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" We came. We saw. We ate. This year&amp;#039;s 2010 South Beach Wine &amp;amp;amp; Food Festival in Miami, FL, left us busting our belts, but it was well worth it \u2014 especially consuming all the juicy and inventive burgers at the sold-out Amstel Light Burger Bash hosted by none other than Rachael Ray. Before we recap, let us shed some light on the competition&amp;#039;s concept. Twenty-seven star chefs from around the country \u2014 big shots like Morimoto, Rocco DiSpirito, Daniel Boulud \u2014 spend months perfecting their best burger recipe. After they&amp;#039;ve got it down, they pack up the suntan lotion along with a few of their sous-chefs and set up shop on the sand. The teams, along with the help of 206 celeb-chefs-in-training on loan from Florida International University Hospitality and Tourism Management School, spend days prepping patties (over 7,500 lbs. of ground beef from Allen Brothers Steak) and potatoes (1.5 tons) to be divided into over 48,000 portions! The gates open and...they&amp;#039;re off! The foodies charge the chefs&amp;#039; grill stations with fervor. The celebrity chefs jump into the heat of the battle, flipping their fare. The lines grow long, the smoke (from the flame-broiled burgers) gets thick, and the crowd becomes fierce: not an event for the timid. Hungry attendees move from station to station. Beef. Beer. Repeat. The eaters bring their mental game as well to trick their stomachs into thinking they are bottomless pits. Not an easy feat. Working our way around the tent we probably tried oh, maybe seven burgers. What were our top five? Let&amp;#039;s get to the meat of it! 1. Bobby Flay&amp;#039;s Dallas Burger \u2014 &amp;quot;Crunchified&amp;quot;: Exactly what does &amp;quot;crunchified&amp;quot; mean? Flay taps his inner child by piling a handful of Lay&amp;#039;s potato chips onto melted Monterey Jack (the mortar that holds the chips in place) atop a spice-crusted burger dressed with coleslaw, sweet and smoky BBQ sauce, and pickles. 2. Chef Laurent Tourondel&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;BLT&amp;quot; Burger: A beef burger anointed with creamy tarragon-Russian dressing, applewood-smoked bacon, and aged cheddar cheese. Scrumptious and juicy. 3. Michael&amp;#039;s Genuine Bacon Cheeseburger: House-smoked crispy bacon stacked on melted white cheddar, local greens, and ripe heirloom tomatoes on a brioche bun. Perfect for the locavore. 4. Good Stuff Eatery&amp;#039;s Farmhouse Bacon Cheeseburger: It&amp;#039;s not just that we think former Top Chef cheftestant Spike Mendelson is charming (though he is) \u2014 he is also a burger genius. His basic burger is executed beautifully with applewood-smoked bacon, American cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, and red onion all comfortably resting on a fresh potato bun. 5. Shack Burger: We&amp;#039;re biased on this one since Danny Meyer&amp;#039;s popular Shake Shack grew right in our backyard \u2014 New York City. The simple slider is dressed with lettuce, tomato, and homemade secret sauce. The beef patty could be bare naked and still be absolutely satisfying. Our list doesn&amp;#039;t take into account all the bells and whistles: Spike Mendelson&amp;#039;s Cotton Candy milkshake (my personal fave) was like inhaling a carnival. The Shake Shack clothed the crowds by tossing out T-shirts \u2014 thanks, we&amp;#039;ll be wearing ours for our lifetime sentence at the gym. And there were the plump Gouda-stuffed tater tots from hometown favorite Meat Market. Before the end of the night, when the burger bashers fall into their food coma, they vote on the most transcendental burger of the bunch. This year the trophy went to Michael Symon for his Fat Doug \u2014 a spin on the classic Reuben: a beef burger topped with melted Swiss cheese, briny pastrami, and home-style coleslaw served with the &amp;quot;Baconator&amp;quot; \u2014 a vanilla bean, apple pie, and bacon-flavored milkshake. Hands-down our pick of the night. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.delish.com/restaurants/a1270/south-beach-burger-bash-2010/>