Not such a Triumph

Triumph Brewing Company
117 Chestnut St
Philadelphia, PA 19106


Hankerin' for a burger, my friends and I decided to brave the wait at Village Whiskey. However, when the wait was quoted at 3+ hours and it was already 8 PM, we decided we needed to try something else. One of my friends in particular is a huge fan of the blue cheese burger at Triumph, so we decided to cab it to the O.C. and try out the food.

Upon arrival, we were told we'd be on the wait list (apparently a busy night in Philadelphia) -- we grabbed drinks and about twenty minutes later our buzzer asked us (in a woman's voice!) to return the buzzer to the host desk! Mind you I should digress briefly to talk about the brunch stout. Slightly sweet, very coffee-ish, and an undetectable amount of bitterness made this a great stout -- it tasted a little like irish coffee, to be honest. Really intriguing beer. Anyway, we sit down and they don't have enough menus and ask us to share. Strike 1. Then they don't have water glasses, so we wait for water. Strike 2. I then order my burger and a second beer, this time going with the "Jewish Rye" -- which tasted somewhat like a lion's head with an after taste of caraway. Again, a rather pleasant, albeit kitschy beer.

Now the burger comes out. Sure it's cooked medium rare and there's a ton of blue cheese as well as this goopy tomato marmalade spread on the bun. Bun is eggy and soft. But the burger truly lacked any distinguishable flavor. Salt? Pepper? This was just ground meat griddled up until hot. Did not taste or looked hand packed either. At this point, I am fully doubting my friends' taste in burgery goodness. Next time, I'm sticking to Good Dog.