Good Eats: Boom! Burger

I have a problem with hamburgers on the East End.

As anybody who has spent any time up west knows, you can walk into a diner almost anywhere in Lake Grove or Bellport or Port Jefferson and you can buy a cheeseburger deluxe that will knock your socks off. It’s charcoal grilled, with enough cheese to qualify as a grilled cheese sandwich. It smells delicious and comes with free coleslaw and a huge half of a dill pickle, lettuce and tomato, and enough french fries to choke a horse, served in four minutes flat for under ten bucks.

Then you come to the East End, only to find there are no real diners and almost every burger costs between $12 and $20, looks like shoe leather, and tastes like farm manure. Why?

One of the few exceptions to this rule is a place called Boom Burger in Westhampton. When you visit Anthony and Anthony’s Boom Burger, you will not be disappointed.

Their names are the same, but they obviously have different roles. Anthony Catanzaro is the front-of-the-house man. He always greets you with a smile and asks you if you have enjoyed your meal when you leave. Anthony Cicogna, wearing a serious double breasted cook’s jacket, is the obvious master chef. The way that he puts powdered sugar on deep-fried Oreos with a drizzle of chocolate sauce is truly a work of art.

Their large and varied menu is one-of-a-kind. Where else can you get such exotic delicacies as fried pickles, deep-fried Oreos, a pear & blue cheese salad, mac & cheese with truffle oil, sweet potato fries with maple mayonnaise and the best double cheeseburger between Route 112 and Montauk? And where else can you find this food at a price a normal human being can afford?

Burgers, their specialty, are single, double or triple and full of flavor. The toppings are serious, almost another meal. Any $3.99 cheeseburger can be topped with lettuce, tomato, raw onion, pickles, jalapeños and condiments for free, but for just a bit extra you can add anything from grilled mushrooms to sauerkraut, horseradish to peanut butter, pineapple, avocado or marinara sauce.

There are no less than 14 specialty burgers on the menu, on top of the regular build-your-own burgers. Perhaps the most fascinating of these specialties is the “Fat Tony,” which comes with six American cheeseburgers, mac n’ cheese, onion rings, bacon, mozzarella sticks, chili, fried eggs, thousand island dressing, a side of cheese/chili/bacon/sour cream waffle fries and a jumbo milkshake.

Tony and Tony both say that you don’t want the Fat Tony. Listen to Tony.

Now, if you’re out for a meat-eating night with the boys, please don’t forget that chicks dig Boom Burger’s fresh cut salads, so it’s safe to bring your girlfriend with you. There are six salads on the menu, including the above-mentioned pear and blue, a Costa Rica salad with romaine lettuce, jalapeños, bacon, pineapple, red onion and avocado, a Cobb salad and a Caesar salad.

You can also build your own salad, including such tasty extras as Craisins, pine nuts, hard boiled eggs and apples.

Chicks also dig the desert menu, as was evidenced on our most recent visit, when several girls walked in and begged for fried Oreos.

We decided to see what the fuss was all about. They were gorgeous straight out of the oven, deep-fried, powdered-sugar and chocolate sauce drizzled. They melted in our mouths. We’ve been dreaming about Boom Burger’s deep-fried Oreos ever since.

They’ll also deep fry a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for you, and they have a full breakfast menu that they serve all day. That’s service. And their wings are truly atomic.

Tony and Tony are talking about splurging on a smoker to add some good barbecue to their menu. We can hardly wait.

Boom Burger
85 Montauk Highway
Westhampton Beach, NY 11978
http://boomburgerwhb.com/
631.998.4663