Burger Quest…

There is a place in Walla Walla that was opened by Chef Andrae Bopp in a Cenex gas station of all places. I happened to read a review about Andrae’s in the local paper or on Facebook or in a travel magazine, I no longer recall where I first saw mention of the kitchen, and I was intrigued so checked out their web site: Andrae’s Kitchen.

After checking out the menu, which includes pictures of some dishes, I read an excellent review of both the kitchen and the Walla Walla area in this Travel + Leisure article by Ray Isle. That article cinched it for me and I decided I needed to visit. An upscale meal from a gas station?? Yeah, count me in! I rarely eat red meat any more except as a treat so a beef burger by a real chef suits my fancy these days.

One thing on the menu that was interesting was that they also have a food truck, for some strange reason parked way out in Minam. At the time I saw that, I didn’t even know where that was and I grew up in the valley. Didn’t recall every hearing the name of the town. Looked it up and it’s over an hours drive from where I’m staying in Milton Freewater up in the Blue Mountains. Seems a bit strange they have a food truck there but I ran into a photo of their featured Beef Brisket Burger basket that just looked so mouth watering that I called up my son and invited him to take a ride with me out there to have dinner. Why not? Son knew of Andrea’s Kitchen at the gas station but jumped at the idea of checking out Minam’s place.

So off we headed to basically a wide spot in the road at the confluence of two rivers…the Minam and Wallowa Rivers. We took the 204 through Tollgate and joined up with the 82 at the lumber town Elgin.

Hunter the dog enjoying the scenery. The window was down most of the trip.

And here’s my son driving.

After leaving the high grass area we climb into the Blue’s where evergreens take over. There are many cabins up in this area around Tollgate.

It looked nicer in person. When we got to Elgin, there’s this old lumber processing yard. Still operating but I imagine this area is depressed.

Might be a good place to stay at one of their two RV parks someday as the shoulder seasons are nice here in the Blues. Not to hot, not to cold. They are between ridges and in a valley so won’t get as cold as higher places but can get hotter in summer for the same reason, though I see a max of 85 F. Here’s a chart: Yearly average weather in Elgin.

Click on ‘Graph’ for a full years average. There are some nice properties in Elgin.

 Elgin the town is showing it’s age but so am I. Might be a nice place for a summer visit in an RV.

After passing through the sparsely treed valley and then the town of Elgin we climbed up into another foothill ridge of the Blues and 15 minutes later get to Minam. This after a 1.25 hour drive. Don’t blink or you’ll miss it. Higher than Elgin and in it’s own small valley. Only reason people might want to settle here are the two rivers coming together, and probably mining, which might be were the name originated.

I recognized the building from the google info I’d looked at as we came around the last corner so didn’t have to slam on the brakes as the food trailer is kind of hidden from the road. The sign out at the road helps too. Turned into the entrance and headed down the small hill and parked across the street from the well cared for lawn area with picnic tables. We arrived around 4:15 as planned. I wanted to hang around for a bit before ordering and Andrea’s closes at 5 pm so put in our order at 4:30.

Looks like a mining area doesn’t it?

There’s what used to be a motel here but the owners are re-purposing it into a convenience store and other things. No more motel guest is what I was told. The store clerk told me that they’ve knocked down some walls between rooms and they’ve got a large bowling ally like space for the kids to play in during the winter.

And here’s the pony and back towards the road is the food truck who were busy preparing our burgers.

And a shot back towards the store after James and I occupied a table. There were only two when we were there but I imagine they nave more hidden away somewhere. I needed my cane this particular day as my knees were bothering me so the chairs were nice to rest up between walks here and there.

Met with the pony , “Why the long face”? She had no answer. Behind is a pigeon roost. When my brother and I were kids we had our own pigeon roost and raised several starting from one abandoned chick because it’s mom was killed by one of the bullies in the neighborhood. We had several adults by the time months later when a huge wind storm came through and we opened their cage to protect them from the wind by letting them out. Never saw most of them again. Except one of them came back for a 10 minute visit once.  But I digress…

And then they have this chicken coop and pen. So I visited with them while waiting for my bacon burger with two cheeses plus fries.

Didn’t take long at all and the meal was ready. I have to say that I’d seen a picture of their Left Coast Burger online a few days before and what they service me looked exactly like it. I was impressed. And just a few seconds of munching on that delicious burger made me certain that I would be ordering one of their breakfast sandwiches for the next morning. I was enjoying the burger so much that I never got around to taking a photo but you can check the pictures on their menu linked above…they look exactly like those.

Unfortunately, my knees kept me from exploring around the site on foot much and after an hour there at Andrae’s, and gathering up my breakfast sandwich, we headed back home. Very pleasant excursion and delicious food! Well worth the trip out.

Next time I’d like to explore the river basin here a bit more. From the online pictures and what little we could see from the road, it looked like a great place to fish. We should have explored a bit more I guess. Next morning I heated up the breakfast sandwich and that was just as good as the burger. Highly recommended.

Thanks for reading and if you’re ever in the Walla Walla Valley, give Andrae’s Kitchen a try. Excellent. I’ve had the Left Coast burger with bacon and 2 cheeses with it’s regular toppings, the sausage sandwich with scrambled egg, and the bacon sandwich with scrambled egg. Everything was great.