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Lago Vista burger gets national attention in Wall Street Journal
It’s not quite Hatch chile season yet, but a reader alerted me to a burger that people who live in Lago Vista know well: the Hatch chile burger (far left) from Bam’s Roadhouse Grill.
And now, after a big burger spread in the Wall Street Journal earlier this month, people outside the small lake town west of Austin know about it, too.
Toronto-based food writer Chris Nuttall-Smith calls it a “beautifully trashy central Texan contender,” which Bam’s Roadhouse owner George “Bam” Look took as a great compliment.
“What I loved about it was the other four burgers were from chef so-and-so from Boston, Atlanta, Vegas and New York and then there’s little old burger from Lago Vista, Texas,” Look says.
(That’s Michael Schlow, Linton Hopkins, Bradley Ogden and April Bloomfield, who was recently profiled in the New Yorker, if you’re keeping tabs on which so-and-so chefs he’s talking about.)
Look says he’d actually forgotten that anyone with the Wall Street Journal had called until his chef called him one Saturday and said the article was in print. A regular brought in a copy as proof. “I cracked up,” he says. “I couldn’t believe it.”
Stuffed burgers, like the cheese-chile-bacon-filled one featured in the WSJ, are a specialty, but Look says the chicken-fried steak and catfish are just as good. The 66-year-old West Texas native lives in Austin and commutes to Lago Vista to run the restaurant, his first, which he opened eight years ago.
Like many business owners in Lago Vista, Look says he’s fighting the drought and the economy. “If there’s no lake, it hurts. If there’s a flood, it hurts.”
Hopefully, a little love from the Big Apple will help him out a little this summer.
Screen grab from the WSJ.com.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment Categories: Cooking, Recipes
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By michaela rowland
June 30, 2011 7:52 AM | Link to this
Yes!!! Makes me proud to call Lago Vista my hometown!!! There are actually a few pretty amazing eats out there, you just gotta hang around for a bit!
By michaela rowland
June 30, 2011 7:57 AM | Link to this
Yes!!! Makes me proud to call Lago Vista my hometown!!! There are actually a few pretty amazing eats out there, you just gotta hang around for a bit!
By Gena Jacobsen
June 30, 2011 4:51 PM | Link to this
Can’t remember the name of the burger I had (only been there once) but it had artichokes and mushrooms. It was the BEST burger I have ever had and I can’t wait to go back next time I am in Lago Vista.