This weekend I continued my quest by following a couple of the recommendations made here.
On Saturday I picked up four English muffins ($2.75 each) at Huckleberry. On Sunday I stopped at the Mar Vista Farmers Market French bakery stand, as recommended by @Dommy, and bought a bag of muffins (six for $5) and also some brioche hamburger buns (I forget what these cost, ~ $5-$6).
Huckleberry muffins to the left and farmers market muffins to the right.
While the Huckleberry muffins were good, chewy and dense, they didn’t have any nooks and crannies.
The farmers market muffins were also good, like a better version of supermarket muffins. I preferred these, because I liked the nooks and crannies getting crisp and crunchy.
Ah! I missed the part where you were looking for Brioche Buns for your burger. If that is the case, you can special order them from the guys at Homeboy at the Farmers Market. They have excellent buns.
For anyone in South OC, Pavillions has carried buns from Sadie Rose Bakery(San Diego). Or at least they used to. They were brioche and pretzel IIRC. Didn’t see them last time I was there but hope they still do.
I got some Rockenwager pretzel buns and brioche buns this week, two 3-packs, one of each, came to $11.75.
Here is a picture of the pretzel buns, I grilled them and topped them with bratwurst and beetroot horseradish and dill marmalade. The guys really liked these, and the buns held up to the sausage nicely.
Quick snap because everyone wanted to eat.
The Rockenwager brioche buns were smaller than the farmers market buns, but much better. Good crumb and chewy top. No seeds. I made turkey burgers with chopped red peppers, onions and jalapeños, mixed with some leftover Belcampo ground beef for the brioche buns. Another bad photo, for the same reason noted above.
[quote=“Bookwich, post:21, topic:3898”]
they didn’t have any nooks and crannies. because I liked the nooks and crannies getting crisp and crunchy.
[/quote]Finally someone mentions nooks and crannies. Great!
We are perfectly happy with the kaiser rolls and/or onion rolls from Ralphs when we’re having the big Gardenburgers. For me, however, the magic moment came and went when Trader Joe’s had ciabatta buns, as well as four-to-a-package grass-fed Steakburger (as they were called) patties. Together they gave me just about the best burger I have ever eaten, let alone cooked; while they were available I was eating burgers about three times as frequently as I am supposed to be allowed, so when first the buns and then the Steakburgers disappeared I suspected some elaborate intervention (on the part of my physician, Mrs. O, and maybe the Trilateral Commission) had just taken place to save me from myself. Well, even Ralphs has grass-fed beef now, but the only ciabatta role I can find are sized just a tad too generously for your average burger patty … although maybe right for a half-pounder? H’mmmm.
Unfortunately we’re talking hamburger and buns here … okay, all that stuff could be frozen, though it doesn’t do bread that much good. Otherwise … well, otherwise, I just remembered I have three-day-old ground beef in the fridge! Gotta go.
Per your recommendation, I bought some English muffins at the Mar Vista Farmer’s Market on Sunday. I think they are terrific with just a bit of butter and jam. Nooks and crannies galore. Thanks for recommendation. I bought the sourdough ones. They also offered multi grain. FYI, as of 9:AM they were nearly sold out of the sourdough,
