Tasty Burgers

Holy Chuck

Published on February 6, 2012March 16, 2012 by Michael Nusair3 Comments

Location: 1450 Yonge St., Toronto
Website: http://www.holychuckburgers.com/

I think there’s one thing I have to get out of the way before I talk about the burgers at Holy Chuck. Whoever owns the place obviously likes The Burger’s Priest. A lot. Both places have similar menus (right down to the presence of a cheese-stuffed, deep fried mushroom), serve a similar style of hamburger, and have similarly religious-themed names.

I don’t think there’s anything particularly wrong with this. Though The Burger’s Priest was a bit of an oddity for Toronto, all they’re doing is serving the type of burger that’s been ubiquitous in the States for many, many years. Specifically, much inspiration was taken from In-N-Out, a well known burger chain in the southwestern United States. If we start seeing even more places that serve burgers in this style (and do it well) in Toronto, that would make me a very happy man. Perhaps if enough of these places open up and people realize how burgers are actually supposed to taste, we’ll start seeing the decline of frozen patty purveyors like Johnny’s, and meatloaf sandwiches masquerading as burgers like Lick’s. I can dream, can’t I?

Anyway, Holy Chuck.

I actually went at lunch, without a particularly huge appetite, and planned on getting something reasonably small — probably single patty. But my general policy is to order any burger off the menu that shares a name with the restaurant, and in this case the eponymous burger consisted of two patties, two slices of cheese, sauteed onions, and bacon. So much for small. I also opted to upgrade to the combo, because, well, go big or go home, right?

After a five minute or so wait, I got my burger, as is. It didn’t strike me that this burger needed any further condiments, though even if it had, I would have been out of luck — for this particular burger, the menu very emphatically states “NO TOPPINGS ALLOWED!“

My first impression was that the cheese appeared to be unmelted, though cutting into the burger it was clear that this was thankfully not the case.

Look at that burger. Seriously. Behold. Yes, it’s as good as it looks. Beefy, juicy, greasy, with a perfectly brown crust from the hot griddle, this is close to burger perfection. The flavour isn’t quite as richly beefy as at The Burger’s Priest, but it’s close. The soft sauteed onions compliment the burger perfectly, as does the thickly cut bacon. The cheese is American, de rigueur for a burger such as this; so too is the supple, soft bun.

Actually, let me talk about the cheese for a bit. Two slices is the standard for a double cheeseburger (it’s what they serve at the Priest, and pretty much everywhere else a double cheeseburger is found). However, I’m starting to think that two slices is just too much, and that one slice is more appropriate. One slice gives the burger a welcome creaminess and a nice cheesy tang; two slices threatens to compete with the beef in the flavour department. This is fine if the beef is iffy, but if I’m eating somewhere like Holy Chuck where the beef is above average, I want the toppings to compliment the burger, not compete for dominance.

And yes, the beef is definitely above average here. Cooked medium well with a blush of pink, the beef is packed with flavour and is fantastically juicy. I overheard a fellow customer ask if the burgers could be cooked to order, and the man behind the counter responded that yes, they can do anything from rare to well done. I had already ordered my burger when this nugget of info was revealed; however, though my preference is generally medium rare, this burger was so perfect at medium well that I might just leave well enough alone and continue ordering it without any alterations when I return.

I’ve heard the complaint leveraged that the Holy Chuck burger is too greasy. This is nonsense. If someone tries to tell you that they think the burger is too greasy, smile, nod, and immediately discount anything that this person has to say on the topic of hamburgers; it’s sad to say it, but they are lost to the horrors of Toronto’s mediocre burger scene. We’re so used to too-lean, overcooked and completely dried out burgers that the burgers like the ones served at Holy Chuck stand out as odd. But this is how a burger is supposed to taste. A burger that is edible without the assistance of at least a couple of napkins is, to put it bluntly, not worth eating.

I mentioned before that I had a smallish appetite and was considering not getting the combo, but oh boy, am I glad I did. The fries are perfect: crispy, salty, flavourful, with a fluffy interior and just the right amount of crunch. I’ve eaten a lot of French fries in my life, and these were among the best that I’ve ever had. Suffice it to say, this is one area in which Holy Chuck beats the Burger’s Priest quite handily.

If you’re just skimming this review (it is a little wordy, I’ll admit it), the Reader’s Digest version is this: go to Holy Chuck. Now. Even if it’s not quite as good, it easily rivals The Burger’s Priest for fast food burger dominance in Toronto. Wading through so much burger mediocrity for this blog, it’s easy for forget why I even love burgers so much in the first place. Holy Chuck is just the reminder that I needed. It is a ray of light piercing through the darkness. It’s pretty fantastic.

Epic Burgers and Waffles

Published on October 14, 2011August 23, 2013 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: The Ex
Website: Epic Burgers and Waffles (Facebook)

Sometimes a food item is just so insane, you pretty much have no choice but to try it. Last year at the Ex, the crazy food getting all the attention was deep fried butter (which I tried, and which was nothing too special — it just tastes like a doughnut hole with a molten butter centre). This year, the buzzed-about carnival food was the Krispy Kreme hamburger. Doughnut hamburgers are nothing new, but I believe this was our first shot at trying them in the GTA (without making them yourself, I mean).

The line for this was easily the longest line in the food building, so obviously I’m not the only one curious about these monstrosities. I noticed, while in line, that Epic Burgers and Waffles advertises their burger as a “smashburger,” a popular American burger style in which the beef is smashed down on the griddle, providing a satisfyingly crispy crust (think Burger’s Priest or Five Guys). Could this actually be a good burger, aside from the novelty factor?

After a few minutes, my turn came. I elected for the bacon and a fried egg-topped burger, because if you’re going to get a Krispy Kreme burger, you may as well go all the way.

I sat down, and it immediately became apparent that this was not a dainty hamburger. It’s pretty much impossible to eat this thing without making a mess; the heat of of the burger and toppings melts the glaze on the doughnut, resulting in a sticky mess.

First: this is not a smashburger. It’s a slightly better-than-average frozen burger, which by definition cannot be a smashed burger (frozen burgers are, obviously, preformed, whereas smashed burgers start as a ball and are smashed down on the griddle). The burgers were actually cooked in such a way as to create a bit of a crust, but they’re still frozen burgers. I’m reminded of an expression relating to lipstick and pigs.

As for the doughnut/hamburger combination? It’s not bad. It’s not great, certainly, but if you’re partial to foods that combine sweet and salty, this might just be something you’ll like. It actually reminded me a lot of a McGriddle (the presence of bacon and an egg probably solidifies that connection), so if you’ve had one of those, then you pretty much know what to expect here.

BBQ Express

Published on August 1, 2011April 21, 2012 by Michael Nusair2 Comments

Location: 1240 Bay Street, Toronto
Website: None

I’ve seen things done to burgers. Bad things: frozen burgers, overly-spiced burgers, too-lean burgers, burgers ground too finely, burgers with filler, burgers with bad quality meat… I thought I had seen it all. I was wrong.

BBQ Express is one of those places I’ve walked by many times, though it took the prospect of reviewing it for this blog to actually walk in. It’s a tiny place; there’s basically just enough room to stand there and order.

They advertise a homemade burger, so I ordered it thinking “how bad could this be?”

Then something happened I don’t think I’ll ever forget. The woman who took my order moseyed on over to the grill, opened a foil bag with a stack of pre-cooked hamburgers, and slapped one on the grill.

I stood there in shock. Did I really just see that? Is that really a pre-cooked hamburger, cooked who-knows-when? Is she actually going to reheat that and serve it to me?

My pulse quickened. Fight or flight kicked in. A voice in my head screamed “Run! Run now and never look back!” And if it hadn’t been for this blog, there’s no way I would have eaten that hamburger. I would have politely given the grill lady some excuse, and I would have high-tailed it out of there.

The things I do for you.

I got my hamburger topped with pickles, tomato and mayo, and I walked across the street to sit outside and eat my meal.

I took my pictures of the uncut burger, then, as I am wont to do when I’m reviewing a burger for this blog, I cut it in half so I could take a picture of the burger’s innards. Cutting into the burger, it was immediately clear that something was wrong. The hamburger was suspiciously difficult to cut in half. The meat was tough, almost like trying to cut through a steak.

Hesitantly, I took a bite. The burger was — surprise, surprise — unusually dry. It was also tough and leathery with an almost jerky-like texture around the edges.

This was also a meatloaf-style burger. It wasn’t too strongly-spiced, though this was one instance where I actually would have preferred for the beef to be disguised by other flavours; the beef had a funky, vaguely unpleasant flavour.

The only reason I’m not going to give this burger zero stars is that I actually managed to finish the whole thing, so I guess it wasn’t completely inedible. But then that probably speaks more to my gluttony than to the general quality of this burger. Seriously: this was a terrible, terrible hamburger. I’m pretty sure I’ve had worse in my lifetime, though I’m having a hard time thinking of any right now.

Billy’s Place

Published on July 25, 2011April 21, 2012 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 5945 Dixie Road, Mississauga
Website: None

Whenever I go to a little hole-in-the-wall place that I’ve never heard of, I get a little bit excited; could this be a great new discovery? A hidden gem? A place I’ll excitedly recommend to everyone I know?

Spoiler alert: this was not one of those places.

Walking in didn’t exactly fill me with confidence; the place looks like it hasn’t changed much since it opened (probably in the ’70s or ’80s, judging by the decor). It was also completely deserted at around 12:30 on a weekday, which was a bit worrisome — this seems like the type of restaurant that should have a bustling lunch crowd.

There was a fairly large rear-projection TV (the type they stopped making something like fifteen years ago) in the corner of the restaurant playing the Bruce Willis flop Hostage, which was a bit of a head-scratcher. This wouldn’t have been so strange had the TV just been tuned to TBS or something, but nope — it was a DVD. Someone (the owner, presumably) had actually gone to the trouble of buying Hostage on DVD, which is pretty bizarre.

I looked at the menu, which is posted fast-food style on the wall behind the counter; if nothing else, this place definitely wasn’t overpriced. The hamburger combo comes with a six ounce burger, a generous serving of fries, and a can of soda. The price? $6.15. It’s almost suspiciously cheap.

I ordered the combo, and within a few minutes it was ready. I asked for the burger topped with pickles, tomato, lettuce, and mayo, and I was good to go.

The first thing I noticed about the burger was the aroma. This is a meatloaf-style hamburger, which was quite apparent from the garlicky smell wafting from the patty.

I took a bite. Even by the standards of a meatloaf-style burger, this was aggressively spiced, with a strong garlicky taste that pretty much slaps you in the face.

It also had a sausage-like texture, with the beefy flavour thoroughly eliminated by the strong seasoning. The taste and texture were so far removed from what you’d associate with beef, that I’m pretty sure that this could have been made out of ground pork without the taste or texture being particularly affected.

It wasn’t bad, I guess. It was juicy and reasonably tasty for what it was, though it was pretty much a complete failure as a hamburger. I mean, proponents of the meatloaf-style burger will argue that the additional ingredients should serve to compliment the beefiness of the burger, which certainly wasn’t the case here. Whatever beefiness this (probably low-quality) beef had was completely annihilated by the other ingredients, which makes it kind of hard to argue that it was any kind of success as a hamburger.

As for the fries, they were kind of bad despite being fresh out of the frier. They were obviously frozen, and they were completely unsalted, resulting in some seriously bland fries.

Apache Burgers

Published on July 18, 2011 by Michael Nusair1 Comment

Location: 5236 Dundas Street West, Etobicoke
Website: None

Apache Burgers is one of those really old school burger places that’s been around forever, looking about the same and serving up the same food for decades on end. People tend to get pretty nostalgic about places they’ve been visiting (and food they’ve been eating) since they were children. Which probably helps to explain why this place is frequently named as one of the best burger joints in the GTA.

Apache Burgers is fine. My burger was perfectly edible. But one of the best places in the GTA? Not by a long shot.

I arrived just before 1:00 PM on a weekday, and the place was fairly crowded. Unlike most burger joints downtown where you’ll mostly find twenty-somethings, the demographic here was pretty varied: families, teenagers, workers on their lunch break, and an older couple who have probably been getting burgers here for years. The place does well, no doubt about it.

It’s a pretty standard layout: order your burger, pay, wait, then pick your toppings from behind the glass. The whole restaurant was pretty clean and not run-down at all, so I’d imagine that they’ve renovated recently.

I elected to go with the Apache Burger, since it’s generally hard to go wrong ordering a restaurant’s namesake item. The Apache Burger is basically a double cheeseburger: two beef patties, two slices of American cheese. I topped it with pickles, tomatoes and mayonnaise (which you’ve probably noticed are my go-to burger toppings).

The burger is not bad. It’s not good, certainly, but it’s not bad. The quality of the meat itself is fairly mediocre, and certainly no better than a fast food place like Wendy’s, so how Apache became a burger joint of note is a complete mystery to me. It’s not even cheap — my Apache burger was $6.79, and with just a small drink and no sides it came up to about ten bucks.

Apache uses prefabricated patties for their burgers, though they are of a slightly higher quality than your average frozen burger. They don’t have that telltale chewy texture that you typically get from a frozen burger, so that definitely puts them head-and-shoulders above Johnny’s in the great Johnny’s-versus-Apache debate. But being better than Johnny’s is not exactly a tall mountain to climb.

The patties also had that vaguely gamy, somewhat unpleasant taste that you associate with lower quality beef, but they were basically okay. They weren’t too dry, and they had a decent texture to them.

The cheese was gooey and fully melted, which was a definite plus. The other toppings were fine, though the guy who assembled my burger was a bit heavy-handed with the mayo.

The bun is a little too big and bready. It’s overpowering. It basically worked in my double burger; the single, however (which is what I ordered the last time I was here), is completely dominated by the large bun.

“Meh” is a good word to describe Apache Burgers. It’s fine, I guess, but if you go there expecting something above average, you will be sorely disappointed. Personally, given the caliber of the burgers served here, I’d sooner just go down the street and order from Wendy’s. At least it’s a bit cheaper.