Guru Burgers & Crepes

Guru Burgers & Crepes | 2268 Texas Dr., Sugar Land | (281) 313-0026

We first visited Guru Burgers & Crepes during their soft opening on a Thursday in May.  I was really excited to bring you news of Sugar Land’s newest burger joint.  The day after we visited, my iPhone (which I use to take all the photos you see on the blog and keep my meal notes) met a wet and tragic end in the bathroom at work.  Because not all of my photos and notes had found their way to the cloud before The Bathroom Incident, I lost almost all of my pictures and all of my notes.  Fortunately, we had a chance to go back to Guru recently, so I can finally share with you some of my experiences there.

The Place

Guru is located in Sugar Land Town Square in the spot where Olive’s/Char House used to be (near The Rouxpour, Blu and Escalante’s).  It is owned by the same folks who own Japaneiro’s on the other side of Town Square.  There is a small, covered patio area for outdoor dining, which I actually recommend if the weather will allow.  We ate on the patio on our first visit and it was quite pleasant.  The next time, we decided to try the indoor dining room, which was just a bit loud for us — loud music + bare floors and high ceiling = lots of noise.

The Food

I encourage you to visit Guru’s website to read about their philosophy on food.  Everything is made from scratch using the best possible ingredients.  Their view is that, using the right ingredients, burgers and crepes can be healthy food choices.  When you visit Guru, I encourage you to read the sign on the wall immediately to your right as you enter.  It talks about how Guru is a small business that wants to stay that way and how Houston is great, but they really love Sugar Land!

So, as the name suggests, Guru offers burgers and savory crepes as main dishes.  But the burgers are not run-of-the-mill by any means.  The crepes also look delicious, but on both visits, I couldn’t pass up the burgers, so I haven’t tried any of the savory crepes yet.  The menu also includes appetizers, fries (more on this below), and some sweet crepes for dessert.  For vegetarians who may be thinking a burger place is not for them, there are several vegetarian options on the savory crepe menu that sound appealing even to a carnivore like me.

As I recall, we didn’t order an appetizer on our first visit, but this time we wanted to try the Cannonballs.  These are Akaushi beef meatballs mixed with minced jalapeno, stuffed with pepper jack cheese, then wrapped in jalapeno bacon and served with Guru’s pink sauce, a side of garlic aioli and warm pita bread.  Akaushi is a cattle breed that produces a very lean, low cholesterol variety of beef.  According to Guru’s website, the only place outside of Japan that Akaushi cattle are raised is in Texas.  The Cannonballs were great.  The meat was lean and juicy.  The kids were a little worried that the jalapeno and pepper jack cheese might be too spicy for them, so they were hesitant to try this dish.  By the time they finished hemming and hawing over whether to eat one, my husband and I had polished off all 5 meatballs.  Our children learned a valuable lesson:  if the food is really good, you better act fast!  😀  Though we admittedly have a higher tolerance for spice than our children, we didn’t feel like the Cannonballs were very spicy at all, which, given the description on the menu, was perhaps unexpected (but not a bad thing, either).

In addition to a variety of burger toppings, Guru’s burger menu offers a choice of 3 sizes and 3 bun options.  You can have a 3 oz. slider, a 6 oz. regular patty, or a 12 oz. double-patty burger.  Bread choices are a Twist Roll (white bread), whole wheat, or bunless for those of you who have the will power to stick to a low-carb diet!  At both of our dinners at Guru, my husband and kids ordered plain hamburgers or cheeseburgers on twist rolls.  The Guru logo is seared into each twist roll, which is kind of cool.

Cheeseburger

Twist Roll with Guru “Brand”

The first time we dined at Guru, I ordered the turkey burger.  I’m not usually a fan of turkey burgers because they can get dried out so easily.  This burger absolutely blew me away.  It was a nice, juicy patty with goat cheese, organic spinach, Roma tomatoes (which I left off), turkey bacon, and caramelized onions.  Oh. My. Goodness.  Kid #1 and I bit into our burgers at the same time.  We looked at each other, our eyes widened and we both exclaimed that this was the best burger we had ever eaten.  Sadly, my photo couldn’t be recovered from my old iPhone, but trust me when I say this burger is a must-try.  Coincidentally, though, 29-95 just posted a photo of it yesterday on their blog.

On our most recent visit, I went with the Japaneiro burger.  I had seen a photo of it on Guru’s Facebook page, and it looked yummy.  Again, I was not disappointed.  This was an Akaushi beef burger with chimichurri sauce, plantains, Bibb lettuce, Roma tomatoes, cilantro and caramelized onions.  Holy Taste Buds, Batman!  All of these flavors combined together into what I can describe only as an explosion of flavor in my mouth, capped off by a punch of sweetness from the plantains.

Japaneiro Burger on a Wheat Bun

Guru offers a few choices of what they call “crispers,” and what you or I would call fries.  There are regular fries, sweet potato fries, yucca fries and beet chips.  Though I wouldn’t generally choose sweet potato fries over regular ones, the sweet potato fries here are delightful.  The regular fries are good too.  Crispers come in two sizes, “regular” or “sharing.”  They also come with different seasonings — sea salt & pepper, truffle oil, parmesan, or sweet & salty.  If you and your dining companions want to try more than one variety, I recommend getting two (or more) “regular” portions and sharing them.

Guru fries (“regular” size)

Guru serves a wide variety of craft beers, many are local or from somewhere in Texas. A selection of wines is also available in addition to soft drinks, which are served in cute Mason jars.  Behold, I will share with you one of the only surviving pictures from our first dining experience at Guru — a glass of Saint Arnold’s Lawnmower beer…

Saint Arnold’s Lawnmower Beer

Finally, Guru offers a handful of dessert crepes.  We have tried the Marscapone and Dulce de Leche crepes.  Both were nice and light, not overly sweet, and included some beautiful fresh fruit.  The Dulce de Leche crepe was filled with caramel and topped with fresh strawberries.  Sorry for the poor photo quality on this one:

Dulce de Leche Crepe

Final Thoughts

The gourmet burger trend has taken Houston by storm.  I’m proud to find what I consider to be one of the absolute best gourmet burger spots right here in Fort Bend County.  The fresh, high quality ingredients, daring combinations of burger toppings, and friendly service combine to make Guru Burgers & Crepes a place that you absolutely must experience.

Have you tried Guru yet?  Does something on the menu capture your fancy?  Tell me about it in the comments.