Hamburger America (11 page)

When you place your order, El Mago disappears into the back and returns clutching a wad of refrigerated ground meat. The multihued chunk is tossed onto a hot griddle and pressed flat. He reaches for an unmarked plastic bottle and gives the patty a generous squirt of a thin, deep red liquid. A handful of chopped onion is sprinkled on as the patty cooks in the red bubbling sauce.

What makes a Frita a Frita is the generous heap of super-thin fried potatoes that virtually obscure the patty on the bun. It’s presented on a soft, warmed Cuban roll with more chopped onion, a squirt of ketchup, and a bird’s nest of the wiry potatoes. The extraordinary flavor profile made me nearly fall off my stool. When I told El Mago how happy I was he just looked at me and smiled. After inhaling that first Frita I did the only sensible thing I could think of. I ordered another.

Burger Beast told me, “There are Frita places that use those canned potato sticks instead of fresh and that’s just wrong.” El Mago makes a batch of his ethereal fried potatoes every morning.

El Mago De Las Fritas has refreshing watermelon juice and the old Cuban standby soda, Materva, on the menu. But don’t leave El Mago without trying one of his
batidos,
or Cuban milkshakes. You won’t find American classics like the chocolate malt here. Instead, indulge in tropical fruit flavors like guanabana, papaya, or the amazing mamey fruit. Or get the incredible flan de leche. I swear I’ve never had a better flan.

Directly translated El Mago means “The Magician” and this one hails from a long line of Cuban Frita purveyors. Like a good magician, El Mago harbors trade secrets that only his son seems to know. Let’s hope he plans to pass along those secrets so that this Frita endures.

 

 

A
fter Le Tub was chosen by
GQ
magazine for having the #1 burger in America, the
Oprah
show did its own report backing up the claim. The only problem is, the most crowded no-frills burger shack in Florida just got more crowded.

Located on a stretch of A1A just a half hour north of Miami, Le Tub is a former Sunoco gas station converted into a strange pile of flotsam collected over three decades. Most of Le Tub’s seating is outside on a meandering multilevel porch surrounded by lush foliage, worn wood, chirping birds, and hot breezes. Its proximity to the Intra-coastal Waterway offers a constant boat show. I once sat at a table on the water and watched an entire bachelorette party in bikinis float by, the bride opening gifts of lingerie and giggling.

The restaurant got its name from owner Russell Kohuth’s collection of discarded commodes, tubs, and sinks, which basically hold the place together. In addition to the porcelain collection are parts of boats, buoys, and other planks that actually make up the basic structure of the restaurant. Russell started collecting stuff on early morning jogs along Hollywood beach and opened the restaurant in 1975. “This place wouldn’t hold up in a hurricane,” the guy at the next table told his wife.

The Sirloinburger at Le Tub is a beast—13 ounces of fresh-ground, hand-pattied, char-grilled sirloin served on a soft kaiser roll. When I prodded the waitress for the actual size of the burger, she told me, “They are big and messy!”

The grill cook works at a small three-foot-square grill on a level just below the bar in basically an enclosed un-air conditioned space. There is smoke everywhere and the smell of searing beef permeates your clothes if you spend any time at the bar. Why the grillman does not pass out from the heat three times a day is beyond me.

The crowd at Le Tub is a mixed bag—confused tourists, beachgoers, and boaters fill the tables. A dock on the patio allows you to arrive by water if so inclined. Order your burgers THE MINUTE YOU WALK IN THE DOOR. I’m not kidding when I say that mine took one hour and twenty minutes to arrive. When I asked our waitress upon ordering if their famous burgers really took that long, she warned, with a straight face, “Could take up to an hour and a half.” I placed an order for myself and a friend who had just landed at Miami International Airport. By the time she got off the plane, got her luggage, rented her car, and drove to Le Tub, she still had to wait 45 more minutes for her burger.

The good news is that the burger is worth the wait. Also, don’t forget, you are in a bar, on the water, in Florida—the beers will go down easy, especially because you’ll be sitting there for a while.

 

 

A
visit to Ann’s Snack Bar is not for the faint of heart. I warn you now, the list of rules posted on the wall covers only a fraction of how you should behave in Miss Ann’s small outpost on the southeast side of Atlanta. I’ll do my best here to prepare you for the onslaught that will lead to one of the best hamburgers in America.

“When I die, I want them to say, ‘She was a mean bitch but she made a great hamburger!’” While she works alone in the burger and hot dog shack she has owned and tended to since 1972, she keeps the waiting patrons amused with a running comedy routine that covers everything from new condos going up and down the street to her retirement and Social Security woes. The guy sitting next to me explained, “It’s like a barbershop
in here.” The routine is real, though, no acting here. I found out the hard way when she threw me out of the restaurant for wanting to interview her. “I threw
Southern Living
out just last week! I don’t give a damn . . . Get out!” I stuck it out and was rewarded with the only thing that seems to get ordered from her short menu—the “Ghetto Burger.”

In 1994 a Checkers drive-in hamburger stand opened up just two doors down from Ann’s. Realizing that she had to offer something different to maintain her business, Miss Ann (as she is affectionately called by regulars) ditched the frozen patties she was serving for fresh ground beef, and lots of it. The gimmick worked. “If I had known that’s all it took to be world famous I would have done this years ago,” she told the crowd at the eight-stool counter. But fresh beef was only the beginning. The Ghetto is an enormous burger, a glorious heap of sin, a pile of just about every ingredient in the restaurant. Two hand-formed patties that are unmeasured but look close to a half pound each are slow cooked on a flattop griddle and sprinkled often with seasoned salt as they cook. The construction of the Ghetto Burger includes the two patties, toasted bun, onion, ketchup, mustard, chili, lettuce, tomato, cheese, and bacon. If that were not enough, the bacon is deep-fried. The finished product resembles a food accident and tastes as it should—amazing.

“One lady came in here and watched everything I did and said ‘Miss Ann, how come I can’t make a burger at home like yours?’ and I told her ‘because you ain’t Ann, and you ain’t BLACK!’” She punctuates her delivery by repeatedly slapping the counter hard. The mostly black crowd laughs at all of it and waits patiently for their burgers, which can take up to 45 minutes.

Ann wants to retire, though she keeps pushing the date back. Preventing her retirement has been the search to find the right buyer. “I don’t want some developer coming in here and tearing the place down,” but she smiles, “though the money would be nice.”

 

 

I
f you had found yourself in Coeur d’Alene at the turn of the century, chances are you would have paid a visit to Harley Hudson’s tiny canvas burger tent for some greasy nourishment. The great news is that over a hundred years later you can still visit this landmark burger counter for the same greasy nourishment. The tent may have gone brick-and-mortar and has moved four times (only a few blocks each move), but the burgers are still made with pride by the fourth generation of the Hudson family.

This classic burger counter is just what you’d expect to find in picturesque downtown Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. From the front window of the restaurant you can see a piece of the enormous Lake Coeur d’Alene and imagine the hydroplane speedboat races that took place there in the 1950s and 1960s. Find a spot at the long counter and order a burger, the only thing on the menu.

“We also have drinks and pie,” grillman Eli told me, “but that’s it. No fries, no chips, no nothing.” By design, the menu focuses on the hamburger, as it should, because this one was worth the drive.

The choices are single or double, cheese or no cheese. Condiment options are pickle and a slice of raw onion. If you request pickle, watch closely what happens. You’ll witness something you’d be hard-pressed to find anywhere else in America. The grillman takes a whole dill pickle and hand slices five or six pieces and neatly arrays them on a waiting steamed bun. The same happens for a slice of onion, sliced in a worn groove on the butcher block in front of the griddle. Nothing is presliced.