Tasty Burgers

The Stockyards

Published on May 26, 2012May 26, 2012 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 699 St. Clair Avenue West, Toronto
Website: http://www.thestockyards.ca/

It seems to be the general consensus that for griddle-cooked, fast-food-style hamburgers, the big three are The Burger’s Priest, Holy Chuck, and The Stockyards. In fact, there is a 152-post thread at Chowhound whose sole purpose is to compare the merits of these three establishments. Obviously, this review needed to be done.

I’ve actually had the burgers here a couple of times before this visit, including once with the express purpose of reviewing it for this blog. However, I lazily held off on writing the review, and before I knew it so much time had passed that it was too hazy in my mind to write a proper review.

Every time I’ve been here the burger has been very good, but a little bit too dry to be truly great. But considering the way some people rapturously swoon over this place, I had hoped that I had merely had bad luck on my prior visits.

The Stockyards is a small restaurant — it has a handful of seats along the counter, a few by the opposing wall, and a few by the window. I’ve come here before only to find the place packed, so keep that in mind if you’re planning a visit.

This time, unlike my other visits, I snagged myself a prime seat by the counter, right in front of where the grill-lady was doing her thing. It was actually kind of hypnotic, watching her prepare several burgers — placing a ball of beef on the very hot griddle, smashing it down with a circular device seemingly made for that one purpose, letting it sit to develop a rich crust, then flipping it over. The woman obviously knew what she was doing; her technique was impeccable, and watching her so skilfully prepare these burgers was making me hungry.

But — yes, there is a but, and a fairly big one — looking at the beef, it was clear that something was amiss. The uncooked ground beef was red, with just a few flecks of white. I’ve mentioned before that when it comes to the fat percentage in hamburger meat, the absolute bare minimum is fifteen percent. Twenty percent, or even thirty, is preferable.

This looked more like ten percent, if that. It might have even been five. It was even leaner than the ground beef you typically find at the supermarket, which itself is too lean to make ideal hamburger meat. Suddenly my previous too-dry burgers made perfect sense. Beef this lean will absolutely never yield a particularly juicy burger, even with the most skilled cook in the world behind the griddle.

My burger came looking quite beautiful. Glistening, with an awe-inspiring dark brown crust, it looked pretty much exactly how you want a burger to look. I took a bite, and that perfect crust combined with what was obviously high quality beef — seasoned with just a bit of salt — resulted in a richly flavourful burger. But it was dry. How couldn’t it have been, with that beef? It was cooked all the way to well done, which obviously didn’t help, but it wasn’t overcooked (though you could make the argument that even a perfectly-cooked well done burger is inherently overcooked).

It’s actually kind of tragic, because with fattier beef, this burger would easily be a contender for best in the city. Hands down. Everything else is exactly how it should be: the amazing cooking technique, the quality of the beef, the fresh sesame seed bun (Dempster’s, if you’re curious), the toppings. It’s all, as Guy Fieri would say, on point.

(Did I really just drop a Guy Fieri reference into a review?)

But it’s dry — so, so dry, and despite this it is unarguably a very good burger. It saddens me, because with just one relatively minor change, it could be so great. Alas.

As for the fries, they were quite tasty if just a tad overcooked. However, the portion was absurdly large. After eating my fill I had barely even made a dent in the voluminous pile. I know it seems odd to complain about getting too much value, but no reasonable person could possibly finish this many French fries, leading to guaranteed food waste.

Slab Burgers

Published on May 14, 2012May 14, 2012 by Michael Nusair1 Comment

Location: 47 Charles Street West, Toronto
Website: http://www.slabburgers.com/

I have to say, the current abundance of quality burger joints in Toronto really warms my heart. I remember a time, not more than a few years ago, when finding a decent burger in the city was quite a challenge — particularly if you didn’t feel like trekking to a fancier place like Bymark and paying a premium. Johnny’s and Apache frequently topped “best burgers in the city” lists. If you wanted a fast-food-style, griddle cooked burger, your only option was low-quality chain fare like McDonald’s or Wendy’s. All in all, it was a grim time to be a burger fan.

Fast forward to present day. Suddenly, it’s an embarrassment of riches. Good burgers are easy to find. Burger joints seem to be opening on a regular basis, and many of them are quite good. Many people are calling this a fad; I disagree. There’s nothing quite like a good burger, and Torontonians are only just now realizing this. Go to any big city in the States, and you’ll find any number of high quality burger joints flipping burgers and feeding the hungry masses. Toronto used to be a burger dead-zone, and it’s only now catching up to other big cities — and there’s work to be done yet. So no, burgers are not a fad, and they’re not a flash in the pan. It just took us a while to realize their worth.

But I digress, so let me get to the topic at hand: Slab Burgers.

It’s an unassuming location, tucked away in an office building just off of Bay. It’s an oddly designed space, with a couple of tables next to the register, and a wall separating a narrow strip with a few more tables. They’ve also built a barrier, maybe 6 feet tall, around the area where they cook the burgers, blocking the burger cookery from view. It’s an odd choice that made me wonder if they have something to hide.

The menu will look pretty familiar to anyone who’s visited Five Guys — the offerings are pretty much identical, with the addition of a chicken sandwich. I ordered the four ounce burger as a combo with fries and a drink (and like at Five Guys, you order your toppings as you order the burger). It’s a pretty solid deal at $6.99.

I sat down, and within a few minutes my burger arrived, topped with pickles, tomato and mayo. I have to admit that my expectations were not very high — perhaps it was the Five Guys copycat menu, or the odd design of the restaurant, but I wasn’t expecting much. Imagine my surprise, then, as I bit into what turned out to be a damn good burger.

Let me get my one caveat out of the way first: the bun was too big. I suspect that it might have worked better in the double burger, and it wasn’t quite as bad as it looks in the picture (it was very soft and fresh, and aside from its size it was a good bun), but it was definitely too big.

Disproportionate bun aside, this was a winner from top to bottom. The beef was clearly fresh and of an above-average quality, and was therefore quite flavourful. It was juicy, and had a decent amount of crust from the griddle. With the exception of the questionable bun, the whole thing was very Five Guys-esque — but Five Guys at its best, since that place tends to be a little bit spotty. It wasn’t a “OMYGOD you must try this burger IMMEDIATELY” burger, but it was damn solid, and one I’d happily eat again if I found myself in the area.

As for the fries, they were top shelf: perfectly cooked and flavourful, I wasn’t very hungry and planned on only eating a handful, but once I started I could not stop. I cleaned the plate.

Brown Bag Sandwiches

Published on May 7, 2012May 7, 2012 by Michael Nusair1 Comment

Location: 377 Church Street, Toronto
Website: http://www.brownbagsandwiches.ca/

Some Eastern philosophies state that there should always be balance; if there is good in the world, there must be bad to balance it out. So it goes, then, that if a burger joint as delicious as Holy Chuck or The Burger’s Priest exists, there must also exist a place that is as bad as those restaurants are good. Enter Brown Bag Sandwiches.

No, this is not a dedicated burger joint. It is a sandwich shop — however, they do have a kitchen and a griddle and all of the tools they would need to make a delicious burger, so I don’t think it’s unreasonable for me to expect something halfway decent. Moreover, the hamburger is the first item on the menu, so it’s clearly not something that only exists to pad out their selection. It’s front-and-centre, and therefore fair game for scrutiny. And scrutinize I shall.

I got the burger as a combo with a can of soda and a very generous order of fries, and it came up to about ten bucks, so it’s reasonably priced.

I ordered my combo, waited a few minutes for the burger to be ready (there are a handful of tables in the small restaurant for those who want to eat in), then asked for my hamburger to be topped with pickles, tomato, and chipotle mayo.

The burger is oblong, presumably to accommodate their choice of bread. It’s a little bit unorthodox, but I suppose that there is no rule that says a hamburger must be round.

You’ve no doubt gathered as much from the opening of this review, but this was not a good hamburger. In fact, I would say that it was a terrible hamburger. I’m not even sure that I need to write this review; if a picture is worth a thousand words, then I believe that the picture above communicates all that needs to be said about this burger. It looks gross, to put it bluntly, and it tasted just as bad as it looks.

It’s a meatloaf burger. Though this isn’t my favourite style of hamburger, I have no problem recognizing a good meatloaf burger when I see one. Again, this was not a good burger. For one thing, it was way overcooked, and the too-lean, impossibly dense beef was egregiously dry. Sucks-the-moisture-out-of-your-mouth dry. Sahara Desert dry. Dry.

Even by the standards of a meatloaf burger it was overseasoned, obliterating whatever beefy flavour the meat might have once had. Then there was the very crusty, toasted bun; this might work okay in some of their other sandwiches, but it was wildly inappropriate as a hamburger bun. It was completely overwhelming and far too substantial for the task at hand.

Any flavour that the chipotle mayonnaise might have had was annihilated by the strong patty, so I can’t speak to its success as a condiment. The tomato and pickles were fine.

The burger actually reminded me a lot of the hamburger I had at BBQ Express. This is not a flattering comparison, to put it mildly. I should also note that my dining companion had the fried chicken sandwich and was similarly unimpressed, so the quality of the food (or lack thereof) was not restricted to the hamburger.

The one redeeming quality of the meal were the French fries. Though they were a tad overcooked, they were crispy, well-seasoned and delicious. They came with a side of ketchup, which they make in-house, and which was pretty fantastic. Bright and tomatoey, and far less sweet than typical ketchup, it proved to be surprisingly addictive when combined with the above-average fries.

Burger Factory

Published on April 30, 2012October 29, 2012 by Michael Nusair2 Comments

Location: 5130 Dixie Road, Mississauga
Website: www.facebook.com/pages/Burger-Factory/300863443314351

It was with no small amount of anticipation that I walked through Burger Factory’s doors; it’s relatively close to where I live, an area that is definitely slim pickings in the burger department. The idea of having a great (or even just good) burger joint near my house is pretty exciting.

I walked in, and it seemed promising — the place is laid out fast-food style, with the burger cookery in full view. The burgers are made by smashing a ball of ground beef onto a griddle, a style that seems to be in vogue right now (and a style that produces a couple of my favourite burgers in the city). So I thought, hey! This is it! A good burger within minutes of my home. What could be finer?

It’s a small restaurant. There are a handful of tables, but I think the place is mostly meant to be a takeout joint.

I ordered the burger and fries combo (they also serve a Juicy Lucy — a burger with a centre of molten hot cheddar cheese. I’ll have to try that at some point). After waiting a few minutes, my burger was ready. I got it topped with tomato, pickle and Factory Sauce (described as a mayo-based sauce with ketchup), and sat down.

I took a bite of the hamburger, and a wave of sadness washed over me — the dream of having a great burger place near my house died a sad, lonely death. This is not a good burger, let alone a great one.

For one thing, the burger was cooked beyond well done, and was thus quite overcooked. And, like the burger I recently had at Burger Stomper, it had little to no crust, despite its long stay on the griddle. Again, the griddle must have not been hot enough. Seriously, this isn’t rocket science, people. It’s not too difficult to do it well. Just go to The Burger’s Priest, watch what they do, and then do it yourself until you get it right.

The beef was also far too lean, resulting in one of the drier burgers I’ve had in a while. It’s decent quality beef; though it doesn’t exactly hit you in the face with beefiness, there are no off flavours here, and it was well seasoned with salt and pepper. But man, it was dry, and without any real caramelization from the griddle, it was kind of bland.

The sesame seed bun was a disaster. Big, bready, and stale, it was dense and overwhelming and completely threw off the beef-to-bun ratio. It had been placed on the griddle, though if I hadn’t seen it I wouldn’t have believed it — it was completely untoasted and cold (and if your griddle can’t even toast a bun, then you know it’s not hot enough). The bun was also far too wide for the burger, which meant I ran out of burger long before I ran out of bun.

The fries, too, were a complete write-off. They looked golden and tasty, but they weren’t particularly crispy, and contained an unappealingly underdone centre. I ate only a handful before escorting the rest to the nearest garbage bin.

Burger Stomper Gourmet Burger & Milkshake Bar

Published on April 27, 2012April 27, 2012 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 364 Danforth Ave., Toronto
Website: http://www.burgerstomperbar.com/

Well, this has to be a first – a burger joint opened partially to promote a kitchen gadget. The gadget, in this case, is the Burger Stomper, a tool whose purpose is to streamline the apparently arduous task of forming a hamburger patty. It doesn’t strike me that patty-forming is exactly a job requiring a piece of kitchen paraphernalia, but then again I’ve certainly seen more useless gadgets.

The restaurant has a fairly typical layout – the menu’s posted up on the wall, you order with the person behind the register, pay, get a number, then go to your table and wait for your food.

Seeing that the name of the restaurant has “milkshake” right in it, I figured that I would be remiss if I didn’t order myself a shake along with the usual burger/fries. For you, of course. Not because of my gluttony. No, not that.

As for the burger, I ordered the Classic Stomp, which is a plain burger with tomato, onion, lettuce, and ketchup. I asked for mine sans-onion, and with mayo substituted for ketchup; my dining companion accused me of violating the integrity of the burger with these substitutions, thus making my review less relevant. I argued that I was reviewing the burger itself, and that with a no-frills burger such as this, condiment-substitution is to be expected.

To explain my modifications: I’m just not a fan of raw onions in any context. I know that they’re a classic burger topping and that I really should learn to like them, but alas, I do not. Ketchup, on the other hand, I do like. However, while it works well with fries or on a hot dog, I find that its vinegary sweetness is a little bit overwhelming on a hamburger.

The burger is quite good. There is potential for greatness, but there were just a few things that were off. The base is definitely there – they’re using good quality beef, which has a nicely robust beefy flavor. It’s quite tasty. The bun is also pretty much perfect – it’s supple and fresh, and is a fantastic match for the burger at hand. It has just the right amount of pliancy to hold up to the burger, without ever becoming overwhelming.

The beef, however, is a bit too tightly-packed, and thus a bit denser than it should have been. I’m not sure if this is the result of the Burger Stomper itself, or if the beef had been overhandled prior to stomping. I also suspect that the beef is a little bit too finely ground — the texture was slightly off.

Perhaps most seriously, the griddled burger was completely under-seared, despite being cooked past well done (it was a bit overcooked). The patty had some vague amounts of sear, but for the most part was far more gray and wan than it should have been. This is quite unfortunate, as the caramelization that results from the cooking process (whether griddled or grilled) contributes a lot of flavour and textural contrast to a hamburger, and that flavour was lacking here. Clearly, their griddle needs to be quite a bit hotter.

It’s telling that despite these misgivings, I still enjoyed this burger. They’re doing a lot right here; there are just a few small improvements needed to turn these burgers from good to great.

As for the previously mentioned milkshake, I got the “Nutella Chocolate Peanut Butter Heaven,” which tasted exactly how you would hope a Nutella / peanut butter milkshake would taste (which is to say, awesome).

I also got an order of fries, which had a slightly oily flavor and were a smidgeon on the soggy side, but were otherwise quite tasty.