Kenny's Burger Joint Review

Kenny's Burger Joint in Frisco, TX

A friend recommended this Frisco burger joint to me after he read my last review of Liberty Burger.   Kenny’s Burger Joint is located at 1377 Legacy Drive, Suite 120, Frisco, TX 75034.  My wife and I used to live fairly close to this place when we lived in Frisco, but Kenny’s Burger Joint opened up after we moved to McKinney in 2008.  Both D Magazine and the Dallas Observer have recently included this restaurant in their “Best of DFW restaurants,” so we entered with high hopes.  We decided to meet here on a Friday after work and take the kids with us.

Kenny's Burger joint Menu

For an appetizer, we decided on Bud’s White Queso and Chips.  The wait staff brought this out very quickly, so we dug in.  It was absolutely fabulous.  The chips were crisp and had pepper baked into them.  The queso was very flavorful and had a good kick to it.

Bud's White Queso and Chips

My wife ordered a basic cheeseburger and I ordered the bacon cheeseburger.  Kenny’s burgers are served open-faced on a ciabatta bun.  Although the burgers were very large and the patties were thick, I was not overly impressed with the burger.  It was good but not great.

Bacon Cheeseburger

For our first side, we ordered the “Loaded Cheese Fries.”  These were fries smothered in cheese, bacon, chives, and jalapeños.  I consider myself a connoisseur of cheese fries, and these were far from impressive.  For a second side, I ordered three of Kenny’s Famous Ribs (yes, this fat kid ordered ribs for a side).  These were St. Louis style ribs basted in Kenny’s house barbecue sauce.  Although the ribs were literally falling off the bone as I picked them, the barbecue sauce had a strong vinegar taste that I didn’t care for.

Side #1

Side #2

This dining experience started off on a positive note with the great chips and queso.  Unfortunately, the experience started declining from there.  Although the wait staff was very friendly and the service was great, the food was not up to par.  Kenny’s is a family friendly restaurant and my 4-year-old daughter seemed to enjoy her chicken strips and fries.  I doubt I will be going back to Kenny’s Burger Joint.  Life is too short to eat mediocre food, which is the real reason that Gandi went on a hunger strike to begin with.
Kenny's Burger Joint
http://kennysburgerjoint.com
Livin the Good Life Rating=1

Liberty Burger

A good friend recommended Liberty Burger to me.  They have two locations in Dallas, 5211 Forest Lane and 5181 Keller Springs Road.  Yesterday, my wife and I ventured South of the George Bush Turnpike and went to the Keller Springs location.

One of the first things you will notice on the menu is that it has a large selection of "specialty" burgers.

Burger Menu at Liberty Burger

After much deliberation on burgers and sides, my wife and I decided we would order two burgers and split them with each other.  We ordered the Liberty Burger, which is their basic burger, but added cheese and bacon.  We also ordered the Nooner, which came with American cheese, Applewood-smoked bacon, ham, hashbrowns, a fried egg,  and ketchup.  Although I am usually not a huge fan of fried eggs, then ingredients melted together into a very pleasing burger.

The Nooner

The Nooner with an excited wife!

I also saw that they had a grilled cheese sandwich that came with Cheddar, American, Parmesan and Swiss cheese served with pickles on a healthy multi-grain bread.  You could also add bacon to the grilled cheese sandwich for an extra dollar.  I thought, bacon can only increase the flavor, so we ordered that too.  As good as the Nooner was, the grilled cheese sandwich might have been the best thing we tried there.  I highly doubt I will ever eat a grilled cheese that is this good.

Perhaps the best grilled cheese sandwich on the planet!  Bacon makes everything better.

For sides we went with the skinny fries and the Big O Rings.  The skinny fries were about average for fries, but still quite tasty.  The winner of the side wars definitely went to the Big O Rings, which were made steak house style with their house-made buttermilk batter.  They were great and the flavor only increased when you dipped these onion rings into their house chipotle ketchup.

Huge and delicious onion rings.

At this point, we could have easily stopped eating and been completely past full, but my wife's sweet tooth got the best of her and we decided to split a "personal" chocolate pie.  One person would have been hard pressed to finish the thing by themselves after eating burgers and sides.  In fact, we even left a couple of bites on the plate despite the fact it was delicious.  The meringue topping was piled high and cooked perfectly.  I particularly liked the dark chocolate filling, but my wife did not.  She is more of a milk chocolate kind of gal.

Personal Chocolate Pie

The restaurant was crowded, but not overly noisy.  It is also a great place to take the kids and there were many families eating there.  By the time we left there was a short wait for a table, but people seemed to get seated very quickly.  My wife and I both left with stomachs that were full and faces that had smiles on them.  She did have one question for me when we got back in the car.  She asked, "When can we go back?"

Liberty Burger
http://givemelibertyburger.com
Livin the Good Life Rating=4

My Simple Jerky Recipe

For Christmas 2011, my wife gave me a food dehydrator.  It was without a doubt one of the best gifts she has ever given me and I have definitely put it to good use over the last year.   I frequently use it to make not only jerky, but dried fruits as well.  Some of our family favorites are dried pineapples, dried apples, and dried strawberries.  From time to time, I will  also use it to herbs such as rosemary.

Of all the things I make in my food dehydrator, jerky is unquestionably my favorite to eat.  For the past few months, I have experimented with various marinades, seasonings, and recipes.  Some recipes I got from buddies, others I found on the net, and I have even bought a couple of commercial jerky marinades.  Of all that I have tried, I found that my favorite is a very simple recipe I found by accident when I ran out of other ingredients in the pantry.  As it turned out, I only had fajita marinade that  I could use to flavor the jerky.  So I put the fajita marinade to the test and I couldn't have been happier with the results.  It is now my "go to" recipe for jerky.

Ingredients
5 lbs of meat
10 ounces of fajita marinade
Pepper
Seasoned Salt

Start with 5 lbs of beef (I prefer eye of round) or turkey (turkey breast cutlets work great).  Cut them in strips no wider than 1/3 inches wide.  Make sure all pieces are cut at the same width so they will dehydrate at the same rate.  Put the cut strips into a container with a lid or a 1 gallon Ziploc bag.  Add 10 ounces of the fajita marinade of your choice.  Let soak for 6-8 hours in marinade, occasionally shaking up container to get marinade on all the meat.  After it has marinated, start evenly spreading the marinated meat on the dehydrator trays.  I have found that each tray will hold about 1 pound of meat.  Next sprinkle a little seasoned salt on the meat and then cover with as much pepper as you prefer.  Once this is done, you can turn on the dehydrator and "cook" for 8-12 hours.  When it is finished, you can put the pieces on a paper towel for a couple of hours to soak up any residual moisture (but there really shouldn't be any moisture left).  Enjoy.

Marinated turkey breast strips with a light coat of  seasoned salt and pepper.  This is what they look like before your start the dehydrator.

Same turkey breast strips after being in the dehydrator for 10 hours.

When finished dehydrating, spread on a paper towel to cool down and soak up any residual moisture.