Food Fight

“I realize there are things you can say and do that you can never take back, but if it’s not too late, could you possibly make it a cheese-burger?” -Lyle Lovett

Here is the premise of Food Fight. I, your humble correspondent, will pit the same foods of different restaurants against each other. I will eat the food, compare and contrast the food, and tell you which food I think is the best.
This week I am ordering a cheeseburger, fries and a diet coke at three Grand Forks Area Restaurants. Let’s begin.

Big Sioux Truck Stop Café

I ordered the ½ pound cheese burger with Fries at my first stop, the Big Sioux Truck Stop. It’s served with little round slices of dill pickle as a garnish. The waitress tells me the burger is hand formed and cooked on a flat top. If you only eat fast food burgers, you forget what a real hamburger tastes like. It tastes like this. The Big Sioux Cheese Burger comes on a sesame seed bun with two slices of American cheese. It’s a Classic.

Don’t forget the fries. They’re pretty fat. The thickness gives them a lot of soft warm interior potato, uh, meat (?), so they’re crispy on the outside, warm and fluffy on the inside. This is a damn good cheeseburger and fries.
P.S. My grandmother had the Creamy Cabbage Soup, loved it, and said it was more like a hot dish than a soup.

The Fabulous Kegs Drive Inn

Does the fact that the keg is a classic American drive-in housed in two giant wooden kegs count for something? Yes, it totally does. I have to say it was hard to stick to mission on this one. I wanted to try the coleslaw-covered hot dog with a chocolate coke and side of onion rings. But this is a burger fight and you know what they say, you don’t bring a coleslaw-covered hot dog and a chocolate coke to a burger fight.
I ordered a ¼ pound cheese burger and fries.

The burger is fine. It’s not particularly juicy or flavorful. It doesn’t suck, it’s just not a particularly strong burger. The fries are good, thin, lots of crispy crunchy surface area. There is nothing wrong with this burger and fries, but next time I’m going for the coleslaw dog.

Whitey’s Wonderbar

Whitey’s opened in 1925. That’s a hell of a run, but have they still got it? My burger and fries come on a plain white plate with a pickle spear. It looks so simple I’m braced to be underwhelmed. But man, Whiteys make a great burger. It really is thick and juicy. Really! I’m not being cliché. They don’t skimp on the cheese either. The burger juice and the meltey gooey cheese are intoxicating. I guess you don’t last 80 plus years if you don’t know how make a decent cheeseburger.

The fries are skin-on and slightly seasoned. Delicious.

This is a pretty close, but in the end it’s the juiciness and the cheesiness of the Whitey’s burger that gives it the crown.
Ladies and Gentlemen I give you the winner of the Cheese Burger fight: Whitey’s Wonder Bar. Congratulations, you’ve earned it.

If You Go

Big Sioux Truck Stop Café
4401 32nd Ave South
Grand Forks
Open 24 hours
(701) 738-0440

The Fabulous Kegs Drive Inn
901 North 5th St.
Grand Forks
(701) 775-4993

Whitey’s Wonderbar
121 Demers Ave
East Grand Forks
(218) 773-1831