The White Hut, West Springfield, MA

So Keepitcoming Love and I decided to go on a hot date to The White Hut tonight, in West Springfield. I suppose I ought to preface this by saying that Springfield, as a whole, is a desolate and terrifying wasteland from which there is no escape. Literally. We spent fifteen minutes trying to find the exit to 91.

But onto The White Hut. They have three or four dinner options and a rapidly expanding breakfast menu, and none of their prices exceed $4 for a single item. They've been doing this since 1939. We went inside, after a rather abysmal parking job thanks to yours truly, to a small, diner-style area with the kitchen right in front of the counter stools.

The ordering is simple and the menu is short, but what they make, they make extremely well. I got a hot dog with mustard and Keepitcoming had a hamburger with lettuce, tomato, and ketchup. We split an order of fries. The White Hut has a nice selection of beverages, too, most notably their range of Stewart's sodas.

The hot dog was medium sized, grilled to perfection, and had a good bun to meat ratio. Meat. The skin snapped nicely and the dog had a substantially spicy flavor unto its own. With the mustard, a classic yellow deli spread, it was very savory and made a great entree.The bun was toasted perfectly on the outside, with a crisp, buttery shell yielding to soft bread inside. The flavor wasn't anything special, it was just a regular bun, but toasting it up gave a nice holster for the tube steak and made it harder to fall apart mid-consumption.Keepitcoming's burger was also delicious. It had an ample amount of toppings, and the flavor was sublime. The patty was cooked on the same flattop as the grilled onions, White Hut's signature topping, and gets a lot of the onion flavor infused during cooking. It's a nice, thin patty and is evenly cooked the whole way through. The beef is toothsome, and is tender without being mushy. An extremely juicy patty.The bun was also delicately toasted, and held up well to the toppings. Toasting definitely took the bun from being rather average to decidedly delightful.Our fries were the least expensive item in our order, but amply served both of us with a few left over. They were really perfect. Each fry was thick, but never undercooked on the inside. The outside of the fry was a crispy, golden brown shell that yielded to a fluffy potato mush interior.They were fried to order, and also freshly cut. The fries still had remnants of skin and an intense, buttery potato flavor, needing no salt or pepper to enhance their taste. Good fries, good price. Yum. Keepitcoming Love's Disturbing Observation of the Day: "The White Hut cuts burgers in half as a courtesy to the ladies."