White Castle Hamburgers - Video Review

Fresh from the microwave my latest Deal of the Day is a White Castle Original Slider from my local Dollar Tree. You get 2 tiny dinner roll sized burgers, so you could say I'm living small, not large!

This Cheap$kate Dining Deal is from White Castle, the first hamburger chain in the United States started in 1921. The chain originated in Wichita, Kansas started by Walt A. Anderson. You can read White Castle's interesting history by clicking here.

I never had a White Castle Hamburger until I moved to Los Angeles. And that first bite was over a decade ago when you could get them at a pop-up fast food joint on Hollywood Boulevard, as a promotion for the release of the movie "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle."

Now I sometimes get them at, of all places, The New Beverly Cinema in West Hollywood where they are sold as a movie concession meal alongside hot dogs, They are heated up in the microwave and sold two at a time for a few bucks. If you are a movie buff then The New Beverly Cinema, that's owned and often programmed by Director Quentin Tarantino, is the place to be.

Typical White Castle Burgers are simplicity itself - just a bun, fine-chopped onions, pickle, and a thin hamburger patty (but no pickle in frozen versions like below.)

I see packages of them now in grocery frozen deli cases, and lately, at my local Dollar Tree store - two burgers for a dollar! I immediately grabbed a couple of packages to do a Deal of the Day cheap$kate review for you.

Ralphs Supermarket frozen boxes of White Castle.

Click on any photo to see larger.

White Castle frozen sliders are the most popular ones on the market. They are sold cooked, frozen, and need to be reheated. These frozen versions do not have pickles since microwaving is involved - pickles and extreme heat are not meant for each other, but you can always add your own gherkin slices when the burger is ready to eat - kick them up a notch with a slice of American cheese.

White Castles are much smaller than I am used too - these burgers are closer to Happy Hour sliders. And that's okay with me.

The buns are actually white bread dinner rolls, and light and springy to the touch, even with microwaving - which only takes a minute or so. The buns hold up quite well and did not get soggy being zapped.

There is a sprinkling of finely chopped onion for a little extra texture. Because of microwaving they lose some crunch, but you can still taste slight onion rawness. It reminds me of a Big Mac's use of minced onion - they are there to compliment, not overpower, like typical thick sliced onion can (In-n-Out burger fans know what I'm talking about.)

There is no ketchup, mustard or mayo, so add your own if desired.

Since the bun is small, the hamburger patty is too. These hamburgers are meant to be eaten in two or three bites - not enough heft to take the time for savoring too deeply. Most peculiar is 5 holes punched into the beef patty. I Googled to find out and the reason is the meat cooks evenly, yea right, sounds like phony baloney to me, more like it's to use less beef per patty!

The ground meat is lightly seasoned and has a slight onion powder flavor. The patty is very thin, so don't get these if you are jonesing for a meaty meal. But what is delivered by White Castle is still satisfying - especially for the Dollar Tree price point of $1 for 2 slider/burgers!

So, on my Cheap$kate Dining Scale of 1 to 9, 9 being best, I give deli case White Castle Hamburgers a solid... well watch the video below for my rating!

White Castle - Video Review

Play it here, video runs 2 minutes, 56 seconds.

My YouTube video link for viewing or embedding, just click here.

 White Castle Hamburgers are no competition for LA classics like In-N-Out Burger or Tommy's Burgers, but for a quick bite, they will do the trick, especially when I'm craving a snack at a midnight movie in the New Beverly Cinema.

Movies & Jambalaya Animating Weekend

I went to Jerry Beck's October Spooktacular animation festival Saturday afternoon at the Cinefamily theater - great as usual. Mainly, comically scary black and white cartoons from the Silent movie days, through the Technicolor 1950's. Here's the trailer:


SPECTREFEST: Jerry Beck's Animated Spooktacular (trailer) from Cinefamily on Vimeo.

These are cartoons made way before the computer generated style came into favor. Jerry Beck, who put together the show, is the most knowledgeable cartoon scholar around (yeah, imagine that - what a talent, huh?) Here's his website called Cartoon Research, and click here to read a bit about him. He's asked to put together cartoon screenings all the time around LA and I try to see them all.

I worked with animators a lot and have picked up a few tricks, as you can see by my stop motion animated recipe videos. Even some big name film directors have come from animation, like Frank Tashlin, who directed some early Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin films, and Tashlin even mentored Jerry Lewis on how to direct movies during their multi-film collaboration.(Presently, there's Pixar's Brad Bird with Ratatouille and The Incredibles under his belt, who directed Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol.)

As you can see I like the offbeat movie experience. I don't see many new ones, but fortunately Los Angeles has a handful of movie screens that show my type of film. If there is a Film Noir double bill, I'm there. I like a 1920's creepy flick with Lon Chaney, or even the original Wolf Man with Lon Chaney Jr. I could go on and on listing my type of flick - just click on the following theater names to see their film listings: The Bing Theater at LACMA, Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer Museum, American Cinematheque at the Aero and the Egyptian, and perhaps my favorite and certainly the most eclectically programmed, Cinefamily at the Silent Movie Theater.

On Sunday I started a stop motion version of my Mom's Jambalaya recipe. I got most of it shot and am now making all the video clips for final assembly. You can click here to see the original video that features my Mom. She's turning 80 in a couple of weeks - and she's still cooking!

Right after I finished animating the food, I went to the New Beverly theater (schedule here) in Hollywood. It was taken over a few years ago by always controversial movie Director Quentin Tarantino. The theater runs older films, everything from 1940's Screwball comedies by Preston Sturges to Stanley Kubrick films, and classic French New Wave to Grindhouse exploitation.

While Tarantino ownes the theater, he hasn't programmed the film schedule, until this month. I wanted to see what he would come up with so I've gone a couple of times so far. And I haven't been disappointed.

Quentin is quite the film scholar who's taste runs the gamut. And because he worked in a video rental store, his taste is high to lowbrow, from Kung Fu flicks to old school cowboy Westerns, and to the most obscure Italian crime drama.

I've always enjoyed the New Beverly theater (here is an interesting historical timeline.) But a bit of controversy is surrounding the rechristening of the place since Quentin has taken over the programming. First he got rid of a new digital projector - only film will be show now. And there have been unfortunate personnel changes, read about some of it here.

But it should be an interesting next few months of film programs. Next up for me is the weekly Tuesday night Grindhouse with a Kung Fu double bill featuring a very young Jackie Chan: Snake in Monkey's Shadow and Snake in Eagle's Shadow.

Oh, and Mom's Jambalaya turned out great, and the stop motion animated footage I shot looks delicious.