Steak ‘n Shake
http://www.steaknshake.com

It had been a while since I had eaten a nice, greasy burger and had been even longer since I had been to Steak ‘n Shake, so on a recent Sunday when both of them sounded good to me, I made a trip out for dinner.

I wanted something more than a normal cheeseburger, so I went a bit outside of the box.  Steak ‘n Shake has several different burger options and some of them seem to be blatant rip-offs of signature burgers at other burger joints.  For example, the “Royale Steakburger” is a rip-off of the Royal at Red Robin and the “Wisconsin Buttery Steakburger” is a rip-off of Culver’s ButterBurger.  While what I got is not a direct rip-off, there are several joints that have had this combination for a quite a while before Steak ‘n Shake decided to tackle the challenge.

What I Got:  Western BBQ ‘n Bacon Steakburger combo (comes with fries and a drink; I got it large sized for an additional $0.99); $6.98 + tax.

You can’t tell as well from the picture, but according to the Steak ‘n Shake website, this burger is made up of “A Double Steakburger™ topped with American cheese, hickory smoked bacon, diced and crispy fried onions, then drenched in sweet ’n smoky BBQ sauce.”  Being the regular genius that I am, I can confirm that all of these things were on there, although their usage of the term “drenched” may have been a little generous.  There was barbecue sauce on the burger, but it was far from drenched.

Physical appearances aside, the meat and bun in the burger was pretty much what you’d expect in your standard Steak ‘n Shake offering.  Cooked and flattened on the griddle in their own grease, the hamburger patties were the typical greasy and gluttonous goodness that you’d expect from an old favorite.  Unfortunately, after the burger and the bun, this one started to go downhill.  The bacon was soggy and limp and so were the “crispy” fried onions.  The barbecue sauce, while it did taste nice was not nearly as ample as it needed to be.  Put it this way, this burger needs to be drenched in barbecue sauce in order to make it work with the components that construct it.  In order to get this one to be tolerable, I had to grab some extra sauce and start dipping my burger in it just to add some flavor.  If you need to doctor up a burger outside of the actual preparation of it, you have issues.

Would I Buy It Again?  Western BBQ ‘n Bacon Steakburger, absolutely not.  I will go to Steak ‘n Shake again, but this one will not be a burger that I order.  The sad part is that it has all the components to make a darn fine burger (Ryan at Grub Grade worships Western-syle burgers, so he knows what I’m talking about and would agree that if you do it right, the Western-style burger can be one of the best items on your menu), but Steak ‘n Shake failed on this one.  Too bad.

FYI, the large size drink at Steak ‘n Shake is absurd and comical (picture above).  It clocks in at over eight inches tall!  I didn’t have my graduated cylinder or beaker from my home chemistry set out, but the volume of fluid in the drink had to be every bit of a liter or perhaps even more, especially when you order it with no ice like I do.  It was so much that I only drank half and was able to save the rest to drink at dinner the next night.  LOL.  Unreal.

-IndianapolisEater

Tags: Bacon, barbecue, Food, onions, Steak 'N Shake, steakburger, western

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 18th, 2011 at 6:00 am and is filed under Food Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.