I finally made my way over to Tioli’s Crazy Burger one Saturday afternoon a couple of weeks ago. Originally I had been out with the intention of going Downtown to Proper Gastropub – they were serving Butterbeer for the opening weekend of Harry Potter – but I couldn’t find decent parking Downtown and had to ditch the idea (I was very sad about this). I started driving around for inspiration on where to eat. I ended up driving through South Park, up 30th and past Crazee Burger and decided to stop in for a bite.
It’s a pretty unassuming establishment. You walk in and order up at the bar. It looks pretty dive-y. You wait in line for awhile while looking over their many combination’s of burgers, such as the Nacho Burger (Burger with Potato Patty, sautéed Jalapenos and Nacho Cheese) and the Santorini Burger (½ Beef, ½ Lamb with Greek Tsatsiki Sauce) and more exotic meats such as Ostrich, Gator, Wild Boar, Kangaroo, and Antelope.
I stuck with regular beef and got the “Hamburgeeerrrr Francaise” which is a burger with Brie Cheese ($6.49).
You can order your burger done one of two ways – “Pink” or “Done”. I ordered mine “Pink”. It comes with a pile of fixings (lettuce, tomato, red onion, pickles) and no sauce. There’s a condiment tray near the counter where you can get your own sauces and condiments – from packets of mayo to ketchup, mustard, and other items. I put a little mixture of mayo, mustard and ketchup on my bun, took off all of those pesky pickles, and put my burger together. It was cooked just the way I like it – to a medium done. I thought the brie could have been melted a bit more so it covered all of my burger, not just parts of it. I still liked the burger though, but I have to say it wasn’t one of my favorite burgers ever. I wasn’t very excited about the bun my burger was on, it seemed pretty standard fare and for the price I was paying, I expected something a bit more. It wasn’t awful or terrible but it didn’t fill me with all kinds of excitement like I thought it might since I love brie. I think the brie not being melted enough and not overflowing all over my burger turned this into “Anti-Climatic Burger”.
I did like their Crazee Fries ($1.99) a ton though – it’s got a mixture of salt and grated Parmesan cheese on top. I think the grated Parmesan sticks a lot better to the fries so it completely coats them, giving a nice, cheesy and slightly salty flavor to your crunchy fries. Yum.
I’d come back to Crazee Burger to try some of their other creations in the hopes that maybe I just had a blase experience. They’ve got a ton of ideas here and use some pretty “out there” cuts of meat for the burgers. They’ve got happy hour specials too – check out their website for details on those goods.
Tioli’s Crazee Burger
4201 30th Street
San Diego, CA 92104
619-282-6044
Hours:
Su – Th 11am-9pm
Fri – Sat 11am-11pm
