Road Tips

A Return to the Rusty Duck - Dexter, IA

During our vacation on Lake Panorama where we spent a few days at my sister's fiancé's lake house, my sister and her fiancé came out to join us for the weekend.  We were trying to figure out dinner options on a Saturday evening and my sister's fiancé brought up The Rusty Duck.  He was amazed when I told him that I'd been to the Rusty Duck before, but it had been a few years since I was there.  My sister had never been to The Rusty Duck and my wife, of course, had never been there before either.  Both women were sort of excited as my sister's fiancé and I were comparing notes on the place.  I asked him how far a drive it was to Dexter and he said it was about 15 to 20 minutes.  That's nothing for those two as they'll sometime drive an hour one way for food when they're staying out at the lake.  Later that evening, we jumped in his truck and headed down the road toward Dexter and The Rusty Duck.  

The Rusty Duck won the 2011 Best Burger in Iowa contest that is sponsored annually by the Iowa Beef Industry Council.  Once they were named, I made it a goal to stop there on my way to Omaha to give the burger a try.  However, the first time I went there, it turned out I was too early as they opened at 5 p.m.  And the second time I stopped, well, it turned out that they're closed on Monday (and Sunday).  When I finally got there to try the burger, I was somewhat amazed at how good it was.  (Click here to read about my 2012 visit to The Rusty Duck.)  

Brad Waldron (pictured at right) started The Rusty Duck about 15 years ago, but his restaurant career spans over 30 years now dating back to when he was a busboy at a now-closed Italian restaurant in Des Moines.  Waldron also had a burger-centric place in West Des Moines that I really liked called BW Burgers.  (Click here to read the Road Tips entry on BW Burgers.)  Unfortunately, Waldron - along with his son, Brandon, who ran the place for his father - were forced to close down BW Burgers in 2018 after three years in business when their lease was up, coupled with the lack of being able to find good help in the very tight Des Moines hospitality job market.  

Waldron went back to focusing on The Rusty Duck as he's the grill chef at the place which features steaks, the award-winning burgers, grilled pork loins, sautéed seafood entrees, pan-fried or grilled chicken dishes, pasta offerings, and a number of salads and steakhouse-style appetizers.   On nights The Rusty Duck is open you can catch glimpses of him through a small service window between the bar and kitchen working at the grill. 

As my sister's fiancé said, it was less than a 20 minute drive from the lake down to Dexter.  As we came into town from the north, we turned to the east and my sister exclaimed, "Oh my god!  This is where Drew's Chocolates are!  I've been here before!"  My wife and I were not familiar with Drew's Chocolates and my sister said that she used to stop there on the way out to Omaha years and years ago to pick up some of their chocolates.  Unfortunately, they were closed so we couldn't stop in to see what she was raving about.  

We pulled up in front of The Rusty Duck and parked just across the street.  (see map)  From the front of the place, well, it looks a little shabby.  It's not what you might expect from a popular Iowa steakhouse.  But inside, it's nice and cozy.  The low-ceilinged restaurant is L-shaped with the bar to the left as you come in.  Wood-paneled walls gave it a much more elegant look than the front of the building.  

We put our name in with the hostess and she said that it would be a bit of a wait for a table.  But as we were getting settled in to order a drink at the bar, she caught our attention and said that she had a table in front of the rock-mantled fire place.   The hostess gave us menus to look over, and after a bit a young lady came over to take our drinks order.  

One of the first things we had to get were the onion rings.  I saw another table with a big plate of them and I thought they looked good.  And they were.  Deep-fried in a light and flaky beer-battered coating, the onion rings at The Rusty Duck rivaled the onion rings of many other small town steakhouses I remember going to years ago.  We munched on those before we got our meals.

Now, my sister just loves chicken livers.  She said that she fell in love with chicken livers when she was working at a restaurant years ago.   And she says that finding chicken livers on a menu are tough to find.  (Her fiancé works for a company where one of their businesses deals with agricultural management and he said that the reason chicken livers are so hard to find is that companies will buy them up with other chicken parts to make pet food out of them.)  My sister was giddy when they brought them to the table.  They were big pieces of deep-fried liver and she decided after a couple that she was just going to have them as her dinner that evening.   

My wife had steak the night before and she was up for steak again this night.  She got the Italian ribeye, a 16-ounce ribeye marinated in Italian dressing, grilled and sprinkled with Italian seasonings.  She got sautéed mushrooms on the side with the steak and a rice pilaf.  It was a huge steak.  Before she cut into it, she said, "This may have been a mistake.  This is almost too much meat for me two nights in a row."  But she tore into it and said it was delicious.  She couldn't eat the whole thing and didn't take the rest with her.  "I already have a steak in the fridge to take home with me," she told our waitress.  

When comparing notes with my sister's fiancé before we got to The Rusty Duck, I was raving about the burger while he was raving about the steak.  He had to try the Ultimate Cheeseburger - the one that got the Best Burger in Iowa award in 2011.  Brad Waldron grinds pieces of beef that he cuts off of his steaks and uses that for The Rusty Duck's burgers.   The Ultimate Burger is 14 ounces and topped with grilled onions and peppers, mushrooms, American cheese and bacon.   It's a messy burger, but it's a good tasting mess.  He was really glad that I spoke so highly of it or he wouldn't have ordered it.  

While my sister's fiancé had never had the burger at The Rusty Duck before this, I never had the steak.  I got the 16 ounce rib-eye.  Onion rings came with the ribeye and had I known that I could get onion rings on the side, I probably wouldn't have ordered them as an appetizer.   I ordered the ribeye medium-rare and it came out cooked perfectly.  I made a huge dent in the steak, but there were a couple corners left when I finally threw in the towel.  It was a great cut of meat that was cooked to perfection.  

About the only quibble I had all evening is that our waitress was a little slow on the switch.  It had been busy earlier, but the crowd had thinned out considerably by the time we got our food.  I had asked for another beer and my sister got another drink.  The waitress brought my sister's drink out, but neglected to get my beer to me.  I saw it sitting on the bar and I almost went up to get it before she came back and I said something about it.  I also asked for some fresh ground horseradish and she put the order in with the kitchen.  I saw the small container up on the ledge by the grill, but she didn't bring it to me.  My steak was well over half-way finished before she finally realized the horseradish was sitting there.

But other than the small hiccups in service, I was still impressed enough with my second visit to The Rusty Duck.  The ribeye I had was thick, juicy and full of a great grilled beef flavor.  Everyone in our little party was more than happy with their food choices.   My sister was absolutely thrilled that A) they had chicken livers at The Rusty Duck; and B) they were excellent.  Her fiancé was more than impressed with their huge Ultimate Cheese burger.  And my wife really enjoyed her Italian ribeye.  The Rusty Duck ain't much to look at from the outside, but it's a nice little place on the inside with some great food.  

Rusty Duck - Dexter, IA

The nominations for the 2012 Iowa Beef Industry Council Best Burger in Iowa contest have come in and a number of burger places across the state are vying to succeed the Rusty Duck in Dexter, IA as this year's winner. Rusty Duck's Ultimate Cheeseburger, a 14 oz. ground steakburger, topped with three different kinds of cheese, sweet red peppers, sauteed mushrooms and onions, beat out 275 other nominees for the best burger in Iowa for 2011. It has been my goal to try Rusty Duck's burger at some point, but on my first two visits to the place I was shut out. The first time, I came too early (they open at 5 p.m.) and the second time, I came on the wrong day (they are closed on Sunday and Monday). This particular visit, I made double damn sure that they'd be open, even calling beforehand just to make sure.

The Rusty Duck has been in business for nearly 8 years and is primarily known as a steakhouse. Owner Brad Waldron cuts his own steaks and uses the trimmings from both sirloin and strip steaks for his burgers. He grinds them himself and the more steaks he sells in his restaurant, the more hamburgers he can make up. There were times right after the Rusty Duck won the Best Burger award that they'd run out of burgers. He only had enough meat for so many burgers. Over a typical Friday and Saturday night period, the Rusty Duck sells over 200 burgers. In addition to the 14 oz. monster burgers, the Rusty Duck also has an 8 oz. burger on their menu.

Waldron (pictured at right), who started out his restaurant career about 25 years ago as a busboy at Gino's Italian Restaurant in Des Moines, knows his way around the kitchen. He is the grill chef at the Rusty Duck with over 80% of the items sold on their menu coming from beef. In addition to steaks and burgers, the Rusty Duck also features pork chops and chicken. In fact, their breaded tenderloin sandwich got 4th place in the Iowa Pork Producers Best Pork Tenderloin sandwich award in 2011. That's not too bad - winning the best burger and getting a top 5 finish in the best pork tenderloin.

The Rusty Duck is located in the heart of the small downtown area of Dexter (see map). Angled parking on both sides of the street is plentiful, that is if the American Legion across and down the street doesn't have a big crowd. I pulled in around 6:30 one evening and went inside. The decor of the restaurant isn't much to talk about. The dropped ceiling tiles are a little dingy and dirty, the chairs and tables are very basic. There's a large bar area that seats about 20 to 24 people with a mirrored backwall and a television in the center.

A hostess greeted me and asked if I wanted to sit at the bar. There were a number of people at the bar and I decided to sit at a table. She tried to seat me at a high table, but I asked to sit at a regular table. She sort of acted a little miffed that I wanted to sit at a table, then when I asked to sit at a regular table she sort of gruffly tossed the menu down on a table in front of the fireplace. I thought, "OK, yeah, whatever..."

However, the waitress that came over to greet me was very nice. "Welcome to the Rusty Duck," she enthusiastically said. "What can I get you to drink?"

I took a quick look at what turned out to be a very extensive menu for a small place. Of course, there were steaks, chops, chicken and some seafood items on the menu in addition to sandwiches and some salads. I was there for the burger and right at the top was the Ultimate Cheeseburger. However, I saw that it had sauteed peppers. I can't handle cooked green peppers very well. I like the taste of them, but I get indigestion something fierce afterward.

I did see that they had a bacon cheeseburger on the menu and I thought I could get one of those and maybe see if they could stick some mushrooms on the burger. When the waitress came over to take my order, I asked her if I could get a burger like that. She said, "Did you see our Ultimate Cheeseburger? It has everything on it that you're looking for." When I told her that I couldn't handle sauteed peppers very well, she perked up and said, "Oh! They're the red sweet peppers!"

Well, I CAN handle sauteed sweet red peppers, so I did end up going with the Ultimate Cheeseburger. She asked me how I wanted it cooked and she warned me that Waldron tends to cook his beef a little to the rare side. I ordered mine medium. She then said that because the burger is pretty thick, it takes awhile to cook. I was fine with that. I had my choice of French fries or their homemade steak fries. She said, "Our steak fries are actually cut long and thin, not the big thick steak fries that you get at other places." I got those, although I knew I wouldn't be eating many of them.

About 20 minutes later, I heard a bell ring at the service window and I just happened to look up to see the monstrous burger sitting there. My waitress went over to pick it up and, sure enough, she brought it to my table. Wow! This thing was HUGE!!! There was a ton of cheese on top of the burger, followed by strips of sauteed red peppers, large fresh sauteed mushrooms, sauteed onions, and crisp bacon. The bun was lightly toasted, light and moist.

In order to even handle this behemoth burger, I had to cut it in two. The beef was excellent - very fresh and flavorful. Actually, it was a little overcooked to my taste and I thought that if Brad Waldron tended to cook his meats a little to the rare side, I'm glad that I didn't order it medium-well. But it was still juicy enough.

Because of all the toppings on the burger - especially the cheese oozing off the top with every bite - eating the burger was a messy experience. I'm not certain any of the bacon, peppers or mushrooms actually stayed on the burger because they were constantly slipping off with each bite. I was constantly stopping and picking up the dropped toppings and putting them back on the burger. And with all that mess, I was using my cloth napkin constantly. Actually, between constantly wiping my hands and my mouth area, what I needed was a big roll of paper towels. The cloth napkin was a nice touch, but my hands never felt clean even after wiping them off. I had to go to the restroom and wash my hands after I finished the meal.

I ate half the burger with no problem and I cut the other half into another half. I barely finished that smaller quarter of the burger before I decided I'd had enough. I had a couple of the thin steak fries and they were good, but I couldn't eat any more. I saw an article on the wall of the restaurant that had to be written before they won the Best Burger award last year that said a number of guys had tried to eat the Ultimate Cheeseburger in one sitting, but hadn't been able to do so. I'm guessing that isn't the case now that the secret of the Rusty Duck is now out. I probably could have finished the whole thing had I not had lunch earlier in the day. But it was beginning to sit like a gut bomb in my stomach. Oh boy. I have to say that I was full for at least two days afterward. I didn't have breakfast or lunch the next day and I didn't care.

The overall taste of the burger was.... Good. I can't really say that the Ultimate Cheeseburger at the Rusty Duck was the best I'd had - I'm not even certain that it's the best burger I've ever had in Iowa. But it would definitely be a Top Ten all-time of Iowa burgers if I did such a list. I wish he would have taken it off a couple three minutes earlier, but the overall taste of the beef was well above average. The criteria for Best Burger in Iowa not only encompasses the taste of the burger, but how it is presented, the unique nature of the burger, and how well the bun works with the burger. I'd give the burger an A on uniqueness, an A in presentation, an A- with the bun and a B for overall taste. With all the cheese and toppings, there was a lot going on and I'm not certain that I really got a good taste of the beef. Maybe I'll go back at some point and get a smaller burger without all the fixin's.