White Castle: One Just Doesn't Cut It!

Normally, an employee wouldn't look confused when a customer only orders one hamburger. After all, the average hamburger, which sometimes includes mulitple meat patties, tomato, lettuce, and condiments, provides enough fuel...and then some.

But suppose that the customer in question is at White Castle. Anyone who has ever dined at a White Castle knows that one burger just won't cut it.

Before recently, my last visit to White Castle had been for the purpose of offsetting a late afternoon hunger pang. One of those little burgers would be an inexpensive solution, my travel companion and I reasoned. Less caloric, filling without leaving a knot in our stomachs. Our modest order of two burgers made the cashier chuckle; turned out that she was the sensible one. Two bites later, we wished for more.

Fast forward a few years to a sunny Friday in August, when White Castle again entered the conversation. "I don't even know how much a burger goes for these days," one companion remarked.

"I love the onions," recalled another.

Nostalgia's devilish grip derailed our good intentions - salad, lightly dressed - and we wound up at White Castle. We took a left on Carpenter and visited Ann Arbor's lone source of the signature square burgers, or Slyders, as they are called. The White Castle building is, as the name suggests, a white castle with turrets. Walk inside, and the space mimics its product - simple, small, and geometric.

We studied the menu, perhaps a little too long. Yes, White Castle does offer more than just burgers. If you don't fancy red meat, then there's fish or chicken.

But White Castle is all about its steam grilled burgers, a taste and preparation process not practiced at other fast food restaurants. First, the meat patty and chopped onions meld on the grill. The meat patty is punctured and placed atop the onions so as to allow "steam" to rise and hasten the cooking process.

Then, the bun, infused with the flavors of onion and beef, completes the sandwich. Lastly, the dill pickle. No ketchup, no mustard, no mayo - the customer must take on that responsibility, though there is no need. The White Castle Slyder is a purist's burger.

The only real "beef" with White Castle is its product packaging; when it's becoming more and more fashionable to go green, a tray full of ten oversized paper cartons - one per burger - is a little wasteful.

My companions and I split the ten-burger combo meal; again, we felt deprived. Even the bucket of fries - the soft, crinkly kind - could not round out the meal. Although quite delicious, these burgers go down too easily for a ravenous lunchtime diner.