French Fry Diary 611: b. good

The South Jersey area has been invaded in the last few years by upscale gourmet burger restaurants like Elevation Burger, Smashburger, Zinburger, and coming soon, Burger Fi. The trend continues with b. good, just opened in the Promenade in Marlton. At first glance it looks like a quick service burger place, but it's much more than that, and costlier.

You order, get your drink and have a seat. The pricing is a bit misleading if you're used to menus and meal deals at fast food restaurants. There are signs that say you can add drink and fries for $5.99, but the deal isn't $5.99, for an additional $5.99 you can get a drink and fries. Add that to the pricy burger and it adds up - this is not a typical quick service burger place though, the service is quick, and the burgers are really good.

The drinks are intriguing. No Coke or Pepsi here. They have cane cola, skinny cane cola, Italian lemon, and Pennsylvania red birch beer (yum), to name just a few. I know I'm a Coca-Cola guy, but I enjoyed trying the different soda flavors, much more than the Lay's potato chip flavors I've had to try of late at least. The cane cola is awesome.

The burger was very good. The meat was local, as is everything at b. good, dry-aged, and house-ground, and it's a loose ground, which makes for a juicy chewy burger. On a softer bun, this would've been an amazing burger, but as is, it was only great. And by great, I mean better than the burgers at most other places.

The natural cut fries, also local, were very good. They were excellent hot, a little soft but still managed to have the right amount of crisp too. There's a subtle seasoning that give them a little kick, nice. I think I got the tail end of a batch as they were many small pieces and stubs. It happens. I saw some awesome sized regular cut fries on the plates of others. I also got a few sweet potato fries with mine, which was a nice surprise. All in all the fries were very good. On a later visit the fires were even better. I guess they just needed to get their groove.

The French fries bags have a lot to say. "These fries are special. They're hand-cut and oven-finished." I like that. Additionally they have the calorie and fat counts of McDonald's, Wendy's, and Burger King as compared to b. good's. There's also another slogan, "Food made by people not factories." Nice. I really liked b. good a lot, and can't wait to go back, and bring friends and family. Recommended.