(Read the intro post for background on this trip.)

What a difference a day makes. After driving through the rain all day yesterday, Andrew (24) and I were happy to see blue sky today. We left Philadelphia, Pennsylvania early this morning for our last day of driving and last planned burgers. We hit nearly standstill traffic getting to the George Washington Bridge near New York City. Once we got clear, we headed to New Haven, Connecticut. We visited the beach to be by the Atlantic Ocean, mirroring our start where we put our hands in the Pacific Ocean (Puget Sound). Unfortunately the tide was out when we went to the Atlantic, so we couldn’t get past the mud flats to the water.

We had three burgers planned today, all big ones that we were excited about. The first was Louis’ Lunch in New Haven, in the shadow of Yale University. Louis’ has been in business since 1895 and is the birthplace of the hamburger sandwich. They ground the meat themselves fresh daily from five cuts of beef then broil them in a proprietary vertical cast iron cooker they invented. The burgers are then served on white toast. They only offer them plain or with Velveeta, grilled onions, and tomato. They make a big deal about not allowing ketchup. Since we were going to have so many burgers today in a short time span, we split one basic hamburger with no toppings – their original. With only meat and bread, the burger tasted almost like a good steak sandwich. The patty was medium-rare, leaving it quite juicy. It was pretty well seasoned, although I would have liked a little more salt. The toast was a little thin for the thick patty, but since it’s sourdough the toast stood up flavor-wise. I wish we had tried one with cheese, onions, and tomato, but this one was really good. It’s not hard to see why they’ve survived and thrived for so long.

Andrew outside the Louis’ Lunch building.

You can see the unique cast iron cookers here. The patties are attached to a vertical tray that is inserted into the cooker where it’s cooked with flame on both sides. The bread is toasted using the machine on the left.

Look how thick that patty is! It’s really a simple burger, but tasty. 

After Louis, we drove about 30 minutes to Ted’s Restaurant in Meridian, Connecticut. Ted’s is famous for their steamed burgers. They steam the meat instead of grilling it. They also steam the cheese. We ordered single cheeseburgers with everything (tomato, onion, lettuce, pickle chips, ketchup, mayo) plus their cheese fries. This was a unique, tasty burger. It was well-proportioned and well-balanced. The steamed Wisconsin cheddar plays a particularly big role in this burger. It adds salt and flavor, but it’s also thick enough to add texture and chew to the burger. The steamed meat tasted good and was more tender than most of the grilled patties. The cheese fries were a bit of a bust; the cheese had cooled into a solid sheet over the fries. We had to tear chunks of cheese off to eat with a fry (which was good). A very enjoyable burger, although I doubt we’ll be steaming burgers at home.

The last burger of our trip was another 30 minute drive away to Manchester, Connecticut at Shady Glen Dairy Stores. Their claim-to-fame is the Bernice Original, a burger with four slices of cheese overhanging the patty onto the grill. The cheese cooks until it’s mostly crisp. Aside from the visual interest, cooking the cheese like that also changes the flavor. When Andrew and took the first bite out of each of our shared burger, our eyes were wide. It was a really delicious bite, and each bite afterwards was equally good. The crisped cheese added a savory and unique flavor as well as some texture. The meat was well-seasoned and cooked well. Just delicious. The coleslaw, which came with the platter, was very good too, kind of KFC-like with a fine dice and a slightly sweet dressing. The fries were fine. Since Shady Glenn started as a dairy, we tried their milkshakes and were not disappointed. Super good. The only real problem was that this was our 3rd burger in 90 minutes, so we didn’t have room to eat more. Although they apparently make this cheese specially for the Bernice Original, I want to try cooking my cheese this at home too. This was probably our second favorite burger on the trip, after the Jucy Lucy at Matt’s Bar in Minneapolis. What a great way to end our burger tasting on this trip! We’ll summarize our burgers and lessons later.

After we staggered out of Shady Glen, we completed our drive and arrived at the Culinary Institute of America. More on that later. We have a day of getting his last few things and exploring the area, then I drop Andrew off tomorrow and head back to Seattle.