Flippin’ Patties serves up Filipino street food and trance-inducing hamburgers on soft, steamed buns.

800 Capitol St Suite T-307, Houston, TX 77002
(832) 582-6178
Website

10:30AM–10PM (Mon–Thu); 10:30AM–12AM (Fri); 11AM–12AM (Sat); 11AM–10PM (Sun)

We normally don’t eat $13 burgers for lunch, but November is still green. We have yet to savage our monthly budget, and dal ‘n rice territory is still a ways off. Deciding to live a little, we take a lunchtime trip to Understory, a Sims-seeming food hall located in the bowels of Bank of America downtown. The counter with the most activity, Flip ‘n Patties has built quite a reputation with its Filipino-inspired hamburgers and riffs on Asian Pacific street food. They have grown from a single food truck to a brick-and-mortar restaurant at 1809 Eldridge Parkway, and now the Understory location, which we visited on a recent cold and rainy Friday.

Flip ‘n Patties Burger ($12.99): This burger is amazing. Towering almost as high as the skyscraper housing it, Flip n’ Patties’ namesake is constructed with Texas Akuashi beef, a cheese-stuffed portobello cap panko-battered and fried, lettuce, tomato, and melted cheddar on a steamed Filipino bun. The quality of the patty is remarkable. If you don’t specify a doneness while ordering, the burger comes to you a juicy medium with a pink center. We like it that way, but the germophobes and hockey puck fans among you would be advised to order it well done. At first glance, a fried portobello might seem like overkill, but it is in fact a stroke of genius; the panko breading provides a crunchy foil to the the dripping burger, and the flavorful mushroom adds another dimension of umami. We’ve never seen a steamed hamburger bun like this before but we like it. The bun is fresh, soft, and a little on the sweet side, with the interior edges browned and crisped on the griddle. The burger came dressed with two house sauces (“spicy” and “fnp tang”), but we were too busy stuffing this delicious thing into our faces to taste-test them out of context. We thought this was among the best burgers we’ve had in some time, the main competition being some outstanding street hamburguesas from a stand in Mexico City.

Chicken Pupu Garlic Rice Plato ($11.99): We have here some big, battered and crunchy-fried nuggets of boneless chicken dipped in a thin, sweet sauce and served on a bed of shredded lettuce and tomato slices with two “fliprolls” (AKA lumpia, AKA eggrolls) and garlic rice. The chicken is reminiscent of the sweet “garlic chicken” we’ve eaten at plate lunch joints like Papa Ole’s in Hawaii. It’s very much on the sweet side, so bear that in mind if you don’t have a sweet tooth. The fliprolls are good and fresh, but have a filler-ish quality and we’re not huge fans of the very sweet chili dipping sauce. The savory garlic rice, with its generous dusting of furikake, steals the show and we’d consider ordering a side of it with a burger. Overall: a winner (especially if you like sweet things), but for us it doesn’t quite measure up to the heaven-on-a-steamed-bun that is the Flip ‘n Patties burger.

Our stomachs were already groaning from the burger and chicken, so we didn’t try the French fries (some people seem to really dig the loaded ones) or the dessert options: flan and halo halo (which looks like a ché-ish concoction of shaved ice, ice cream, red beans, and more). Rest assured that we will be back soon to try these things. We love Flip ‘n Patties and give them a rating of five steamed buns.