Location: 133 Manville Road, Scarborough
UPDATE: It appears that, sadly, Goody’s Diner has closed down.
Website: http://www.goodysdiner.com/

When a place gets a 300+ post thread at Chowhound, you pretty much have to sit up and take notice.  When that thread deals largely with the greatness of the establishment’s burgers, you can pretty much guarantee I’ll be there at some point.  So of course, I eventually found myself at Goody’s Diner, an unassuming little place tucked away in a drab business park.  Not the most auspicious of locations, but it’s the food that counts.

A quick glance at the menu reveals a burger called the Goody’s Burger; since it’s my general policy to to get any burger named after the restaurant, the selection process was quite easy.  The friendly waitress came by; I ordered.  Fries or salad?  Yeah, okay, I’m really going to order a salad.  With a hamburger. (to be fair, my dining companion ordered the salad and said it was above average.)

A short while later, the burger came, and it is enormous.  The menu labels it as an eight ounce burger (i.e. half a pound) and that’s definitely no exaggeration.  The thing is massive.  It’s not kidding around, that’s for sure.

The Goody’s Burger comes topped with “grilled peameal bacon, mushrooms, jalapeno havarti, caramelized onion, lettuce and tomato.” First things first, this is a meatloaf-style burger; they tell you right on the menu that it’s mixed in with “roasted garlic and our secret spice blend” (and I have to thank them for this — there’s nothing worse than expecting a standard burger, only to get one perfumed with onion, garlic, and who-knows-what-other-spices.  This style of burger can be perfectly tasty, but there is no doubt that it is very different from a traditional burger and should be labeled as such).

And it is actually pretty tasty.  Meatloaf-style burgers are not my favourite, however this was definitely one of the better ones that I’ve had.  It was quite juicy, and the spicing wasn’t too aggressive, allowing some of the burger’s beefiness to shine through.  The burger was a bit chewier and more sausage-like than I would prefer, but that seems to be par for the course for this style of hamburger.

As for the many toppings — they would almost surely overwhelm a smaller, more traditional burger.  But between the gigantic size of the patty itself and the strong spice blend, the burger is definitely the dominant flavour here.  The toppings compliment it quite nicely, as does the soft yet substantial bun.

Though the fries are of the battered variety (like the meatloaf-style burger, this is generally not my favourite), they are above average; crunchy, potatoey, and without the overly processed flavour that battered fries tend to have.  They’re also lightly seasoned with rosemary, which makes them pretty tasty on their own without much need for a dipping sauce.