The Pizza Burger
Well known for being a downtown Shreveport late-night pit stop for the inebriated and hungry masses shuffling between club and cab, Fully Stacked sits squarely on the corner of Commerce directly under the Texas Street bridge on the Riverfront. This was a surprise visit in fact; some other local comedians (David Allen and Dallas Irvin) and I were going downtown for a drink and the subject of food came up, and Fully Stacked just happened to be next on my list!
We found a table and David and Dallas cracked jokes at our server in between trying to order while I reviewed the menu. It is a unique arrangement, mostly pizza and burgers, with an assortment of appetizers… one of which deserves a special note of attention I think. Their cheese sticks aren’t just mozzarella, and I know because I ordered a plate.
They were a spicy pepperjack, with thick chunks of chile blended in, wrapped in a crunchy flaky breading the recipe for which is rumored to have come from the kitchen of none other than the old Overtime Sports Bar (closed in 2013) on Travis Street, just a few blocks away. Eating them was a trip down memory lane, because Overtime was the club I cut my teeth in as a stand-up comedian. I digress.
It was hard to choose a burger, as I will often find it to be, because they range such an gamut of interesting and delicious, with unique ideas and ingredient combinations — from typical to anything but.
Should I eat the “Baconfest” — a 65/35 mix of ground beef with ground bacon, with a fried egg and candied bacon to top? What about the “Fiery Burger” — a double-patty burger with four different chiles and pepperjack cheese? The Bison Burger? The Inside-Out Cheeseburger?
That’s when I saw it: at the bottom of the menu. Not in an ‘alone and forgotten’ sort of way, but certainly because they were intending to save the best for last. “The Pizza Burger.” Two patties, marinara and cheese, all wrapped in pizza dough.
It came quickly, and when it did, I was not disappointed. In fact, I was blown away by the construction of this burger. I was expecting the pizza dough wrap to be too much bread, overpowering for the already huge double-stacked burger, but I found the dough to be pleasantly thin, flaky, and crispy enough on the outside to remain a sturdy handle to eat with. It was obviously very greasy, but when I’m eating a sandwich (especially a large one) I expect to get my hands dirty.
The meat itself was spiced similar to the marinara (a sweet and peppery sauce on its own, with a thick consistency and robust with the concentrated flavor of tomato and garlic), the patties were thin, but the distinctive concentration of the flavor of beef was not at all out of place among this amalgam of different food genres.
There were a couple things that the menu didn’t mention, namely that this burger is packed with parmesan and mozzarella. Had I known that, I probably would not have made my choice of cheese the smoked gouda. I could visually verify that the gouda was there, but it was undetectable through the sauce and other cheeses. The menu also did not mention that the burger patties are also wrapped in a thin layer of pepperoni — not that I would dare complain!
On top of the burger, as an aesthetic choice as much as a flavor choice I’m sure, was a swirl of marinara, a generous sprinkle of mozzarella cheese, and several thin slices of spicy pepperoni; a tiny pizza on top of my pizza burger. A perfect and adorable матрёшка: pizza-burger-pizza.The flavor combinations, with their house-made marinara could certainly stretch anyone’s definition of a burger, but I challenge anyone to doubt the creative composition and the fact that all of the core ingredients were present. I would not deign to question this sandwich’s identity, much less give it any label less befitting than that which Fully Stacked has dubbed it. There is no doubt that this was a Pizza Burger, and a delicious one at that.