On the Burger Trail again: Gold Nugget Tavern and Grille

Not just any Friday Food--it's BURGER QUEST!

I know. It's been a while. I took advantage of having Teen 1 home from college over the holidays to go out on the Burger Trail again.



>We decided to check out the Gold Nugget Tavern and Grille in Minnetonka. I'd heard good things, but had never wandered over there.

I'm glad I did.

We were only going to get burgers, but then we saw the menu listing cheese curds with the claim: "Better than the State Fair!" Pretty sure that couldn't be possible, we cynically ordered a batch.

You know what? I think this is the only order of cheese curds I've ever had that rivals the Fair. White cheddar, lightly breaded, nice and greasy, cheese all flavorful and melted on the inside. Wow.

The burgers got two thumbs up too.

Off the rather extensive list of choices, Teen 1 chose the Smokehouse--Cheddar cheese, bacon, and BBQ sauce. He proclaimed it very good.

Teen 2 went with a novelty burger, the Signature Stadium Burger: a pretzel roll, American cheese, and nacho cheese dip on the side. He devoured it and also proclaimed it very good.

I went with a patty melt, and oh people, it was such a good patty melt. The bread was toasty-crispy, the onions beautifully caramelized, the Swiss cheese fully melted. Ah.

The fries were OK, not great, a little soggy. But the seasoned sour cream offered as a side was quite good, a bit on the spicy side.

So--the Teens both loved their burgers and said they'd go back, but once again--because basically they're both broken records on this subject--they still point to Lions Tap as their favorite. Personally, I thought this was far better than Lions Tap, but it's also a different category of burger; Lions Tap has a very limited menu of options (no patty melt!!), whereas Gold Nugget has a really fun list of options, and from what I can tell, they execute those options darned well.

No matter. We'd all go back.

Amy Rea

Flyover Land , by Amy Rea, is about the best of Minnesota, and why you shouldn't just fly over.