When God told Noah to build the ark he gave him some very specific instructions (don’t worry this review is not about to become a D’var Torah – I’m a food critic not a rabbi). The guiding principle of those instructions can be found in chapter 7, verse 2: “You shall take with you of every clean animal by sevens, a male and his female; and of the animals that are not clean two, a male and his female.” The reason I am mentioning this here, as part of my review of Noah’s Ark (the restaurant not the biblical endeavor) is that the restaurant seems to be following the same basic principle in constructing its menu. If all the other meat restaurants in the world were destroyed by some sort of flood, we could reconstruct them entirely from the menu at Noah’s Ark.

When I decided to review this Lower East Side fixture, I realized I would have to focus on a specific aspect of the restaurant, so I chose to focus on what I believe is their greatest strength – burgers. Noah’s Ark has a selection of 11 premium burgers, 10 of which are genuinely worthwhile and creative while the final one is of the, “this is just like a regular burger, but ridiculously oversized” variety that makes me worry about the future of our species.

The most basic offering is the blackened Caesar burger, which, while delicious and juicy, is essentially just a burger topped with Caesar dressing. From there things get a little more adventurous with options like, the ponzu burger, which is marinated in Japanese ponzu sauce, garlic and ginger, and topped with shiitake mushrooms, and the Lower East Side burger, which is topped with chulent and derma and is obviously not the health conscious choice. My personal favorite is the Brunch All Day Burger, which is topped with crispy pastrami, mayonnaise and a Sunnyside-up fried egg. If you have never had a burger with a fried egg on top, you don’t know what you are missing – it is truly one of the world’s great things.

The burgers are served in a metal wire frame shaped like a boat (get it? Yeah, you get it) with a side of soft and delicious sweet potato fries and chipotle dipping sauce. When you next find yourself craving a burger I cannot recommend Noah’s Ark strongly enough. If all the other kosher burgers disappeared, Noah’s Ark would be a good place to start rebuilding.