The Blue Door Pub

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We tried our first official Juicy Lucy at a place calledThe Blue Door Pub. If you’re not familiar with a Juicy Lucy, the concept is pretty simple: ingredients are stuffed inside of the meat patty (rather than placed on top), and then cooked. The pub was a small place located in a St. Paul neighborhood. For a Sunday afternoon at 3pm, it was very busy and the wait for a table was moderate. If you’re a fan of Guy Fieri’s Diners, Drive-ins’, and Dives, you might have seen this place on the show, showcasing their juicy, one-of-kind burgers.

For an appetizer, we started off with some Latin Kisses (Jalapenos stuffed with cream cheese and wrapped in bacon).  If you would like to enjoy a cold beer, these little things would complement it nicely. For our burgers, my wife got The Merriam Park. The inside of the burger consisted of bacon, garlic, and bleu cheese. On the outside, it was topped off with red currant jelly and pickles. I ordered the Bacon Blucy, which had bacon and cheddar cheese on the inside, and pickles and jalapenos (which I added) on top. As side items, I got the hand-cut fries and my wife went with the tater tots.

The great thing about the Juicy Lucy is that it is really hard to have a dry burger. When liquid cheese is pouring out from the center and the fat from the bacon renders into the ground chuck, it really doesn’t have a chance of being dry or without flavor. The toasted buns were nothing special, nothing you can’t find at your local grocery store, and I’m honestly okay with that sometimes. For this environment, it was completely appropriate. I would say that we overall enjoyed our Juicy Lucy burgers; my wife’s burger had a nice sweet and savory balance of flavor to it, where mine was all savory.

Nothing against dive bars, but Vincent’s Juicy Lucy stuffed with Gouda and short rib, despite the higher price, did do it for me more than this one. I have a few other must hit spots on my Juicy Lucy burger list, and then I’ll have something to compare it too.

 

Spicy Capocollo Egg Sandwich

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This sandwich makes my day. -  Spicy capocollo -  Fried egg -  Blackberry jam -  Cheese (preferably pepper jack) -  Ciabatta

We had some leftover ingredients from our bread and cheese night, so I decided to put together a sandwich. It's a very simple sandwich to make: toast up some Ciabatta and spread a little blackberry jam on one side. Take a couple slices of spicy Capocollo, and fry it until it starts to become firmer and aromatic. Put the Capocollo to the side, and begin to fry your egg (or two if you like). Once you flip the egg, place a slice of cheese on the egg so that it melts. I had pepper jack on hand, but most cheeses will work, or if you prefer, no cheese has to be added.

Burger Jones

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I took a little break from burgers since being in New York a couple weeks ago. Since being back, I found a list of the most notable burgers in the Minneapolis area.  Maybe not all the burgers are amazing, but the list was a good place to start. The list had several categories, including: thin burgers, tavern burgers, luxury burgers, specialty burgers, and the Minneapolis-known Juicy Lucy.

Burger Jones was under the “thin category,” but you could get specialty toppings on your burger. For instance, I ordered the Hangover which came with bacon, a fried egg, hot sauce, and cheddar cheese. I had to hold off on the hot sauce (my stomach wasn’t in the mood for all that at once). At Burger Jones, you order your burger with “pink” or “no pink.” I found that surprising since most thin burgers are cooked in their own grease and are not cooked to temperature.

My first problem with the menu was that if you go to a sit-down burger joint where a waitress comes to you and takes your order, I think that your order should come with fries. I know this seems petty, but if you order from a window or a counter, I’m okay with ordering the fries separately. Burgers are an American classic; they always come with fries, and if you’re serving an American classic like burgers, why handicap yourself when it is the cheapest thing you serve and makes all the difference? I paid $9.99 for my burger and a $1.99 for hand-cut thin fries. If they charged me $10.99 for the burger and fries together, I wouldn’t be complaining.

Now, to the burger. The presentation was appealing; the burger came served on miniature commercial baking sheets which, I thought, was a good idea. It allowed you to have plenty of room to cut your burger, make a mess, and to spread out overall. The burger came on a toasted buttered sesame bun with shredded lettuce, tomato, and raw onion. The meat, they claim, is fresh never frozen. I tasted the meat alone, and my wife and I both agreed it could use a little help. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t seasoned (salt and pepper), and when looking up good burger recipes, almost every line-up includes salt and pepper. It is hard to write a really good review about this place when the meat lacked flavor. It was cooked to the temperature I requested, but because the meat was ground in-house, I expected a bigger punch of flavor. The runny egg on the burger certainly helped along with the fat from the bacon. The fries were good. How could they not be: hand-cut, crispy, and seasoned. Overall, the burger was fine, but not great.