We live in confusing times. From a hamburger standpoint, anyway.

This is an age when Applebee’s proudly advertises a menu item called, “Realburgers.” (And ties it to heroism, no less.) One of those allegedly real burgers, a surf-and-turf version, features shrimp as a topping. I don’t know much, but I do know I don’t want my burger to smell like low tide. What exactly have they been serving all these years. Fictionalburgers?

This generation has strayed so far from its hamburger roots that we’ve found a way to exalt the much-maligned slider, a foodstuff once craved only by check bouncers, plasma donors and the inebriated. I’d rather eat shares of GM.

And, no offense to Arby’s, but folding roast beef on a bun and calling it a Roastburger does not qualify it as a burger. That makes it a roast beef sandwich. (Pass they Horsey Sauce, please.)

So I was plenty skeptical two weeks ago before a road trip to South Florida when my friend Juan Ortega sent me GQ magazine’s list of the “20 Hamburgers You Must Eat Before You Die.”

The tops, food writer Alan Richman wrote in 2005, was the sirloin burger at Le Tub Saloon on the beach in Hollywood. It was better than Peter Luger Steak House in New York, better than the original at Louis’ Lunch in New Haven, Conn.

The search became somewhat of a grail quest for him, requiring him to travel 23,750 miles and consume more than 150,000 calories.

As Richman wrote:

The hamburger is a symbol of everything that makes America great. Straightforward, egalitarian, substantial, and good-natured, it is also a little bloody at times.

It may come big and ungarnished, the East Coast ideal, tender and untroubled by bones or gristle, everything you look for in a filet mignon but seldom find. It may be the West Coast model, swelling with vegetation, brimming with health and well-being, piled high with all that a seed catalog can provide. A great burger, regardless of regional differences, instills a sense of optimism and fulfillment, that all is right at the table or the counter or the woodgrain, screwed-to-the-floor, fast-food booth.

At its best, it eliminates the need for conversation or the urge to glance up at the TV over the bar. If you find yourself eating silently, eyes closed, ignoring everything around you, even the unavoidable burger-joint din, you have come upon a burger that can be pronounced a success.

Richman’s list triggered a visit to Le Tub from the “Oprah” show. All that exposure turned the former Sunoco station into somewhat of a meaty mosh pit.

Customers wait in long lines on weekends to get through the door. Juan warned me it could take 40 minutes for the burger to get to the table.

Shrouded by a privacy fence, Le Tub is like a sand flea embedded on Ocean Drive in Hollywood Beach.

Adorned with plants growing out of tubs and toiletry, the restaurant looks like it was dragged from the set of “Castaway.” Fish nets droop from the ceiling. An orange torpedo dangles near the dimly-lit pool table.

The closest thing to air conditioning is whatever breeze comes in off the Intracoastal Waterway.

I took a seat at the bar. Roy, the bartender, took my order and gave me some background.

Everything changed after GQ and “Oprah.”

“We went from being a bar with food to being a restaurant with drinks,” Roy said. “I used to work half as hard for the same money.”

There never used to be strollers in the joint, he said. “The place wasn’t made for kids,” he said. There are railings along the seawall, but the bar is far from child-proof.

Celebs now flock to the place, too. NFL quarterback Peyton Manning was in a few weeks back. So was Jason Taylor, formerly of the Miami Dolphins and “Dancing With The Stars.” Boxer Lennox Lewis loved Le Tub, Roy said.

Oh, and some guy named James Gandolfini dropped by one time.

As for the burger, you get a seasoned 13-ounce sirloin patty on a poppy seed bun with lettuce, tomato and onion for 11 bucks. For $11.50, you get cheese of undetermined origin. For 12 bucks, they’ll make it Swiss. Fries are extra.

The burgers are made by a grumpy cook in a smoky kitchen the size of a cubicle. On a big night, they’ll push 50 an hour through the line for eight hours straight.

The flavor? Exactly what I always want a burger to be. Meaty enough to sink my teeth into, big enough to test the width of my mouth. Fatty in flavor but not overly greasy. More about the beef than the bun or the cheese. Not more than I can eat but more than enough to satisfy. Simply put: It was heaven.

As Richman put it:

1. Sirloin Burger, Le Tub
Hollywood, FL

This is a dream of a dump, located on the site of a former Sunoco gas station. Outside there’s assorted porcelain—toilets, sinks, tubs. Most have plants in them, and a lot of the plants look dead. Inside is a pool table, a jukebox, and tables reminiscent of the ones at highway rest stops. The view is magnificent, the Intracoastal Waterway at its broadest and most dramatic. Le Tub doesn’t take credit cards, and it has signs everywhere reinforcing that rule. I’m surprised anybody who eats here qualifies for a credit card.

The menu is big, and the food isn’t bad, except for the Sirloin Burger, which is magnificent. It’s slowly seared on an indoor grill, crusty on the outside, juicy inside, always perfectly cooked. At eight to ten ounces, it’s ideal big-burger size, and it’s shaped like a pincushion, with sloping sides, which means you get a nice gradient of doneness. The bun has a few poppy seeds and looks like a kaiser roll, but it’s smaller and softer. It’s just right for enveloping the meat, which is judiciously seasoned and spiced, mostly with salt and pepper, I suspect. That’s all it needs. No cheese or condiments required.

I don’t understand how this spot came to have the best burger in America, but it does. Regardless of where I am in South Florida, I always make my way here for lunch. I sit at the bar and watch yachts that cost millions drift by, draped with women who cost more, and I think to myself how lucky I am to be at Le Tub.

Roy told me one reason Richman told him about why he chose Le Tub over Peter Lugar, other than it’s a place his mother, who lives nearby, told him to visit.

“At Peter Lugar’s, you overlook the East River,” Roy said. “Here, you look out over the Intracoastal. Which would you choose?”

Is it worth a five-hour drive across the state’s nether regions? Answer this: What’s it worth these days to get a real burger?