chain – Tasty Burgers

Turtle Jack’s

Published on December 22, 2019December 22, 2019 by Michael Nusair5 Comments

Location: 108 Courtneypark Drive East, Toronto
Website: https://turtlejacks.com/

Nope.

Seriously: no. I’m so sick of the no-effort pucks of despair that they serve at basically every Canadian chain restaurant like Turtle Jack’s.

How? How does this happen? How can a restaurant serve a hamburger that’s so unambiguously bad that anyone with a mouth and functional tastebuds will immediately identify it as the off-putting garbage that it is?

That’s a legitimate question and I’d like someone at Turtle Jack’s to answer it. Also, Turtle Jack’s? While you’re here? Get out of here with that horrific slop. Get all the way out and never come back.

The burger at Turtle Jack’s is incredibly dry and dense, and it’s an absolute bummer to eat. It made me sadder and sadder with each mouthful. The beefy flavour was almost nonexistent, with a vaguely leftovery funk that makes me think they might be precooking the patties and reheating them to order. It’s bad. Bad bad bad bad bad.

I feel no need to discuss it further, because it’s a piece of garbage that’s clearly made by people with the cynical belief that they can serve whatever the hell garbage they want and people will eat it. If you order it, you’re proving them right. Please don’t do that. I ate it so you don’t have to.

The fries were slightly better (because there’s really nowhere to go but up from that burger), but they were the boringest of boring frozen fries.

1 out of 4

Reds

Published on October 13, 2019 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 100 City Centre Drive, Mississauga (inside Square One)
Website: https://redsrestaurants.com/

I don’t know why I keep reviewing the burger at chains like Reds. They’re always just as mediocre and personality-free as you fear they’re going to be, so why do I keep subjecting myself to them? Because I hate myself, apparently?

Reds Square One

To be fair, Reds only has three locations, so it’s not quite a full-on chain like Moxie’s or Milestones. It’s also slightly better than those types of places. But it’s not great.

I ordered the Reds Burger: “lettuce, tomato, red onion, pickle, fresh baked potato bun.”

Reds Square One

It’s… well, it is what it is. It’s mostly inoffensive. The griddled patty is dry, because of course it’s dry, but it’s otherwise decent enough. There’s a good amount of crust from the griddle, and the texture of the beef is basically where it should be. The flavour isn’t particularly beefy, but it’s not unpleasant. If it weren’t so dry, it would have been pretty good.

Reds Square One

The no-frills toppings are exactly what you think they’ll be, and the fluffy, fresh bun is actually really good.

I don’t know. It’s a burger. It’s mostly inoffensively tasty, but it’s so bland and unmemorable that it may as well not exist.

Reds Square One

As for the fries, they were mostly quite good, though they were a little bit undercooked.

2.5 out of 4

Scaddabush

Published on December 9, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 155 York Boulevard, Richmond Hill
Website: https://www.scaddabush.com

I’ve mentioned on another blog that Scaddabush is one of the better chains in Canada. That continues to be true. I even enjoyed the burger! Considering that my reaction to the hamburger at chains like this tends to range from “that was extremely mediocre” to “that was so bad it makes me angry,” I was shocked at how much I enjoyed what they served here.

It’s not, however, a traditional hamburger. The Italian Burger, per their menu: “Hand-pressed Certified Angus Beef ground chuck, fresh mozzarella, arugula, bruschetta, balsamic reduction, basil pesto aioli, focaccia bun.”

There’s so much going on here that the patty itself almost feels like an afterthought.

Between the very garlicky pesto aioli, the sweet balsamic glaze, the peppery arugula, the chunky bruschetta topping, and the thick slice of fresh mozzarella, the beef is basically just another condiment. You could slide it right out and it would barely make a difference.

I’m normally not a huge fan of over-condimented hamburgers, but it’s hard to deny that what they’re serving here is tasty. All of the toppings are quite good and compliment each other very well, and the substantial, slightly chewy bun does a great job of holding it all together.

But what about the patty itself? It’s there, and it’s fine. The texture is slightly sausagey, and it doesn’t have a particularly beefy flavour (not that it makes a difference with all of the other stuff going on here), but it’s otherwise a solid burger patty.

It basically just adds some meatiness — this thing is all about the toppings.

As for the fries, they basically tasted like a lightly battered version of what they serve at McDonald’s. They’re not particularly great, but I’ve had worse.

3 out of 4

Joey

Published on May 27, 2018May 27, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 25 The West Mall, Etobicoke
Website: https://www.joeyrestaurants.com/

Are the days of seriously mediocre and/or terrible casual chain restaurants behind us? Up until recently, the burger at a place like this was pretty much guaranteed to either be dry and unpleasant, or rubbery and industrially-produced.

But the burger I had at State & Main a couple of months ago was surprisingly okay, and so was the one I just ate at Joey. Things are clearly looking up.

The burger here isn’t anything to get too excited about — nothing about it stands out, but it’s a solid, inoffensive hamburger.

It’s simple enough — it’s a single patty affair with lettuce, tomato, pickles, red onion, and some kind of zesty mayo-based sauce.

I was quite enjoying the first few bites — the medium-well middle is juicy and satisfying. But the meat is too tightly packed, and as you get closer to the well done edges of the patty, it gets dry and tough.

Still, it’s not bad. The griddled patty has a good amount of crust on its exterior, and while it doesn’t taste particularly beefy, the flavour isn’t unpleasant.

The toppings are all fresh and tasty, and the zesty mayo adds some zip without overwhelming the beef.

The bun’s not great, however. It’s overly dense and dry, and it’s slightly too wide for the patty. The beef-to-bun ratio is off.

As for the fries, they tasted like a slightly inferior version of what they serve at McDonald’s.

2.5 out of 4

3 Brewers

Published on April 16, 2017 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 275 Yonge Street, Toronto
Website: https://les3brasseurs.ca/locations/3-brewers-yonge

3 Brewers is a Canadian casual chain restaurant, which means by law, it has to serve mediocre food.

Oh, did you not hear about that law? Yeah, parliament recently passed a law saying that every Canadian chain restaurant has to serve food that is “mediocre at best, with drab, uninspired cuisine that instills a profound sadness into its customers” (that’s a direct quote from the legislation).

So of course, the burger at 3 Brewers — I got the 3 Brasseurs burger, which comes topped with maple Amber beer sauce, smoked Gouda, bacon, lettuce, tomato and onion — is mediocre. I mean, they wouldn’t want to break the law, would they? The burger here stayed very firmly within the bounds of the legislation; it made me sad, just like it was supposed to.

It wasn’t the worst thing ever, I’ll give it that. It was griddled and pleasantly crusty, and all the toppings were pretty good. The smoked Gouda was nice and melty (if a bit too strong) — but then who cares when the burger itself is so poor? The maple amber beer sauce must have just been globbed into one spot in the middle of the burger, because I got a couple of very sweet bites, and the rest of the burger was sauce-free. The bun, aside from having an exterior that’s a bit too crunchy, was also pretty good.

It’s the patty that really made me sad. It tasted like the patty from pretty much every other chain like this — it was well done, dry, and completely lacking in flavour. The beef is lousy, but not too lousy — it’s the cheapest thing they can get away with without it being too flagrant (it’s not a frozen patty, at least). It tastes like nothing, but it doesn’t offend.

As for the fries, they were fine. A little bit better than the burger, but again, not good enough that they’re going to risk getting shut down. Because of the law, of course.

2 out of 4