A Hamburger Today- aht.seriouseats.com

Link Roundup

Posted by Adam Kuban, April 30, 2007 at 2:01 PM

Yippee ki-ay, burgerlovers! It's time for another burger-link roundup! Enjoy, pardners!

Give me your burgers! Arrrrrgh!

Remember Total Recall? And how the Governator's character is looking for some Martian mutant resistance leader named Kuato? And how, at the end, it's revealed that Kuato is really some weirdass person-in-a-person?

Well, the former Burger Chef chain is kinda like that. In 1982, Burger Chef was bought out by the corporate parent of Hardee's and most Burger Chefs morphed in to Hardee's. But now, the stunted little Burger Chef that has long been a hidden part of Hardee's corporeal mass is getting its (limited) time in the sun. Hardee's locations in certain Midwestern cities are bringing back Burger Chef's signature burger, the Big Shef. If you live in the Indiana cities of Indianapolis, Terre Haute, Fort Wayne, or South Bend or in Dayton, Ohio, you'll be able to eat your way down memory lane.

The Big Shef, served in the '70s and '80s, was a quarter-pound burger with two charbroiled patties, American cheese, shredded lettuce, and special Big Chef sauce. Doesn't seem so special these days, but I suppose it might be like Proust's madelines to Midwest burger lovers of a certain age.

I can has cheezborger? Michael Jordan's Steak House now serving burgers for dogs. Call it a "kitty bag" and I suppose you could take one home for Fluffy, too.

Is original bad-boy chef Marco Pierre White coming to America? If so, will he go downmarket? Grub Street's Josh "Mr. Cutlets" Ozersky grills the onetime mentor to Mario Batali and Anthony Bourdain. Says White: "America doesn’t need any more great chefs. It’s about me taking my knowledge from the three-star world and taking it down to the level of a three-star burger or a three-star steak. I’d want to take a concept you could roll out across the country. One that’s easy for the family.

At Philadelphia's inaugural Scrapplefest, a burger made from the regionally beloved food earned its creator the "Scrapple King" crown. What's scrapple, you ask? Here's your answer.

Do you dig fast-food burgers? Then you're ugly and dumb. But, hey, there's some good news: "A paper published in the May issue of Appetite, a scientific journal, concludes that unhealthy eaters are viewed as 'less physically attractive, less warm, less intelligent, and less studious' than their carrotmunching peers. On the upside, fast-food lovers are perceived as easygoing and more sociable."

An In-N-Out opened in Tucson, Arizona, last week. It's the easternmost outpost of the well-regarded chain yet. Not eastern enough for many folks' taste, however. Note to In-N-Out: Go national! Says ScrippsNews.com: "By noon, more than 100 people were waiting outside and the drive-thru line was at least 100 vehicles deep. The wait to simply place an order took as long as an hour." Pent-up In-N-Out cravings in parts farther east would make the Tucson lines look tame.

The Wendy's chain might be up for sale. Shares rose on the news. Not that fun, but I thought you might like to know.

The New York Times visited Louis' Lunch last week and reveals that the patties are "more than 90 percent lean." Say wha? And those things are still juicy? And raved about? Hmm ...

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