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So Sliders?


Digger

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In the Chicago area where I grew up "sliders" were only sold at White Castle. They were open very late, and often hit the spot after a gig at 2:00 or 3:00 AM when you were starving and perhaps had consumed many beers. Very inexpensive and you could easily down 4-6 of them. If I recall they had cheese, onion, and pickle on them - none of which was of good quality and the meat was certainly questionable. Not something I would ever go out of my way to get, but at 3:00AM when nothing else was open they would do.

 

Since then the small almost bite sized hamburger has popped up in various restaurants and bars and are generally known as "sliders" some quite expensive with Kobe beef etc. and various trimmings. But to me the term will always mean cheap and not too good, but available when needed. The White Castles seemed to be mostly located on the southside of Chicago and south suburbs, not very many north of the loop.

 

Most fast-food burger joints in the USA have pre-cooked burgers, frozen and they pop them in a microwave before serving it to you. Very consistent nationwide that way. Wendy's chain claims they never freeze their meat and it is somewhat different than the McDonalds or Burger King. About 10 year ago a new chain popped up called Five Guys, and they actually have raw burger and you can see someone actually hand packing it and putting it on a grill. They are quite good, but much more expensive and slower than the "fast-food" joints.

 

 

The meat in white castles is just beef. And the “pickle, cheese and onions” were of questionable quality? No theyre not. How would a pickle even be of lower quality lol? It’s just a sliced pickle. The onions are just diced onions.

 

And no fast food joints have prep cooked burgers that they pop in the microwave. They might precook a batch of burgers and put them in a warming tray or something but no burger chain microwaves their burgers. That’s nonsense. Haven’t you ever worked fast food? Or at least watched them work behind the counter? Five guys isn’t unique in that. Lots of places you can see them work.

 

Back when White Castle started (I want to say the 20s, they were the first hamburger chain) hamburgers were of dubious ingredients and quality and a lot of people didn’t trust them. So the guy who started White Castle made his employees wear white (so people could tell how clean they were) and they cooked in front of the customers.

 

No burger chain microwaves their burgers, that’s absurd.

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I worked at a Wendy's when I was a kid. The meat was delivered every other day (or maybe daily, hard to remember that...). It came in 20 lb boxes. The ground beef inside wrapped in plastic, unfrozen. It was a solid 20lb block of meat. We stored it in a refrigerator. There is a patty press in the back. I had to load and feed the meat into the hopper and operate the press to make the square patties. Then they went into a bin to be cooked that day, usually by me. They were never frozen in the store.

 

They were cooked on the griddle fresh. The trick was to estimate demand and have just enough fresh off the grill burgers ready for the orders. You always had to overestimate so you didn't run out or have long wait times. What that meant was there were often burgers that were fully cooked and no customer. Those went into a bin/tray and were used to make the chili for the next day.

 

Another good semi fast food joint is Steak and Shake. They are kind of like a full size, better version of a White Castle burger. Good fries too. Haven't seen one of those since I was in college.

 

I worked at Hardee’s and they were frozen and we cooked off batches. We always had warming trays with burgers in them, after a certain time if they hadn’t sold we’d trash whatever was left and cook fresh ones. We certainly never microwaved them.

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Hell, White Castles were called sliders (for good reason) in the 50ies and before when they were a dime each or less. I learned to call them Body Builders thanks to a black sheep uncle who referred to me as Buzzard Bait.

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No mate, were just innovaters!

 

You didnt like the beetroot & egg? I love them but you have to be careful with the beetroot it stains if you drop it on yourself I dont like the pineapple myself, rather that with ice cream~

 

Actually, I liked fried egg and pineapple, but it was the beetroot I had to remove from the burger. Just not my thing. [flapper]

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After watching harold and kumar go to whitecastle I had to visit a store on my last trip to the US (6 years ago). I can safely say that it didnt live up to the hype although to fried onions on it were nice. I have a family tradition with my sister and broth-in in law thats so far been going on for the last 3 years. Every friday we will get together for homemade burgers (courtesy of my sister) and cocktails (I enjoy mixology). There's definitely worse things to do after a tiring week of work

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After watching harold and kumar go to whitecastle I had to visit a store on my last trip to the US (6 years ago). I can safely say that it didnt live up to the hype although to fried onions on it were nice. I have a family tradition with my sister and broth-in in law thats so far been going on for the last 3 years. Every friday we will get together for homemade burgers (courtesy of my sister) and cocktails (I enjoy mixology). There's definitely worse things to do after a tiring week of work

With a username like” Krock", we should take your hamburger comments as gospel~

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Actually, I liked fried egg and pineapple, but it was the beetroot I had to remove from the burger. Just not my thing. [flapper]

Oh no! Beetroot is the best part!!

 

Well unless you’re wearing a white dress shirt and driving while eating it....ask me how I know~

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Another good semi fast food joint is Steak and Shake. They are kind of like a full size, better version of a White Castle burger. Good fries too. Haven't seen one of those since I was in college.

 

Good to know. There is a Steak n Shake in South Austin not far from where I live. I guess I will finally have to break down and check it out. Right now my only option is to cook/steam frozen White Castles from the supermarket. I just don't feel my arteries hardening after eating those like I do with the real deal. [wink]

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I worked at a Wendy's when I was a kid. The meat was delivered every other day (or maybe daily, hard to remember that...). It came in 20 lb boxes. The ground beef inside wrapped in plastic, unfrozen. It was a solid 20lb block of meat. We stored it in a refrigerator. There is a patty press in the back. I had to load and feed the meat into the hopper and operate the press to make the square patties. Then they went into a bin to be cooked that day, usually by me. They were never frozen in the store.

 

They were cooked on the griddle fresh. The trick was to estimate demand and have just enough fresh off the grill burgers ready for the orders. You always had to overestimate so you didn't run out or have long wait times. What that meant was there were often burgers that were fully cooked and no customer. Those went into a bin/tray and were used to make the chili for the next day.

 

Another good semi fast food joint is Steak and Shake. They are kind of like a full size, better version of a White Castle burger. Good fries too. Haven't seen one of those since I was in college.

 

What? Steak and Shake is absolutely nothing like White Castle. White Castle steams their burgers and is just a fast food burger joint. Steak and Shake is pretty much a sit down restaurant (they have a drive through but if you order through it you'd better be prepared to sit there 15-20 minutes) and they fry their burgers, which are incredibly greasy. Steak and Shake's fries are really greasy too.

 

Steak and Shake has as much (actually more since they both fry their burgers unlike White Castle) with McDonald's as it does White Castle.

 

I live about 2 minutes from a Steak and Shake and I never eat that crap.

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Another good semi fast food joint is Steak and Shake. They are kind of like a full size, better version of a White Castle burger. Good fries too. Haven't seen one of those since I was in college.

 

Good to know. There is a Steak n Shake in South Austin not far from where I live. I guess I will finally have to break down and check it out. Right now my only option is to cook/steam frozen White Castles from the supermarket. I just don't feel my arteries hardening after eating those like I do with the real deal. [wink]

 

Steak and Shake is just gross IMO. It's pretty expensive for what it is and their service is awful. I used to eat at the one downtown occasionally because I worked right next door but I usually got a salad or a chili mac.

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  • 5 weeks later...

As Gael needed cheering up last night I took her to the best bistro in town!

 

We decided to try “Sliders” as a shared entree, and this was them!

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They were bloody lovely!!

 

I had the beef and chicken, Gael had the pulled pork. We had a side of beer battered chips ( best ever). She reports that the pork was great and had a nice sweet chutney, my chicken had a crisp batter and coleslaw, the beef one had slices of pickle and was far too small, I could have eaten 3 of them! The brioche buns were soft, just perfect in fact.

 

Next we shared a seafood plate that was also gorgeous and you could taste all the separate flavours, something in my mind that shows a chef that knows what he’s doing.

 

For the first time for as long as I can remember I left a $10 tip because the waitress was fantastic.

 

The sliders were $18, the chips $7 and I would gladly have that combination as a meal next time.

 

So our first foray into the “Slider” world has 2 new devotees.

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It's a New Years Day tradition with the wife that we get about 15lbs of crab, shrimp, corn, potatoes etc... ya know...a seafood boil. Even with the crowd we had, I still have enough leftovers I made killer crab cakes for dinner yesterday, tonight...shrimp tacos with mango salsa.

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Never heard of White Castle, we don't have any here. Looked it up and we have a White Castle roofing company is all. Looks like an eastern chain. Folks that worked in fast food places, I worked at McDonalds while in high school. Mostly nights. Those were the days in my teens and 20's.

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Never heard of White Castle, we don't have any here. Looked it up and we have a White Castle roofing company is all. Looks like an eastern chain. Folks that worked in fast food places, I worked at McDonalds while in high school. Mostly nights. Those were the days in my teens and 20's.

 

The closest ones to you are probably in the Twin Cities. There are quite a few of them there. On those rare occasions when I visited friends and family still living up there, the first stop after leaving the MSP airport was the White Castle on Lyndale Avenue in Bloomington. And I'd have to make at least one more stop before returning home.

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They are only in about 10 states. I may be wrong on how many but it is not a lot. You can find them in the store frozen, but to eat them at a White Castle in all their nastiness is a true delight.

 

You are correct about the frozen ones. I eat them from time to time because there are no White Castles anywhere near here. If you steam them right, they're not bad, but not the same as ones fresh off the grill. WC was always a popular place around 2:00 AM when the bars closed. Long lines of people in various degrees of intoxication wanting to guarantee an interesting start to the following day. [biggrin]

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