By Dar Danielson (Radio Iowa)
The search is on for this year’s edition of the “Best Burger in Iowa.” Iowa Beef Industry Council (IBIC) spokesperson Kylie Peterson says they want the people who eat the burgers to make the nominations.
“We are looking for our followers, our consumers, to vote for their favorite Iowa restaurant and Iowa burger before March 10th, that is when our contest closes. So you have about a month to do that,” Peterson says. The Iowa Cattlemen’s Association is a co-sponsor of the contest. “We’re looking for a 100% real beef patty served on a bun or bread product. That is what the menu requirement must be for the best burger,” she says. “It has to be a restaurant in Iowa that is open year round.”
You can vote by going to www.iab.org and look for “Iowa’s Best Burger” contest.”On the nomination form, it’s listed in alphabetical order by town. And once you find your town, there’s a little drop down menu that you’ll select,” she says. “If you don’t see your restaurant listed under your town, you can scroll all the way to the bottom, and there’s a box where you can enter your restaurant name and city, and we’ll get that tallied up there, and it’ll count as a vote.”
The top ten restaurants in votes will move on to the next round. “We will announce those top ten restaurants on March 17th, and then we’ll be sending out a secret panel of judges to visit each of those top ten restaurants, and they will be the ones that will be scoring those burgers,” Peterson says. She says the scoring is based on criteria like proper cooking, temperature, overall taste, and bonus points for experience.
Peterson says the past winning restaurants have come from all over the state. “So that’s kind of what is exciting about this contest, is we learn about new ones. We learn about some hidden gems and rural communities and some really popular ones in the big cities,” Peterson says. “And so it is a good way to kind of showcase and celebrate that culinary creativity that our Iowa chefs have, and then also a great way to represent our product that we believe is, you know, has an unbeatable flavor.”
They will announced the winner chosen by the judges on May 1st to kick off May as “Beef Month” in Iowa.
