This burger joint has quite a bit of notoriety in my city, and I think a lot of it is due to the fact that it was featured on the Food Network show “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.” Just to clarify I had to check the place out solely for my love of the Food Network and NOTHING to do with Guy Fieri personally. Please feel free to take that last statement however you want. I visited Bachi when I first moved to Vegas but I barely had any recollection of the meal so I decided I had to go back if I wanted to earn the right to share.
I found there were 3 different locations to choose from nowadays when I googled the place, and while I was looking at a few branches of the same restaurant the hours were listed different everywhere. I ended up finding the hours and the various location addresses listed on Yelp, and NOT on the actual restaurant website. The official Bachi website has categories to view like “press” and “concept” and “gallery”, but nothing to actually tell people where or when they can eat at the place? Not to mention their online menu is completely different from the menu I was given when I ate there 2 days ago. That’s one of my pet peeves. Keep your website in sync with the experience you plan to offer your patrons, or I lose all sense of faith in you on the spot. Not just the prices were different, but the food was too. The service was good, but good meaning basic and pretty much just decent. Nothing more then what you would typically expect when you go out to eat. I went on a little Dinner date with my friend (who is obviously a horrible photographer) and we ordered the Parmesan Truffle French Fries to share. They offered a draught beer special so I ordered a big Coors Light, cuz why not?
My friend is a mushroom lover so he ordered the “Kiki’s Burger”, which is pretty much Angus beef, sautéed shrooms, bacon, onions, and gruyere cheese on a bun. I told the waiter I was looking for some spice and he suggested the “Kalbi Burger”, which is a marinated Angus beef patty topped with Kim Chee, green onions, and a spicy house mayo (standard bun). Both of the burgers were cooked to our requested temp and they had quite a bit of good flavor. I guess you could honestly say nothing was essentially wrong with the food other than a simple lack of an excitement factor? I think I was just expecting more from the burgers… but then again even the best of us allow ourselves to get caught up in the hype from time to time.
The Parm Truffle Fries were the highlight of the meal in my mind. They had a savory gravy drizzled over the top that was yummy and unique, and a version of a spicy mayo-ketchup to dunk in that was equally amazing. I’ve come to the conclusion that Bachi Burger seems to have become so fixated on exotic flavor combinations and their accreditations for paving the way in the area of foreign fusion hamburgers that they’ve lost sight of the big picture. An enjoyable dining experience is just as important as tasting something new or eating “outside of the box” in my opinion. The atmosphere and the service are just as crucial as the food, and the place was kind of boring with shitty glaring lighting. On that note I guess I can pretty much sum Bachi Burger up in one word. Average.
