Burger Friday: Flavor at the Depot in Savage keeps it 'eclectic'

The burger: "The menu is a little eclectic," said Flavor at the Depot owner Cindy Hurley. "Actually, the whole place is a little eclectic."

She's right. But I'll take eclectic over formulaic any day. Not to generalize too much here, but in the suburbs — and I'm talking Scott County here, so we're not exactly in the North Loop — formulaic is often the dining scene's default position. Which is why this cute, well-run cafe/coffeehouse is such a find.

Breakfast (and Sunday brunch) is popular, and Hurley and her husband Paul also serve dinner on Friday and Saturday evenings, and the offerings do run the gamut, from house-cured pastrami on pumpernickel to biscuits smothered in sausage gravy to a wild rice salad with chicken and avocado. Me? I was there for the burger.

There are five on the menu, including a Minnesota rarity: a green chile cheeseburger. Still, I chose the house specialty, a white Cheddar cheeseburger topped with sauteed onions and horseradish sauce. I was not disappointed.

First off, the patty is a thing of beauty. It weighs in at 7 hefty ounces, and thanks to its chuck/short rib blend (ground on the premises), it radiates a big, beefy bite. Hurley forms the ground beef into thick patties, adding only salt and pepper to accentuate that clean beef flavor. They're cooked on a flattop grill, seared until there's just barely any pink remaining. It's one of those juicy, flavor-saturated patties that's so good that it could be enjoyed without all the other burger add-ons. But don't let that stop you.

For example, even the most carb-phobic won't want to give up on this bun. Rich and eggy, it hails from Franklin Street Bakery, and it's liberally — one might even say "prodigiously" — brushed in butter ("A little clarified butter never hurt anyone," said Hurley with a laugh) before it gets a firm toast on the flattop.

The cheese, soft but not runny, and nicely salty, could best be described as "slab-like." The thickly sliced onions get a spin on the stove, to the point where they're lightly browned but still slightly crunchy, and far more tangy than sweet. Texture-wise, they're nowhere near the usual jam-like consistency of slow-cooked onions, and it's a welcome change of pace.

I haven't been to Savage in ages (I was passing through, on my way to visit By the Yard, in Jordan). I won't make that mistake again.

Price: $10.95, an exceptional value.

Fries: Included, and terrific. I told Hurley as much and she paused. "We try to do everything from scratch, but the fries, they're a product that we buy," she said. "A really good product, but still, we don't make them here." Doesn't matter, because they're great, with premium potato flavor and a just-right deep-fried texture.

Sweet eats: Hurley is no stranger to the restaurant business. In the early 1990s, she was the talent behind Mrs. Feldman's Fineries, a bakery that supplied restaurants around town, including Palomino, Kincaid's, Pickled Parrot and Dayton's.

I encountered her work much later, when she and her pals Marcia Herman and Buffy Oesterrich called themselves the Party Girls and operated a stand at the Nicollet Mall branch of the Minneapolis Farmers Market.

That background explains the restaurant's small bakery case, which is usually filled with scones (white chocolate-raspberry, lemon), muffins (blueberry, rhubarb) and cookies. Oh, and gooey, gotta-have caramel rolls. "They're my mother's recipe," said Hurley.

Despite the restaurant's tiny kitchen, Hurley also manages to turn out a dessert of the day. The afternoon I spoke with her, Hurley was serving a pear tart with brown butter custard and a caramel sauce. "I used to do that one for Palomino," she said.

On farmers market days — the St. Paul Farmers Market operates an outlet in the restaurant's parking lot on Sunday morning, starting June 5 — Hurley bumps up the selection, adding Morning Glory and banana-chocolate chip muffins, among others; maybe she'll revive those doughnut muffins? It sounds as if she already has a lot on her plate.

"It gets crazy," she said. "We probably do quadruple the sales of what we'd normally do."

Taste of history: The depot was built in 1880; that's the pre-Col. Marion Savage era, when the town was called Hamilton. The railroad stopped using it in 1970, and three years later the building was moved to Shakopee, to what is now called the Landing. In 2006 it returned to Savage, restored and repurposed. Flavor at the Depot is the building's third food-related tenant, and here's hoping that the Hurleys' strategy of all-American scratch cooking and baking is drawing the crowds that it deserves.

And I kind-of remember the depot. It was uprooted when this history-nerd-in-the-making was in junior high school, and I probably tracked its progress in the Dakota County Tribune, the local newspaper that I read with a fervor that I normally reserved for Barbara Flanagan's column in the Minneapolis Star.

I'm probably mistaken here, but I think the depot's current site was once the home of the Dan Patch Lounge — I'm fairly certain that my parents never set food in "the Patch," let alone took their offspring there — and that the depot's original location was across the street from its current address. Do I have that right? Anyway, it's great to see an important part of the town's history back where it belongs.

Where she burgers: "I love a good burger," said Hurley. "I grew up on a beef farm, so they have to be good. Since we opened the restaurant, I haven't been out much. But the 112 Eatery? They have a great burger. (Agreed). That's probably the last one that I went out for."

Address book: 4800 W. 123rd St., Savage, 952-882-4729. Open 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday, 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday and 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday.