I don’t think that anyone outside of the US knows Smokey the Bear, except me, of course, who has approximate knowledge of many things.

In any case, today’s burger place is called Smokey’s, and every time I hear that name I can’t get that damn bear out of my head. Let’s get to the food part.

🏠 The Restaurant

• Name: Smokey’s
• Address: Obere Donaustraße 97-99, A-1020 Vienna
• Date: 2020-08-19

They have a nice, minimalist website with the option to book tables via Quandoo. Unfortunately, due to somewhat poor color scheme choices, the links, albeit legible, cause strain in my snowflake eyes.

💯 Score: 78,34

For an explanation on how the score is calculated, click here.

Yes, you read that right. This was the best burger experience yet. More importantly, it was the best burger yet. Let’s find out why.

🍞 Burger Bread Score: 6.00

They let you choose between multiple types of burger bread, of which I chose the brioche bun, and it was truly excellent. Didn’t dissolve into sad nothingness even after dipping it in sauce. I wish I could ever find a piece of bread that looks at me the same way that I look at it.

🥫 Burger Sauce Score: 8.00

I never thought the day would come where I would award the highest score to a sauce, but here it is and here we are. The solution was simple: Just combine sugar and alcohol. Duh. But the resulting Sweet Whiskey sauce didn’t mess around. I doubt any other sauce will ever come near it, but we shall see.

They also had a great selection of other sauces, but they were overshadowed by the new king of sauces.

🥩 Burger Meat Score: 8.00

First off, they explicitly asked how we wanted the meat done, which I appreciated immensely. I still took it medium because I’m a basic Betty, but that’s beside the point. It was grilled perfectly and the meat quality was excellent, that’s all it takes, really.

For lack of its own category, I’m going to talk about the cheese in my burger here, because it complemented the meat in a fashion I had never tasted before. I can’t really put my finger on why that was, but there was something about the cheese that set it apart from other cheeses and made it the perfect cheeseburger.

🥗 Selection of Side Dishes Score: 7.00

They had the regular and sweet potato fries, the onion rings, the wedges, and the salads, so no complaints here. They also had chili cheese balls, which were a disappointment, there’s no way to put it lightly, but more on that in the next category.

🍟 Taste of Side Dishes Score: 6.00

I had the sweet potato fries, which were good but not great, and the chili cheese balls, whose poor performance I already teased. Their consistency was lackluster, their taste mediocre and their number few. I still awarded a 6 because the overall side dish experience didn’t ruin the meal or anything like that, I’m just being harsh on the side dishes because their main dish counterpart was so many levels above them and they need to step up their game big time.

Also, while I was looking for fitting images, I found a “romantic cheese balls” album on imgur. Here’s a taste:

🧃 Selection of Drinks Score: 5.00

Although a little lackluster too, they did have their own iced tea and lemonades, which is still better than just stock Coca Cola products.

🧉 Selection of Sauces Score: 8.00

Quite a few, actually.

• Guacamole
• Chili
• Sweet Whiskey
• Spicy Chili
• Mushroom
• Cheese Sauce
• Tomato Ginger
• Chutney
• Onion Pepper Chutney
• Aioli
• Honey Mustard
• Mint Yoghurt
• BBQ
• Herbal Sauce
• Big Smokey’s
• Chili Mayo
• Hummus
• Sour Cream
• Cocktail
• Ketchup
• Mustard
• Mayo
• Sweet Chili

💳 Payment Options Score: 5.00

The standard payment options of cash, debit, Mastercard, and Visa. I did deduct one point because their first card terminal didn’t work and they had to get another waiter.

💸 Price Score: 5.00

Not gonna even lie, I ate a lot. But I still felt that 33 buckeroos for a single person were a little too much. This category is reserved for the best buck bang, and this wasn’t it.

🤵 Service Score: 7.00

The service was awesome too, I arrived when everybody else already had drinks and they still asked me within a few minutes of my arrival what I wanted. Refills also happened quickly and the waiters asked a few times if everything was alright and if we wanted to order some more without being overbearing. I’m still reserving the 8 point mark for something that truly blows my socks off, like if a live panda brings our food or something.

⏰ Waiting Time Score: 5.00

I’ve had way worse but I’ve also had better, so I wasn’t sure if a 5 or 6 would be more fitting. I went with 5, sue me.

🍨 Selection of Desserts Score: 6.00

Desert is one of those categories where I simply don’t expect a huge selection. If you got your cheesecake, apple pie, brownie, vanilla ice cream, and maybe one or two milkshakes, you’re good.

🍰 Taste of Desserts Score: 5.00

I was honestly a little disappointed with their chocolate brownie and ice cream combination. Don’t get me wrong, both tasted great, but the brownie’s consistency felt old and hard even though it was warm, maybe they just heated it up? The problem with the ice cream was that I expected a little more in sheer amount, I don’t want to be finished with the ice cream before I’m finished with the brownie. If they’re supposed to complement each other they should also come in similar amounts, especially since nailing vanilla ice cream usually isn’t that hard.

🎍 Atmosphere Score: 4.00

We sat outside, and the atmosphere suffered greatly from the fact that construction was being done to the storefront. When I went inside to wash my hands, indoors it also seemed a little underwhelming, even though they had some nice food-related quotes of philosophers and writers on their walls. Once the construction is done, perhaps the atmosphere will be a little nicer, but I have to work with what I have.

🏁 Conclusion

In the end, the little imperfections do add up and Smokey’s is far away from offering the optimal burger-eating experience. Still, its burgers and sauces are amazing (as I said, the best one’s I’ve had so far) and I’ll be soon enough making my way there again. I urge you to do the same.

🍔 Our Burgers