Everyone who knows me well hates dining in a restaurant with me when I order a hamburger. As one of the planet’s biggest burger hounds, I get them often – though almost 90 percent of the time I face a struggle when asking wait people how they’re cooked before rattling off some very basic requests: top it with cheese and a fat slice of raw onion, and give me mayo on the side.

Only in Southern California do I encounter servers who can’t answer a fundamental question: “Are your burgers flame-broiled or fried?” My preference is for heavily charred patties – darkened by either gas, charcoal or wood flames, although I’ll gladly pop them down from a flat, greasy grill if I’m experiencing one of my maniacal cravings. My friends in the meantime couldn’t care less how they’re prepared.

A common answer I receive is, “Yes, they’re grilled,” which tells me only that the meat actually gets cooked. I also hear: “I’m not sure. I’ll check with the kitchen.”

Obtaining the final answer is a fiasco to the point where you’d think I was asking for a molecular breakdown of the burger’s fat content. But I’ve learned to contain my patience during the process – that is until I end up with a fried burger that I was told would be flame-broiled. Here is when my dining companions start ducking low-flying utensils coming from my direction.

Then my frustration rapidly increases when the mayo is forgotten, the cheese isn’t melted or the raw onion is nothing more than a single ring that’s wide enough for a hamster to jump through. These scenarios occur so regularly that I’m beginning to think it’s the universe’s way of telling me to slow down on my burger consumption.

But I won’t. Instead, I’ve kept log of a few places (outside the fast-food chains) that serve burgers much to my liking, and others that send me running to my home grill to compensate for the disappointment.

The irresistible smell of meat on a flame grill wafting onto the street outside matches exactly the flavor of these charred, 8-ounce burgers, which are juicy, nicely peppered and accompanied with some high-powered garlic fries. To date, it’s my favorite burger in San Diego.

An addicting gassy flavor infuses these ground-beef patties, which are spiked with a little bit of granulated garlic and seasoned salt. And they’re served on springy onion buns delivered fresh daily by California Baking Company.

The burgers here are nicely charred with an appealing steaky flavor that they pick up from a grill used mostly for cooking sirloin and filet mignon. The protracted hoagie rolls, however, are an odd fit for burgers, leaving you with two bready ends empty of meat.

Fried, thin burgers with a good old-fashioned essence are served in this virtual shrine to John Wayne. The cheese is pure American, the condiments float between tables on plastic picnic trays and the prices are dirt-cheap.

Beefy and decadent are Mary’s mondo flame-broiled burgers, served in a festive atmosphere that no card-carrying member of the GLBT community should pass up. If you’ve also come to party, it’s best to partake in the flow of cocktails first because these half-pound gems will fill you to your tonsils.

Allured by the fact that the eatery uses 100-percent Angus beef for its burgers, which come in 6- or 8-ounce patties, I was put off by the coarse ground of the meat, which separated into tough granules that my mouth registered as gristle. And using a flat fry griddle to cook so-called “quality” beef is just wrong.

Despite the restaurant’s colorful display of fresh garnishes that looks like the produce section in a gourmet market, the burgers are overrated in my book; they’re fried to a chewy finish and void of flavor – definitely not worth the $7 that a third-pounder will cost you. The lines are long and slow-moving during peak hours, thanks to the fact that you can’t even begin reading the menu board to make a decision until you get up to the counter.