It's embarrassing to admit that I didn't eat a hamburger for years.
I've been oblivious to the show-offy, high-priced burgers around town. I haven't even eaten the famous burger at Father's Office in Santa Monica (or at its new branch at Culver City), although I know Sang Yoon, who started that business.
Sang is a great chef, and not just of burgers. He cooked a marvelous Korean lunch for me when I was writing about such food for the Los Angeles Times.
The closest I've gotten to his burger, though, was hearing classmates rave about it when I was studying Spanish in Guanajuato. That's how far its reputation has spread.
But now, at last, I have eaten a hamburger. And a very good one, designed by a chef. This happened in Oakland in Southern Oregon.
Oakland is a quaint town with old brick storefronts and a very good restaurant, Tolly's, behind one of them. (It's on the left, with striped awnings, in the photo above. The cozy dining area is in the photo at the right.)
After a winemaker dinner there, I met the chef, Jeffrey Parker. That night, Parker had put together an ambitious menu based on Oregon foods. A couple of examples: cedar-planked wild Oregon river salmon with blueberry glaze and peppered bacon on zucchini tomato lentils. And a sesame tempura Anderson Ranch lamb chop accompanied by panko-coated lamb Salisbury, braised cranberry cabbage, polenta and a mint fig glaze.
But his heart apparently lies elsewhere. "A burger will be my signature," he told me, a burger made with grass-fed beef from the Willamette Valley in Oregon. Pure and splendidly natural, it is, he said, "the world's best burger, a half pound of ecstasy."
And so I returned to Oakland to eat that burger. Tolly's has an old fashioned soda fountain and ice cream parlor that opens into the restaurant, and the burger is on the fountain menu.
It comes in seven styles, ranging from the Natural to the Kona with shaved ham, pineapple, Cheddar and Hawaiian dressing. You can have it on a bun or on a green salad, which is not my idea of a burger but probably appeals to dieters.
The Bacon Cheddar sounded pretty good, with crisp house-peppered bacon and melted Cheddar, but I wanted no distractions, and so I ordered the Natural.
It was a fine burger, half a pound of beef on a locally-baked potato bun, accompanied by a kosher dill pickle, sliced tomato and red onion, lettuce, a little cup of catsup and handcut seasoned cottage fries, made with Northwest-grown Russets.
When Parker is there, he makes roast pepper ketchup. Otherwise, the kitchen sends out classic bottled ketchup, which is more in line with tradition.
My Natural (with bottled ketchup) was plain and totally satisfying, no fancy touches needed or wanted. There couldn't have been a better choice to break my burger fast.
The Natural burger is $9.99 at Tolly's Restaurant and Soda Fountain, 115 Locust Street, Oakland, OR 97462. Tel: (541) 459-3796. Other burgers are $10.99 (The Classic Cheese Burger) to $14.99 for the New Yorker, with corned beef, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese and spicy Russian dressing.
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