The exec chef at John Howie Steak is a fullback-size gent named Mark Hipkiss whose specialty is oversize creations. Couple years back, he encased a complete burger between a brace of grilled cheese sandwiches and called it the Triple Bypass. (Funny story: JHS got a cease-and-desist letter from the Heart Attack Grill in Phoenix, had to change the name of the sandwich to "Kiss My Hips Goodbye").
Today, Chef Hipkiss adds a Breakfast Burger ($16) to his lunchtime repertoire. True to its name, it combines the elements of a ham & eggs breakfast with a traditional bacon-burger. It's a six-oz beef patty, multiple slices of Kurabota bacon, even more slices of house-cured ham, several layers of cheese (Beecher's Swiss and cheddar), a Yukon-gold potato pancake, and an over-easy organic egg, all held between bookends of a brioche bun.
The Breakfast Burger just might provide competition for the two most popular sandwiches at the eatery: the Prime New York Strip Cheese Steak and the Prime Beef Bacon Cheeseburger.
Also on the menu, an upscale version of Canada's late-night favorite, poutine, without the messy cheese curds. Instead, it's a bowl of French fries smothered in oxtail gravy, $13. Plenty of Seattle restaurants now offer poutine: Skillet, Uneeda Burger, Steelhead Diner, Smith, Brass Tacks. But nobody (so far) has dared tread where Hipkiss has ventured with the Breakfast Burger.
John Howie Steak, 11111 N.E. Eighth St., inside The Bravern in Bellevue, 425-440-0880 
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