The burger: It's so great when food forges an instant bond between strangers. Particularly in otherwise standoffish, socially chilly Minnesota, the state where communal tables go to die. I recently stumbled into just this kind of phenomenon, over a triple-patty cheeseburger from Wyn 65.
"Wow, that thing is sick," said the guy seated next to me. We were sharing a portion of the concrete pedestal at Canadian Pacific Plaza in downtown Minneapolis, which has become much-coveted noon-hour real estate ever since the adjoining stretch of 2nd Avenue evolved into downtown's No. 1 food truck zone. My new friend's friend's voice was similarly admiring. "Oh my god, where did you get that?" she asked.
Over there, I said, pointing to a cleverly reconditioned 1978 sleeper camper., done up in groovy shades of oranges lifted from the shag carpeting at "The Brady Bunch" house. "Oh, the one with the line of people in front of it," said New Friend No. 2. "Now I see why."
When I asked them why my lunch was such an attention-grabber, they both immediately pointed to the overabundance of cheese. Talk about your more-is-more strategy: each triple-patty burger boasts two slices of cheese per patty, one placed above the meat, the other below. Add it up: yes, that's six — 6! — slices of oozy, melted-up cheese on my triple-patty burger. The thin-ish patties (nurtured on a flattop grill to a just-above medium-rare) aren't so much draped in cheese, they're dipped in it. Is the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board a secret sponsor?
Wyn 65-ers Jason Sawicki and Travis Serbus are following most of the same formula that makes the burger at Lyn 65 -- that's the truck's bricks-and-mortar mother ship in Richfield -- such a gotta-eat experience. They're using the same fat-enriched, all-beef grind (cured short rib, blended with chuck and sirloin), the same snappy, palate-cleansing pickles, even the same does-the-trick American cheese.
The only real difference is the mayonnaise. "We use a Dijonnaise at the restaurant," said Sawicki. "But at the truck we're using our Alabama white sauce as our mayonnaise. We think it fits the style of the truck, doing a Southern-style sauce. It's so simple, just a lot of vinegar and lemon juice and black pepper and cayenne."
It's terrific. The bun is a definitely a keeper as well. That it hails from Saint Agnes Bread Co. comes as no suprise. They're split and generously buttered, and hit the hot stove until they're softened, almost pillowy, and delicately toasted.
"Bread and butter, they're just made for each other," said Sawicki. "You spread the butter so that it fills up all those tiny air pockets on the bread. Then when when you fry it up, you get that crispy, buttery taste that we all love so much."
