Out of all the places you can get lunch in Middleburg (12), more than half (7) have hamburgers. I guess it would be safe to say that Middleburg's favorite lunch is a hamburger. But which one? Luckily, there's a burger for everybody's taste. I, and a panel of judges, conducted a blind taste test of all 7 hamburgers to let you know where to go when the mood strikes. Since all the judges were familiar with the restaurants' presentation, we phoned in our order of a cheeseburger to go, medium rare. Dank's didn't answer their phone, so one judge went in, ordered and then went back later to pick it up. Only two places asked what we wanted on it and two different places asked what kind of cheese. When we got them almost all came with lettuce, tomato and red onion. We cut the burgers in 4, put them on numbered plates and proceeded to do our job. It was tough but someone had to do it. The best overall goes to Black Coffee Bistro. We all agreed that this was cooked to perfection. It had been seared on the outside and was still a pretty pink on the inside. The meat had a good grill flavor, as if you were in your own backyard. It came with blue cheese, which luckily, we all liked. The one issue with this burger was its size. It was huge. The good side is that it was huge; the bad side is that the roll wasn't and it fell apart easily. It came with hand cut french fries and fruit.

It actually was very difficult to agree on a second favorite. Red Fox and Hidden Horse burgers were cooked to exactly medium rare and had a good beefy taste with a hint of charcoal. One judge thought the Red Fox's roll was too thick but liked the taste. Another judge noted Red Fox's cheese was good. The Hidden Horse burger arrived with no toppings, however the bread was good. The Coach Stop's had a good taste but seemed average after the grill taste of some of the other's. The roll and toppings were all exactly right for all of us.

We all argued about Maxwell's. Unfortunately the attempt at searing the outside went a little overboard and tasted more burned. One judge thought there was no taste but burned and another thought it was good. That same judge also stuck up for Dank's burger because it had so many toppings while another argued that it was all toppings and the burger got lost. All we can say about Teddy's burger is that we can't wait for the pizza taste test. I didn't want to get into who had what kind of meat and whether it was hand formed or not. I think those issues are secondary to what my mouth tells me as I chew. Amazingly, the judges mostly argued about what kind of roll we liked on a hamburger. All were about the same price. Not all restaurants serve hamburgers at dinnertime. Enjoy!