Another burger! Yes, all for my desire to find the best burger. I was quite excited to try The Counter and their customized burgers. I’ve been studying their menu even when I was still in Manila. It was hard trying to decide what to put on my burger.
The Counter has most of it’s branches in California. Other than Connecticut, the only branch in the East Coast was located in Reston, Va which was 15 minutes away from my cousin La’s house. It was the first time for all of us to try The Counter. Cousins La and Sha said they waited for me to arrive so we could try it all at the same time. Aww… how sweet!
This is my cute niece Erin, happily posing for me.
The Counter is not your ordinary fast food burger joint since they also sell beer and wine. They also serve milkshakes.
We couldn’t decide what fried starter to order so we ordered them all. I didn’t like the sweet potato fries. I found them too greasy. I liked the one at Gott’s Roadside much better.
the fifty-fifty : crispy onion strings & sweet potato fries $6.25
The fries fared a little better. They were crisp and well seasoned.
single order of fries $1.25
We were each given a form with all the options to create our own personal burger. Normally I’m a purist when it comes to burgers. I usually order a plain burger without anything to distract the taste of the beef. That’s how I can tell if the burger is good or not. But how could I not pick a few toppings when they all looked so good? With a lot of thought and restrain I ticked the boxes below. 
This was what my burger looked like the right side up, with a generous slice of horseradish cheddar slightly melted on top.
I flipped my burger to take a picture of the dried cranberries, organic mixed greens and sprouts. On the side was the roasted garlic aoli sauce.
The burger was cooked medium as I requested. The burger wasn’t really very tasty. I didn’t get the beefy steak taste I look for in burgers. It really needed all these toppings to help it taste better. It wasn’t really bad but it definitely isn’t a favorite. Honestly I still prefer Chili’s burger in Manila.
This is what Lanneth chose for her burger which she shared with her daughter Erin. If you tick the correct quantity of toppings per step like we did the 1/3 lb. burgers cost $8.50.
La’s the veggie lover among us cousins. She chose grilled onions, sliced cucumbers, carrot strings, a grilled pineapple and gruyere cheese. With all those different flavors and textures I was amazed she still enjoyed her burger. We both agreed that the burger we grilled in her house from supermarket ground beef tasted better than this.
Sharon also chose grilled pineapple! Sorry but I don’t like pineapple with my food. That goes for pizza and sweet and sour pork. Anyway, Sha also chose Tillamook cheddar and hard boiled eggs as suggested by our waiter.
Hard boiled eggs on a burger? Sha said it was surprisingly good with the burger. Sorry but I’ll stick to my burger free of eggs and pineapple. If it was a fried, runny sunny side up egg that’s another matter.
Erin and La
Here are some of their suggestions for burger combos.
The Counter’s menu (click to enlarge)
my plate
The Counter Reston
11922 Democracy Drive
Reston VA 20190
telephone: (703) 796-1008
Shoot First Eat Later 
Hahaha 🙂 Finished all the burger and toppings but left the buns! Looks good to eat hope there would be one here in Manila.
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or another one. Her next one came out raw and then the 3rd onecame out overdone again. I am not sure but someone took hers off the bill andalso gave her a card for a free burger next time. What was the worstpart was when the bill came to 32.00 and some change. I gave the woman my CCand said please put 15.00 on my card and then pay the rest 17.77 out of the28.00 cash. The waiter came back with the total bill charged to my account andhe kept the 28.00 difference of the cash and not offered to give it back. Itold him no that he was supposed to charge my cc 15.00 and take the differenceout of the 28.00. He came back with my cc charged 15.00 and KEPT the 28.00making it over 10.00 tip. I told him that we wanted the change back. I was SOmad that he tried twice to keep that change twice that I left DIMA no tip. Thiswas all of are first time there and willprobably be the last one. Sincerely
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