Bionic Burger, Wichita, KS (September, 2011)

The fourth and final stop on the Kansas burger tour - Bionic Burger.  After the disappointment at Nuway, I was still hungry and we had plenty of time to kill before our flight.  So I hit the Hamburger America app on my phone and looked at burger joints added by fans.   Bionic Burger was there.

I couldn't figure out the name.   I was reading the front of the menu and it talked about one of the founders, Steve Majors.   And it all clicked.  Steve Austin was played by Lee Majors, the Six Million Dollar (Bionic) Man.

With thay mystery solved, I go ahead and order the #2, Double Cheeseburger combo.   It comes out and looks promising.

The burger was seared around the ages and executed very well.   The bun, however, was a dry, chewy white-bread mess.   The fries were very good - similar to Five Guys'.

But what really caught our attention there was the Funnel Fries.  Imagine funnel cakes, reinvented as french fries.   What a wonderful creation.

Jo had a peanut butter malt with it and said that the combination was indeed, in the six-million dollar range.

Nuway Crumbly Burgers, Wichita, KS (September, 2011)

Stop 3 on the Kansas burger tour - heading back from Winfield home, we drove back to Wichita to fly home.   Nuway Crumbly Burgers was the second pre-determined stop.    I read about the crumbly burgers in the "burger bible" and was intrigued.   Back in the 1930s, the founder left Iowa with a new way of making burgers looking for a warmer climate.  He stopped in Wichita.

So, at Nuway, the burgers are made of "loose meat" as opposed to being formed into a patty.  Imagine a sloppy joe without the sauce.  Or, as a friend said when I told him about them, "sounds like the old Taco Bell burger" - anybody remember those?   As you walk in the side door, you're face-to-face with the counter, one side lined with stools, the other with booths.  There has also been a room added-on to the left of the counter area, with additional booth seating.  There are five locations in Wichita, we chose the refurbished original.

On to the crumbly.  So, on Sundays the original crumbly is half-price, so that's what I went with.

It looked pretty good, but was actually only fair.  Jo agreed, but said the home-made onion rings made up for the bad burger.   I had chili-cheese  tater tots.  Whenever there are tots on the menu, I let the fries pass by.  I found those mediocre as well.

The coup de grace for me at Nuway was the cherry limeade.  Made to order and quite refreshing.

The Burger Station, Winfield, KS (September 2011)

Once we got to the the Walnut Valley Festival, I was moderately consigned to the fact that the best food we'd have outside  camp was the fair food on the midway.  So while chatting with some friends at their campsite (about my preternatural fascination with cheeseburgers, among other things), one of the locals said, "Have you been to the Burger Station?"  My ears raised like a cat to the sound of a can opener.  

He then went on to describe a "carry-out only" place that served a "heart-attack-in-a-sack" for which you had to hold your hand under the bag because the grease would so weaken the paper that you couldn't carry the burgers all the way to the car without them crashing through the paper to the ground.   Jo and I, along with two buddies (David and Coy, whose last names will be withheld to protect their identities) headed over there for lunch on Thursday.  Walking in (the door on the right)

you sidle up to a counter where you place your order.   With the four of us inside, we stretched from in door to out door.  On the opposite side of the counter was, from right to left, cash register, counter-top (the picture picks up here), grill, then deep fryer with an old-time Frigidaire icebox where they stored the patties.  The burger choices were simple, and you are out of luck, if you wanted lettuce or tomato. 

The burgers were "five-to-ones" and quite tasty.  I went for a cheeseburger with chili and they didn't lie about the grease factor (check out the wax paper).   It was a good burger.  We'll go back at some point next "Bluegrass".

Jack's North Hi Carryout, Wichita, KS (September 2011)

Last week, the answer to almost every question was, "I can't.  I'm going to Winfield."   One of the questions with a different answer was, "would you like a cheeseburger?"

Starting our pilgrimage to the Walnut Valley Festival, we flew into Wichita.   Consulting the oracle at Hamburger America before we left, I had two  destinations in mind.  The first was Jack's North Hi Carryout. 

Jack's is located directly across the street from North High School, and we were warned to get there before the noon lunch bell range.   When we arrived (about 11:35), the place was empty save for a single soul ordering carry-out.

The story behind Jack's is an interesting one - the place was owned by the by same two people, Jack at the inception / Norah subsequent to him, from 1951 until 2007 when a fire closed its doors.  There were a couple of interim owners and then it sat empty.  Austin Herron (in the white t-shirt at the grill), a twenty-five year old who had wanted to open a burger stand across from his high school (a rival to North), bought it at auction and has the place up and running again.   

I went with the cowboy burger (chili, bacon, cheese and barbecue sauce on a quarter-pound burger) with fresh cut fries.

It was, by far, the best burger we had on the trip.   The fries were crisp, but not hard, and the burger nearly perfect.  Look at that steamed bun!  Jo would have given her double burger a double thumbs up, if only she'd have had a free hand <g>.