Rewind eight days to researching how to make jucy lucys for this Heavy Table video. I’ll skip the details, but let’s just say that I managed to eat four jucy lucys in five days and had drawn up the white flag in surrender. No more jucy lucys for a while…or so I thought.

The Thursday after making the video, Kyle and I attended a wine tasting at Sorella Wine and Spirits. We love Sorella and had heard of a South American wine tasting class put on by the Wine Company, a representative of which had recently returned from a trip to Chile and Argentina and would be sharing his experience and some wines from those regions. I had been to wineries in Chile and Argentina when in South America in 2007, so I was looking forward to it, knowing it couldn’t possibly live up to the actual experiences, but was hoping to at least be introduced to some new wines from those regions that are available in the US. The class was mediocre, but we did try a few wines that we liked – Bianchi Torrontes, Errazuriz Wild Ferment Chardonnay (my favorite), Bianchi Malbec and Errazuriz Cabernet Sauvignon – so we were pretty happy about that.

The problem is, when it comes to tasting wine…I don’t follow the rules. I know you’re supposed to just taste the wine and then pour out the rest, but nine times out of ten I don’t. I just drink it. So, after tasting ten or so wines that night, I was getting a bit pickled. Not to mention ravenous.

The Blue Door Pub

As expected, The Blue Door Pub was packed when we arrived so we waited a bit in the crowded room for a table – ordering a couple beers to tide us over. When our table finally opened up, we barely glanced at the menu (although it is quite an extensive listing of juicy blucy offerings) and put in our order. I went with their signature Blucy Lucy (stuffed with garlic and blue cheese) and Kyle hit up their special, the Merriam Park Lucy (stuffed with blue cheese, garlic and bacon and topped with red currant jelly).

Let me first talk about Kyle’s burger. It was a little on the underdone side, unfortunately, but it was tasty. We agreed that the red currant jelly on top was the perfect sweet accompaniment to the salty burger, but wished the bacon had been crisp and that there had been a little more cheese inside. Overall a great tasting burger with a ton of potential with a bit of tweaking.

As for the Blucy Lucy? Honestly, I know it was partly due to the combination of all the wine, beer and lack of water I had had that day, but that burger truly rocked me. The amount of blue cheese stuffed inside the half pound burger was insane – and it didn’t taste like cheap blue cheese but was creamy and dry. The garlic was the perfect background flavor to it, not overpowering but definitely present. Overall I really liked this lucy – it was my first experience with a lucy outside the traditional American cheese version – but, it dominated me. I finished it, but was cowering inside as I did. Beer was left on the table and fries were left in my burger basket…and I pled for mercy.

The Blue Door Pub will definitely be on my list to try again, after a short jucy lucy detox period, of course. With proper training (hydration), I think I could hold my ground with the Blucy Lucy. I still prefer the traditional American cheese version of the jucy lucy best – The Nook and Matt’s rock this scene – but The Blue Door Pub is a nice twist on the Minnesota favorite.

The Blue Door Pub
St. Paul, MN

To be honest, I had never heard of Adrian’s. I had even eaten in that neighborhood at Pepito’s and Cafe Levain a few times and had never even noticed the sign before. Given that it isn’t spoken of much in jucy lucy circles, I should have been prepared. But I went in with high hopes…just looking for a grease fix.

We arrived right at noon (opening time), so of course we took them by surprise by immediately ordering up some beer, burgers and fries. We were told we’d have to wait on the burgers, as they were just getting going for the day but that the beer and fries would be right out. No problem. I didn’t mind the wait – the beer was cold and the fries were crinkle-cut and crisp. With the addition of a little salt and my mustard-ketchup mix, I was appeased for the time being.

My jucy lucy was served a short time later with the standard warning to wait before eating, for danger of being burned by the cheese. I used the time to size up the enormity of this burger. The largest jucy lucy I’d ever been served, this was two massive patties of beef, a tall bun and cheese melted on top (not standard issue in the lucy world). At this point I figured I had waited long enough so I tentatively dug in.

Let’s start with the bun which was dry and dense and really didn’t complement the juicy burger in the least. One of my biggest complaints about burgers is the bun, and for good reason…it’s rarely done right. As for the patties? They were cooked perfectly – medium – but unfortunately there was just too much burger and they were packed so dense (maybe needed a higher fat content in the beef?) that, while the cheese was plentiful, the balance was totally off. This did explain the extra slice of cheese melted on top, an attempt to balance out the cheese to meat ratio, but it just didn’t make up for the overload of beef contained in the sandwich.

Overall, I was not impressed with Adrian’s jucy lucy. In the future I’ll be taking my jucy lucy cravings elsewhere.

Adrian’s Bar and Grill
48th and Chicago Ave. South
Minneapolis, MN