Location: 196 Robert Street, Toronto
Website: http://rasabar.ca/

Though I’ve had burgers that were almost ruined by one particular topping before (I’m thinking of the mustard overload from the County General, or the insanely sweet tomato jam from Provo FoodBar), the burger at Rasa might just be the most glaring example of this unfortunate phenomenon.

Rasa’s burger is topped with provolone, gochujang mayo, pickles, and “scrapchi.”  No, I don’t know what scrapchi is either.  But I do know that it doesn’t belong on a hamburger.

It’s clearly some kind of variation on kimchi, but it has a strongly funky, overpoweringly fishy flavour that was fairly unpleasant, and not quite like any kimchi I’ve ever had (I should note that I really like kimchi, and I’ve been to South Korea, so I’m not exactly a neophyte when it comes to the stuff).  It was a bulldozer of flavour, and absolutely destroyed any other tastes in the burger.  This wouldn’t have been quite as big of an issue if the scrapchi actually tasted okay.  But it has an intense rotten fish flavour that was kind of gross.

I might have had a more misguided topping on a burger in my lifetime — but if I have, I cannot remember it.  It’s possible that it was just a bad batch?  Because I can’t imagine that anyone would intentionally put anything that off-putting on a hamburger.

It’s a shame, because the burger is otherwise pretty good.  Though the patty doesn’t have all that much beefy flavour (which I was only able to discern in the couple of bites I got without the scrapchi), it’s quite juicy, and the texture is pretty great.

The waiter mentioned that it would be cooked to medium rare, though it was actually much closer to rare. A lot of rare burger patties have a tendency to be a bit squishy, but that’s not the case here.  The patty had a good amount of bite without being too dense, and held together quite nicely.  I wish, however, that there had been a bit more crust from the griddle (or any crust at all — in fact, the exterior of the patty was so colour-free that I’m not even sure if it was grilled or griddled.  I’m just guessing that they griddled it).

The bun held up nicely to the substantial burger, and the other toppings were fine (particularly the satisfyingly gooey provolone), but that crazy scrapchi pretty much wiped everything else out.

As for the fries, it didn’t come with any — it came with a very small handful of taro chips instead.  That makes the burger fairly pricey at 17 bucks.