Is Steak Shake Burgers All Beef
There are enough of burgers out there that could merits the proper name of steakburger. Every steakhouse in Chicago'south ritzy River N neighborhood offers a burger, many of them made from fancy grass-fed or dry out-aged cuts of beef, but very few of them put the word "Steakburger" on their menu. (Though some of them do offer steakburgers, or "steak burgers," or a burger with the word "steak" conspicuously included in the description.) While the word "steakburger" might denote a college quality of beef than what'southward establish in the typical "hamburger," the connotations of the word may be quite different.
Every bit far as I can tell, the discussion "Steakburger" gained prominence as a result of the rise of the Steak 'north Milkshake chain of restaurants. Steak 'n Milk shake was founded in the early on 1930s in Normal, IL, by Gus and Edith Belt. In the early days, Gus was said to roll a barrel of steaks–T-os, sirloin, and circular–into the dining surface area and grind it in full view of his customers, so they'd know that his "steakburgers" were made from actual steak.
I've been to many a Steak 'n Shake in my day–in my youth, it was the spot to cease during a late night road trip and go a Vanilla Coke for the road–only I've never seen a meat grinder publicly displayed in the dining room. I did, withal, have what was likely my almost horrifying restaurant experience at a Steak 'due north Shake in the mid 1990s, when one finally opened in my hometown of Quincy, IL. Some friends of mine and I stopped by for the thou opening, and the place was a anarchy of locals, a literal madhouse. We waited for a table to open up, saturday down, and ordered our burgers. With the first bite of my burger, the texture was off–I thought I'd gotten a particularly chewy bit of lettuce or something. With the second bite, I knew something was wrong. I opened upwardly the burger and found that the harried cook had neglected to remove the wax paper from the cheese before adding it to the sandwich.
I haven't been to Steak 'due north Shake too many times since so, but for the sake of learning about steakburgers, I stopped past the nearest i to my firm, on Harlem Avenue in Tinley Park, IL. (I will likely never return to the one in Quincy. 25 years has not dulled the horror)
Steak 'n Shake
Steak 'n Shake is all vivid whites and reds, chrome and polish. Information technology's also a fast-food-quality articulation in drag every bit a tabular array-service restaurant. The saving grace ought to be the burgers, which are purported to be the type of smashed/griddled crispy-edged burgers that I peculiarly like. I'll say this–they were improve than I remembered.
"Improve than I remembered" is not meant to be damning with faint praise, since the last Steak 'due north Milk shake burger I recall eating came garnished with wax newspaper, only it'south not meant to exist a rave review either. This was an edible burger, with some decent browning from the griddle.
Information technology wasn't bang-up though, merely a fairly run-of-the-factory fast food burger. And if y'all're a French fry person–Steak 'due north Shake's fries are shoestring-style, very thin, crisp, and decently seasoned. They are in fact and then thin that they do not retain heat very well, and are well on their way to becoming common cold by the fourth dimension they hit your tabular array. I'g not opposed to the idea of eating at Steak 'n Milkshake again, necessarily, just I tin't say I envision a gear up of circumstances that would bring that about.
Freddy's
Lately, the Kansas-based concatenation of Freddy'south Frozen Custard & Steakburgers has been making inroads into the Chicago area, and Mindy and I have been known to stop by the Orland Park location when we're out shopping, or dropping off our kids' outgrown clothes at the Goodwill adjacent door. They do the crisp lacy-edged burgers that I like quite well.
Similar to the "original" from Steak 'due north Milk shake, the "classic" from Freddy's is a double burger, though fully dressed information technology comes merely with ketchup, onion, pickle, and mustard. You can request grilled onions instead of raw, which I often do. I'm not certain why on this detail occasion they thought I meant one-half-grilled onions, half-raw.
The chips are also similar to the Steak 'northward Shake shoestring fries, though slightly better browned and seasoned. Freddy'due south too non only has "Fry sauce," a Utahn name for a mayo-ketchup combination that works bang-up for chips, but they also have Jalapeno fry sauce, a spicier version of the same. The jalapeno fry sauce is a new obsession of mine–sadly, the take-habitation version they sell in a clasp canteen is a little sweeter than what they serve in the store. Still, when the fries are actress skinny similar this, condimentation helps.
While there, I asked the managing director what the reasoning behind the give-and-take "Steakburger" was when describing their burgers. I was hoping for some kooky origin story similar the big meat grinder from Steak 'n Milkshake, or perhaps a description of which cuts of beefiness went into the grind.
Instead, he replied, "It means at least eighty% beef."
I paused. I considered. I tried to prompt him for a little more detail. "Do you mean vs. fat content? Is in that location a specific cut they use?"
"eighty% is a lot," he said. From nearby, the ghostly apparition of Freddy, the namesake of the restaurant concatenation, pointed at me and laughed.
Flo & Santos
Flo & Santos is a "Pizza & Pierogis" spot open up in Chicago'southward Southward Loop neighborhood for a few years now. I'd seen it mentioned in the recent Bon Appetit slice nigh Chicago-fashion thin-crust pizza recently, and when I saw they had an "Angus steakburger" on their carte du jour, I had to drag Mindy there for a lunch engagement. We sat in their beer garden on a sunny but not oppressively hot July twenty-four hour period, drank unsweetened iced tea, and took an hour or so away from our places of employment to be momentarily human being. Too to swallow a behemothic stack of onion rings.
Flo & Santos' pizza is that square-cutting crisp-crusted pizza that is sold in taverns all around Chicago, but a particularly good i, with some unique topping combination. Take Mindy'south choice for the day, the "Flo's Polish" pizza, combining sliced kielbasa with sauerkraut and crumbled bacon. We both thought it was spectacular, the smoky richness of both kielbasa and bacon cutting perfectly by the acerbity of the kraut, and somehow it's all happening on a crisp flatbread, glued together past a layer of cheese and a schmear of tomato sauce.
The burger was what I'd come to endeavor, though. While I'd love to requite yous a report on how Flo & Santos' chips compare to those at Steak 'n Shake and Freddy's, after that massive pile of onion rings and the pizza I decided to order the burger with a salad instead.
The salad was very lightly dressed, to the point where I wasn't sure if they'd meant to bring me out a dish of dressing on the side. And even so there was something glistening on those leaves, and information technology was pleasant plenty, specially when I got a bit of pepperoncini in the seize with teeth. The burger was thick, your standard pub-way burger, nicely browned and pink in the middle the way you'd want information technology. I honestly could not finish it, not due to any mistake with the burger only rather because I'd filled myself upwardly on onion rings and pizza.
The quality was splendid. I have no idea why it'due south a "steakburger" and I didn't think to ask. At that place don't appear to be any guidelines to the employ of the discussion, or any particular aesthetic it evokes. Burgers are fabricated from beef, and then are steaks. You lot tin brand a steak from almost any cutting of beef, and the aforementioned goes for burgers. Some steakburgers are 1930s-style sparse smashed patties, some are thick flattened orbs of high-quality beefiness. Some are served in high-finish steakhouses, and some are served at the drive-thru. While it may be interesting to speculate what the distinguishing characteristics of a steakburger may be, it seems to ultimately be a meaningless distraction from a more significant pursuit: Eat burgers. Be happy.
I like sandwiches.
I like a lot of other things too but sandwiches are pretty smashing
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Source: https://www.sandwichtribunal.com/2019/07/what-is-a-steakburger/
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