PrintBurgers and Hot Dogs on the Road
Yesterday I headed out to Aspen, Colorado, for the Food & Wine Classic. I'll be filing periodic reports from here, but since I knew I was going to be getting a lot of fancy-pants cooking in the next three days, I decided that my travel day would be hot dogs–hamburgers-and–pizza day. It actually turned into a fun food adventure day.
A late morning breakfast at the JFK Jet Blue counter of a very fine Papaya King hot dog at a reasonable price for airport chow: $1.99. I also tried Papaya King's spicy sausage, which might have been fine if I didn't bite into one of those hard, gristly things you sometimes get in sausages.
I bought two Famiglia slices on the plane for me and Vicky to eat for lunch. They were room temperature by the time we ate them, and though Di Fara has nothing to worry about, they were a perfectly acceptable light plane meal.
The three-and-a-half-hour drive from Denver to Aspen is inordinately beautiful, filled with majestic mountain and verdant valley views (at least this time of year). We stopped for coffee at a place that had a Good Times Burger franchise adjacent to the convenience store. I ordered a cheeseburger, onion rings, and a vanilla custard. The single cheeseburger, made with fresh (never frozen) natural Coleman meat was as juicy as a single cheeseburger can be at a place like this. The onion rings were damn good, just greasy enough, and really oniony, but my wife made me throw them out after I had eaten three because she couldn't stand the smell. The frozen custard was deliciously creamy and actually tasted of real Madagascar vanilla. I was impressed, as was Vicky, who appropriated most of my small cup.
We arrived at Aspen about 8:30 p.m., showered, and then looked for another good burger. We ended up at the upstairs bar at R Bistro, formerly Range, which Gourmet magazine had favorably written up when it was Range. The bison burger at R was mushy and had no crusty seal. I like bison fine, but this burger kind of sucked. The yam fries were good, though.
Off to sleep. Will report back tomorrow, Serious Eaters.
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1 Comment:
Ed, once you get back into Denver you might want to check out the Jack n' Grill. Great New Mexican food and darn good burgers. Much better than those chain burgers at Good Times.
Colorado Jim at 10:35AM on 06/15/07