New on Blue Tractor’s menu… 1/2 lb patty topped with pulled pork, bacon, smoked cheddar, and fried jalapeño chips.

I need this.  That’s in bold because I really need it. Add this to the list of things you will see me eat very soon.

Me and Coco aka That Guy aka co-host of the Coco and Warhammer Show went over to Bagger Dave’s for some burgers the other day. There’s one right down the street from our work and I had never been, despite hearing mostly good things.  Apparently this location is one of three, with all of them being Michigan based.  A guy who owns a bunch of Buffalo Wild Wings decided he wanted to open a gourmet burger joint in Berkely a few years ago with the hopes that it would catch on and become a chain.  Not a bad idea.  With the exception of the obvious hole in the wall burger joints, Michigan lacked any kind of gourmet burger establishment until Five Guys started moving in recently.  With the two additional Bagger Dave’s locations being added since 2008, it looks like the idea is working so far.

Before I walked in I was expecting a mostly carry out based burger joint.  The place is actually more of a sit down restaurant(100+ seats) with a pretty solid(mostly local) beer selection.  There’s flat screen TVs and a mini train set that constantly runs around the top perimeter of the restaurant.  It doesn’t really have the feel of a burger joint, but it’s a comfortable, yet different, environment.

"Amazingly Delicious" Turkey Black Bean Chili

I started off with the “amazingly delicious” turkey black bean chili, mainly because of the whole “amazingly delicious” proclamation.  If you’re going to say something on your menu is that delicious, then damnit it better be.  I’m not usually a “substitute turkey for other meat” kind of guy, but like I said, the menu says amazingly delicious.  I had to put it to the test.  Gotta say, stuff is legit.  I can usually tell when things are made from turkey.  It just has a weird taste to me.  This was delicious, and had a good amount of spice.  Despite the fact that a bowl is $4.00+, I would have to recommend that you get some of this before your burger.

Create Your Own Burger

For my burger, I felt that there was no other choice for me than to create my own.  There are a many options on the actual menu, but come on.  How much fun is that?   The thin patties start out in the open kitchen at 3.5 ounces — one costs $3.29 and two $4.29 (turkey burgers are a dollar more) and come in a plain, sesame or whole wheat roll or sourdough bread. For 75 cents you can add one of six kinds of cheese, and for $1 you can add on “premium” topping of fries, fried egg, guacamole, bacon or that delicious turkey black bean chili.  Bagger Dave’s also offers 16 “meaningless free toppings” that range from ketchup and lettuce to sautéed mushrooms, Cajun spice and green peppers.

The burgers are advertised as hand-crafted from lean ground beef that is never frozen.   The burgers are all cooked medium-well, which is always troubling to me.   The result is a smaller patty that was actually a little dry for my tastes. I felt like the condiments and add ons made the burger, not the actual patty.  I feel like if you’re opening a restaurant that specializes in burgers, your patty should stand out even without a single condiment.  These didn’t.

I will say that my creation, with a hell of a lot of toppings, was absolutely delicious.  I went with a plain bun and two regular beef patties with pepper jack cheese, Santa Fe chipolte sauce, a fried egg, applewood bacon, mayo, and Cajun spice. Like I said, the beef is pretty average but the slop on top made it into a solid burger.  Check this guy out.

Not anything amazing, but pretty solid.  Expect to pay about 12 bucks per person if you’re getting a drink, fries/chili, and a burger.  A little steep for burgers and fries, you’re getting a lot more than that if you’re creating your own burger.

Normally my daily Serious Eats experience usually consists of scrolling down quickly, not seeing anything too interesting and then moving on elsewhere.  Lately, however, I’m becoming a fan of their Hamburger Today column.  Especially when it features things like it did this week.  J. Kenji Lopez-Alt decided to squeeze the juice out of two burgers, freeze it, surround it with two formed patties, and grill it.  The results look absolutely ridiculous, and by ridiculous I mean delicious.  He calls it the Flood Burger.

This will be made in my household very soon, and by very soon I mean TOMORROW.

Michael Symon is a personal hero of mine.  Making him an Iron Chef was one of the best things the Food Network has ever done and of course they’ve screwed it up by not giving him enough screen time.  The man loves meat, and he recently opened up The B-Spot in Woodmere, Ohio which quite possibly gets my vote for the greatest burger joint ever.  I don’t even need to try it.  I can tell just from reading the menu.  Clearly written on the bottom is “We cook in Lard“.  None of this ‘Your burger may come in contact with lard” business.

The Red Hot Burger has my mouth watering.  This burger is topped with pulled pork, pickled tomato, hot peppers, pepperjack cheese, siracha mayo.

The Red Hot Burger courtesy of funplayingwithfood.blogspot.com

They do offer a vegetarian burger called The Why? Before you lose faith in Symon’s love for meat,  you are given the option of adding bacon free of charge.

You can even get your burgers cooked the way you like them.  They’re not all cooked into submission like other joints.  In fact, you are encouraged to order your burgers rare.  The cooking temperatures on the website are as follows:

• Rare: blood red, cold/cool in center
• Mid Rare: reddish, cool in the center
• Medium: reddish/pink, warm center
• Mid Well: barely pink, warm center
• Well: no pink, very sad, hot center

In case that wasn’t enough, The B-Spot also boasts a respectable beer menu, which includes three of Dexter’s own Jolly Pumpkin’s selections.

Road trip!

I looked through the archives of this site and was shocked to see that Steak n Shake has never been reviewed on this site!  Of course, it may have something to do with the fact that the one in Ypsilanti is one of the worst in the nation and I have no clue how close Todd is to the ones in his area.  I know there are NONE in VA, which really pisses me off.  So I knew when I went back to Springfield, MO for leave, I would definitely have to make a trip to Steak n Shake.  Why?

Maybe it’s because the five best S n S’s in the country are here due to the fact that the owner of the company lives in Branson, MO.

Maybe it’s because I’m a former employee and I know the standard of service to expect from the place.

Maybe it’s just that I love burgers made from grade A steak cuts rather than ground beef.

Maybe it’s the shoestring french fries or the hand-dipped, home-made Milkshakes.

Maybe it’s…

BEAN CROCK!

Anyway, for a brief history of the place go here, I’m not making this any longer than I have to…

So for our little culinary jaunt to our oldtime haunt, Amy Went with a classic fave…

The Mid-westernly famous Frisco Melt!!!

In case you have trouble reading image captions, that’s a Frisco Melt.  Two Steakburger patties with swiss and cheddar cheese, 1000 Island dressing, and lettuce on sourdough bread.  She also got cheese fries.  In fact, this is pretty much all she ever orders from Steak n Shake.  For her drink, she went with a Vanilla Dr. Pepper (that’s right, you can add cherry or vanilla flavor to your drink at no charge!).

So what did your bespectacled and currently enbearded author order?  Well, usually I go with a Mushroom n Swiss Steakburger with Fries and a cup of chili and have a chocolate shake, but I was feeling a bit adventurous and saw a new menu item that caught my fancy!

The Western BBQ Bacon Steakburger!!!

Yes, once again, I’m doing a review where I ordered a BBQ Bacon Burger.  What can I say?  I love them.  This one wasn’t outstanding but it was pretty good.  It had french fried onions on it, which was pretty tasty.   I used to eat entire cans of that stuff like they were potato sticks.  Anyway, digressing. I also got a cup of chili with cheese and crackers.

Oh yeah, I got this with my meal too...

For my beverage, I got…

A Hershey's Syrup Special Dark ChocolateMilkshake

Oh yum…  Seriously, that was an amazing shake!  I don’t know if it’s worth $5, but it’s a damn good shake (100 pop culture cool points to the first person other than John or Todd to name that quote).

On the subject of their shakes, they have over 20 different varieties of milkshakes.  I mean, it’s half their name, so one would expect some quality and variety, am I right?

Here’s a few pics I took of their selection…

These ones are candy inspired...

Some classic shakes: Chocolate, OrangeFreeze, Strawnana side-by side, Root Beer Float, and Turtle sippable Sundae

They have your regular shakes in Chocolate, Vanilla, Mocha, Strawberry, Spec Dark, and an

Orange Freeze which is made by mixing vanilla ice cream with water and orange flavor instead of milk.

Then they have the specialty shakes such as Butterfinger, Cookies n Cream, Cookie Dough, T urtle Nut Supreme, Mint Cookies and Creme, Double Fudge, Peanut Butter Cup and Banana Split.  These are called Sippable Sundaes.  They also have strawberry and raspberry smoothies.  My favorite thing they do with their shakes though, is the Side-by-Side.  You can take two flavors of shakes and have them side by side in the same glass.  Create flavors such as Banocolate, Strawnana, Chocnilla, or MochaChocolate.

Another thing I like about the location I went to today is the fact that if you sit at the counter, you can see the food being made on the line.

View from the side

ORDER UP!

So if you’re ever in any of the states from Texas to Pennsylvania (excluding LA, VA, NJ, and MD), check this place out for a fun, nostalgic, good food served fast experience.  And if you want the best service from Steak n Shake, come to Springfield, MO.  Seriously, I scarcely had time to think “where’s the food?” when it was in front of me.  Excellent service. I leave you with some pics of my kids playing with the fold up cars  they gave us.

Amelie's car

Steak n Shake
Various locations throughout the Mid-West to East Coast

http://www.steaknshake.com/

Please allow me to introduce myself, I am a man of wealth and taste…I mean, I’m an old hometown friend of Todd and John who now lives in Norfolk,  VA, serving in the Navy aboard the mighty warship USS Nitze.  Recently, I was asked to contribute to the blog.  I have my own blog and will continue it, but also will be contributing here.

Enough of the pleasantries, down to business.  This afternoon, my division on the ship had our Christmas party at Jillian’s, a Dave & Buster’s-esque restaurant in the Waterside building in downtown Norfolk.

For those unfamiliar with D&B’s, it’s like Ruby Tuesday’s meets Chuck E. Cheese.   Basically, a family restaurant/bar with a huge arcade.   Basically, you can eat great food, drink beer and play videogames and skee-ball all in the same place.

I started my meal with a 23 oz Guinness

Never a wrong time...

and ordered a BBQ Bacon Burger, one of Jillian’s signature entrees.

stuid blurry camera phone!

Sadly, the only camera I had with me was my phone and the quality is lacking.

My two oldest kids both got mac and cheese with fruit punch.

almost as good as Mom's...

My wife, Amy, ordered the damn near biggest taco salad I’ve ever seen (another Jillian’s specialty).

Eat your heart out, Taco Bell...

My meal, as well as the girls’ included a $10 game card, so after enjoying our meals, we played some games.

After some gameplaying, which I neglected to  take pictures of, one of my fellow sailors ordered Jillian’s Killer Cake

It's bigger than you think...

We all (about 10 of us) shared it and there was still this much left…

Overall, this place was pretty cool.  The girl’s meals were only $4.99 and with a $10 game card, it was basically free twice over.  Mine was $14.99 with the game card (would have been about $10 without it).  Amy’s salad was about $8. My ginormous Guinness was $5.95, which is pretty decent for the area.  Overall, with tax and tip, I spent about $50.   Pretty decent lunch for 4, plus games.   My kids won a bunch of tickets and we got some prizes.  I got some Bubba teeth, Audrey, my oldest, got a bottle pop.  Amelie, my middle girl, got a paper fan, and we also got some Mike and Ike’s.  I noticed after we spent all the tickets (357) that had I been selfish, I could have gotten a Jillian’s pint glass.  Oh well, next time…

http://norfolk.jilliansbilliards.com/

333 Waterside Drive
Norfolk, VA 23510
757.624.9100 Phone
757.624.9500 Fax

Every town should have a great burger joint, and I am in no way referring to gourmet restaurants that have decided to begin offering their version of a burger, all gussied up with exotic toppings or ingredients.   Sometimes gourmet burgers are pretty simple, but most achieve “gourmet” status by using things like aged cheddar from Vermont, aged beef from Scotland or Japan, and ciabatta buns from some local bakery.  Others just pile on the fixins: avocados, artisanal bacon, blue cheeses, washed-rind cheeses, weird aiolis, relishes and chutneys, greens and microgreens, pestos, wasabi, herb and spice blends, Spanish and Italian charcuterie, pineapple, ostrich, buffalo, moose, and roasted peppers are the stuff of gourmet burgers.  Thanks but no thanks Bobby Flay, I’ll take my burger without the habanero mango chutney with green chiles.

You know this place is legit just from the burger "Open" sign.

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce you to Krazy Jim’s Blimpy Burger, which should be the only thing listed after “burger joint” in the dictionary.  No fancy meat or gourmet bullshit, just great burgers with your normal fixings.   Krazy Jim’s Blimpy Burger is an Ann Arbor institution. It’s been there since 1953 and regularly gets “best burger” awards in any respectable local poll. It’s the food and the atmosphere that make Blimpy’s what it is. If you’re a fan of burgers, or local color, you won’t want to miss this joint.  If it looks familiar, it’s because it was featured on an episode of Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives.  Thanks Guy Fieri, for douching the place up a little bit.

What they’ve got is burgers made from freshly-ground beef, fixed a million ways (more, actually–someone did the math) and also a variety of vegetable side dishes based on the concept of “If You Deep Fry It, It Will Be Tasty.”  Blimpy’s has its own ordering system which you’re sure to screw up at first, but enduring the gruffness is part of the experience. When you get there, go to the end of the line. Get your desired drink from the cooler, and get a tray. if there are two of you, get two trays. Study the menu, knowing that a single burger is not enough for a normal person.  A double may not do the trick either.  When I say study the menu, I mean if you order improperly you will be told.  On a cell phone?  Expect to have something thrown at you.  If you’re a Blimpy virgin, here is your complete guide to ordering your burger.  This is important, so read carefully.

1. First, you’ll want to grab a drink from the cooler, or as of late, get a cup and fill it up at the fountain (Coca-Cola and Coke products are exclusively available here).

2. After getting your drink, grab a tray.  Even if you’re 6 years old and can’t see over the counter.  I’m serious.  Also, do not share a tray.  One per person.  You’ll be asked for your selection of items from the deep fryer, I suggest fries or onion rings.

3. Now is the moment you’ve been waiting for: ordering the burger; now pay attention here.

This is how you order your burger: State the number of patties you’d like (1-5, with it costing a dollar extra for each one after that), the type of bun you’d like (plain w/ or w/o seeds, or an onion, kaiser, or pumpernickel roll), and if you’d like anything grilled. DO NOT MENTION CHEESE, yet.

But there’s more explaining to be done than just this. First of all, the patties are quite small. Ordering just one isn’t even allowed, unless you’re under five. A double is a good amount for some, generally younger kids, ages 5-8, but everyone’s different. Triples are the most popular, but in my opinion the quad or the quint is the way to go.  There’s not any explanation needed for the bun, and as for grilled items, people have varying tastes. Grilled items include onions, mushrooms, banana peppers, bacon, egg, and salami. Shifting back to the ordering process, although you now know the format of an order, it’s quite discourteous to the over-worked Blimpy staff to slow up while you’re ordering. Everything else is very fast-paced, so the ordering should be too. For instance, you shouldn’t say, “Well…I guess I’ll have a burger with some onions, and um…a regular bun, oh yeah, and make that a triple.” It’s not that that isn’t a correct order, it’s just too drawn-out. A good order would be, “I’ll have a triple, regular bun, onions grilled.”

4. As the burger is almost done being grilled (and this is entertainment in and of itself), you’ll be asked what kind of cheese you’d like. There are quite a few selections, american, cheddar, swiss, provolone, blue, and feta.

5. After this, you will be asked for your condiments. Start with the wet stuff first (mayo, mustard, ketchup) then anything else you’d like (lettuce, pickles, tomato, olives, peppers, etc.) Don’t just say you want everything because you probably don’t. Then, finally, you are ready to feast upon one of the best burgers you will ever have.

In my opinion, these burgers rank with some of the best in the country.  Period.  The key to understanding their burger is to take a step back and look at where you are at.  You are on a college campus in a burger joint themed as a 50’s diner.  Is the service friendly?  No – it is not supposed to be.  Service is designed to be efficient and it works when people order correctly.   Are the burgers healthy?  NO.  It is a burger that is cooked on a griddle so yes there will be some grease!   But do they taste good?  Absolutely and without question.   Why do they taste good?  Simple – high quality ingredients and a fabulously seasoned griddle top.  The ground western chuck is ground daily on site.  You are not going to get fresher burger meat anywhere and the flavor shines through, so much so that people have thought that they cut the burger with ground pork because it is so flavorful.  The fresh bun selections are incredible, and the onion roll is as good as you can get anywhere. The variety of cheeses is equally impressive.   The veggies are fresh, the brownies and cookies are homemade, the thick cut french fries are perfect for vinegar dipping, and the onion rings and fried zuchini are near famous.

My personal favorite is a quint, which is 5 patties, topped with a fried egg, bacon, cheddar cheese, with ketchup, mustard, and mayo all on a kaiser bun.  I didn’t say it was the healthiest, I only said it was my favorite.

The way a burger should look

Napkins required

This picture brings tears to my eyes.

Remember when I said that the fries are thick cut?  I wasn’t lying.

I'm still trying to figure out where they get the giant potatoes for these things