Black Duck Cafe

Westport, CT
yelp.com

The Order:  Marty's Wisconsin (Stuffed) Cheddar Burger, medium rare.  Sharp cheddar cheese with sauteed onions, lettuce and tomato (all toppings are free)
Side Order:  Comes with fries or onion rings, and slaw.  I got onion rings.
$10
Drink Order:  Beaver Brewnette
Burger Menu Rating:  6.5/15




Tucked away along the water in Westport, Black Duck Cafe is an establishment that's been around for quite some time.  In a boat.  Down by the river.  I know, I'm sure everyone has said that before.  The boat was built some time in the 1840s and was used as an Ice Barge up and down the east coast.  The boat and its crew would travel up to Maine or New Hampshire and load up with ice, then make its way down the coast selling it all off.  Later on, it was stored in various places, and finally, after a stint in New Jersey, in 1961, a Westport/Saugatuck family bought the ship, used their tow trucks (the family business) to haul the barge on shore and convert it into a restaurant.  Black Duck Cafe has been open since April of 1978 and is coming up on their 35th anniversary (between 1961 and 1978 the barge was used for a handful of other bar/restaurants), but Black Duck, while being a restaurant, is more of a pub.  It features a 40-foot long bar over which you can look out onto the river.

Being a pub, they have the usual pub fare.  Chicken wings, fries, burgers, etc. all abound on this menu.  But what stands out are the "The Duck's now famous Stuffed Burgers" of which there are four.  What does this mean?  It means the cheese on each of these burgers is stuffed into the meat when they make form the patties.  Setting off any alarms?  Usually this overworks the meat right?  Well, Black Duck manages to avoid this somehow.


The stuffed burger's cheese oozing out!

The burger comes with a decent medium grind, and nice thick oozy bits of cheese.  It, unfortunately, was cooked a bit over medium rare, but it had a good char and a good meat taste.  While this could be an excellent burger, the overall theme for this meal was blandness.  The tomatoes were Beefsteak which weren't all that sweet, or tomatoey, or anything really.  The same goes for the bun, which was a bit dry, absorbent, but lacking in flavor.  I was able to try the fries and they were a great thick cut, but again, bland.  The onion rings were pretty tasty actually.  They were soft, and easy to bite through, but on the whole they were way too oily.  They were so oily it felt immediately as if I was sweating out oil.  So, you know, very oily.


Oily onions lurking in the background.

Perhaps it was the specific burger I ordered, or just that day, but it just didn't do it for me, especially for $10, which is the "Big" size.  It also comes in "Bigger" for $12, which I don't think would really be worth it.  There is a decent amount of food on your plate, and the ability to customize your burger for free is definitely a plus, but I don't think I'd order this burger again.  I've got a soft spot when it comes to stuffed burgers because my aunt has been making excellent stuffed burgers for years, so I might be inclined to try this place again.  Perhaps the Jodi's Pepperjack Burger, or the Doctor Proctor's Bleu Cheese Burger.




 Cooked Correctly:  3.5/5
Design:  Build Your Own+Beefstake Tomatoes 1/4
Plating:  1/3
Value:  1/3