He freezes it briefly to firm up before shaving off thin slices. “You get that good mouth feel,” said van der Linde, “and there’s enough marbling that you get that good sear before it dries out.”įor the sandwich, Van der Linde starts with whole rib eye, which he trims to an eighth of an inch of fat. That’s why he calls rib-eye the “king of the cut” for the sandwich. Too lean, and the meat will dry out as it sears.
Too fatty and the fat won’t have time to render on the flat-top. For a Steak and Cheese, he says, the cut of beef is crucial. Van der Linde roasts onions in butter, which he chops together with cherry-wood smoked bacon, and blends with beef broth, sour cream, and minced chives.įans of Carving Board, the sandwich shop he ran with his wife, will be thrilled to know that sandwiches are a focus of Taste Shack, again with van der Linde’s signature attention to detail. The dip for the chips is van der Linde’s take on a classic game day bacon-and-onion dip, but requires a lot more care than opening a pouch of powder.
He then deep fries the sliced potatoes and, while they are still hot and ready to absorb flavor, tosses them in a house-made “red-salt,” which he likens to a dry rub. For “Chips and Dip,” for example, van der Linde first slices and soaks Russet potatoes. With Taste Shack, he is making a run at a menu of classic sandwiches and other familiar favorites, where the simple names bely the effort behind them. “I am not the great inventor,” said van der Linde. Rather, he takes classic foods he loves, like barbecue, and applies obsessive attention to detail. And so, van der Linde has sold his beloved Smoked, to turn all of his attention to a new venture: Taste Shack, which opens next week on 29N.įor van der Lind, “something new” never means reinvent the wheel. “I get this itch every once in a while to do something new,” said van der Linde. Even certified barbecue judges heaped praise.Īll the while, as passionate as van der Linde was about barbecue, the culinary school graduate could not shake the urge to make other foods he loves. The crowds that flocked to his cart only grew when, in 2016, he opened a brick and mortar home for Smoked. Nearly a decade has passed since Justin van der Linde began selling barbecue from a cart on the downtown mall.