Owned by the restaurant group run by Adriano Paganini, the former CEO of Pasta Pomodoro, Super Duper is a micro-chain with 5 outlets, 4 of them located in San Francisco and the other in Mill Valley. Very different from their other full service restaurants such as Beretta, Lolinda and Starbelly, the one thing it does have in common with them is the commitment to quality. Their tag line of “Fast Food Burgers … Slow Food Values” is very evident as soon as you take that first bite of burger.

At Super Duper Burger, you order at a counter and wait for your number to be called. Burgers, made from Niman Ranch natural beef, can be ordered as a Single (4 oz. patty) or as a Super, which is comprised of 2 single patties. Lettuce, tomatoes, onions and Super Sauce (their version of Thousand Island dressing) comes free with the $6 Super Burger, as does pickled jalapeño and grilled onions. Cheese, bacon, avocado, portobello mushrooms can be added for a nominal fee.

This first Super burger was ordered with blue cheese. There was minimal seeds on the sesame seed bun, but the bun from La Boulange was the perfect vehicle for barely keeping the burger together:

Our second Super burger, with more sesame seeds on the bun, was ordered with avocado and jalapeño slices. The pickled chile overshadowed the flavor of the burger unfortunately but they were easy to pull out (click on different parts of the picture to check out Lytro living picture refocusing capability):

The fries were crispy good, but the burgers were juicy and very messy to eat:

We had ordered the burgers rare, and we can honestly say that these were the rarest burgers we have ever had. The burgers must have been on the hot grill for only a few seconds to get a little bit of crunchy charring, but the entire burger was closer to eating steak tartare on a bun, which was just fine by us:

The Super burgers were true to their namesake. It’s nice to have a semi-quick, casual option to order and eat a restaurant-quality burger. It’s also refreshing to find a place that isn’t afraid to actually serve the burger rare, something that many other burger joints can’t or will not do.

http://www.superdupersf.com/