Location: 169 Enterprise Boulevard, Markham
Website: http://milestonesrestaurants.com/

When you go to a chain restaurant like Milestones, you pretty much expect the burger to be lousy, and HEY GUESS WHAT HERE’S MILESTONES TO GIVE YOU EXACTLY WHAT YOU’D EXPECT.  Here’s Milestones to serve you garbage because yeah, you’ll eat that garbage, so why bother?

I’m not even talking about just hamburgers right now, but can someone please explain to me why pretty much every single casual chain restaurant in Ontario is the absolute worst?  Stuff like Boston Pizza, Montana’s, Kelsey’s, Shoeless Joe’s, St. Louis Bar and Grill, Moxie’s, and of course this stupid place are everywhere in the suburbs and they’re all just horrible.  Why?

Actually, don’t answer that — I know why.  Because they all do very well, so why change what works?  I have to assume that at some point they realized that we’ll all happily eat garbage, so seriously, why bother?  If they can serve grim, bottom-of-the-barrel prison food without it affecting their bottom line, why change?

This is all is my grumpy, roundabout way of saying that no, the hamburger at Milestones is not very good.

They have a few on the menu — I went with the Naked Burger, which is described as a “fresh, ground chuck burger seasoned to perfection, topped with lettuce, tomato, onion and our signature house-made burger sauce on a toasted egg bun.”

It was so dry.  I don’t know if the beef was too lean or it was just catastrophically overcooked (I suspect a little from column A, a little from column B) but hot damn was it dry.  It was the type of patty where it’s so dry that it just crumbles into chewy little meat-pellets as you eat it.  It’s the type of patty where you have to reach for your drink every couple of bites because it’s so thoroughly sucking all of the moisture out of your mouth.

The flavour was fine — not particularly beefy, but not bad either.  A little over-peppered, but okay otherwise.

The condiments were all as you’d expect, and the burger sauce (basically a garlicky mayo) did its best to add moisture to a moisture-free zone.  The bun was soft and fresh and would have actually been pretty okay on a better burger.

As for the fries, they were completely soggy, because again: why should they bother?