Location: 2197 Bloor Street West, Toronto
Website: http://www.maisonfou.ca/

Maybe getting a hamburger at a through-and-through French restaurant like this one isn’t the best idea ever — but inspired by my recent great experience at Collete Grand Cafe, I figured I’d try my luck.

The Fou Burger is described as “house ground beef, smoked cheddar, house bacon, garlic aioli, pickles.”

I actually got pretty excited when they asked me how I wanted my burger cooked.  I asked for medium rare; the burger came closer to medium well.  I understand that this is most people’s preference when it comes to a burger, but then why ask?

Still, it was far from overcooked, and it was actually quite juicy.  But the patty was a tough chew — I think the grind was probably a bit too coarse (which certainly isn’t a complaint that I usually make), and it was way too tightly packed.

Even more problematic was the flavour; I don’t know if they mixed  pepper in with the patty or merely blanketed the surface with the stuff, but it was absolutely overwhelmed with a peppery flavour.  It was pepper all the way through, with almost no beefy flavour at all — just pepper, pepper, pepper (pepper pepper pepper).  It was intense.

Everything else was pretty good, though.  I was a little bit worried that the smoked cheddar would overwhelm the patty (not that it would be possible to overwhelm that pepper explosion), but it was so sparingly applied that I honestly couldn’t even tell that it was there.  And though the very strongly flavoured garlic aioli probably would have been overpowering under normal circumstances, that clearly wasn’t an issue here.

The very fresh bun had a subtle sweetness, and just enough heft to hold up to the burger.  It was great.

As for the fries, they were quite tasty.  They come with a generous amount of the aforementioned garlic aioli for dipping, and man, that stuff is good.  As long as you don’t mind tasting garlic for the rest of the day, it’s pretty much dipping sauce perfection.