Road Tips

Brother Juniper's - Memphis, TN

During our trip to Memphis late last summer, my wife and I decided to try a place for breakfast that came highly recommended by someone at our hotel.  Brother Juniper's is a long-time favorite of locals around Memphis and is located just down the street from the University of Memphis.  We had breakfast there one morning and here's what we experienced.

The concept for Brother Juniper's started in San Francisco during the hippie days of the late 60's.  A handful of men started a Christian brotherhood group and founded the Raphael House in 1971 in the Tenderloin District in downtown San Francisco.  The Raphael House was the first shelter for homeless families in the area.  In 1979, the non-profit, non-government funded program started Brother Juniper's - named after Juniper, a follower of St. Francis of Assisi who made spectacular meals to give away to monks and sick people in the 13th century - as an in-house cafe that provided coffee for as little at 5 cents a cup and featured homemade breads.  Brother Juniper's was built on four foundations: food, family, community and church.   

The religious order grew during this time - estimates pegged the total number of members at around 1000 people at one point - and they began to branch out across the nation.  Brother Juniper's opened in places such as Boston, Atlanta, Memphis, Portland and Indianapolis.  

In the late 80's and early 90's, many of the religious order's members left to join the Eastern Orthodox Church leaving many of the Brother Juniper's to close.  The original Brother Juniper's in San Francisco closed in 1999 due to the lack of funds for an updated kitchen and for needed space for an after-school tutorial program.  

The Brother Juniper's in Memphis started in 1988 by Jonas Worsham who bought the place outright from the splintering religious sect in 1991.  In 1999, Worsham decided to move to Alaska to do missionary work and in stepped Jonathan and Pauline Koplin.  With nothing more than a handshake and the exchanging of money with Worsham, the Koplin's took over the Brother Juniper's College Inn running it with their two children, Sarah and Patrick.  

Jonathon Koplin was no stranger to Brother Juniper's.  He managed the San Francisco location in the late 80's and early 90's and the family moved to Memphis to take over what had become the last Brother Juniper's location in the nation.  In 2001, the Koplin's started Juniper Bakery, a small bakery that taught at-risk youths the art of making artisan breads and also teaching them the value of hard work.  They began a program in 2005 that sold Brother Juniper sauces, jams and jellies through local grocery stores where the profits were fed back into the community.   Both programs are now defunct, but you get the idea of what the Koplin's are trying to accomplish with Brother Juniper's.

But the biggest change for the Koplin's happened in 2009 when they decided to go to breakfast only.  They found that people who were coming in for lunch were still ordering breakfast.  The restaurant began closing at 1 p.m. (12:30's on Saturday) six days a week.  (They're closed on Monday.) 

We found Brother Juniper's on Walker Ave. down the way from the University of Memphis.  (see map)  The small parking lot behind the building had room for just one more car when we pulled in around 9:30.  As you walk into the place you'll encounter a combination art gallery/waiting area.  Jonathan Koplin took over the space connected to Brother Juniper's in 2008 and partnered with the LongRiver Art Gallery to place a number of artwork by local artists.  Since we were able to be seated right away, we wandered through the gallery after we finished our breakfast. 

We were seated in the main dining, a quaint area that sort of reminded me of an old time cafe.  There was a small counter with stools off to the side of the kitchen that looked like a throwback to the 1940's.  

While we were looking though the menu, our server Sarah stopped by to greet us and to see if we wanted any coffee.  I took a double espresso and Cindy got a regular cup of coffee.  

The menu isn't overly extensive at Brother Juniper's.  It consists mainly of egg dishes - omelets, primarily.  They have a number of open-faced omelets, as well.  Waffles, pancakes and French toast were also available.  

I was leaning toward an omelet - one that I could build on my own.  I ended up getting the cheddar cheese, sausage and portobello mushroom omelet.  I almost got roasted red peppers with my omelet, but decided this would be enough.  Since it's the South, I had my choice of grits or home fries.  I took the grits, of course.  I also had my choice of toast with a choice of Brother Juniper's housemade jam.  I got whole wheat toast with the blueberry jam.  

The omelet was thin, but folded full of sausage, cheese and chopped mushrooms.  It was actually a pretty good mixture of flavor.  However, the grits were outstanding.  When we vacationed in Savannah, GA, a few years ago, our hotel there had the best grits I'd ever tasted.  The grits at Brother Juniper's were as close to the grits I had experienced in Savannah.  And another highlight was the blueberry jam.  It's natural and sugar free giving the full taste of the blueberries with each bite.  It was so good that we had to pick up a jar of the blueberry jam to take home.    

Cindy got the Florentine open-faced omelet - one of the many open-faced omelets Brother Juniper's had on the menu.  It had gyro meat, olives, chopped tomatoes and topped with shredded feta cheese.  A small bowl of cheese grits came with the breakfast.  She thought the open-faced omelet was very good.  

Brother Juniper's isn't anything fancy, but the breakfast we had there was solid.  It has long been a favorite of the people of Memphis and has won may "Best of" awards for their breakfast over the years.  The service was fine, the place was clean and even though the background of the business is rooted in religion, we didn't get that "preachy" vibe at all.  We'd wholeheartedly recommend Brother Juniper's for breakfast if you get to Memphis.   

Adam's Smokehouse - St. Louis

Skip Steele is the Godfather of St. Louis barbecue.  He was one of the co-founders of the very good Super Smokers barbecue place (click here to see the entry on Super Smokers), then he became involved with former Super Smokers general manager Mike Emerson in Pappy's Smokehouse.  (Click here to see the entry on Pappy's.)  Steele and Brian Scoggins then opened Bogart's Smokehouse with Emerson as a partner in the place.  (Click here to see the entry on Bogart's.)  While at Pappy's, Steele mentored the two men who went out on their own and opened Adam's Smokehouse in October of 2013.  I had Adam's Smokehouse on my "have to visit" radar for a number of months before I finally went there on a recent visit to St. Louis.  

Emerson and Steele are two of the partners in Mothership, the corporation that oversees the operations for Pappy's and Bogart's and sold the license for Adam's Smokehouse to Frank Vinciguerra and Mike Ireland, both of whom worked at Pappy's for several years working with Emerson and Steele learning the trade from two masters.  (Pictured right - Mike Ireland and Frank Vinciguerra.  Photo courtesy Riverfront Times.)   Their close friend and co-worker at Pappy's, Adam Gaffney, died unexpectedly in 2012 at the age of 25 and to honor his memory they wanted to open their own place to celebrate Adam's love for both barbecue and sports.  They found a small location in St. Louis' Clifton Heights neighborhood and opened their doors about 15 months ago.  

Adam's Smokehouse is located on Watson Road, literally across the street from Chris' Pancake and Dining.  (see map) I first spotted Adam's when my wife and I dined at Chris' earlier this year, making a note because I had it on my "to-do" list of restaurants to visit.  (Click here to see the entry on Chris' Pancake and Dining.)  Parking is available on Watson Road, so I parked just down the street and walked back to Adam's Smokehouse.

It's not a big place - probably seating a couple dozen people, tops.  Dozens of pictures and posters of St. Louis sports teams adorn the walls.  The large windows up front help shine natural light into the place with fluorescent ceiling fixtures augmenting the brightness in the dining area.  The smell of the smoker was prevalent in the neighborhood on the cool day that I was there.  

Like both Pappy's and Bogart's, Adam's Smokehouse opens at 11 a.m. and is open until around 6 or 7 p.m., or until the meat runs out.  (They're closed on Monday and open until 4 p.m. on Tuesday.)   And, unfortunately for me because I like beer with my barbecue, Adam's - like Pappy's and Bogart's - doesn't sell beer.  I'm going to have to find out if these places are B.Y.O.B. establishments.  

The menu at Adam's Smokehouse is your typical barbecue fare, but both Vinciguerra and Ireland insist that it's different from Pappy's and Bogart's in both the cuts of meat and offerings.  One thing that I saw on their menu is tri-tip, something you just don't see at barbecue joints.  Like I'm wont to do at most barbecue places, I wanted to get a meat combo platter to try their brisket and pulled pork.  When I ordered at the counter I was told I got two sides.  Their pit beans were a given for me, but I wasn't certain what I wanted for my second side.  They had something called Billy Goat chips that were sort of a fried potato side, cole slaw, housemade applesauce, a pasta salad and potato salad.  When I asked the guy at the counter what I should get for my second side he immediately said, "We sell a lot of our potato salad.  It's got a little spicy kick to it."  Potato salad, it is!  

Not long after I found a table to sit at, a person brought out my barbecue plate.  There were ample amounts of sliced brisket and pulled pork piled on a bun crown.  The beans and potato salad also looked good to me. 

The first thing I tried was the pulled pork.  Although it was a tad dry to my liking, it still sort of melted in my mouth.  It had a hint of smoky flavor and was very good.  A bit more moisture in the pork would have made it outstanding.

The brisket more than made up for the very slight problem with the pork.  It was tender and moist with a bit of a smoke ring along the outside.  The brisket was some of the best I've had.  

They have three barbecue sauces at Adam's Smokehouse.  The Sweet Jane sauce is their regular sweet and smoky sauce.  They have a cranberry cayenne sauce that had an interesting blend of a fruity taste with a bit of a spicy taste on the back side.  I liked it, but not as much as other spicy sauces that I've had in the past.  The third sauce was a Carolina vinegar sauce that had a bit of a peppery taste.  Runny in its consistency, the Carolina vinegar sauce was actually pretty good, especially on the pork.  

Now, I normally like to jazz up most of the baked beans I get at barbecue joints with a combination of the sweet and spicy sauces.  But the pit beans at Adam's Smokehouse didn't need much help.  They had a nice sweet and smoky taste to them with bits of pork in with the thick sauce.  Not quite as good as the baked beans that I make at home, but these were excellent for a barbecue place.  

The potato salad did have a bit of a spicy taste to it, but it wasn't my favorite.  They were good, but I should have gotten a double order of the pit beans.  

As I was getting ready to leave, I was taking my plate toward the trash receptacle by the front counter.  Frank Vinciguerra came out and said, "Here, let me take those from you."  Then he asked, "How was it?  Did we do all right for you?"

I'll have to say that they did very well for me.  As big of a fan that I am of both Pappy's and Bogart's, I'll now have to include the barbecue at Adam's Smokehouse in my favorites in St. Louis.  The pork was very good - not the best - but still very good.  The brisket was outstanding.  And I really enjoyed the baked beans.  Pappy's and Bogart's are 1A and 1B in my book when it comes to barbecue in St. Louis.  Adam's Smokehouse is now 1C.  I don't think you can go wrong at any one of those places.    

Los Cabos II - Denver

My colleague Francois helped turn me on to Peruvian food during a visit to Montreal a couple years ago.  (Click here to see the entry on that experience.)  He lived in Peru for about six years working for the Peace Corps when he was in his 20's.  During the CEDIA Expo held earlier this year in Denver, Francois discovered a Peruvian restaurant that was literally around the corner from our hotel - Los Cabos II.  One night for dinner, our large group went there to give the place a try.  

Peruvian food is a rustic cuisine where people use what the land and sea will give them.  There are four distinct areas in Peru that dictates the cuisine - sea, coastal, mountains, and the jungle.  Peruvian chefs point to four different continents that have influenced their choice in food over the centuries.  There's the indigenous foods that were grown in the Andes mountains, a Spanish influence from European settlers, food recipes that were brought over from Africa by black workers in the 1800's, and an Asian influence from Chinese and Japanese settlers.  

Beans, corn, potatoes and quinoa are the four basic staples of Peruvian food with seafood, beef and grilled chicken as the three main choices with many people in the country.  Aji peppers is the key to Peruvian cuisine - they're only available in Peru and are virtually unknown outside of the country.  Many Peruvian dishes are made with fresh spices and herbs that are grown in Peru specifically for their recipes.  

In the early 80's, Francesca Ruiz immigrated to the U.S. from her hometown of Lima, Peru to find a better way of life.  Discovering a growing Peruvian immigrant population in Colorado, she and her husband, Hernan, opened the first Los Cabos in Denver in 1988.  Getting authentic Peruvian peppers and spices turned out to be a pretty tricky proposition.  But thanks to a fair trade agreement between the U.S. and Peru that was signed a little over five years ago, the Ruiz's can now get authentic Peruvian peppers, herbs and spices through distributors in Miami and Los Angeles.   (Photo courtesy VivaColorado.com)

As I said, Los Cabos II was just around the corner from our hotel in Denver on Champas St. just south of the 16th St. Mall.  (see map) It was around 7 p.m. when we got into Los Cabos II. (I don't know what ever happened to Los Cabos I.)  The place was dimly lit and sort of dreary at first glance.  But Peruvian artwork as well as a large stuffed llama next to the bar helped liven the place up a bit.  There were only a couple tables in use when we were seated.  

Francois called ahead and told them that 12 of us would be showing up.  At first, he was worried that they wouldn't be able to handle all of us at once and he would just order up some of their entrees for the table to try.  But he was told that, yes, the kitchen would allow for each of us to order our own entrees.  

The menu at Los Cabos II is evident of the multi-ethnicity of Peruvian food.  Tallarin Saltado is a Peruvian version of Chinese lo Mein with either beef or chicken.  Spanish Paella with rice, seafood, chicken and chorizo sausage was on the menu.  Parihuela is a Peruvian soup with octopus, white fish, clams and squid cooked in a spicy white wine sauce and a bay laurel broth.  

We all turned to Francois to help us navigate through the menu and he did a good job of explaining most of the dishes to us.  But first of all, drinks had to be ordered.  Wine, some frozen Peruvian-style drinks and the Peruvian beer Cusqueña were ordered up by various people at the table.  The problem started when we figured out that the guy taking the orders at the table was also the bartender.  It took nearly 15 minutes for me to get a beer.  That did not bode well for the remainder of the meal.  

After appetizers of excellent ceviche (a mixture of lime marinated seafood topped with cilantro and a dash of spicy aji pepper flakes) and fried calimari, it was time to order up the food for the main course.  The most popular item on the menu is the Lomo Saltado - seasoned strips of beef sauteed with tomatoes, onions, potatoes, red and green pepper that came with rice.  I ended up ordering that.  

Service was choppy all evening long and the entrees came out at staggered time.  My boss and one of my colleagues decided to share the paella - a large plate of rice with a mixture of calimari, shrimp and white fish with peppers and fresh herbs.  I believe it also had a little bit of chorizo with the paella, if I'm not mistaken.  They both said it was very good.    

Francois was seated next to me and he got Chupa de Camarones - a Peruvian shrimp chowder with milk broth, rice, boiled egg, onions and potatoes and seasoned with garlic, paprika and oregano.  He gave me a bite of it and it was quite good.  

In fact, I wish I would have gotten the Chupa de Camarones.  Everyone else at the table was served - some much sooner than others - including a couple three guys who also ordered the Lomo Saltado.  As everyone was eating, I was sitting there patiently waiting for my food.  Well, after about 10 minutes after the first dish and came to the table and everyone had been served their entrees I was no longer patiently waiting for my food.  

It was getting to the critical point where I just about got up and walked out - others at the table were apologizing for eating in front of me.  Finally, with most of the meals at the table well more than half-way eaten, my Lomo Saltado came to me with nary an apology from the server.  It was a colorful display of beef, tomatoes, potatoes, green and red peppers and fresh herbs.  The rice was formed into the shape of a small volcano.  While it looked promising, it was far from that.  The beef was severely overcooked and very tough to chew.  The vegetables were limp and lifeless.  It was like they put the dish on the stove and forgot about it.  I was highly disappointed.  

Francois needlessly apologized for my debacle as everyone else said that they liked their meals.  But mine was a disaster.  I have to give the server a bit of a pass as I've experienced tough conditions in the past with a guy trying to serve a large group.  The only problem was that it appeared that they only had one server to take care of a restaurant that was about half full by the time we finished our meal.  My colleagues may say different, but I was thoroughly disappointed with my meal and the level of service we received at Los Cabos II.  The experience was a debacle from the moment I sat down.   

Valley Inn Ale House - Pleasant Valley, IA

A place that we've known of for years, but never got around to going to until earlier this year is the Valley Inn Ale House in the Quad Cities suburb of Pleasant Valley.  We've gone by the Valley Inn for a number of years, but one evening with our neighbor Murray we decided to head over for drinks and something to eat.  

Pleasant Valley is one of the oldest towns in Iowa.  It was first settled in the early 1830's and the first business was an old grist mill that sat near where the Valley Inn stands today.  Soon thereafter, a sawmill was built nearby.  These two businesses helped with the development of early settlements in the immediate area.  

In the late 1830's or early 1840's a hotel/tavern was built on the spot where Valley Inn sits today.  The original rubble foundation still exists and is visible on the exterior of the restaurant.  Eventually, the second floor was turned into an elaborate ballroom before the place was turned into what was believed to be a gambling hall in the late 1800's.  The upstairs ballroom was eventually replaced by two apartments which remained in place before a complete remodel of the Valley Inn took place in 2012.

When Prohibition took hold in 1919, it was rumored that the Valley Inn became a speakeasy and hangout for organized crime members.  Al Capone was said to have frequented the Valley Inn before he was convicted on income tax evasion in 1931.  

The Valley Inn has undergone a number of owners over the years.  After serving in the army in World War II, Ambrose Carlin came home and bought the Valley Inn in 1948.  He ran the place for 30 years before he retired and his daughter Frances Devlin took over.   She ran it until 2007 when the Blaum family bought the place.   Curtis Blaum, who is also a partner in Hot Shots Nuclear Medicine, is listed as the owner.  

We pulled up to the Valley Inn on Valley Dr. on a Saturday evening.  (see map) The place was full of people and it was a nice enough night that a number of other people were on the patio out back.  The age mix of people in the place ranged from their early 20's into their 70's.  The interior of the place was very nice and very fresh.  The 2012 total renovation gave the place - what we were told - a very needed face-lift including a new kitchen and bar area.  

We ended up sitting at the end of the bar and ordered up something to drink.  Murray and I got beers - they have a pretty good beer list with around a dozen and a half beers on tap - and Cindy got a amaretto sour.  We were told that a wait for a table would be about 30 minutes, but Cindy said that she was fine eating at the bar that night.  Our bartender gave us menus to look through and figure out what we wanted that night.  

We befriended a fun older couple next to us who were getting food, too.  They got an order of the fried mushrooms.  Cindy doesn't care for mushrooms or we would have gotten an order ourselves for an appetizer.  The man was very friendly to us and he let us try a couple of the mushrooms to try.  I'll have to say they were very good - the batter was excellent.  

We ended up getting the fried cheese curds with the ranch dressing.  They were all right.  They're cheese curds - can't really screw up cheese curds.  They sure weren't the fried mushrooms, though.

Most of the items on the menu are appetizers, salads, sandwiches and burgers.  They did have a fish and chips as well as entrees such as a sirloin steak, mahi mahi, a barbecued pork chop and pineapple chicken that featured two marinated chicken breasts, grilled and topped with a pineapple salsa.  

The man next to us got the grilled pork tenderloin sandwich.  The guy was gracious when I asked if I could take a picture.  Murray, who was sort of the ring leader of fun that evening, told the guy as I was taking the picture, "Hey, he's got a famous blog!  You're gonna be famous!"   The grilled tenderloin was pounded flat, covered with two slices of American cheese and a dollop of grilled onions.   I almost went with that because it looked pretty damned good.

Murray ended up getting the shrimp basket - about a dozen battered shrimp that were deep fried and served with fries and a housemade cole slaw.  I'm not big on fried shrimp but Murray thought they were delicious.  

For some reason I ended up ordering the Ale House meatloaf.  It laid on a slice of sourdough bread and with their Ale House barbecue sauce and onion straws.  The combination of the meatloaf and the onions straws as it was described on the menu is what got me.  It was grilled before serving and came with mashed potatoes and steamed broccoli - neither of which I was very interested in, but Cindy was.  She was happy that I got the broccoli as it pretty much met her daily nutritional allowance of vegetables.  The meatloaf was actually pretty good.  And I really liked the onion straws with the barbecue sauce.  

Cindy got the black and blue cheeseburger - a 1/3 pound patty seasoned with black peppercorns and topped with crumbled blue cheese.  She got a side salad with the dinner and eagerly took the bulk of my steamed broccoli.  The burger had a bit of pink in the middle and was pretty juicy.  I had a bite and the combination of the black peppercorn and the blue cheese was a nice compliment to the beef.  The bun held together well and she really liked the burger.  

Here is a happy Murray giving the "thumbs up" after his shrimp dinner at the Valley Inn Ale House.  I promised him that I'd give him face time in the blog at some point.  Your 15 minutes of fame is now over, Murray.  

Not long after this picture was taken, a party bus came in and the place suddenly got packed with a bunch of 30-somethings out having a good time.  On the bus was Chad Pregracke, the man behind Living Lands and Waters, the non-profit environmental group based out of the Quad Cities and CNN's Hero of the Year for 2013.  I've known Chad for a number of years through his co-sponsorship of River Roots Live and he stood near the bar and talked to us while Murray entertained a handful of young women who were laughing at Murray's charming repartee.  Or maybe they were just laughing at Murray for trying to put the make on them.  He did have me take a picture of him and the girls, but a strategically placed hand by one of the participants pretty much ruled out a reprint on this blog.    

Since that night, Cindy and I have been back on a couple of occasions and I have to say that both times were disappointing.  Slow service, overcooked burgers, salty appetizers - both times it wasn't close to the experience of our first visit.  While we liked the ambiance of the place, we were turned off by the lack of consistency at the Valley Inn Ale House.  It will be sometime before we make it back, but we'll still be back at some point.  

Brick City Grill - Ames, IA

Since 2010, the Iowa Beef Industry Council has sponsored the Best Burger in Iowa contest.  My quest is to stop at the places that have been awarded the best burger title and up to now I was four for four with stops at 2010 winner Sac County Cattle Company (click here to see the entry), 2011 winner Rusty Duck (click here to see the entry), 2012 winner Coon Bowl III (click here to see the entry), and 2013 winner 61 Chop House (now closed - but click here to see the entry).  The 2014 winner is a place that I was somewhat familiar with, but had never been there before - Brick City Grill in Ames.  On a recent trip driving by Ames I stopped into Brick City to try one of their burgers.  

If you go back to review the places I've been to you'll see that I have not been happy with two of the four winners thanks to a very overcooked burger, mildly upset at one for a slightly overcooked burger, and happy enough with the fourth one, but it still wasn't the best burger I've ever had - even in Iowa.  I was hoping that some of the anomalies that happened with the previous winners wouldn't be the same with Brick City.  If the place served me an overcooked burger, then I would have seriously had to wonder about the credentials of the judges of the Best Burger contest.  

To get the Best Burger in Iowa it took owner Jason Mikkelsen less than a year of being in business to achieve that award.  Mikkelsen (pictured right - picture courtesy Farm Progress.com) had a background in the restaurant industry working for 18 years before opening Brick City Grill in May of 2013.  Mikkelsen, a native of rural Creston, had 18 years of restaurant experience before he got the chance to take over the old Brewers location in the Somerset neighborhood of Ames after it closed in April of 2013 after nearly 10 years of being in business.  

Mikkelsen added booth seating, about a dozen televisions and revamped the kitchen to accommodate the burgers that he would feature at his new restaurant.  And to get the burger meat just right, Mikkelsen has a proprietary chuck-based blend that is ground early each morning and delivered to the restaurant at 6 a.m. for daily consumption.  The burgers are hand-pattied, then flat grilled to keep the juices inside and the only seasonings added are minimal amounts of kosher salt and black pepper.  The brioche buns are the key to the burger at Brick City - as they are with most great burgers - and are more expensive than what you'll find at other burger joints.   

It was just after the noon hour rush when I pulled up to Brick City Grill on Stange Road in Ames.  (see map)  I found parking on the street just down the way from the place, but there is also a parking lot behind the establishment.  It is literally around the corner from another place in Ames that has a pretty good burger - The Cafe.  (Click here to see the entry on The Cafe.)  

After being greeted at the front door, I was seated at a booth along the street side of the building and given a menu.  They had a somewhat impressive list of beers at Brick City and I ended up ordered a Big Sky IPA while I looked through the menu.  

The dining area was open and bright with a lot of natural daylight coming through the windows.  Booths lined the walls and a number of wooden tables and chairs were in the middle of restaurant.  A long bar with high chairs was the most prominent feature of the place.  A number of bottled beers were visible in the glass-front refrigerators behind the bar.  

They had 9 burgers on the menu including one that immediately caught my eye - the 60/40.  It was 60 percent ground beef and 40 percent ground bacon.  I thought for a moment about getting that, but I wanted to try the burger that got them the Best Burger in Iowa award. 

But actually, there wasn't a notation on the menu as to which burger was the award winner.  Signs throughout the restaurant shouted that Brick City had the best burger, but I didn't know which one it was.  Their Classic burger was topped with lettuce, tomato, onions and dill pickles (cheese was extra).  The Bacon cheeseburger was topped with hickory smoked bacon and your choice of American, Swiss, cheddar or pepper jack cheese.  The Jalapeno Jack burger featured a spicy seasoned burger topped with pepper jack cheese, slice jalapenos and a housemade chipotle mayo sauce.   And they had a Pretzel burger served on a pretzel bun and topped with American cheese, bacon and 1000 Island dressing.

They also had things other than burgers on the menu at Brick City Grill.  They had a number of appetizers, salads and sandwiches including a reuben sandwich, grilled or fried chicken sandwiches, a B.L.T. and a beef brisket sandwich.  Entrees included grilled salmon, a smoked pork chop and a 12 ounce rib-eye that is glazed in a sauce with a Jack Daniels base.  And they also had hot dogs on the menus including the KC Royals BBQ Dog - it's the Brick City knock-off of the great All-Star Dog sold at the Dugout Dog House at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City.  (Click here to see my entry on Kauffman Stadium.)  It could be the best thing I've ever eaten at a major league baseball park.   

When my server came back around to get my order, I asked her what the award winning burger was and she told me, "Well, actually all of them are the award winners."  I was sort of incredulous because I know how the nominating process works for the Best Burger in Iowa contest.  Only one burger can be nominated.  But, it could be that all the burgers on the menu had gotten enough nominations, but I doubt it.  

With that out of the way, I decided upon getting the Worcestershire burger - a burger patty topped mushrooms sauteed in Worcestershire sauce and Swiss cheese.  I asked if I could get some bacon on it, as well, and she said that would be no problem.  For sides, I had my choice of a salad, fries, mashed potatoes or fresh vegetables to name a few.  But then I saw that they had tater tots and I couldn't pass those up.  

The burger came out about 15 minutes after I ordered it and it was sitting high and pretty on the plate.  The presentation was outstanding.  I could only hope that the burger tasted as good as it looked.  

From the first taste, I knew I had a winner.  Even with the Worcestershire-tinged sauteed mushrooms, bacon and Swiss cheese, I could tell the burger had great flavor, a nice ground texture to it kept it all together, and it was certainly juicy.  The brioche bun held together very well and was a perfect compliment to the burger.  

Even the tater tots were very good.  They had a nice crispy outer shell with a flaky potato inner core.  This was a very good lunch.  

With apologies to the Rusty Duck - whose burger I felt was very good - the burger at Brick City Grill may have been the first Best Burger in Iowa that I felt was worthy of the honor.  The burger patty was big and juicy, the Swiss cheese was fresh and pungent, the sauteed mushrooms had a subtle Worcestershire tang, and the bacon had a nice crispy taste that added an overall tasty flavor to an already very good burger.  Finally, a Best Burger in Iowa worthy of being called the best burger.  

Super Smokers - Eureka, MO

Years ago, I used to work for a company out in the far western St. Louis suburb of St. Peters.  Across Interstate 70 from our office was a Super Smokers barbecue restaurant.  It was probably the first of what has turned out to be a number of excellent barbecue places in the St. Louis area.  But nearly 9 years ago they all just sort of disappeared.  Only one remains open today - the Super Smokers in the southwest St. Louis suburb of Eureka.  Coming back to St. Louis from a day trip to Springfield, MO, I stopped into Super Smokers to get reacquainted with their barbecue.  

Terry Black was an Arkansas native whose day job was as a pharmaceutical representative, but on weekends he'd team up with his old college roommate, Walter "Skip" Steele and their friend Ron Skinner to compete in barbecue competitions.  Like many competitive barbecue teams, they decided to start selling their award winning barbecue to the public.  In 1995, the trio started to do catering work with their barbecue before opening their first restaurant in Eureka in 1997 featuring Memphis-style (dry-rubbed) barbecue to the people of St. Louis.  

And with their success, they grew and grew at a dizzying rate.  Super Smokers had 7 locations in the greater St. Louis area by 2000.  It was, by far, the most popular barbecue place in St. Louis.  They also had satellite locations in local grocery stores where people could pick up pre-cooked meat, and each home game for the St. Louis Rams they'd have a tent with a smoker set up outside the stadium.  

During all of this, they continued to enter competitions.  In 1999 at the prestigious World Barbecue Championship Cooking Contest as part of the Memphis in May celebration in Memphis, TN, the group garnered second place in the whole hog competition.  A year later, with a hand-picked hog, they trio won first place in the same category.  

Now, if you're a regular reader of Road Tips, you may recognized Skip Steele's name.   After selling his shares of Super Smokers, Steele ventured to Las Vegas to help start a barbecue place there.  In a short time, however, he was back in St. Louis helping develop Pappy's Smokehouse with former Super Smokers general manager Mike "Smokey" Emerson.  Steele was the first pit master for Pappy's and Emerson had been learning from Steele for years at both Super Smokers and on the competition trail.    (Click here to see the entry on Pappy's Smokehouse.)

In late 2010, Steele and one of the partners in Pappy's, Brian Scoggins, broke away and started Bogart's Smokehouse in the Soulard neighborhood of St. Louis.  (Click here to see the entry on Bogart's Smokehouse.)  You can flip a coin to see which place has better barbecue - both are winners in my book.  

While things were going great for Super Smokers going into the 21st century, the economy tanked in 2001 causing some financial problems for the small chain.  In 2003,   Ron Skinner passed away from a heart attack.  Super Smokers was feeling the effects of post 9/11 with high gas prices causing people not to venture out as much and they had two unprofitable years in a row.  Toward the end of 2005, Super Smokers' bank called in the loan and Terry Black was forced to declare personal bankruptcy.  The bank took over the Super Smokers locations in January of 2006 closing them all.  

This is where friends came in to help Terry Black regain his footing.  The landlord of the original Super Smokers in Eureka, Bob Gudermuth, rebuffed many attempts of other restaurants to take the space that Black gave up.  Paul Endraske, the president of River Town Food Corporation, bought the rights to the Super Smokers name and began to sell the myriad of barbecue sauces that Black had helped develop over the years.  (After Super Smokers closed, River Town Food was selling over 2000 cases of the barbecue sauces in a month to local grocery stores.)  He leased the Super Smokers name back to Terry Black.  And Jerry Ackerman, the owner of Ackerman Toyota in St. Louis, came in with financial backing.  By March, everything was in place for Super Smokers to reopen in the original Eureka location, and in May, Black re-opened the doors to Super Smokers hiring back 16 of his original workers.

Pictured right - Terry Black in front of his "secret weapon" - a Cookshack industrial smoker with apple wood.  Picture courtesy Patch.com.

I believe that the group has opened a couple of other Super Smokers locations since they reopened in 2006.  I know that they had a Super Smokers location in the planned community of WingHaven in St. Charles County, but that closed in 2013.  

It had been a long day on the road with a couple meetings in Springfield when I got into Eureka around 7:30.  I knew that Super Smokers was a B.Y.O.B. place, so I stopped off at a liquor store in Eureka to pick up a six pack of my current favorite beer Kona Big Wave Golden Ale.  I pulled into the parking lot at the corner of N. Central and Stockell Dr. just north of Interstate 44 and where old Route 66 used to be.  (see map)

I had not been to this Super Smokers location in my previous visits to one of their many locations.  It seemed like it was a true barbecue shack with hand-written menus on paper stuck to the walls by the front counter.  Trophies of their previous competition wins were on display up front.  All the barbecue staples are available - ribs, pulled pork or chicken, brisket and turkey.  I ordered up one of their combo plates with the pulled pork and brisket.  I got a couple sides with that and I remembered their beans were always pretty good, so I went in that direction.  I was going to get their sweet and sour cole slaw - also a favorite of mine from years ago - but I was informed that they were out of the cole slaw that evening.  Bummer.  So, I cut my losses and went with the fries. 

I found a table in the back corner of the dining room.  The main dining room featured a number of tables with bench seats with a dizzying amount of paraphernalia on the walls.  There is the "party room" on the front of the restaurant that had large windows letting in natural light.  I was happy enough where I was seated.

Not more than 5 minutes after I'd ordered at the front counter, a young lady brought out my barbecue plate.  I ordered the large platter - 12 ounces each of the brisket and pulled pork.  When she set it in front of me, I began to wonder if I'd ordered too much.  (Smaller 8 ounce platters are available, as well.)  There was a lot of food on the plate.  Half slices of Texas toast delineated the two meats.  

On the table - as it was in the past - were six different bottles of barbecue sauce.  It was said that years ago Terry Black read that the St. Louis area was the second largest consumer of barbecue sauces in the nation.  He decided during the first incarnation of Super Smokers that he'd put multiple types of barbecue sauce on the table - the first to do so in the St. Louis area.  I'm a sauce kind of guy and I love to try different sauces and even make combinations (sweet and hot is probably my favorite ones to combine).  More on the sauces in a bit.  

The pulled pork was the kind that sort of melted in your mouth.  It was tender and juicy with a lot of a good apple wood smoked flavor.  It wa simply delicious.  The brisket wasn't far behind.  Thin cuts of beef brisket were plentiful on the plate and while the meat was tender, I didn't get the smoky taste like I got with the pulled pork.  Also, there didn't seem to be much of a smoke ring on the outer side of the brisket.  Still, it was very good.  

The beans weren't as good as I remembered them to be.  I mean, they were fine, but I seemed to remember the Super Smokers beans as being excellent in the past.  Now, it had been nearly 12 years since I was last at a Super Smokers, so I'm sure that my memory may have failed me on that part.  The beans were sweet with a bit of molasses and brown sugar mixed in.  When I put in some of the Kansas City sauce (sweet and smoky) and the Texas Hot barbecue sauce (sneaky hot) in with the beans to zip them up, I liked them a little bit more.  

The fries were crinkle cut and pretty much more of a throwaway for me.  But I did use them to sample some of the different sauces before I decided which ones to use on the meats.  As I said, the Kansas City sauce was a sweet and smoky thick barbecue sauce that was very good.  The Texas Hot certainly got my attention, but it seemed to have a strange aftertaste along with the slow burn.  Not unpleasant, mind you.  But one that left an aftertaste where I wasn't certain that I liked it or not.

The Sweet Carolina was a sweet vinegar mustard sauce that I didn't like at all - I've never been a big fan of that style of sauce.  The St. Louis sauce was a mild tomato-based sauce that was about as neutral as you could get in a barbecue sauce.  And the Tennessee sauce was, well, I really didn't know what to think of it.  First of all, I couldn't get a grasp of what types of flavors I was experiencing with the Tennessee barbecue sauce.  It was good, but it was probably fourth on the list of the sauces I liked at Super Smokers.

The barbecue sauce that I really liked is Super Smokers Championship barbecue sauce.  This was the first sauce that the team of Terry Black, Skip Steele and Ron Skinner came up with and it garnered them their first championship ribbon in 1989 at the Arkansas State Barbecue Championships.  It has a peppery aftertaste to it that I really liked giving it a bit of a spicy bite that went well with the sweetness on the front end.  

You ever have one of those meals where you know you're overeating to all get out, but you can't stop?  That was my meal at Super Smokers that evening.  The combination of the barbecued meats, the sauces, the beans and even the fries with the barbecue sauce on them were all very good.  I think I left a handful of fries, maybe a couple bites of Texas toast and pools of barbecue sauce on my plate.  I was stuffed!

It was great to get back to Super Smokers after all these years.  St. Louis has been making tremendous inroads with their barbecue over the past 10 years and Super Smokers is probably the one who started the revolution.  The barbecue was very good and there was a lot of it.  If you ever go to St. Louis on a barbecue quest, I suggest you start out with Super Smokers and go from there.  

Blend - Paris

My colleague, Simon, had taken a vacation earlier in the summer to Paris with his wife.  One afternoon I was sitting in my office and I got a text message from him.  He texted, "When you come here for your training, if you want a VERY good burger, try 'Blend' - it's awesome!"  I talked to my colleague Ian about going there and while he didn't initially seem to be too whippy to go have a burger in Paris, Simon's exuberance about the place pretty much convinced him that we needed to give the place a try.  After getting into Paris via taxi from the airport, checking into our hotel and settling in, we set out to find Blend.  

After years of Frenchmen looking down their noses, decrying the burger as "American culinary scourge", they're beginning to become a staple in the French diet as they are in the U.S.   Since the culinary arts run deep in France, the quest to make the "perfect" burger has become a holy grail for many French chefs.  And Blend founder Victor Garnier is one of those who believed that he could make a burger that the French would favor.  

Garnier was an French foreign exchange student living in Malibu (What a great place to be an exchange student!) and he fell in love with American burgers.  The In-N-Out "Double Double" became an all-time favorite of his, but then he was exposed to gourmet burgers that featured blended meats.  He traveled across the U.S. trying a number of different burgers before going home to France.  

Garnier knew that there were gourmet burgers at high-end restaurants in Paris, but he wanted to bring a gourmet burger to the masses.  He came up with the concept for Blend and set out to develop a burger that was worthy of French culinary standards.  

He turned to artisan butcher  Yves-Marie le Bourdonnec, the owner of the famous butcher shop - or boucherie - Le Couteau d’Argent in the Paris suburb of Asnieres, to come up with the right blend of meat for his new venture.  Le Bourdonnec has long been a supplier of top grade beef to restaurants in Paris and his philosophy of the best type of burger is a lean mixture (no more than 5 to 8% fat versus muscled beef) and grinding the beef for nearly immediate consumption.  Using matured beef from both France and Ireland, Garnier and le Bourdonnec worked for a year to come up with the right blend that would be flavorful, but not so expensive that normal French people would have to dig deep in their pockets to enjoy.  The mixture of meat is sent to Blend each day and "minced" (ground) as needed in the kitchen.  

Pictured left - Yves-Marie le Bourdonnec and Victor Garnier.  Picture courtesy Philippe Servent Photography.  

Once Garnier conquered the correct blend for his burger meat, he turned to an American ex-patriot - Camille Malmquist - to help make the artisan buns and desserts that he envisioned in his restaurant.  Malmquist was a pastry chef from the Pacific Northwest who worked in restaurants in the U.S. until she moved to Paris in 2008.  In addition to working in restaurants in Paris, she is also a writer and has contributed to on-line web sites such as Secrets of Paris and Girls' Guide to Paris and she also has her own blog site - Croque Camille - but she hasn't had much action on that lately.  She also wrote recipes for buns and desserts in Victor Garnier's 2013 book Hamburger Gourmet.  A girl after my own heart, Malmquist is also a beer connoisseur and her quest is to seek out good beer in what is a burgeoning craft beer scene in Paris.  

Garnier then consulted with a French cabinet maker who ended up making the tables and butcher block stools with the Blend hamburger logo embedded in them.  With everything in place, Garnier opened Blend in 2012 and it was an immediate hit.  It was called by one reviewer as "The Best Hamburger in the Capital."  Due to popular demand, a second Blend location was opened in 2013 and a third location opened earlier this year.   

Our hotel was less than a 10 minute walk from the original Blend location.  Well, it would have been less than a 10 minute had my internal GPS been functioning.  I always get screwed up with directions when I go to Paris.  My sense of direction is completely out of kilter.  And because the streets don't always go North/South or East/West, I have trouble figuring out where I am.  (Downtown Minneapolis is the same way for me.)  What got me this time was going through the circle at Place des Victories.  We took the wrong street spoke off Place des Victories, not once, but twice.  Plus it was starting to rain.  Ian took a look at the map that was provided for us at the hotel and said that maybe we needed to go another direction.  Down a street, then a quick turn on Rue d'Argout and we found Blend.  (see map)

It was around 1 p.m. when we got there and, understandably, the place was packed.  Blend is not a big place to begin with.  It seats - maybe - 30 people if you cram everyone in. There were a number of people milling about in front of the place, but it turned out that many were waiting on orders to go.  We stood under a canopy out of the drizzling rain and took a look at an English menu one of the young ladies up front gave to Ian.  When a table came open about 10 minutes later, we went inside.

The menu isn't long at Blend - four different burgers, a grilled chicken sandwich and a veggie burger.  It was a pretty easy pick for both of us - we went with their signature Cheesy burger that is topped with cheddar cheese, bacon, zucchini pickles, fried onions, iceberg lettuce and housemade ketchup.  We both got an order of French fries with the housemade ketchup.  

The burgers came out and they were cut in half.  The bun was fluffy with lots of air pockets in the crown.  The cheese was oozing off the top of the burger.  It was a thick burger, I'm guessing probably the equivalent of a 1/3 of a pound.  And the taste was, well, it was exquisite.  It was different.  It wasn't like an American flat-grilled or char-grilled burger.  It almost tasted like it was steamed.  The blend of the meat was quite possibly the reason.  The grind was very fine and held together very well.  The total taste of the burger was excellent.  This was truly an outstanding burger.

The fries were sprinkled with fresh parsley and they were crispy on the outside and spongy on the inside.  They were fine along with the housemade ketchup that had a sweet vinegar taste to it.  But the star of the meal was the burger.  

Even Ian - who was initially disdainful of Simon's suggestion - said that he thought the burger at Blend was very good.  And it was.  This would be a great burger place if it was anywhere in the States.   Even weeks after we were in Paris, Ian and I are still extolling the virtues of the burger that we both had at Blend.  The French are definitely catching up with the Americans when it comes to good burgers. 

Port Cape Girardeau Restaurant and Lounge - Cape Girardeau, MO

On our trip between Memphis and St. Louis a few weeks ago, we had contemplated staying the night in Cape Girardeau having a nice dinner for an anniversary we were having and then heading back to Iowa the next morning. However, we found that many of the nice "fine dining" restaurants in the town were out of business.  We decided to head up to St. Louis for the evening.  But it wasn't before we stopped at a place in downtown Cape Girardeau for lunch - Port Cape Girardeau Restaurant and Lounge.  

Port Cape, as it's known to the locals, celebrated their 40th anniversary this year.  The building that houses the restaurant dates back to the 1830's making it one of the oldest buildings still standing west of the Mississippi.  Gen. Ulysses S. Grant used the building as an office during the Civil War.  During Prohibition, it housed a bootlegging operation and was basically abandoned in the early 60's.  

Missouri native David Knight came back to his home state after graduating college in Arkansas and teaching at a college in Alabama.  Upset that the old structure was sitting empty for so long and in such a state of disrepair, Knight bought the building along the riverfront in Cape Girardeau with the idea of putting in a restaurant with an emphasis on barbecue.  Along with his sister and brother-in-law who went in on the venture with him, Port Cape opened in 1974.  

Knight grew up in Poplar Bluff and one of his best friends, Dale Pruitt, worked in the Pruitt family's barbecue place.  When Knight opened his place in Cape Girardeau, he asked Pruitt to come to work for him at his new restaurant.  Pruitt eventually worked at Port Cape for 38 years - becoming the honorary mayor of Water Street - before he passed away in 2012.  

Dave Knight and his brother built a large brick barbecue pit in the restaurant.  He was able to control the temperature by opening or closing a damper in the flue.  The problem was that the flue went three stories up and there were times when the fire would flare up and cause problems.  After the third time the fire department had to come and douse the fire in the pit, Knight decided that he had to build a better smoker. Out of that came another company that grew into one of the most popular commercial grade smokers on the market today - Ole Hickory Pits wood burning smokers.  

With the success of Ole Hickory Pits, Knight decided to sell Port Cape to someone who could spend more time running the business.  In 1988, Dennis "Doc" Cain bought the restaurant and bar.  Cain's son, James, had a degree in culinary arts and had moved back to Cape Girardeau to run two fine dining restaurants - both of which sadly failed soon after they opened.  In 2012, James Cain joined his father in Port Cape as the head chef.  Earlier this year, the Cain's opened CQ (the Captain's Quarters) in what was the banquet facility of the building.  It features more of an upscale menu than what is offered at Port Cape.  As I said, Cape Girardeau used to have some fine dining restaurants in the 80's and 90's when I first began to travel there for work.  But they're all closed up.  I'm hoping that the old "third time's a charm" works for James Cain with CQ.  

We found a parking spot on Water Street in front of Port Cape (see map) and walked into the first door we found.  It turned out that we had walked into the lounge area of the restaurant.  

The bar, itself, wasn't large, but had a nice back bar filled with liquor.  The lounge had a nautical theme including a large ship's wheel on the wall.  It was just a bartender and a man sitting at the bar and I asked if this was where we could get something to eat.  The bartender pointed us down a hallway toward the dining room.

We went down the hall, past a number of articles on Port Cape that were hanging on the wall, and found the dining room to the place.  There were only a couple other people in the dining area so the server who greeted us said we pretty much had our choice of where we wanted to sit.   

The dining room was spacious and featured long rows of tables with sturdy wooden chairs.  Antique fixtures and artifacts were hung on the wall or sitting on shelves.  The original brick walls dating back to the mid 19th century gave the room an old time feel.  

Along the south side of the dining room was what amounted to an ice cream parlor.  Rows of ice cream in tubs were in the glass enclosed counter.  We were told that the ice cream part of Port Cape is a popular place in the evening.  

Our server dropped off menus for us and I immediately ordered a Deschutes Inversion IPA.  My initial reaction was that I was impressed that the place had a good beer like Deschutes (out of Oregon) available on tap.  

The menu was slanted toward barbecue, but they also had a number of appetizers and salads, as well as burgers and sandwiches.  Dinner entrees included a charbroiled filet steak, fried catfish, grilled salmon and a smoked rib-eye steak that actually sounded sort of intriguing.  

After thinking about getting a burger, I ended up getting the brisket and pimento cheese sandwich.  It was served on toasted Texas toast and came with an ample side of what they called steak fries, but were nothing more than hand-cut fries.  A small amount of a smokey and sweet barbecue sauce came with the sandwich.  

The sandwich was filled with thin cuts of the smoked brisket and topped with pimento cheese.  Quite actually, the brisket was very good and the combination of the taste of the pimento cheese with the brisket was a great combination.  The fries were basically a throwaway for me.  It was like they had been made a half hour earlier and put into a warming bin.  But the sandwich - especially the brisket - was very good.

Cindy ended up getting the Gala apple salad with marinated grilled chicken.   The salad featured sliced Gala apples with chopped walnuts and shaved red onions on a bed of spinach and topped with chunks of gorgonzola cheese and a citrus vinaigrette.  Cindy's been on some spinach kick recently, trying to eat better or something like that, and as soon as she saw the spinach salad with the Gala apples she went for that.  She said she was very happy with her choice, but she was having a tough time finishing the salad. 

My dealer in Cape Girardeau just semi-retired and closed his doors after over 30 years in business so I probably won't be getting back to "Cape" anytime soon.  But if I do, I think I'd like to come back to Port Cape and give the barbecue a try.  With what I experienced with the brisket and pimento cheese sandwich, I'm somewhat intrigued by what else they may have in terms of barbecue.  Port Cape was a nice little stop for a late lunch and we were both happy with what we got.  

Park Burger - Denver

My all-time favorite burger continues to be the one from the Cherry Cricket in Denver.  (Click here, here and here to read about the Cherry Cricket.)  But I've been told that some of the locals prefer another place that is famous for their burgers, a place called Park Burger with four locations around the greater Denver area.  During the CEDIA Expo that was held earlier this year in Denver, my colleague Simon and I sought out the Park Burger location in the Highlands neighborhood of Denver to see if they had as good of a burger - if not better - than the Cherry Cricket.  

The man behind Park Burger is Jean-Philippe Failyau, a graduate of the French Culinary Institute (now the International Culinary Center), a highly intensive training school for chefs in New York City.  He worked as Chef-de-Cuisine at fine dining restaurants in New York and San Francisco before becoming the chef and part owner of Osteria Marco in Denver's Larimar Square district.  

Failyau and his wife, Jennfier, settled in the Platt Park neighborhood about a mile south of downtown Davenport.  Wanting to start up a small gourmet burger place in the neighborhood, he founded and opened Park Burger at the corner of S. Pearl St. and E. Jewell St. in 2009.  (see map)  The place wasn't very big and it immediately gained the attention of both local burger lovers and national media with his Harris Ranch sourced ground beef.  Bon Appetit called Park Burger one of the best new burger joints in the nation in 2010.  

The success of Park Burger allowed Failyau to open a second location in the Highlands neighborhood of Denver in 2010 and followed with a third location in Denver's Uptown area in 2012.  A fourth location in the River North (RiNo) neighborhood just north of Coors Field opened earlier this fall.  

It was to the Highlands location that we ended up going that particular evening. (see map)  A parking spot opened up in front of the place on W. 32nd Ave. just as we pulled up.  

The Highlands Park Burger is not a large place.  It features a number of banquette seats along a wall with a small number of tables throughout the place.  There was a small bar in front of the kitchen area.  

We took a seat at a table along the wall.  Simon took the banquette bench seat and I took the chair.  We were given menus and took a look at what beers they had to offer.  They had a number of Colorado and Western breweries available, some in bottle, some on tap.  I got a bottle of the Avery IPA from Boulder and Simon got a Stone IPA out of San Diego. 

Park Burger featured 10 specialty burgers on their menu.  The Croque burger is one of their most popular - a 1/3 pound burger patty topped with ham, Swiss cheese and a fried egg.  They also has a burger called El Chilango that was topped with jalapenos, guacamole and cheddar cheese.  The Scarpone burger was topped with a crispy pancetta giardiniera, provolone cheese and truffled garlic aioli.  They also had a lamb burger, an ahi tuna burger, and a turkey/bacon/guacamole burger.  

You could also make your own burger and I ended up ordering the double park burger (2 - 1/4 pound patties) topped with bacon, Swiss cheese and mushrooms.  

The regular Park burgers usually with lettuce, tomato, pickles and onions along with something they call the Park Burger sauce.  I got it with just the pickles and onions, putting ketchup and yellow mustard on the burger before I dug in.  The top of the burger patty was swimming in mushrooms and melted Swiss cheese.  I had to hunt for the bacon but found two small strips of bacon underneath the mushrooms and cheese.  It seemed to be a small amount of bacon for the $1.25 upcharge I paid for it.  The burger was on a rather overtoasted bun.

The first bite told me that the flat-grilled burger was somewhat overcooked.  There wasn't much juiciness to the burger and the meat was rather tough.  There were a lot of taste sensations going on with the burger, but I have to say that I was somewhat disappointed that the burger patties were overcooked.  

Simon got the Buffalo Park burger with the meat sourced locally from Rock River Ranches in Colorado.  He got it with Park Burger sauce and the veggies.  He said that his, too, was rather dried out, but it was understandable since buffalo meat is rather lean.  But he said it was good enough.  "Not as good as a Cricket Burger," Simon told me between bites.

But the highlight for both Simon and I were the housemade kettle potato chips topped with blue cheese, cracked black pepper and fresh parsley.  Simon told me that he wasn't going to be able to eat them all and I happily dug in and helped him.  The blue cheese had melted onto the freshly made kettle chips and the cracked black pepper gave them a somewhat spicy taste.  They were pretty damned good.  

For my first visit to Park Burger, I have to say that I came away pretty unimpressed with their burger.  To me, it was overcooked and somewhat of a poor value versus what I paid for the burger.  While I applaud what they're trying to accomplish at Park Burger, if this is their normal burger then I can't see what all the positive noise about the place is really all about.  

Chris' Pancake and Dining - St. Louis

We were finishing up our late summer vacation in St. Louis and decided to go out for breakfast.  I had been passing a place in the Clifton Heights neighborhood near The Hill area of St. Louis for a number of years and decided that I wanted to go there for breakfast that particular day.  It was a short drive from our hotel to Chris' Pancake and Dining at the corner of Watson and Southwest Ave. near Hampton Ave. (see map).  

Chris' Pancake and Dining is part of the Bartolino's Restaurants group that includes Bartolino's Osteria and Bartolino's South Italian restaurants.  Bartolino Saracino was born in a small farming town near Rome and came to the U.S. in 1954 to join up with his cousins Joe and Lou Parente who ran Parente's Italian Village.  He began to bus tables at Parente's learning how to speak English on the job.  Bart Saracino married Roseanne LaFata whose family came from Palermo in Italy.  Along with his father-in-law Nick LaFata and mother-in-law Rose LaFata, they opened LaCino's Italian restaurant in 1961.  Nick worked at the restaurant while Roseanne stayed at home raising their four young boys.  

Nick LaFata became ill in 1969 and passed away.  Rose LaFata could no longer work at LaCino's because of the painful memory of losing her husband.  Bart Saracino looked for a new restaurant location and found a building on S. Hampton on The Hill in St. Louis.  Along with Roseanne and Rose LaFata, they opened Bartolino's.  Their sons, John, Bart, Jr., Mike and Chris all worked in the restaurant.  

In 1987, the family opened Chris' Pancake and Dining with Rose LaFata running the kitchen.  "Mama Rose" worked at the pancake house until her death in 1996.  The four Bartolino sons run the restaurants today with Chris overseeing his namesake restaurant.  

The parking lot was full and the surrounding side streets were also packed with cars as we pulled in around 10 a.m. on a Saturday morning.  Finally waiting on a large group to leave, we had our choice of five parking spaces in the lot.  Understandably, there was about a 15 minute wait to get a table.  We waited along with about a dozen or so other people in the waiting area to get a table.  Self-serve coffee and donut-like cookies were made available for those who were waiting for tables.  

We were seated at a table in the first of the two dining rooms at Chris'.  Our server Dawn came over to greet us as we were going through the menu.  She told us of a couple specials that day - Cannoli pancakes and a smoked salmon frittata.  My ears immediately perked up with the Cannoli pancakes and Cindy said, "Ooo...  That sounds good," when Dawn told us of the smoked salmon frittata.

They have the usual breakfast fare on the menu - pancakes, French toast, omelets, as well as entrees such as steak and eggs, pork chop and eggs, country fried steak, and corned beef hash.  Breakfast is available all day long at Chris'.  

In addition to breakfast, Chris' also has a full complement of appetizers, soups, salads, sandwiches and burgers.  In fact, some of the burgers looked kind of good.  Although I wasn't quite up for a burger at 10:30 in the morning, I made a mental note to come back at some point to give one of their burgers a try.  

They also had alcohol available at Chris' Pancake and dining.  One of the specialty drinks they have was a BLT bloody mary.  It sounded interesting, but we were going to start out for home after we finished breakfast and I didn't want to get too much of a buzz for the 4 hour trip back home.

I was looking at a couple of things - the corned beef hash and a "build-your-own" omelet featuring Bartolino family-made Italian sausage.  But I kept going back to the Cannoli pancakes.  When Dawn came back to take our order, that's what I order.  I saw that they had blueberries available on the side for about a dollar more and she said that would be no problem.  

Both of the fluffy pancakes were topped with a rich sweet ricotta along with small chocolate chips and drizzled in chocolate sauce.  The blueberries, disappointingly, were more of a pie filling compote than plain fresh blueberries.  I also got an egg over easy and a side of bacon with with pancakes.  As soon as Dawn set them in front of me, I knew there was no way I'd be able to finish what I had.  Also, it was at that point that Dawn had her only hiccup in service.  She promised to bring some maple syrup back to the table for me and she disappeared for well over 5 minutes.  I had to flag her down and ask for the syrup.  She shook her head in disgust at herself and promptly brought out the syrup for me.

Cindy ordered the smoked salmon frittata that featured thin slices of smoked salmon and capers on top.  She was very happy with her choice.  It featured chopped veggies in with the eggs and a side of hash browns.  She also got swirled rye toast with the breakfast.  I had a bite of her toast and it was very good and flavorful.  A reuben sandwich with that swirled rye bread would be wonderful.

I thought my pancakes were fine, but I probably would have ordered something else if I'd know how much chocolate there was on the pancakes.  I like chocolate, but not as much as they put on the pancakes.  It was good, but very rich.  I think I was able to - maybe - finish one of the pancakes before I called it quits.

Chris' Pancake and Dining was what I expected it to be - good food, good service (except for Dawn forgetting the syrup), and a clean and bright atmosphere.  Expect a wait anytime on the weekends but also expect a pretty good breakfast in reward for your wait.   

Huey's - Memphis

When my wife and I first visited Memphis nearly 15 years ago, we found a burger joint in downtown Memphis by the name of Huey's that had a pretty good burger.  Over the years, I learned more about Huey's and found that a lot of people in Memphis felt they had a pretty good burger, as well, winning "Best of Memphis" awards for a number of years.  We pulled into Memphis around 1:30 in the afternoon and immediately went to the downtown location of Huey's. 

The Memphis music scene was in its prime in the early to mid 60's when a young drummer by the name of Tom Boggs was playing with various groups around the area.  He met a young kid by the name of Alex Chilton - then in his mid-teens - who had a soulful voice that sounded like he was in his mid-30's.  Chilton's band - The Box Tops - needed a manager and Tom Boggs said that he'd help out.  In 1967, their first song "The Letter" became an international hit.  When the original drummer for The Box Tops went off to college to escape the draft in 1968, Boggs slid into his chair and played with The Box Tops through the next two years where they recorded a couple more Top 10 singles.  In February of 1970, the band split up with each going in different directions.

Now known as Thomas Boggs, he ended up in Memphis to work at a new singles bar called T.G.I. Friday's, the first franchised location of a Friday's.  Boggs' work ethic was immediately noticed by franchise owner Daniel Scoggin.  After a couple years on the job in Memphis, Scoggin asked Boggs to move to Dallas to help open the T.G.I. Friday's there.  As Scoggin opened more T.G.I. Friday's locations, Boggs was the point man when opening the new restaurants.  

Pictured right - Thomas Boggs (Picture courtesy the Memphis Flyer.)

Not many people who worked with Boggs at T.G.I. Friday's knew that he was a former musician with a handful of Top Ten hits with The Box Tops.  Unassuming, but outgoing and proficient at his work, Boggs kept his rock star past on the down low preferring to gain the respect of his co-workers with his hard work.  

In 1970, a small burger joint by the name of Huey's opened near where the Memphis T.G.I. Friday's was located.  Alan Gary had opened the place hoping it to be a fun bar with a unique atmosphere.  Thomas Boggs eventually left T.G.I. Friday's and came back to Memphis to manage and tend bar at Huey's.  Two years later, Boggs and Jay Sheffield bought Huey's.  

At the time, in order to have a liquor license in Memphis restaurants had to serve food. But food wasn't a big thing to a lot of these places who were more known as night time hangouts for 20 and 30-somethings and usually didn't open until 5 p.m.  Boggs decided that Huey's should showcase their burgers for the lunch crowd and they began to open at 11 a.m.  

Details were a big thing to Thomas Boggs.  He wanted to have the best burger for Huey's and he worked closely with a local meat purveyor to come up with the right mix of lean ground beef versus fat to get the signature Huey's flavor.  The restaurant still uses that same mix today.  

Boggs eventually opened a total of 8 Huey's locations and was a partner in a number of other Memphis eating establishments.  He was also a noted philanthropist with a passion for the Memphis Zoo (which we visited during our recent visit - it's a very nice zoo), as well as working with a number of other civic organizations.

Sadly, Thomas Boggs passed away in his sleep in 2008 at the age of 63.  His three daughters and two sons all began to work in their father's restaurants at an early age.  Today, four of the five Boggs children are involved with Huey's with the oldest, Lauren, serving as president and the second oldest, Ashley, as the company's vice-president.  

The downtown location of Huey's is at the corner of 2nd and Union.  (see map)  We found parking just down the way on 2nd and went into the restaurant.  It was past the noon time rush so it was no wait to get into the place.  

I didn't remember much about Huey's from the first visit a number of years ago, but my memory was jogged when we came up to the hostess stand.  Checkered table cloths, beer signs and articles about Huey's hung on the graffiti'ed walls, and hundreds of tooth picks dangled from the ceiling.  A long time tradition - one that Thomas Boggs didn't like at first - is to take the toothpicks out of the burgers and launch them toward upward, sticking them into the drop-down ceiling tile.  Today, Huey's has a contest that allows a customer to guess how many toothpicks there are in the ceiling with a $1 contribution that goes toward the Memphis Zoo.  Over the years, over $30,000 has been raised by patrons guessing how many toothpicks are stuck in the ceiling at Huey's.  

We were taken to a booth along the wall and a couple menus were dropped off for us. While we were going to get burgers, there's a lot of other things on the menu at Huey's if you're not in a mood for one.  In addition to the normal appetizers, soups and salads, they had a grilled tuna steak sandwich, a po' boy sandwich with breaded shrimp, a Philly cheesesteak or Philly grilled chicken sandwich, and a turkey supreme sandwich among the many sandwiches on the menu.  They also have a gluten free part of the menu, as well as a pretty extensive kid's menu, as well.  

For burgers, they have a plethora of signature burgers to choose from.  The Bluez 57 burger consisted of a 1/3 pound patty topped with blue cheese crumbles, Heinz 57 sauce, mayo, lettuce, tomato and onion straws on a sesame seed bun.  The Old Tyme A1 burger featured a 1/3 pound burger topped with cheddar, Swiss, and jack cheeses, bacon, sautéed mushrooms, onion straws with A1 steak sauce on a sourdough bun.  The Texas Toast burger was a 1/3 pound burger with pepper jack cheese, grilled onions and jalapenos on Texas toast.  

I ended up getting the Madison Avenue burger - a 1/3 pound patty topped with Swiss cheese, grilled mushrooms, mayo, lettuce, tomato and bacon on a sourdough bun.  I also got a bottle of the Yazoo Gerst Amber Ale from the Yazoo Brewing Company out of Nashville.  Cindy went pretty simple - she got the "World Famous" Huey Burger with cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato, onions and pickles with a side of fries.  She ended up ordering a Sierra Nevada pale ale that they had on tap.  

Our burgers came out to us about 15 minutes or so after we ordered.  My burger came with a pickle spear and a couple slices of bacon cris-crossed on top of the burger patty that had a generous amount of Swiss cheese hiding a good amount of sauteed mushrooms.  

My burger was thick and juicy and the sourdough bun gave the burger an overall great flavor.  It was definitely a multi-napkin burger.  The combination of the juicy burger, bacon, mushrooms and the forward tasting Swiss cheese made it a very good burger.

Cindy's burger came with a sesame seed bun and was as equally as thick as mine.  She said it was very good, as well, but had trouble finishing all of it.  (A large breakfast may have had something to do with that.)  And the fries she got were the thick-cut steak fries that I have suddenly fallen in love with since my trip to the U.K. earlier this year.  Although they weren't as good as the "chips" that I got in the U.K., they were still pretty good.  

Our server tried to entice us into getting one of Huey's desserts.  I will say that the lemon ice box pie sounded pretty good, but we passed on it.  However, later that evening we had finished dinner and decided that we wanted something a little extra.  I wondered if we were close to a Huey's location and it turned out that we were less than a mile from the original location on Madison Ave. in Memphis' Overton Square area. (see map)  We went in and told the waiter that we were there for just a slice of the lemon ice box pie.  He said, "Oh, boy.  You came to the right place.  I love the lemon ice box pie!"  

And we did, too.  It came with a light fluffy meringue on the top and the tangy lemon middle was a great refreshing taste.  It had a graham cracker crust and was just an excellent end to the evening.  I'm a sucker for anything lemon or lime in a pie and the lemon ice box pie at Huey's didn't disappoint.  

It was great to reconnect with Huey's after all these years.  The burgers were just as good as I remember from our previous visit, the atmosphere was fun and laid back, and they had a pretty good beer list.  Huey's is a staple on the Memphis burger scene and while we didn't try to find any other burger place while we were in Memphis, I'm guessing it would be pretty tough to find one that is finer.  

Moonlight Diner - Denver

For the annual CEDIA Expo in Denver earlier this year, I was the first person to arrive for our company.  It was well before 8 a.m. in Denver when I got the rental car from Hertz and my colleagues wouldn't begin to show up for another couple hours.  I had some time to kill so I asked the guy at the Hertz guard booth who was checking my paperwork if there was a good place in the area for breakfast.  He didn't hesitate a second when he told about a place called the Moonlight Diner on Tower Road.  He gave me quick directions and less than ten minutes later I pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant. 

The Moonlight Diner is situated right in between a Hampton Inn and a Comfort Inn along Tower Road.  (see map)  Even though it is closer to Aurora, it is in a part of Denver that was annexed when Denver International Airport was built.  I walked into the place and was seated in a booth along the front side of the restaurant.  The front range of the Rocky Mountains were easily visible in the distance.  I was given a menu to look over as I waited for my server to come over.

The Moonlight Diner is a 50's-style diner that also features a separate lounge area in the building.  The decor takes one back to a simpler time when burgers and milkshakes were the staples of diners like this.  But the menu is a dizzying mishmash of comfort food favorites that included sandwiches, main entrees such as meat loaf, pork chops or salmon, Mexican food, and even pizza.  I was a little leery of the place because they had so many varieties of food that I was worried - once again - that if a place has an extensive menu that they probably don't do any of them very well.  

But I was there for the breakfast, which they serve all day long.  The breakfast menu consisted of the usual fare - eggs, pancakes, French toast - but they also had a number of skillet and omelet plates as well as Mexican breakfasts such as huevos rancheros and a breakfast burrito.  

My server Elli was a brassy lady who looked like she was made for a place like the Moonlight diner.  I ended up ordering the corned beef hash with eggs over easy.  She said, "Oooo, hon, you're gonna like our corned beef hash.  We make it ourselves."  Hash browns came with the breakfast and I got some whole wheat toast.  

But I also noticed that they had green chili on the menu.  I asked Elli if I could get a cup of their green chili.  She asked if I wanted it before or with the breakfast.  I took it with the breakfast.  

Not more than 15 minutes went by before Elli brought my breakfast out to me.  Now, I don't quite understand why they serve hash browns with the corned beef hash.  There was no way I was going to make any dent in the hash browns after going for the corned beef hash.  And the whole wheat toast was thick and I wondered if it was possibly baked in-house.  Elli said, "You've got a lot of food there, hon.  Enjoy!"  

She wasn't kidding...

The first thing I tried was the green chili.  Now, I love the green chili that is available at many places around Denver.  The green chili at the Moonlight Diner was as good as any of the places I'd previously had the chili in Denver.  It was thick and smokey with nice-sized chunks of pork in the chili with a nice and subtle spicy aftertaste.  It had been a long time since I'd had green chili and it was a perfect start to the breakfast.  

The corned beef hash was sort of a Southwestern-style concoction with a somewhat spicy taste.  It tasted like it had been cooked with chili powder and possibly cumin.  It was unlike any corned beef hash that I'd ever had before and I immediately liked it.  The brisket was pulled apart into large chunks and interspersed with cubes of potatoes.  There was a lot of the corned beef brisket in the hash and I made sure that each piece was gone before I went on to trying to finish what was left of my meal.  

Overall, my breakfast was very good at the Moonlight Diner.  It was way more food than I could finish, but the Southwestern-style corned beef hash and the spicy green chili were outstanding.  Elli took good care of me in her brassy style of service.  The place was clean and had a somewhat charming appeal to it.  I almost wanted to go back to Hertz and thank the guy for steering me in the direction of the Moonlight Diner. I thoroughly enjoyed my first visit there.  

A la Chataigne - Paris

On our first full night in Paris, my colleague Ian - who is a wonderful planner when it comes to finding restaurants - made reservations for us at a little bistro by the name of A la Chataigne.  The restaurant features a number of Mediterranean-style dishes on the menu and it sounded interesting to Ian when he found it looking through La Forchette (The Fork) before we came to Paris.  By booking the meal through the web site, we were able to save 20% on the cost of the meal.  

Chef Yann Rebillard is the man behind A la Chataigne (which translates into "chestnut" in English) and many of his dishes are centered on rustic Corsican recipes.  Many of the dishes feature wild game or beef-based items.  

Now, Paris really screws up my internal GPS.  Streets don't necessarily run north and south, the Seine curves through the city and that affects street plots, and when it's cloudy and rainy - as it was that evening - I can't get a bearing on directions.  In what would have been a normal 20 minute walk from our hotel, Ian and I wandered about for over a half hour before stumbling upon A la Chataigne on Rue Miromesnil.  (see map)

Our reservations were for 7 p.m. - actually that's quite early to dine for most Parisians.  And because of that, we were the only ones in the small restaurant when we got there.  We pretty much had our pick of where we wanted to sit.  We took a small table along the wall.  

As we sat down, the lady who would be our server told us in broken English that their credit card machine was broken and that we'd have to pay in cash.  Ian said that he could go get a couple hundred Euros out of an ATM, but he needed to find out where the closest one was.  The lady told him that she knew of one a couple blocks away, so Ian set out on his quest for cash.

After returning with money, we got into the meat of the menu to check to see what they were offering that evening.  The first thing that I found on the menu was the beef carpaccio.  Only this carpaccio was a little different than what I've had in the States.  This carpaccio came with a honey balsamic drizzle and strands of an herbed mayonnaise sauce.  The taste of the combinations was wonderful.  Carpaccio on its own is pretty darned good, but the drizzle and the herbed mayo gave it a little more pizazz.

Ian ordered the charcuterie plate - a mix of housemade sausage chunks and thinly sliced ham and prosciutto.  Ian offered a couple bites of the ham and it was pretty salty, but very fresh in its taste.  

For my main entree that evening I thought about getting a steak, but then I saw something on the menu (by the way, they did have an English menu for the Anglos) that completely intrigued me - Ox cheeks.  Ox cheeks can be difficult to prepare because the meat is so lean that there's always the danger of overcooking it.  But these were slow-cooked Ox cheeks in a subtle sauce.  They pulled apart pretty easily and the taste was, well...  All right, I guess.  They seemed to be rather earthy in taste, not anything that I've ever experienced.  But I decided that I liked it enough, but not certain I'd order it again if I saw it on the menu.  I shared some with Ian - he's had Ox cheeks before - and he said that it was very good as far as Ox cheeks go.  

Ian got the veal chop - a massive one, at that.  He sort of chuckled when it was set in front of him and he just said, "Oh my!"  But he said the flavor and the tenderness of the veal was wonderful.  He shared a cut of meat with me and it was very good.  The veal chop had sort of a reduction sauce on it that had a bit of a spicy blend to it.  Even though I liked my Ox cheeks, I REALLY liked the veal chop. 

By the time we were finishing our meal, the place was beginning to fill up.  For a little restaurant in Paris, I was happy with my meal at A la Chataigne.  I got to open up my culinary horizon a little more, the service was very good and the atmosphere was cozy and homey.  I would have no problem giving A la Chataigne a high recommendation to try if you get to Paris.

Highland Tap and Burger - Denver

Before we went out to Denver for the annual CEDIA Expo, my wife presented me with an article she came across talking about Zagat's rankings of the best burgers of 2014 in selected cities across America.  She pointed out the "Shroom's Luva's" burger with foie gras at the Highland Tap and Burger in Denver was named the best burger in that city and one of the top 15 in the nation.  It should be - it costs $21 bucks.  So on the first day we were in Denver for CEDIA, my colleagues and I made a trip over to Highland Tap and Burger to find out how good the other burgers were that they had on the menu. 

Three partners in a popular Denver nightspot, Spill Lounge - Kevin Eddy, Kris Slocum and Brad Beale - looked for an business opportunity in the Highlands neighborhood of Denver.  They asked their friend Juan Padro to come out from Massachusetts to talk about possibly doing an upscale burger place.  Padro had experience in the restaurant business and he made the trek out to Denver to meet up with his friends.  

They all ended up at the bar at a Mexican place in the Highlands called Aztec Sol and began to talk to the owner about possibly buying her out.  Padro ended up going back to Massachusetts to discuss the possible investment in the new place and an inevitable move out to Colorado.  His wife, Katie O'Shea, had a degree from Harvard and - after a stint as a financial analyst - she was teaching math to juveniles with behavioral problems (as in assaults, drugs and weapon possession).  She was getting burned out on the teaching experience when Juan came back with the news of possibly moving to Denver to invest in the new restaurant venture with his friends.  She was up for a change in scenery.    

The group didn't hear anything from the owner at Aztec Sol for a couple three months and they thought the proposal was dead.  However, in early 2010 the group got the call and the deal was on.  Katie followed Juan out to Denver and became part of the investment and management group of the new venture.  

Not only did the group buy out Aztec Sol, they also were able to take over a spot next door to their new restaurant effectively giving them double the space they thought they would have.  They began work on the place in March of 2010, hired their chef Elijah Odell soon thereafter, and began to formulate ideas for food and worked with local Colorado breweries to come up with an eclectic list of beers for their customers to choose from.  In September 2010, Highland Tap and Burger opened their doors with Juan and Katie running the day-to-day operations.  (Juan and Katie are also major investors in Old Major, a restaurant not far from Highland Burger and Tap.)  

It was less than a 10 minute drive from our downtown hotel over to Highland Burger and Tap. (see map)  There is an outdoor patio in front of the place and it was full of diners.  Inside the main entrance is the hostess stand and beyond that is the main bar area of the Highland Burger and Tap.  The place was full - it was a Monday night and football was on TV.  We were told that it would be a 15 to 20 minute wait to get a table for 12 of us.  

The bar area was packed so it was difficult to get the attention of the bartenders to grab a beer before we were seated.  Most of my colleagues milled about outside since it was a nice evening while I stood up toward the hostess stand waiting on the table for us.  The hostess informed me that we would be seated in a couple minutes so I waved for my colleagues to join me.  But the person who informed me that it would be a couple minutes must not have had a good grasp of time because it was still another 10 minutes before our table was ready.  My colleagues were hungry, thirsty and a little testy when we finally got to the long table in the side dining room.

The first thing I did was to take a look through the Highland Tap's impressive beer menu.  The beers on tap were overwhelmingly Colorado centric - nearly all the beers came from Colorado.  (I'm sort of ambivalent when it comes to many Colorado microbrews.)  And the list of beers in cans and bottles also was skewed toward more Colorado beers, but they also had an impressive list of imports and microbrews from places like Alaskan, Lagunitas and Boulevard brewing companies.  I started off with a bottle of the Stone India Pale Ale.  

Looking through the menu, there's more than just burgers on the menu.  Highland Tap also features a pulled pork sandwich, as well as a barbecued pulled chicken sandwich.   They also had beer-battered fish with chips, a black angus flat iron steak, and a Dunkel-poached German sausage plate.  But we were there for the burgers.

They had a handful of signature burgers on the menu in addition to their award winning "Shroom's Luva" with the foie gras including the LoHi Luau burger that featured a Korean-style marinated burger patty with bacon, lettuce, tomato and Sriracha mayo.  There was also a green-chili burger that was topped with Highland Tap's housemade green chili - a Colorado staple.  And they also had a bison burger, a lamb burger and veggie burger for the health conscious.  

Service was woefully slow for us - I don't know if it was a function of a large group or a waitress who was just in low gear.  By the time we were ready to order food, our waitress was nowhere in sight.  We finally got the attention of another server who found our waitress.  

I started off by ordering a cup of the green chili.  It was all right compared to other green chili's I've had around Denver over the years.  It had a nice smokey flavor, but other than that it was pretty non-descript.

My colleague Todd - who grew up on Prince Edward Island in Canada - ordered the P.E.I. mussels that were steamed in White Rascal beer, a Belgian-style wheat beer from the Avery Brewing Company up the road in Boulder.  Todd - who is a noted mussel snob - said that they were just, once again, all right.  

I did a "Build-Your-Own" burger instead of stepping up to get the "Shroom's Luva" with the foie gras.  You had your choice of a beef patty as well as a veggie, lamb or bison patty for an upcharge.  Then you had a choice of a soft white or a wheat bun with an onion bun or a gluten-free bun available for an upcharge.  Free toppings included five different types of cheese, onions, lettuce or tomato.  And you could get toppings that included items such as Maytag Blue Cheese, Denver Bacon Company peach wood smoked bacon, or a fried egg for an upcharge.  

I went with the regular burger with an onion bun, sweet red onions, pepper jack cheese and the Denver Bacon Co. bacon.  The presentation looked promising with a thick burger patty.  The burger was ordered medium and I would have to say that it was about as perfect to medium that you can get - a slight bit of pink in the middle.  But there was somewhat of that "pizazz" that I was expecting missing from the burger.  The bacon was thick and had a nice smoked taste to it, the pepper jack cheese was pretty timid and the onion bun was just all right.  While it was a good burger, I guess I was expecting something more for the amount they charged for the burger.  

My colleague Simon went with the tap burger that featured root-beer braised pulled pork on top of a burger patty with American and cheddar cheese with beer-battered onion rings.  Simon told me that there were a lot of flavors going on with the burger and he said that it was pretty good.  

Now, I have to say the highlight of the meal were the beer-battered onion rings - the batter was infused with pilsner beer.  We ended up ordering about three more baskets for the table because they were so damned good.  

My colleague Chris eschewed the burger route and went with the Kalbi grilled ahi tuna steak.  The tuna was marinated in a Korean soy sauce (ganjang) and grilled lightly.  It was topped with tempura crispy's and served with heirloom tomatoes and a Sriracha mayo dipping sauce.  He said it was interesting - and good.  

We had all finished and my boss was looking to pick up the tab that evening.  We waited and waited and waited for our waitress to come back with the bill.  Finally, I had to get up and go look for her.  She was back toward the kitchen folding napkins and silverware.  I told her that we needed our bill.  It was another five minutes before she showed up at the table.  There's no excuse for poor service like that at any restaurant.

While I had high hopes for the burger at Highland Tap and Burger, I have to say that I was disappointed for the quality versus the price.  While it was a good burger, it was woefully overpriced for what I experienced.  Everyone else in our party were equally unimpressed with the value of the food and we all left with a bad taste in our mouths with the level of service that was exhibited by the Highland Tap staff.  While the food was above average, Highland Tap and Burger was not that good of a value compared to other burger places of equal standing that I've been to.