Burgerville

Burgerville is a fast-food eatery with 39 outlets in and around Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington. It’s not exactly a template for Roadfood, which is all about one-of-a-kind places, but to that rule, an exception must be made. Slick and efficient it may be, but Burgerville manages to be a superb taste of its region.

How’s this for a local-produce salad: smoked salmon with Tillamook cheese (from a coastal creamery) and a great spill of crushed roasted hazelnuts from a farmers’ co-op called Oregon Orchard. While any Burgerville burger is swell, I’m particularly fond of the Colossal Cheddar Bacon Cheeseburger made with Oregon’s Tillamook cheese. Every Spring, Burgerville gets North Pacific halibut for fish and chips. Deep fried until brittle-crisp, each piece feels featherlight and flakes into pearl white hunks that drip flavor.

Hazelnuts are huge in Oregon (where old-timers still call them filberts); the best known hazelnut item on the Burgerville menu is the chocolate hazelnut milkshake, available every year from January through April as part of the seasonal milk shake menu: strawberry shakes starting in April, then raspberry, blackberry, and peach shakes, and huckleberry and pumpkin shakes in the fall.