It was an amazingly sunny and hot day in Seattle yesterday, and Robert and I took advantage of it with a trip to the Ballard Locks. On the way, we decided to swing by Lunchbox Laboratory, Ballard’s new burger shack, to see what all the fuss is about. I’ve been hearing about this place everywhere for the past few weeks it seems. All of the food blogs are raving about it. It even came up in my knitting group forum. Lunchbox Laboratory is apparently the new hotspot in town so, of course, I had to go and check it out!

At first glance, Lunchbox Laboratory looks like your average burger joint: casual, kitschy and tiny (and, when I say tiny, I mean tiny - there are only three tables inside!) As evidenced by the long line of people waiting to order, however, it is anything but average. Moments after we had secured our place in line, the line behind us had doubled in size. I guess I’m not the only one who’s been hearing all the buzz about this place. There was only one woman taking orders and serving food so the line was moving pretty slowly. Although there were only 5 or so people ahead of us, it still took about 20 minutes for us to even get to place our order.

20 minutes is actually the perfect amount of time to wait, as it turns out, because Lunchbox Laboratory’s menu is huge! It takes at least 10 minutes to even read through the thing. Then, you have the challenge of actually making up your mind. The menu is written up on two big boards: daily specials and drinks on one and burgers and sides on the other. The burgers are “build your own.” You start with a choice of patty which includes standards such as beef and lamb as well as some more unusual options like kielbasa and “the dork” (a duck and pork blend.) Then, for toppings, you choose from a list of a dozen or so cheeses and an even greater number of creative sauces (satan’s tears ketchup, million island, and stone-ground horsey aioli to name just a few.) There are some other toppings available as well such as maple bacon and crushed green olives. Sides include fries (skinny, krinkle, tater tot, sweet potato) as well as onion rings and mac and cheese. As if that wasn’t enough to make your head spin, even the fries come with your choice of salt (bacon, smoked tea, etc.) A variety of daily specials and shakes and sodas round out the menu. We had barely managed to get it all figured out before it was time to place our order (I’m guessing this is a common problem since the woman taking orders actually complimented us on our ability to place our order in an organized and efficient manner, a feat I’m quite proud of!)

We took our burgers down to the locks and found a nice shady spot to sit and eat. All of the food was still piping hot and crisp when we took it out of the bag, always a good sign. The burgers, which were absolutely enormous, came wrapped up in tin foil with a little box of sliced tomato, crisp romaine hearts, shredded onions and pickles on the side. I had a falafel-quinoa burger topped with havarti cheese and basil aioli. It was great but impossible to eat politely! The patty itself was crusty, tasty and very moist (a rare quality among veggie burgers.) I could see pretty little flecks of red quinoa throughout the patty which made me happy. Robert had a buffalo burger with havarti and BBQ sauce. He loved it. We both ordered the same fries, skinnies with bacon salt (which is magically vegetarian.) They were delicious! I washed my burger down with a Jackson Hole huckleberry soda.

I could only eat about half my burger before I felt like I was going to explode. Robert had to lay down for a bit after finishing all of his. I’m pretty sure these burgers are potentially coma-inducing. I can only imagine what might happen to a person who orders the cheese-stuffed beef patty topped with more cheese and maple bacon. Yikes! Feeling the need to work off some of our gigantic, delicious lunch, we wandered around the locks for a bit. Robert hadn’t been there before, and I always forget how neat it is. We spent some time watching the water levels being raised and lowered to allow the boats to pass through. We saw tons of baby salmon passing through the fish ladder on their journey out to sea where they will mature into adults. We were even lucky enough to spot a greedy sea lion on the other side waiting for the baby salmon to come through!