I've eaten some amazing cheeseburgers at really bad restaurants.

Maybe they serve bad cheeseburgers so you'll tell your friends -- that way, they'll avoid having any customers who regularly converse with someone willing to admit he orders cheeseburgers.

How can you call a restaurant good if they can't even serve a decent cheeseburger?

The simplest dishes are usually the hardest to make; they're least forgiving of errors or compromises. I read that in the essay and wondered whether that was really the case with top-N-list essays as well.

I live in London and these Brits cannot make an honest, decent hamburger. The good ones are ones in fancy dress. The simple ones are dry meatballs of a pale sickly color. They've got a nice sandwich chain called Pret a Manger that make consistently good food however. And a very strong café americano.

Chicken Parmigiana is my "safe-bet" food if I'm eating somewhere I don't trust.