Review: Stax

An Ode to Sliders, Haiku-Style

Minuscule burgers,
Perfect, juicy three-biters,
Disappear so fast.

Choose your favorite meat,
Add any toppings you want,
Open mouth and eat.

What is that great smell?
Oh, it is sliders cooking!
Bring me one, pronto.

Harold and Kumar,
Those wise and hungry stoners,
Were onto something...

This beautiful landscape is rife not only w/brilliant colors, but also with vibrant flavors. This edible sunset tops one of the bite-sized burgers found at Stax Burger Bistro, a bar and restaurant around the corner from Scottsdale Fashion Square. So, steer yourself away from the food court and toward burger bliss.

Behind an oversized door lies a dining room w/a long bar, as well as an outdoor eating area where burger buffs can enjoy both their food and the weather. Both the indoor and outside areas are adorned with retro-chic furniture, cozy enough to support your back, but not cozy enough to keep you comfortable during a long stretch of burger-eating and martini-drinking. Based on the tables and chairs, I fulled expected to see shag carpet make a cameo, but, alas, it was nowhere in sight.

While the decor at Stax is straight out of the late '60s, the menu is anything but. Yet somehow the retro feel is very appropriate for the menu, which takes classic comfort foods--like burgers and mac and cheese--and brings them into the 21st century.

The muse of the double-sided menu at Stax is the burger. Poor decision-makers may find a meal at Stax overwhelming, as building your burger can be a multi-step process. So, let's break down the ordering process:

1a) Order one or two of the Stax-style burgers, pre-built sliders w/topping ranging from bruschetta to exotic salsas. Basically, you're putting your trust in the kitchen, but have confidence in the chefs, as they know what they're doing when it comes to combining flavors. Skip to step 8.

OR

1b) Begin building your own burger. "Burger," however, is loosely defined at Stax, where your sandwich patty can be made from 3 oz. of beef, bison, turkey, lamb, ostrich, salmon, or veggies. (I took my own liberties at home, making sliders out of chicken.) Choose one meat per sandwich. Order two for lunch, three for dinner, four for coronary.

2) Add a cheese like cheddar, jack, or feta. Or not.

3) Add some bacon. This is not an option, but rather a requirement, as far as I see it.

4) Add some veggies, like the traditional lettuce and tomato or the more exotic flamingo-pink pickled onions.

5) Add a sauce, including a couple variety of salsas.

6) Add an aioli, such as pesto, chipotle, or spicy.

7) Choose how many carbs you can take: have your burger(s) served on a bun, topless (just the bottom of the bun), naked (no bun), or on a bed of greens

8) Ogle other people's food as it comes out of the kitchen, wondering if your food is going to look as awesome.

9) Rejoice! Your food does look as awesome as other's people's.

10) Sink your teeth into your juicy meat gem

If you stick w/step 1a, eating at Stax is plain and simple, and you will also most likely try flavor combinations you'd never even imagined would work well together. If you go w/step 1b, though, your options are unlimited. If you want a salmon burger topped w/bleu cheese, caramelized onions, bacon (duh), pineapple, avocado, and pesto aioli--well, hot damn, you go ahead and order that disgusting thing.

No matter what you order, you won't walk away w/empty pockets. Stax-style burgers are $4-5 apiece, while plain meat on a but costs $3-4. All of the toppings--bacon, cheese, salsas, aiolis--cost $.25 per burger, meaning you can throw on a good number of topping and still keep your slider under $5. That is, unless you splurge on a slice of foie gras, which will double the price of your custom creation.

Burgers of this caliber deserve classy-yet-comforting side dishes. Stax hits the mark by serving up crispy, golden tater tots in a mini frying basket. The tots, about $5, feed 2-3 people. Other side dishes include sweet potato fries, onion rings and macaroni and cheese.


During my visit, the order of tater tots were treated as an appetizer, brought out a good 10-15 minutes before the sliders arrived. I figured the burgers would be out soon, so I began dipping the tots into mayo and ketchup (standard sauces w/an order of tots) and two aiolis, one a basil-flecked pesto and the other a spicy pink sauce which turned out to be the standout of the bunch.

Oops! Couldn't wait to dip!

By the time the burgers arrived, I was contemplating whether or not another order of tater tots would be necessary. It would have been enjoyable to eat the potatoes w/the burgers, but I couldn't rationalize ordering more of the crispy taters.

The sliders, served on long, slender, white dishes, look like artwork on a clean canvas. Take, for example, the aforementioned sunset, which sits atop one of the two Stax-style lamb burgers. The bright colors of the pink pickled onions, emerald chives, and peach-mint-mango salsa pop against the dark, grilled beef and the white porcelain plate.


Presentation is just one of many criteria that contributes to the enjoyment of a meal. More important, though, is flavor. The salsa atop this slider was delicious, and the melted cheese (feta?) provided the right amount of saltiness to complement the lamb. The meat, unfortunately, tasted gamy, which I tend not to appreciate in lamb. While lamb can dry out easily, this little patty of meat was juicy and flavorful.

Having sampled elk within the past couple of months, I was feeling adventurous. Thus, I ordered the Stax-style ostrich burger, topped with hand-pulled mozzarella, bruschetta tomatoes, and leaves of fresh basil. The ostrich was juicy and flavorful, tasting less like chicken and more like beef. The burger's toppings were surprisingly complementary, as I would have thought those toppings would have been better-suited for chicken or beef. The final verdict on ostrich is YUM.


The salmon slider is not a mini fillet of fish, but rather a ground-up mixture of fish and other spices. The Stax-style salmon slider presents hints of Asian--specifically Thai--flavors, thanks to an Asian-style slaw and a hint of lemongrass. Once again, the burger was cooked just right, retaining the moisture fish can lose after being cooked just a moment too long. The decorative, edible greenery on top? I do not know what this is. Looks like a piece of the lawn I had back in Cleveland.


The Stax-style buffalo burger is topped w/those same fluorescent pink onions and a smattering of chives. The burger is a one-ring circus--literally. Encircling those bright colors is a hefty breaded onion ring. Between the buffalo and the ring are peach BBQ sauce and a slice of melted jack cheese. At the very bottom of the burger sits a redeeming feature: one healthy leaf of lettuce. Buffalo, although easy to dry out due to its leanness, retains most of its juices in this slider. Your chance of actually tasting the flavor of the meat, however, directly in proportion to the amount of BBQ sauce doused upon your burger; the more sauce there is, the less likely you are to taste anything but sauce. When I tasted the burger, I was immediately brought back to Israel, to the time when I swam in the Dead Sea and then decided to lick the tip of my finger. I couldn't do much to dilute the painful saltiness of the Dead Sea, but at Stax I was able to scrape some of the BBQ sauce off the slider in order to make the tiny sandwich edible. The sauce didn't taste at all of peaches, so you really won't lose much by scraping off as much sauce as possible, as it's already permeated the bun.


Some Stax-style burgers are winners, while others are losers. But for $5 a pop, it's worth trying a few Stax-style sliders or building your own burgers at this trendy Scottsdale bistro.

Stax Burger Bistro
4400 N. Scottsdale Rd.
Scottsdale, AZ
480.946.4222
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