Have you ever had a streamed cheeseburger? Neither had we, until we visited Ted’s Restaurant at 1044 Broad Street in Meriden.
According to http://www.roadfood.com, the steamed cheeseburger is only available within a 25 mile radius of Middletown, and is virtually unknown elsewhere. Living in its birthplace of Connecticut, we decided that it was necessary to investigate for ourselves some of the hype that surrounds this mythical dish.
The legend of the steamed cheeseburger dates back to the 1920s, when steaming food was considered more healthy than frying i—nd apparently this included burgers. Although the facts are unclear, through limited internet research we have come up with the theory that Jack O’Rourke, grandfather of local diner owner Brian O’Rourke, was the first to come up with the concept right here in Middletown at his horse-drawn cart Jack’s Lunch, a precursor to O’Rourke’s Diner.
Until the highly anticipated day that O’Rourke’s reopens (we’ll be first in line), “World Famous” Ted’s Restaurant carries the esteemed steamed cheeseburger torch. According to Jake Levine ’08, the restaurant has made several top 10 lists of the best burgers in the nation. For a place that boasts of its “World Famous” reputation, Ted’s is tiny. There are only three booths plus eight seats at the counter, behind which the steam cabinet works its magic. Both the meat and cheese are stuffed into separate little metal trays, and after being stacked like airplane dinners in the cabinet for a few minutes, a steaming, “healthy” cheeseburger arrives at your booth (if you’re lucky enough to snag one) on a tiny paper plate.
The menu does not go very far beyond the steamed cheeseburger ($4), but also offers steamed hot dogs ($2.75), BLTs ($3), and plain steamed cheese sandwiches ($3.50). Free toppings come with any dish, and according to Levine, our chauffer and guide for the evening, the burgers are best ordered with salt and pepper already on them rather than putting it on yourself at the table. For those who prefer applying their own salt and pepper, they are readily available“along with most other toppings including sautéed onions, which are also delicious. Before we get to the main event, the standout item of our meal was definitely the home fries ($1.50), smothered in extra-steamed cheese ($1.75, also Jake’s suggestion).
That being said, a steamed cheeseburger is not nearly as good as one that has come into contact with grease. The steam cooks the burgers all the way through and cannot possibly provide the crust that makes fried or grilled burgers way better than their “healthier” counterpart. But this is not Ted’s fault. There is an inherent flaw in the whole steamed cheeseburger system.
The real magic of Ted’s lies in the steamed cheese. It is supposedly cheddar, but tastes like the perfect, fat, fluffy, goopy lovechild of Kraft American Singles and Polly-O string cheese. The next time we go to Ted’s, we are either ordering the “Double Hot Cheese (No Meat)” or bringing our own hamburgers.
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