Roadfood_ Revised Edition - Jane Stern [194]
Nick’s Hamburger Shop
427 Main Ave.
605–692–4324
Brookings, SD
LD | $
We get a lot of enthusiastic tips from Roadfooders, but few were as insistent as the one that came from April Carlson about Nick’s. “This is the perfect destination for you two,” she wrote. “Get in the car and go. You won’t be disappointed. Promise. Why haven’t you left yet?”
It took us a while, but we went, and we understand April’s zeal. Nick’s is a Roadfood landmark, actually on the National Register of Historic Places, famous for itty-bitty hamburgers since 1929. The price of a Nickburger has gone up from a nickel to $1.18 in the last three-quarters of a century, but it’s still the same twenty-two-stool shack inviting customers to “buy ’em by the sack.” We’d say that three to five Nickburgers make a nice meal. The ingestion record is twenty-two in a single sitting, set by a Mormon missionary who was passing through town a few years ago. Owner Dick Fergen says that anyone who can beat the record will eat free.
The burgers are sliders: small, hand-formed patties cooked on a grill with so much oil that they are virtually deep-fried. Onions are part of the formula, so the burger as well as Nick’s itself is perfumed with the sweet smell of onions caramelizing. The only way to have one (or, preferably, several) is with relish. They’re small and wieldy enough that plates are extraneous; Nickburgers are presented on wax paper.
Tea Steak House
215 S. Main St.
605–368–9667
Tea, SD
LD | $$
When we first ate at the Tea Steak House several years ago, it was in the middle of nowhere. Just about ten miles south of Sioux Falls, nowhere has become somewhere as houses go up in the countryside all around. Still, this combination restaurant and bar in the community of Tea has a rural character that adds an especially appealing flavor to supper.
Start with onion rings or deep-fried cheese balls, then move on to an iceberg lettuce salad that you dress yourself from a caddy that contains ranch, Thousand Island, and French dressing. A selection of bland white rolls and cellophane-wrapped crackers is the standard steak-house breadbasket in this region.
We love the pound-plus T-bone, a cushiony slab of meat that oozes juice at the first poke of a knife. It’s a good thing to order hash brown potatoes on the side to soak up the beef’s seepage; they are great potatoes in their own right (much better than the foil-wrapped baked potato or uninteresting French fries). We also ordered filet mignon, which came splayed open and wrapped in bacon, and it was amazing just how different these two cuts of beef were: each excellent, but while the T-bone had a vivid, almost gamey smack and tight-knit texture that rewarded serious chewing, the filet practically melted on the tongue.
The Tea Steak House serves more than steak. You can eat chicken or ham, halibut, perch, lobster tails, or a Saint and Sinner supper of one lobster tail and one small sirloin. Don’t ask us how any of the other stuff tastes. When we’re in Tea, we’ll eat beef. And don’t ask about dessert, either. This place doesn’t bother making any. You need something sweet, you go next door to O’Toole’s Bar and have a grasshopper or pink Cadillac.
Tripp Sports Bowl Café
210 S. Main St.
605–935–6281
Tripp, SD
L | $
Tripp is a small town in the middle of big country. A short jog off the highway takes you to Main Street, where the town bowling