Upscale hamburgers have become more popular in the past decade, but when it comes to naming the best one in New Jersey, Tasting Table went old school.

They let their staff pick the best burgers from all over the country, and guess which was the only one from the Garden State? A usual suspect, I must say. Tasting Table singled out the sliders at White Manna in Hackensack as the best burgers in New Jersey.

About White Manna’s famous burgers, Tasting Table said:

The all-beef sliders are cooked to greasy perfection before being slotted between potato buns and presented on white paper plates. If you want the true White Manna experience, though, make sure you ask for onions, which are grilled with the patties, infusing their pungent flavor into the meat as they carmelize. Their sweetness and slight crunch elevate already great burgers into legendary ones.

I’ve been to White Manna before and the ambiance isn’t anything to write home about. It’s a very small business and there’s no room when it is busy; everyone just kind of stands in a pack waiting for their order.

The lunch counter wraps around the "kitchen," where an expert grill man plays the role of host, waiter, expeditor, and, of course, cook. Watch in awe as he directs customers, takes orders, and handles cooking 10, 20, 30 burgers at a time, making space on the hot griddle for the pre-portioned patties and their requisite buns. At some point between squeezing your way into the packed crowd, getting your order off, and trying to find one of the few seats available, you realize not standing in at a dingy little lunch counter watching someone fry a bunch of meat; you're watching food service excellence and efficiency at its absolute peak.

Okay, that’s a little over the top. As a matter of fact, it IS a dingy little lunch counter, no matter how good the burgers may or may not be.

Personally, I prefer the burger at Barnacle Bill’s in Rumson, or Krug’s in Newark, or the Ark in Pt. Pleasant, but White Manna is a venerable institution in New Jersey; it’s been slinging sliders at that location since 1946.

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