Mark (St. Mark’s Burger) – Burgers – East Village
Mark is cheap, delicious, and comfortable. The menu is tiny: sliders, fries, chili, pie, milkshakes, beer. Hidden away under a staircase on St. Mark’s between 2nd and 3rd Aves., it’s a long, skinny place that looks like a bar but feels like a café, with an open front wall, little ottomans to sit on, and no crowd at all when I was there with my friends Meredith and Jordan.
Our waitress described these as “like White Castle but better”, which is an understatement. They do taste a bit like White Castle’s, but they’re at least twice the size, meaning you don’t need a sack of 10 to get full, and they don’t leave you feeling bad about yourself after you eat them.
The sliders come “regular”, covered with cheese and onions, or “bacon”, which means bacon is chopped and mixed into the ground beef. Meredith and I both agreed that the regular one was actually better, surprisingly. I don’t even generally love grilled onions so much (I prefer raw), but these perfectly blended with the juicy beef and soft bread.
The tables come equipped with four different fry-dipping sauces: chipotle ketchup, jalapeno, barbeque, and regular ketchup. The chipotle just hinted at chili flavor, but it was my favourite. Our fries were saturated with oil but still managed to be crispy on the outside with potato-y centers.
Don’t let the looks on these ladies’ faces confuse you–we all agreed that Mark is one of our best finds for NYC cheap eats.
33 Saint Marks Place
New York, NY 10003 (map)
16 Comments
Heesa Phadie
Good God Almighty! Those place looks like it’s right up my alley. I mean “covered with cheese and onions, or “bacon”, which means bacon is chopped and mixed into the ground beef.” …let me state that again…bacon is chopped and mixed into the burger…that’s awesome!
Plus I’m a MAJOR sauce whore…I will try any sauce and dip most anything into anything else….I don’t know exactly what that says about me but those fry dipping sauces sounds fantastic.
plumpdumpling
Why stop at bacon, though? That crazy peanut butter and ice cream burger you posted the other day was far too messy; what they should’ve done is mix all of the ingredients right into the beef.
I’m into sauces, too, but if there’s mayo within 10 miles, that’s what I’m going for. I think it’s Better Burger in NYC that has 5 or 10 kinds of ketchup; you need to get yourself there and put your head under all of the condiment faucets.
Heesa Phadie
Sounds like Heaven!
thickcrust
The looks on the ladies’ faces is one of disgust with your waitress, which is completely understandable. Like White Castle but better? My face would be sour too after such an insult to the venerable White Castle. Regardless of how good the burgers were, by having them compared to White Castle, disappointment was inevitable.
plumpdumpling
If I give you the next dinner club pick, will you please choose White Castle?
There’s one just south of Times Square, and I imagine that even the tourists avoid it.
meredith
We weren’t at all disgusted by the comparison.
plumpdumpling
Oh! I just realized that Adam actually loves White Castle and was thinking that your faces showed the disappointment you felt when you tasted the burgers and realized they weren’t nearly as good as White Castle’s.
(Except they totally were.)
thickcrust
Actually, they weren’t. When _your_ restaurant comes up with a single menu item that packs in over 14,000 calories – 7 days worth of calories – then we can continue this discussion.
Until then, be humbled:
http://blog.thickcrust.com/2009/08/white-castle-yum.html
Kim
I want to go there immediately, whoa. I don’t know why I am so drawn to this right now. It might be the amazing way the pickles photographed. But I’ll wait until I’ve officially moved and thus have to walk everywhere and eat coke for breakfast again. No sense in ruining my no-food diet further than with the near miss of yesterday and that horrorshow cookie.
There was like an entire year where every time I went out to eat it was on St. Mark’s, so I should be surprised I’ve never heard of this place. But then, I think were were at Mogador like 7 times out of 10 or something absurd, so.
plumpdumpling
The pickles were a quarter extra, if that lessens your desire to go there right now.
I guess this place just opened late last year, which means you have totally been away from NYC long enough that things have changed. Even Google Maps isn’t showing it yet. Freaky.
If I was really rich and didn’t like to sleep, I would totally live on St. Mark’s. And buy new socks every day from the Man.
Bachelor Girl
That meal looks AH-mazing. Particularly the fries.
plumpdumpling
Now that I look at those fries again, I want them, too. Except I want them to be curly.
Tracey
Did you see SNL last weekend? Weekend Update joked about how there’s a new White Castle candle, scented like sliders!
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/05/05/white-castle-candle.html
plumpdumpling
What do you mean “joked”? These aren’t real?! If you can buy me Twinkie-scented body wash, there’s no reason this can’t exist.
Tracey
Oh, it’s real. They just joked about the ridiculousness of it, saying that people who love White Castle this much probably don’t need the candle, because their houses already smell like sliders.
plumpdumpling
Because of the farts.