which it decidedly was not. The cupcake itself was pretty standard, but the frosting? Amazing. Like the kind I would have like to dump salt all over to keep myself from picking at it. And it’s definitely huge, we shared one, and there was still probably about half leftover. The cupcake is served with whipped cream sprayed all around the circumference, which was sloppy and really detracted from the presentation.

While the waitress was excellent in the beginning, she was inattentive and all but disappeared while we waited to pay. We ended up scrounging through our wallets to come up with exactly what we needed, so we didn’t have to wait any longer for change (at that point, it had been about twenty minutes).

Would we go again? Yes. But only with another Groupon (we have one more) or LivingSocial deal. Because the menu is a la carte, it makes it too expensive for what it is otherwise. With our Groupon, it came to $31.00 for two of us, plus tip, which is great, especially considering the mammoth alcoholic drink we had. Without the Groupon? It would have been $55 plus tip. And for two burgers, two fries, one cupcake, one drink, that is just cray-cray.

Boom Burger
375 W Passaic Street
Rochelle Park, NJ 07662
(201) 843-2666

Hungry for more burger reviews?

• 25 Burgers has a burger that we love, and delicious milkshakes that my kids inhaled.
• We’re kind of crazy for the New Jersey Burger and onion haystacks at smashburger.
• Visit Elevation Burger for their magical unicorn-dusted french fries.
• Although I didn’t get a burger at Shake Shack, we’ll be going back to rectify the error of my ways.
• The burgers didn’t ilicit OMG cries from us at Red Robin, but the onion ring tower is pretty cool, and a favorite.
• And still one of our favorites, we’re overdue for another visit to Bobby Flay’s Burger Palace.

Tomorrow? Book review!

Did you enter last week’s Merci chocolate giveaway? Comment #51 is the winner! Please e-mail me at cate AT sweetnicks DOT com with your address information. Must hear from you within 48 hours or another winner will be chosen. Thank you!

Lou Bertino July 12, 2013 at 3:26 am

I’m an old follower on twitter :D

Lou B