Duluth Grill is a restaurant that may as well have been created for Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. It’s off the beaten path not just in the fact that it is in Duluth, but because of the part of Duluth it is in. Plus, while it is clearly a diner, it is more than just a diner, serving unique, local and organic fare with an eye for people with food allergies. Guy seems to love that kind of stuff, which is why he paid Duluth Grill a visit and why, despite all of my nostalgic connection to Duluth, I felt good about going there as well.

Despite being early for lunch, we found Duluth Grill to be devoid of any seats, but within 20 minutes we found ourselves seated at an odd little counter, mouths watering from what we had been witnessing. After giving my meal a lot of thought, I picked the Big and Bold Bison Burger.

It came with BBQ sauce, caramelized onions, cherrywood smoked bacon and bib lettuce. I forewent the veggies and chose their deconstructed smashed potatoes as my side. To be honest it turned out a little underwhelming. The burger was good, but not great. The meat hovered close to the dry end of the spectrum and the combination of BBQ sauce and bacon didn’t quite hit me with as much flavor as I had been hoping for. Perhaps this was the wrong burger choice, but the waitress had recommended it when I asked her. The deconstructed smashed potatoes, though, were quite amazing. They were smaller potatoes that had been sufficiently smashed before being cooked to a crisp and sprinkled with parmesan cheese and were even better than they sound.

So, I do see a lot of potential in Duluth Grill’s menu, and I don’t mean to treat the place as though it just opened up, but more in the sense that I would go back, just not for the Big and Bold Bison Burger.

Buffalo is still considered an exotic meat in the USA. Never mind the fact that bison are native to these lands and the cattle we chow on come from Europe and Asia. And because it is “exotic” it often fetches a high price at restaurants and is given the gourmet treatment. This is not the case at Billy’s Grill, a tiny diner-style joint in Sherman Oaks.

At Billy’s you can get lamb, buffalo, ostrich and venison burgers all for under eight bucks. They fall under the exotic section of the menu, but aren’t given any special treatment beyond that. They are served up in classic California fashion with lettuce, tomato, grilled onions and thousand island. As you can probably guess from above, I opted for the buffalo and without any of those normal ingredients. Instead I went with bacon and American cheese. I upped it to a combo with fries and a drink, then watched as my buffalo was cooked on the griddle and served.

It came in a fast food-style sesame seed bun and looked the fast food part. I went to work on it and found that for better or worse it tasted a whole lot like a regular burger. I’m going to go ahead and say that this was for the better. After all, the biggest issue I’ve ever had with buffalo is that it often comes out much drier than regular beef. This is because it is less fatty, but this really wasn’t noticeable at Billy’s. In fact, my biggest gripe was with the bun, which was far too thick for a burger such as this. Perhaps with something juicier it would have been necessary, but that is never a problem for buffalo.

The fries made for a nice buffalo partner. They had been nicely seasoned and fried up to a near well-done state, which is how I like my fries.

Billy’s Grill is a refreshing burger place that manages to combine exotic burgers with the feel of old timey fast food. It’s nice to see such a place and to also be reminded just how similar buffalo is to regular beef. There’s really no need to dress it up any differently.

After an awesome Michigan Football game, I was a happy and hungry unvegan. Fortunately I had dinner plans outside of normal Ann Arbor at a restaurant called Carson’s American Bistro. Although it was still in Ann Arbor, it was far enough from the Big House that it wasn’t hard to get a table. The name, Carson’s, evoked thoughts of some sort of a cowboy steakhouse, but when I walked in, I found it was anything but. Also, there is no such thing as a cowboy steakhouse in southeastern Michigan. It was actually a pretty upscale place with a nice selection of food. I wasn’t exactly ready for something huge (having partaken in some cheap pizza while leaving the stadium), so I looked to the burgers.

The best looking burger to me was the Bison Burger. It came with lettuce, tomato and choice of cheese. The phrasing was a little bit ambiguous regarding the involvement of caramelized onions, so I brought them up while ordering to ensure they would not be a part of my burger. Then I chose their Vermont cheddar as my cheese. It also came with fries. PLAZA-ESCORTS

Soon enough, it arrived, but apparently the ambiguous phrasing had failed me. I found onions of the caramelized sort hanging on top of my burger and had to send it back. It came back a little too quickly, but at least there were no onions. Yet, I found something that had escaped my vision in the first place: a pickle. Gross, but at least it wasn’t on the burger. I brushed the vegetable aside and dug in to the burger. Biting in, I found that this wasn’t the best bison burger I’d ever had. In fact it was far from it. It was quite dry and definitely not the medium I had ordered. It actually kind of tasted like they had scraped off the original cheese and onions, tossed on a new slice and thrown it back on the grill long enough to re-melt the cheese. So the cheese was delicious, as was the bun, but the patty itself left a lot to be desired.

It was disappointing, and although everyone else seemed to enjoy their meal, I felt like mine could have turned out much better. The bison burger is a very difficult burger to cook, and Carson’s was not the right place to keep that burger moist.

As a child with an appetite pickier than a vegan, I remember going to The Moose Preserve in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan and being amazed by the selection of interesting foods on their menu. I always went with a burger because I wasn’t adventurous yet, but as I grew up, I tried some more things. The Moose Preserve was the first place I ever tried a buffalo burger, and I loved it. In fact, at the time I tried it, I had never seen buffalo on a menu anywhere else. Despite trying buffalo, there was one thing on the menu I was always in fear of. This was the Road Kill Grill. Although not actually composed of road kill, this meal had enough strange (to me) animals on it to keep me away. On my last visit to Michigan, though, I decided it was time to take on the road kill.

My Dad and I arrived for lunch, and the place was mostly ours. We took a seat and I was surprised to find that this game-inspired restaurant was playing music like Fanfarlo rather than Ted Nugent. Nonetheless, the menu was just as I remembered it. For a few moments I toyed with ordering something like the Buffaloaf (Buffalo Meat Loaf), but I knew the Road Kill Grill was the ultimate unvegan choice. The menu describes it as,

A selection of roast venison, semi-boneless broiled quail and wild boar sausage with Michigan game gravy. Served with buttered corn, Minnesota wild rice casserole and an “I Eat My Road Kill” bumper sticker.

Although semi-boneless quail is not at all boneless in my mind, I was excited at the entire prospect of this feast. I was ready for it and ordered with a big carnivorous grin on my face.

My beautiful meal arrived as a pile of meat and grains. I decided to start out with the food that would be the most similar to food I’m used to, the quail. By looks, quail was a miniature version of a chicken, and the bones were especially small and brittle, breaking with the slightest bend. I decided to eat it like I would a chicken, but cutting the breast up, but leaving the drumsticks to my fingers. I took a bite and found it was like a combination of duck and chicken. It was oily like a duck, but tender like chicken. I offered some of it to my Dad, the ultimate picky eater, and he surprised me by accepting. In fact, after tasting, he didn’t make his usual comment of, “It doesn’t do anything for me,” like he has every other time I’ve seen him taste something strange. I think this spoke well for the quail.

Next, I tried out the venison. I was pretty disappointed to find that it had been grilled on skewers along with mushrooms. I had no room for fungus on my platter of road kill, so I de-skewered it and set it aside for some poor bacteria to eat. Then I got down to the venison. This was surprisingly similar to beef, and although it wasn’t as tender, I felt that if it went through some sort of tenderization process like beef does, it would have been hard to tell the difference. It also had a bit sharper flavor.

Finally, I had the wild boar sausage, which ended up being the least interesting part of the grill. It tasted very similar to a regular pork sausage, although there was definitely something to it that told you that you weren’t eating something normal. All of these combined with the rice, gravy and corn made for an awesome meal that is definitely worth trying for any adventurous eater.

By now you’ve also probably noticed that I didn’t describe any of my food as gamey. This is because I disagree with the very notion of “gamey.” Yes, some food is actually hunted as game, but the quail, venison and boar that I ate were probably raised in a farm. If they weren’t, they probably don’t taste any different than if they were farmed. No one would ever describe a tough cut of regular beef as gamey, but if they eat some tough venison, it is automatically described as gamey, which somehow is supposed to mean something more than just tough. Therefore, none of my food was gamey.

That tangent aside, the Road Kill Grill was awesome, just like everything else I’ve ever had at The Moose Preserve. To remember it, I have my own bumper sticker, which is actually more of a badge of honor than anything else. With it, I will always carry the all-important message that “I eat my road kill.”

I had been hearing about a glorious and semi-new restaurant in downtown LA for months and finally I gathered up the strength to make the trek down the 10 and check it out. This new restaurant is called Wurstkuche and although there are multiple fun and interesting pronunciations for such a place, the one thing that is certain is that it means “sausage kitchen” in some Germanic language.

Arriving on a Sunday night, I expected the place to be packed, but was happy to find a relatively short line at the counter that gave me just enough time to decide what I wanted. The menu is limited to a wide variety of sausages and french fries. Although this seems kind of limiting, there is a sausage in their extensive list for everyone (even those dastardly vegetarians and vegans). The most intriguing part for me was the exotic sausages. Animals found in these ranged from rattlesnake to alligator to rabbit. I decided to order two sausages from this list. The first was the Rattlesnake and Rabbit with Jalapeno Peppers. The second was the Buffalo, Beef and Pork with Chipotle Peppers. The four toppings available were carmelized onions, sauerkraut, sweet peppers and spicy peppers. The only one that fit into my unvegan eating habits was the spicy peppers, so I ordered that on top of the buffalo sausage, but opted to keep that rattlesnake sausage naked.

Along with these, I ordered a small order of fries, called “Klein.” These fries are done in the Belgian style, which I believe means they are double-dipped and come with some crazy dipping sauces. I ordered mine with the Bleu Cheese Walnut and Bacon sauce, then paid up and headed out of the grilling area and into the seating area.

I filled up a glass of water at one of the spouts and was disgusted to find that it had cucumber flavor to it. I spit it out and found another spout that had regular water. I joined my friends in the seating area and was a little disappointed by the lack of lighting. I know they were trying to set some sort of a mood, but it’s not that often that you eat rattlesnake, and when you do, you kind of want good light to see it in.

The food was ready in about 10 minutes, and I was presented with two sausages, labeled “snake” and “buff.” I decided to test out the snake first and bit in while crossing my fingers that all the venom had been removed. I was surprised that it tasted pretty good. The jalapeno wasn’t overwhelming and left me able to taste the sweet meat of rattlesnake and rabbit. I hate using the cliche, but in all honesty the combination didn’t taste terribly different than chicken, but this was a good thing. I offered it around the table and as my roommate, Vicki, tasted it, she described it as having a bite. She was under the impression that it was just a regular sausage called the “snake” sausage and was quite surprised when she realized it was actually composed of real rattlesnake.

Next, I tested out the buffalo. This one was smaller, and closer in size to a hot dog than a sausage. Upon tasting, the texture was also smooth and along the lines of hot dog as well. The taste, however was pretty different. It was kind of like a beef sausage, but stronger in a better way.

While eating these sausages, I also dug into the fries, which were pretty amazing. They were perfectly crispy on the outside, while chewy on the inside. When I went to try out the dipping sauce, though, I realized it was nothing at all like what I had ordered. Instead, it was Chipotle Aioli. This didn’t taste bad, but it wasn’t what I wanted. I returned to the counter to ask about it and they said they were out of the bleu cheese.

Then they handed me a few other sauces to take instead. These were the Curry Ketchup, Chipotle Ketchup and Buttermilk Ranch. The best of these was definitely the Curry Ketchup. It was a nice twist on ketchup, which is my usual sauce for fry-dipping.

Overall, I had a pretty awesome experience. It was great to eat some new animals in sausage form and although there was cucumber in the water and no bleu cheese sauce, it was easily forgotten about.

It should also be noted that the place has a huge variety of beers from around the world. I didn’t order any for myself since I was already packing in two sausages and fries, but I’m sure next time will require some liquid sustenance, especially if I am worried about cucumber water.

Making its way into the custom burger scene in Arizona is a place called the BluBurger Grille. Similar to places like the Counter in California, BluBurger gives you a list of burger styles and loads of toppings available for them. BluBurger, however, takes customization to a new level.

Rather than restricting itself to one beef burger option, BluBurger has pulled out the stops by offering Kobe Beef (which I can only assume is actually Kobe-style beef) and Bison. Since I typically love me some buffalo, I ordered that with sharp cheddar and BBQ sauce. Adding anything else would have masked the flavor of the buffalo, so I kept my burger pretty simple. There were less options for toppings than at the Counter, but I think offering more meat more than made up for it. Also, the burger came with a side, which the Counter doesn’t include. For my side, I chose the skinny fries.

Having recently had a bad bison burger experience at the Library in Santa Monica, I was eager to replace that memory with a better one. When my burger arrived, I knew this burger would not be comparable to my bad experience. The patty was big and juicy, with just enough cheese and BBQ sauce. I bit in and was very happy with the taste. This place really knew how to cook up some bison. The fries were pretty decent, albeit small and a bit on the salty side. Luckily, the burger captured my attention for the meal and I didn’t really need to worry about the fries.

I was very happy to be reacquainted with my neglected bison friend. BluBurger is definitely a place worth seeking out in Arizona for some good ground meat on a bun.

For a nice night out on the town, I went to the Library Alehouse in Santa Monica. After about twenty minutes of waiting, we were finally shown to our table, in an outdoor patio area. I always love eating outside, so this was a definite plus for the restaurant.

Although the menu had a bunch of good-looking options, the buffalo burger really stuck out to me. I always enjoy a good bison, so I hoped the Library would continue that trend. Plus, I try to eat like Native Americans as much as possible, and we all know how much they loved their buffalo. Luckily, I was able to add a twist that wasn’t exactly available to Native Americans: cheddar cheese and bacon, and of course without any veggies. It also came with a side of fries. While waiting, I searched their extensive beer list and decided on the delicious Allagash White Ale.

Eventually my burger arrived, cooked to my specifications and without a vegetable in sight. Since bars typically have great burgers and buffalo makes burgers better, I bit into my buffalo burger with high expectations. This ultimately led to disappointment. The burger was really quite dry, which was too bad. I always think of buffalo meat as pretty delicate and since it’s usually leaner it’s easy to dry it out in the cooking. Sadly, this is what happened. The burger was so dry that even my Allagash couldn’t keep my mouth wet enough to finish the burger.

Unless I hear that they’ve learned how to cook buffalo better, I’ll have to get my bison fix elsewhere.