If you slay this multi-pound beast (and make it to the highway before “un-slaying” it), a one-of-a-kind t-shirt and bragging rights are yours forever. If you don’t want to be haunted for life (by your pride), finish a Monster Burger-the claim to fame at 1860-built Middlegate Station, a real-deal roadhouse along the Loneliest Road in America. Get in the spirit with the Pioneer Saloon’s ghost burger, aptly named for three reasons: being the speciality of southern Nevada’s oldest and most haunted Sagebrush Saloon its location in the “living ghost town” of Goodsprings (45 min outside Las Vegas, but a world away) and its toppings of pepperjack cheese, jalapeño bacon, and spicy ghost pepper sauce. If simplicity is your thing, make a break for Beatty, a Death Valley-area town populated by carefree wild burros, where you can find cold beer and chili-topped, barbecued burgers in a small, old, wooden building called, well, Happy Burro Chili & Beer. Meanwhile, the unbeatable local, regional, and international beer selection take up probably half of the several-stool joint’s real estate. Choose from every classic style done perfectly, or branch out with flavors like the Korean Burger (with house-made kimchi) and always-wild burgers of the month-including one topped with a lobster tail. Up in our northern metro, Beefy’s of Reno whips up fresh, inventive, and gorgeously grease-tacular burgers in a tiny tin building that arrived to Reno by train in 1947. To chow chorizo in burger form, head to Butcher’s Kitchen Char-B-Que (perhaps Reno’s best BBQ joint), Racks Bar & Grill (Ely), and the barroom at Louis’ Basque Corner (Reno). For a traditional chorizo sandwich, you can’t go wrong at Carson City’s Villa Basque Café-run by former sheepherder Pete Coscarart, who supplies many Nevada Basque restaurants with his famous chorizo-or Winnemucca’s historic Martin Hotel.
Typically, chorizo comes in sausage form, and is eaten straight-up or in a hoagie roll, but mixing it with ground beef also makes for a burger patty with some serious personality-enough so that it’s become a staple of many non-Basque restaurants, as well. Unlike other varieties, this marvelous mixture is made of chopped pork (as opposed to ground), air-cured, and usually delivers a pikantea (and sometimes oso pikantea) kick in the taste buds. There’s just something about Basque-style chorizo that sets it apart-from other chorizo and, really, anything else. This is another one of our state’s Basque tastes, but we had to make it its own section.
Word from the wise: just go easy on the Picon Punch. Most Basque joints do things “family-style”-a hat tip to the days of solo sheepherders bunking upstairs-so be prepared to make some new friends at your table as you share unlimited soup, salad, table wine, and sides (we’re talking beans, greens, and… french fries), and maybe even a few bites of your own garlic-loaded steak, chorizo, braised lamb shank, oxtail soup, or (if you’re adventurous) sweetbreads. The best way to find out what this means is one course at a time, at a historic Basque dinner house. That’s what the Basques did when they emigrated from the Pyranees Mountains (between Spain and France) to the Great Basin in the 19th century, heartily influencing northern Nevada’s culture-and restaurant menus-forever.
When you come to Nevada, bring your appetite.
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