A couple of weeks ago, I was contacted by someone who was asking permission to use  my photo of the Red Eyed Mule’s Sloppy Jake Burger (read my review here) in an article she was writing for Thrillist.  I said “sure” and thought nothing more of it.  Then two weeks ago, someone I went to high school with posted a link to the article on Facebook and, in checking to see if it was the same article, I discovered several new burger opportunities.   One of them, Local Republic, is near my office, so this Wednesday we took off toward downtown Lawrenceville to see what we might find.

Local Republic is a brew house, with a broad selection of beers and wine, with an adventurous menu.   My dining companion had the burger featured in the Thrillist article – the Kitchen Sink.  This burger starts with a sunny side egg and then adds whatever the kitchen wants to throw in.

It varies daily, based on what’s fresh, in season and available and this day’s Sink had turkey, ham, jack cheese, avocado, bacon an egg salad derivative of some sort and sprouts.   I was thinking about ordering the same, but was lured by one of the other burgers.   When the Sink arrived across the table, it was huge – easily a five inch burger when fully assembled.  

Instead, I ordered the Patrick Swayze – the descriptions reads:

This Burger is HOT, like Roadhouse Patrick, adrenaline pumping like Point Break Patrick and breath-taking like Dirty Dancing Patrick.  Nobody puts this burger in the corner. Topped with provolone and ghost pepper salsa.  No refunds due to wimpiness if you can’t handle the heat and, nope, you can’t have the salsa on the side.  Go big.

When I ordered it, the waitress said, “you know this burger is hot, right?”  And when she finished with our order, she said, “if this burger is too hot, you know that I won’t offer to bring you something else, right?”  They take the heat of this burger seriously.  

And they should have.  This burger is hot.  Not first bite hot, but sixth and seventh bite hot, followed by eighth and ninth bite really hot.   The heat in the ghost chile salsa built, until my tablemate was laughing at the top of my head sweating after every bite.   It was a really good burger.