Hype Beast

Does the buzzed-about P.Y.T. deliver on the burger front?

by Trey Popp

[ review ]

Mark Stehle YOU NEED SOME GRUBBIN': Two signatures at P.Y.T. — the potato chip-laden P.Y.T. burger and an "adultshake" spiked with booze and topped with sprinkles.

In Columbia, S.C., where I grew up, one of the best-known businesses of any sort is a place that began as a street stall selling peanuts in 1935. It was founded by a truck farmer named Julian Cromer, who didn't do much to distinguish his product until a competitor set up shop directly across the way in 1937, advertising the "best peanuts in town" and openly denigrating those of his more established rival.

Cromer, legend has it, hit the roof. But it was the best thing that ever happened to him. After lambasting this contemptible newcomer, he retreated to his own stall and hung a sign bearing a slogan that has survived to this day: Cromer's P-Nuts, Guaranteed Worst in Town.

That's not exactly Tommy Up's style, but you get the feeling that the nightlife promoter behind P.Y.T., a new burger joint on the Piazza at Schmidts, loves nothing so much as a crafty marketing ploy. Since P.Y.T. opened in July, Up has made more bids for attention than a 6-year-old who just poured ants into his underwear.

Want a free meal? Start a food blog and Up might invite you for one. Want a free beer? Subscribe to his Twitter feed and he might tweet you a virtual voucher. Or just beat his high score on P.Y.T.'s Ms. Pac-Man machine.

But it's with his new-media war on Stephen Starr that he hit the Foobooz-Grub Street exacta. Channeling Clubber Lang from Rocky III, Up challenged the reigning champion of Philadelphia restaurateurs, who recently opened SquareBurger, to a beef-on-beef duel. "[I]f starr's got guts he'll meet me in the ring. i live alone, i train alone, i win the title alone, he cant duck me forever," Up tweeted. "[W]here u at, paper champion? My prediction? PAIN."

Later, perhaps tiring of the 140-character limit, Up issued a formal declaration extending the "burger-off" to Butcher & Singer, Starr's upscale steak house on Walnut Street.

Starr, without formally addressing Up, seemed to take the bait, temporarily dropping the lunchtime price of Butcher's burger from $16 to $5.95, including fries.

Whereupon Up got back on Twitter, offering a gratis burger to anyone who produced a $5.95 receipt from Butcher & Singer.

HALF OFF DEPOT

Why live life at full price?

You gotta give Up credit as a promoter. Stuffing food bloggers with free food and digital prose pre-loaded with '80s movie references is an unbeatable way to create buzz. But the danger of inviting comparison between P.Y.T.'s cookout-grade burgers and the man-sized version at Butcher & Singer is that a critic who actually pays his checks might carry one out. P.Y.T. has some things going for it — prime real estate on the Piazza, good onion rings, a full bar that makes alcoholic milkshakes — but its meat burgers aren't among them.

For $8, I don't expect a half-pound of Kobe or house-cured bacon, but I expect more than a juiceless nugget on a grocery-store bun with mass-market potato chips on the side. P.Y.T.'s standard burger has a fuller, beefier flavor than the new Angus "third pounder" burger at McDonald's — which I also tested, to my immediate chagrin. But the one that came to me was, weirdly, both dry and studded with flecks of uncooked meat. I fared better than my neighbor, who had to send back a patty that was completely raw. But even with that error corrected, P.Y.T.'s burger was average at best. Suffice it to say that the huge, ultra-tender offering at Butcher & Singer beats it like a red-headed stepchild.

Of course I tried more things during my two visits to P.Y.T., and some made for pleasant surprises. If there were a world championship of tempura battering, P.Y.T.'s onion rings would be a title contender. The nearly translucent golden shell is as airy and crispy as the sweet onion is juicy. Four bucks is a steep profit margin for about 10 onion rings, but the craftsmanship justifies it. The same skill is evident in what has to be Philadelphia's most sinful portobello burger, which gives the batter-fried treatment to two mushroom caps stuffed with cheddar. Impale this on a stick and you'd have next year's sensation at the Minnesota State Fair.

Surprisingly, though, the kitchen's deft touch with the deep fryer didn't carry over to the french fries, which were irremediably mealy.

Another unorthodox veggie burger is built from a base of white beans pleasantly spiked with basil and tomato, but it was too pasty for me — like a thick bean dip crusted top and bottom in a sauté pan. P.Y.T. also has a chicken burger, but the ground breast meat in mine tasted mainly of salt.

So how about P.Y.T.'s $10 "adultshakes"? Here I must confess an initial skepticism bordering on bias. I'm all for high-fat dairy explosions, but I don't like playing hide-and-seek with my liquor. So I was unexpectedly smitten by the Jack Rabbit Slim, which sunk enough Maker's Mark into the glass that the bourbon haunted every vanilla-flavored sip. The Jon Valdez didn't afford the same pleasure — its tequila got lost amid the coffee ice cream and Kahlua — but it still had a robust alcoholic core that fans of creamy Irish coffee would enjoy.

If I lived in the vicinity, I could see stopping into P.Y.T. now and then for one of these, or a fairly priced draft beer, or some onion rings. But Up has done his place no favors by saddling its burgers with such high expectations. They're mediocre, no more and no less.

Maybe he'd be better off conceding victory to Starr and taking a page out of old Julian Cromer's playbook. If P.Y.T. guaranteed its customers the flat-out worst burgers in town, it might just disappoint them in an altogether more advantageous way.

(t_popp@citypaper.net)

 P.Y.T. | The Piazza at Schmidts, 1050 N. Hancock St., 215-268-7825, pytphilly.com. Mon.-Fri., 5 p.m.-2 a.m.; Sat.-Sun., noon-2 a.m. Sides, $3-$4; burgers, $7-$12; sandwiches, $4-$8; milkshakes, $5-$10. Wheelchair accessible.