Now, the post-burger tour treatment

A tea with ginger, cinnamon, white rice, apple cider vinegar, avocado oil, and a full lemon.
That’s what I’m drinking now. Because eating 13 gourmet cheeseburgers in 36 hours is not smart. It’s not digestively smart, emotionally smart, it wasn’t logistically smart, or even financially smart.
But.
It… was… AWESOME!
The pictures are scary as we took many selfies and pictures of each other diving in. Those will stay in our phones, but the burger photos I’ve been sharing. Something a little different for the weekend.
I’ve been fuller in my life, but not very often. This tea better work on activating the digestive system. When we walked in after the trip, my sister-in-law was laughing and asked if we had bigger bellies. My nephew said he gained seven pounds. LOL.
But he kept eating the tots and cheese curds, dufus.
A buddy of ours hooked up with us in Des Moines Friday for Luchales Fine Foods where a smashburger with Boetje’s stone ground mustard, onion, tomatoes, and cheese made the list. We cut the burgers in half at this point because we made the mistake of starting with full burgers each at Mt. Pleasant’s Jefferson Street Grill and Morgan’s Corner in Ottumwa.
Luchales was after we stopped at the Wood Iron Grill in Oskaloosa and then DutchFix in Pella.
When I looked at “The Dominie” I got a flashback to Disney World about 15 years ago.
Lee and I took the girls there when Kelsey was very young. Lee got the meal package and we were always running from point A to point B throughout the day making sure we didn’t miss our reservations at these wonderful restaurants. But even looking at a menu made me nauseous.
We went over Kelsey’s birthday in October and she got these monster cupcakes with candles in them everywhere we went. Disney insists on fun. We told them when we booked the vacation that she was diabetic, so a more diabetic friendly diet would be appreciated, but insulin’s a wonderful drug. In hindsight, we would have done it differently.
The Dominie is a double decker burger with Dutch spiced beef roast shredded and packed in between the patties. Then they put pickles. mayo, and fried gouda cheese curds on it. We were smart and left off the mayo. We also ordered one for three of us and made this high school kid named Jack sign our t-shirts. I think he thought we were fun, although he may have thought something else.
This burger was phenomenally juicy and flavorful. Keep napkins in hands and, if you go in with family, split it unless the hollow leg or tapeworm dynamic is in play. It was definitely something you should shoot for when in Pella smelling the tulips..or just looking through windows.
My favorite burger, and I think it’s a consensus, was the 60/40 burger at Brick City Grille in Ames. They take 60% ground chuck and 40% ground – bacon. Yep, ground bacon and the flavor of the bacon in the burger jumps out at you as a very well-seasoned patty. That’s what I was looking for – the best taste in the “burger” not the crazy toppings. My first priority was the burger itself.
My brother took notes of each place we stopped so I’m sure this is going to transition into the kitchen at some point.
Some other burgers we tried were the Tap Room’s Fiesta Burger. It was one of the burgers that came with toasted bread and no bun. I just don’t think a burger is really a burger without the bun.
However, we stopped at the Uptown Bar and Grille in Grimes where we found a breakfast burger that was off the hook. This thing had bacon, two ½ lb. burger patties, cheese, fried egg, and I think it had a thin layer of hash browns on it – and then peanut butter. Yep, peanut butter. Hayden had to find a burger with peanut butter and he found the best one.
We cut it in half, along with the Original Uptown Burger, and we all had half a burger. But biting into that breakfast burger, thank God, the yolk didn’t come pouring out or I would have thrown my chair back and stood up all in one motion in a terrifying sequence of a yellow river of whatever the hell that stuff is.
Can’t do it. The burger was delicious and the peanut butter and bacon work. But our next stop was at Café Boudelaire on campus at Iowa State. We ordered a couple burgers there and I was not really paying attention. They came to the table, with a bun that had three bumps on it. Not sure what kind of Brazilian bread that was, but when I cut in, out poured the yellow nightmare. I felt the sinking feeling in the back of your mouth that gives you the hint things are getting ugly. I turned my head and Keith, the guy we hooked up with said, “Ummmm, keep cutting”.
I choked it back and cut the burger and quickly slid the plate with the pool of yolk on it over to him. Can’t do that.
So the weekend was filled with laughter and cholesterol. I posted some pix to PCC and got mixed reviews. Was looking for something a bit different, but I get it’s not newsie. We’ll be back this week with the regular newshole. But I do think there’s some value in letting the local readership in on where some of the best burgers are.  We have t-shirts signed by waiters and waitresses and some high school kid named Jack. You can bet he won’t forget that dude from Fort Madison – But that’s Beside the Point.
Chuck Vandenberg is editor and co-owner of Pen City Current and can be reached at Charles.V@PenCityCurrent.com.