SharkBite: Review of Mugshots, City Grocery Burgers

By Wes Brown and Charles Matranga
Hottytoddy.com Contributors
sharkbiteoxford@gmail.com

Mugshot’s “Savell” Burger
SharkBite Overall score: 7.4
Guest Overall score: Coach Malloy was so excited about going to Cabo he didn’t give a number
Price: $9.99

A little over a year ago, we started reviewing food both as a hobby and way to avoid doing our required readings for law school. Not once did we imagine that we would later conduct an on-camera food review with the Ole Miss Men’s Golf coach, Chris Malloy. According to his profile, Coach Malloy has produced “four All-Americans, four All-ACC selections and one ACC individual champion, including the 2010 ACC Player of the Year and multiple majors winner, Brooks Koepka.” Coach Malloy clearly knows what it takes to be the best, which made him the perfect guest for our inaugural SharkBite video series.

For Coach Malloy we tee’d up the “Savell” burger, which comes topped with hickory-smoked bacon, cheddar cheese, mayo, lettuce, tomato, and red onion. The Savell burger was named after one of the restaurant’s owners, labeled on the menu as one of the “burgers that started it all in 2004,” and was marked as a “Mugs Favorite.” Expectations were high, to say the least.

Over the course of the meal, our opinions differed with Coach Malloy when he said that he was hesitant to order bacon on a burger. His logic was that bacon as a topping is usually either too tough to break apart, or too crunchy, leaving a trail of bacon bits behind with every bite. SharkBite, however, believes that bacon belongs on everything. In fact, if it were socially acceptable to put bacon in our drinks we wouldn’t hesitate to do so. Mugshot’s bacon found the sweet spot for both us and Coach Malloy. The rich cheese melted perfectly to the bun, anchoring the bacon and the other ingredients together for a solid score in the constitution category.

The bun was the best part of this burger. It was soft, sweet, yet toasted on the inside while also having a minimal amount of grease. Unfortunately, the patty was a swing and a miss. It was way overcooked for our taste, so if you like your patty dry-roasted on the surface of the sun, we found the burger for you. Everyone knows you can’t have a great burger without a great patty, but luckily for Mugshots, the natural humidity of the lettuce and tomato helped to distract from the moon rock of a patty we were served.

Beer battered fries are always good. They were thick-cut fries, but they still had a considerable crunch to them. Truthfully, they tasted like they could have been sitting in the kitchen for a while, but they somehow still looked perfectly crisp. Like fine wine and Jennifer Lopez during the Super Bowl Halftime Show, these fries clearly got better with age.

Overall, Mugshots is a restaurant with nearly 20 locations in the Southeast. If your burger is good enough to be served in nearly 20 cities, you’re obviously doing something right. Mugshots has a diverse menu with lots of unique options for burger lovers. It may not be the best burger in Oxford, but a trip to Mugshots will definitely provide a unique burger experience. Make sure to follow @olemissmgolf on Twitter and support Coach Malloy and the Men’s Golf Team as they prepare for the Cabo Collegiate taking place March 1-3.

City Grocery’s “The Grocery Burger”
SharkBite Overall score: 7.6
Guest Overall score: 7.0
Price: $12

Few things are more “Oxford” than City Grocery and Law Professor David Case. David Case is an Oxford/Ole Miss Twitter celebrity. If you don’t believe us, search @dwcase on Twitter or ask students about him. When he isn’t subtweeting Ole Miss athletics or leading a crusade against credit card minimums, Case can be found on HWY 6 driving back and forth to the Batesville Waffle House. He’s someone who tries to find the funny in life, so we can only imagine what went through his head when we walked into his office and asked him to help us find the best burger in Oxford.

The burger was cut down the middle just like the PBJ sandwich our moms made after a long day at school. The patty was perfectly juicy and had a peppery punch to it, but could’ve used a few more seconds on the grill to put a little char around the edges. The toppings on this burger included melted American cheese, fresh lettuce, onion, pickle, mayo, mustard, and their “special sauce”, which we suspect was barbeque based. Sadly, the bun often overwhelmed most of these other tasty ingredients. The burger kept its act together with minimal messiness, probably because the chef knows that the only people who can routinely afford to dine at City Grocery are international entrepreneurs wearing suits worth more than our cars.

The lowest point in our dining experience came from the fries served with our Grocery Burger. Some of the fries were nice and crispy, but some were just plain soggy. SharkBite appreciates living life on the edge, but when it comes to fries, consistency is key. And like the 49ers defense, the inconsistency cost them. Case gave the fries a 5.0 out of 10, which conjured painful flashbacks to receiving quiz grades back in his intersession class.

Overall, City Grocery is a staple Oxford restaurant that SharkBite loves. When you think about going to City Grocery, burgers are probably far from your mind. But if it’s on the menu, SharkBite is coming. We gave the overall burger experience a 7.6/10, but that doesn’t take into account the charming atmosphere of City Grocery. Unfortunately, we were unable to arrange a video to depict our meal along with the ambiance, so you’re just going to have to see what makes City so special in person.

Professor Case gave his meal an overall rating of 7.0 and summed up our experience better than we could, so we’ll leave you with his quote: “If you’re here for lunch, the burger isn’t bad, but you might be disappointed in the fries.” Follow @dwcase on Twitter to keep up with his unwavering devotion to Ole Miss athletics and to receive updates on the much-anticipated Waffle House Oxford location!