AUSTIN360 EAST

Owners of a top Austin barbecue trailer serving smoked burgers in very unexpected location

Matthew Odam
Austin American-Statesman
The Mo Money burger is a smoked half-pound beast.

The Best Thing I Ate This Week also shares the distinction as being The Oddest Place I Ate This Week. 

Great chicken fried steak at a library. Tasty lasagna at a hospital. Soft-serve ice cream in a fine dining restaurant. You can find excellent food in some pretty unexpected places. 

Add smoked burger at WWII museum to the list. Or is it a smoked burger at a miniature golf course? It's both, actually.

Valentina's Texas Mex BBQ owner Miguel Vidal recently reopened his Cash Cow Burgers trailer at the Memorial Miniature Golf and Museum in Buda (1710 FM 1626). Talk about unexpected. The trailer, which originally opened in 2021, took a brief hiatus to handle some permitting issues. 

The Cash Cow trailer, which is actually the original Valentina's trailer, serves several burgers, a couple of hot dogs and sides. The star of the menu is the Mo Money Burger ($15.50). The trailer takes brisket trimmings from Valentina's grinds them into a loose patty, stuffs it with Boursin and goat cheese and smokes the 1/2-pound beast before finishing it to order on the flattop. 

A slide spills out of a replica P-51 Mustang fighter-bomber at the Memorial Miniature Golf and Museum, where the Valentina's Tex Mex BBQ owners operate Cash Cow Burger Co.

Unlike some burgers made by pitmasters, the Mo Money burger doesn't jump on you with a super expressive smoke profile. It tastes less like barbecue and more like a traditional cheeseburger. I couldn't taste the herbed Boursin, but the big blast of tangy goat cheese was front and center (literally) and was a nice antidote to the savory smoked burger. Onions and tomato gave sweetness and crunch to this burger that requires a stack of paper towels for cleaning yourself off after the splurge. A wilted piece of dark green lettuce clings for its life to the bottom of the bun and could probably be eliminated altogether from the equation. 

You're eating this monster at one of several shaded picnic benches that sit in the shadow of a playscape that spills from a replica of P-51 Mustang, complete with WWII seat inside, that kids of all ages can climb into and slide out of. 

The miniature golf course features holes with military motifs.

The Mustang, billed as the world's first of its kind (a claim that would be hard to prove but is easy to believe), is the brainchild of Brian McKinney, who opened the museum and pristine military-themed putt-putt course as a way to honor the Greatest Generation, which included his grandfather, who served in WWII. 

Entrance to the museum and golf are priced separately, though neither is a prerequisite for ordering a fat stuffed burger from one of Austin's best barbecue operations. 

Cash Cow Burger Co. is open 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5 to 8 p.m. Wednesday-Friday and 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Online ordering is available and recommended, as service at the burger trailer got backed up a bit at my recent visit. 

Next time I'll order ahead. And bring my putter. 

My latest restaurant review

Speaking of enjoying good meals in off-beat places. Check out my review of Tsuke Edomae. The eight-seat sushi restaurant is located on the ground floor of a luxury apartment complex and the tiny space from chef Michael Che actually looks like it was built as a one-bedroom apartment. 

The spartan space, along with Che's serious approach to his craft, makes it clear that the sushi is the only thing that matters here. Che makes edo-style sushi, aging and curing his fish and presenting it with minimal adornment. It's a heck of a hard seat to get, but it's worth it: Che makes some of the best sushi in Texas. 

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