Hamburger America (52 page)

I heard a woman say in a singsong voice to Chris as she left with her family, “I just had another wonderful hamburger!” You’ll be singing too.

 

 

I
magine walking into an open mike night at a Texas roadhouse and finding Billy Gibbons, front man of ZZ Top, on stage. At Christian’s this once was entirely possible because Billy’s good friend Steve Christian owns the place. “He used to come in, put his name on the board,” Steve told me. Christian’s no longer hosts an open mike night but when the Texas rocker comes to town, Christian’s is still his first stop for drinks and one of the best burgers in Houston.

Steve Christian is the third-generation owner of this roadhouse burger joint just off I-10 west of downtown Houston. Steve’s grandfather opened Christian’s Totem in the early ’40s as a convenience store and icehouse. Before refrigeration and air conditioning, icehouses were integral to daily life in warm climes. Steve told me, “Guys would come down here to get ice for their wives and end up staying and drinking beer for a while.” The beer fridge used to sit in the parking lot with a padlock on it. “My grandfather
would leave for the night and toss the guys the key. Eventually, Christian’s became a bar.”

Steve’s grandfather and father ran Christian’s as a convenience store and a roadside bar for over 50 years. Steve told me, “In the ’40s this was a dirt road out here,” pointing to the impossibly busy Washington Avenue, large trucks rumbling in every direction. After a stint as a DJ in a topless club and a job as a crane operator, Steve told his dad he wanted to be the third-generation owner of Christian’s. When he took over the business he had plans for expansion. Part of his plan was to put a great burger on the menu, and that burger wins “Best of Houston” awards annually.

The burger to get is the jalapeño cheeseburger—a fresh-ground, half-pound, griddled two-fister that comes in a plastic basket on a toasted white bun with lettuce, onion, tomato, pickle, mustard, and mayo. The jalapeños are snappy and hot and complement the large portion of meat well. “I only buy cold-packed jalapeños from Cajun Chef. They are the only ones that have a crunch,” Steve explained. “I’ve spent years getting the ingredients just right.” Recently, Steve has been experimenting with the deep frying of bacon. “It’s awesome!” he said as he dragged me into the kitchen the last time I was there. He takes a strip of bacon, dips it into a batter, and tosses it into the fryer. “We’ve been putting them on the burgers now, on a burger we call the Fried Bacon Burger.”

The crowd at Christian’s is mixed. It’s common to see construction workers, businessmen in suits, and tourists all enjoying their burgers. Former employee Kim, once told me, “There’s such a variety you’d be amazed. See those guys over there? Undercover cops.”

In 2004, Steve changed the longtime name of the bar from Christian’s Totem to Tailgate Bar & Grill for purely logistical reasons. “We were not really a ‘totem’ any longer (Texas vernacular for the convenience store) and we were getting too many calls from people thinking we sold religious books.” The Tailgate in the new name conjures up images of face-painted football fans in parking lots eating buffalo wings. Not so here. Steve has modified and welded actual pickup truck tailgates that serve as wall sculpture, and one supports a large plasma TV next to the bar.
Guy Art
to the extreme.

This burger joint will be around for a while. Steve plans to turn the business over to his son eventually. “We’ll see. He’s only nine years old now!”

 

 

D
irty Martin’s does not serve thick, gourmet burgers. Dirty Martin’s serves excellent, greasy, thin-patty
burgers to Austin locals and students from the nearby University of Texas. Alongside these famed grease bombs, Dirty’s also serves a guilty pleasure of yours and mine—the deep-fried tater tot.

Opened in 1926 as Martin’s Kum-Bak Place by John Martin, the burger counter earned the nickname “Dirty’s” for the dirt floor that remained until 1951. The original counter had just eight stools inside and most of the business was conducted in the parking lot with carhops. Today, the carhops are gone and the dirt floor has been covered for half a century, but Dirty’s is still cranking out great burgers over 80 years from opening day.

The menu at Dirty Martin’s is loaded with great bar food geared to pre- and post-party revelers in search of nourishment. The lunch crowd looks to be on the other end of the spectrum, nursing hangovers. There are many choices on the menu, but the burgers are king at Dirty’s.

The burgers start as fresh ground, thin patties. They are cooked on a flattop griddle and slid onto waiting, toasted sesame seed buns. It seems that the thinness of the patty allows the grillman to cook burgers faster.

Have fun trying to interpret the somewhat cryptic burger options on the menu. Ask for a hamburger and you’ll get a single patty with
mustard, onion, pickle, and tomato. Ask for a large hamburger and get the same but twice the meat (two patties). Then there’s the infamous “Sissy Burger,” which replaces the mustard and onion with mayonnaise. I asked the grill team about the definition of a Sissy Burger and was directed to a man named Wesley sitting at the end of the counter. Wesley Hughes, retired from the grill, flipped burgers at Dirty’s for 45 years. He bluntly explained to me, “Mustard is strong and not for sissies.” I deduced that mayo is for sissies and left it at that. If you need a double-patty burger with mayo, be prepared to tell your waiter you need a “Big Sissy.”

Few restaurants in America have the guts to put tater tots on their menus. This trashy little potato treat somehow has the ability to get crispier than fries and retains more grease (or flavor). You can go to the freezer aisle of your supermarket, buy a bag of tots, and cook them in your oven, but we all know how that tastes. Tater tots are best enjoyed deep-fried at places like Dirty Martin’s. And what could be better than tater tots? How about the ultimate guilty pleasure—cheese tots.

If you find yourself hungry and near the University of Texas, don’t hesitate to stop at the oldest burger stand in Austin. Order some cheese tots and a double burger and look for Wesley at the end of the counter during lunch. He’s Dirty Martin’s unofficial Head of Public Relations and knows how to spot a sissy, so order yours with mustard.

3106 OLD SPANISH TRAIL | HOUSTON, TX 77054
713-747-6800
WWW.DIRECTORYOFHOUSTON.COM/GUYS
TUE–FRI
9
AM–5:30 PM | SAT 9 AM–4 PM
CLOSED SUN & MON

 

 

E
very once in a while I come across a place where the beef used for burgers is ridiculously fresh. Case in point, Guy’s Meat Market in Houston where a full-service butcher shop doubles as one of America’s best places to find a hamburger. Second-generation owner Brad Dickens put it in the simplest terms: “Everybody else buys their ground beef from somewhere. We are butchers. We do all of our own trimming and grinding right here.”

But this is not your ordinary thick, juicy patty or even a classic griddle-smashed burger. Nope, this is the only place I’ve discovered in America where you can sink your teeth into a smoked hamburger. You read that correctly, at Guy’s the burgers are cooked in a barbeque smoker.

“This must be what heaven is like!” a woman exclaimed as the screen door closed behind her. I could have blurted out the same and clearly understood her joy. The hickory smoke that envelops the place is intoxicating. Cashier Dee told me, “A woman was in here yesterday who said, ‘I wasn’t even hungry when I walked in here.’” Guy’s will do that to you.

Guy’s is a classic Texas butcher shop. Three journeymen butchers and ten other employees
create a flurry of activity behind the counter. The sound of the butcher’s band saw is ever present, the long glass cases are filled with fresh cuts of beef and sausage, and the thick essence of smoke completes the scene.

Not all burgers are created equal and a burger at Guy’s is the perfect example. I know you are thinking, how can burger meat be cooked for more than 4 minutes without drying out? I was skeptical to say the least. The machine-pattied eight-ounce burgers are made from fresh ground chuck and cooked in a rotating barbeque smoker for just over an hour. The duration the patties spend in the smoker allows them to still be fairly juicy and gain the coveted “smoke ring” that barbeque aficionados seek, the red ring on the exterior of the beef that can only be produced by smoking meat.

A visit to Houston would not be complete without grabbing a meal with my good friend and food writer Robb Walsh. He had not been to Guy’s in awhile and I was glad he agreed to meet me there. He taught me a secret to the smoked burger that I am forever grateful for. If you ask for your burger with everything you’ll get pickles, lettuce, tomato, and a cold piece of American cheese. This is not the way Robb orders his burger. “This is a smoked burger,” he reminded me. “You need barbeque sauce.” He was absolutely right. Robb ordered his with raw onion, pickles, and Brad’s house-made tangy barbeque sauce. There was no comparison between the two burgers. The burger with everything was pretty good but the burger with barbecue sauce was explosive. “See, I told you,” Robb gloated. The flavor profile of the beef, sauce, and smoke cradled in a soft white bun was phenomenal.