Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.
Issue link: https://loumag.epubxp.com/i/174531
Day five Ollie£s Trolley (978 S. Third St.) Te yellow-and-red walk-up resembles a streetcar. Cash only. To-go orders only. Closed weekends. Lots of construction workers waiting for this roller coaster. Only enough room inside the streetcar for about three customers, plexiglass separating them from the women working the greasy fattop grill. An Ollie Burger is $2.60. Tastes like turkey. It comes with a tangy and orangey Ollie Sauce, nothing else. After I fnish the burger at my ofce, I call. "Can you tell me what's in the Ollie Sauce?" I ask. "I don't know," the woman says. "You don't know if you can tell me or you don't know what's in it?" "I don't know what's in it." A cup of the stuf costs 50 cents. I recommend shooting it like cheap whiskey. Sidebar has a legal theme, with the Preamble on one of the walls inside. Te Court Reporter has avocado and a honey-chipotle aioli. Te bartender recommends the Hung Jury: gooey beer cheese, onions and mushrooms. Te bun sweats, glistens with butter. Te meat — a blend of chuck, brisket and short rib — is sweet. "Well-done still has juice running down your hand," says culinary director Jason Pierce. "Te meat is that good." It clocks in at seven ounces. "We wanted a burger that people could fnish," the 43-year-old says. "Afterwards, you won't feel like you need to take a nap." Bonus: A side of regular fries only costs a buck, two dollars for zucchini fries. Harvest Day 10 The Holy Grale (1034 Bardstown Road) Tis one has Cheddar, caramelized onions, arugula. Comes on a pretzel bun. It's $12, which is what you'll pay for the good stuf in town. Your pick between it and the one at Harvest. A burger should come on a soft pretzel bun, crunchy salt crystals enhancing everything. Tat's the natural step in its evolution. A local baker named Klaus Riedelsheimer — that last name gives it away that he's from Germany — bakes the laugenbrötchen on Belmar Drive of Preston Highway, in a warehouse that says Ehrler's Candies on the front. "Nobody can pronounce laugenbrötchen," Riedelsheimer says. "I call it the burger bun." Holy Grale, Game, Harvest, MilkWood and others use his Burger Boy Day six Harvest (624 E. Market St.) You can react to the sticker shock. But this one's worth every single one of those 16 dollars. Lettuce, a bacon jam made from hog jowl, a wad of smoky goat cheese that melts when your hands press the buttery pretzel bun. "Te bun, it's soft but can stand the juice and the mess. Te last two bites, it's still together," chef Coby Ming says. Te last bite has the same amount of toppings as the frst. It's the only burger I've had like that anywhere. "Sometimes," the 40-yearold Ming says, "the last bite of a burger can be unidentifable." Ming grew up in coastal Texas and Louisiana. "As a little girl, I would just get the meat, medium-rare, maybe with a little sauce," she says. "You can put sparklers on top, but if the meat isn't as delicious, you'll just be tasting toppings." Day seven Granville Inn (1601 S. Third St.) Te Bambino has marinara sauce and mozzarella cheese on it. At what point does a burger become a pizza? Day eight Sidebar (129 N. Second St.) It's the beginning of week two. I've eaten every bite so far. Every fry, too. I've been having a handful of blueberries for breakfast to make sure I'm famished come lunchtime, which is when I'm doing most of my eating. Other than that, no changes to my dietary habits. One night last week, for example, I made beef tacos for dinner. Tacos. With beef. I disgust myself. 58 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 10.13 Day nine Burger Boy (1450 S. Brook St.) "Nothing froufrou about our burger," says Dan Borsch, 36. He's owned the 24-7 diner since 2008. A restaurant has been at this spot since the '60s. "We scrubbed it, lost nine out of 10 layers of grease," Borsch says. "One layer of grease is fne." A hamburger will set you back $2. A double quarter pounder with cheese, which is what I get, costs $6. Te meat starts frozen, pucks ready for hockey sticks to rife them across the ice. Te clumps of fries are dusted with a spicysweet seasoning. "Guy on the third shift made it up," the woman working the fattop says. "Tere's like eight to 10 spices on there. He worked on it for about a year. Some people want us to sprinkle it on their burgers." bread. "Tere's no sponginess to it," he says. Riedelsheimer was retired from the restaurant world. Ten, fve years ago, his wife died. "I said, 'Heck, I have to do something,'" he says. When I ask him how many burger buns he makes a day, he pulls out a calculator. "Six hundred," he says. How does he make it? He tells me a story about how when a newspaper writer asked him that same question, Riedelsheimer said the only way the reporter could leave with the information would be "in a pine box." Day 11 Bunz Burgerz (969 1/2 Baxter Ave.) Can't decide if Bunz or Burger Boy has the greasiest drunk food in town. At Bunz, the meat looks like it was dug out with an icecream scoop. A regular asks what I think about the place. I show him my cleared basket. "Bites speak louder than words," he says.