Meet Trigger's Poblano-Topped Burger with Queso Fries

As part of Eater's Burger Week, chefs at five Portland restaurants that are a tad burger-phobic agreed to make a special Eater Burger that will be available on their menus all this week. Every day, we've been highlighting a new off-the-menu creation, and now, time to close it out with Tommy Habetz at Trigger.

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[Avila/EPDX]

According to Trigger chef Tommy Habetz, a hamburger has long been a personal wish-list item for the menu at his NE Tex-Mex spot — particularly, a New Mexico-style green chile burger, which traditionally spreads a layer of chopped hatch chiles over the melted cheese. "John Stewart from Meat Cheese Bread is from New Mexico, and we've had conversations about them," Habetz says of the New Mexican classic. "I've been thinking of doing one ever since we opened."
So for his chile-topped Eater Burger, Habetz crafts a 1/3-pound patty (a mix of brisket and chuck), tops it with American cheese, then adds layers of avocado salsa, jalepeno, poblano peppers, onion, and garlic dill pickles. The Trigger "secret sauce" is a combination of mustard, jalepenos, mayo, and Cholula hot sauce; it's slathered on an English muffin in a nod to Habetz's days at Gotham Tavern, where he used to serve a burger on the same unconventional "bun." The Trigger burger is available on the menu now, with a side of queso-topped fries, for $13 — and according to Habetz, it'll remain a permanent menu fixture starting next week.
· Trigger [Official site]
· All Previous Trigger Coverage [Eater PDX]
· All Burger Week 2013 Coverage [Eater PDX]