Intrigued by their homemade wild rice burgers, we decided to visit Fitger's Brewhouse for a dinner…read morewhile in Duluth. When we arrived a bit after 7PM, we had quite some trouble finding parking and ended up having to park a couple of blocks away after circling for 20 minutes. Walking in, the place wasn't too busy, perhaps 50% capacity.
We were interested in ordering the fried cheese curds, but the server told us they weren't battered in house, so we passed on them.
Smoked Fish Salad (Market Price, $18.99) - This is a pretty salad - all ingredients are arranged in rows along the dish. Mixing things together is a bit of a pain, but I appreciate the dressing on the side to add to preference. The dressing is an interesting blend of mayo and other ingredients, perhaps BBQ sauce, that make it slightly tangy and very sweet. There's an undertone of smokiness throughout, which tastes somewhat like liquid smoke rather than the dressing actually being smoked. It is on the sweeter side of dressings. Other than greens, there's a row of wild rice, dark and snappy, completely broken cultivated rice. There's also a bit of house smoked trout, nice and smoky. (4/5)
Classic Wild Rice Burger ($16.99) - This is one of the tallest burgers I've seen in quite a while, mostly due to the inclusion of fresh vegetables including onion and tomato, and alfalfa sprouts. For some reason instead of using larger tomatoes, they use small roma tomatoes, including three small slices. They also used red onion that's chopped into a variety of different shapes instead of whole slices. It's really strange - I guess this saves on cost? Unfortunately smaller pieces means things fall out while eating.
The patty is larger than the bun. It has plenty of broken wild rice bits giving some additional crunch and that signature wild rice taste. It's charred on the griddle well and it keeps its structure, not falling apart or becoming mushy at any point. I love how it's distinctively a rice burger and doesn't try to be a meat substitute. Two slices of American cheese are melted on top that gives some fattiness to the dish.
The bun is toasted without butter and there's a flavorful garlic mayo spread on the top. It would be nice if they had also applied the sauce to the bottom bun as I found the patty to not have enough moisture or fat incorporated.
The burger comes with some thin commercial fries. There aren't any issues with the level of fry and they are otherwise unremarkable.
(4/5)
Fitger's Brewhouse serves some solid good old fashioned Midwestern American food. Not much else to say.
Bathrooms - Larger ones shared with the rest of the business in the building
Food: [4/5]
Service: [ ]
Other: [ ]
Final Rating: 4/5
