cheese – Tasty Burgers

Oklahoma Burgers

Published on October 29, 2022 by Michael Nusair1 Comment

Location: 10 Kingsbridge Garden Circle, Mississauga
Website: https://www.oklahomaburgers.ca/

I wasn’t even sure that I was going to write about this place for this blog. Tasty Burgers has been on hiatus since the beginning of the pandemic, and I still hadn’t decided if/when I wanted to bring it back.

But you know what? Oklahoma Burgers serves a four star burger, and it needs to be recognized as such. I had no choice. Tasty Burgers must come back.

Oklahoma Burgers

Because yes, spoiler alert: the burger at Oklahoma Burgers is amazing, and you need to eat it immediately. If you’re a regular reader of this blog? Eat it immediately. If you’re not a regular reader of this blog? Eat it immediately.

Stop doing whatever you’re doing and eat it immediately, is what I’m saying.

Oklahoma Burgers

As soon as I saw the glorious photos and videos on the restaurant’s Instagram page, I knew I’d have to check the place out. I mean, look at this. And this. And this. Come on.

The place itself is a bit odd. They share a large, semi-fancy-looking space with a few other restaurants. It’s waiter service, and when you sit down you get a handful of menus and you can order whatever you want from the various restaurants (including a tasty-looking BBQ joint that I might have to come back to check out).

Oklahoma Burgers

They serve Oklahoma-style onion burgers, which is a variation on the smashed burgers that are so popular throughout the GTA, but with the addition of a whole bunch of thinly-sliced onions smashed right into the patty.

Those onions complement the patty perfectly. Most of them get sweet and tender — not fully caramelized, but close enough to be super tasty — and some get dark, brown, and crispy. It’s an absolutely delightful combination.

Oklahoma Burgers

The burgers are cooked like a slider, with the fresh, squishy buns being placed on the patties as they cook, which allows them to get perfumed with beefy goodness, further emphasizing the burger’s tastiness.

You can get it as a single or a double; I got the double, and it was a perfect ratio of meat, onions, cheese, and bun. You can’t really tell from the photos, but the patties were cooked to a perfect medium, and were abundantly, profoundly juicy. This might be one of the juiciest, greasiest burgers that I’ve ever had, and it is glorious. The amalgam of melty American cheese, flavourful beef, and sweet/crispy onions is the stuff dreams are made of.

Oklahoma Burgers

It’s topped with “burger sauce,” but aside from a mild mustardy flavour, all I could taste was the beef, cheese, and onions. Please note: I’m not complaining. This feels like the type of burger where I’d normally be looking for pickles or something acidic to cut through the richness — but here, it totally works. The burger’s rich decadence is almost overwhelming, and I couldn’t get enough of it.

As for the fries, they’re fairly standard battered fries. They’re crispy and tasty, but honestly? Just order another burger on the side. Don’t waste your time.

1.5 out of 4

The Commoner

Published on February 2, 2020 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 2067 Dundas Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.thecommonerrestaurant.ca/

Here’s a classic good news / bad news type of situation. The good news: The Commoner seems like it’s a quality restaurant. It’s quite popular, and most of the food they served when I visited was very good.

The bad news: the hamburger. It’s not great.

The Commoner

The Commoner cheeseburger, as per the menu: “Brioche. Lettuce. Tomato. Pickles. Onion. Provolone. Dijon Mayo.”

Nothing about the burger is awful, but nothing is particularly good, either.

The patty is grilled (I think? It’s got that char flavour that you typically only get from the grill, but it’s possible that it was just enthusiastically griddled), and while it’s cooked all the way to well done, it’s fairly juicy. But the texture is off — I think the grind is too fine — and it’s a little bit tough.

The Commoner

The flavour of the beef is another issue. It’s generally inoffensive, but it also has a mild gaminess. It’s not in your face, but it’s there, and it’s unpleasant.

I can maybe forgive the shoddy flavour of the meat; it’s possible that they got an iffy batch from an otherwise quality supplier. What I can’t forgive, however? The cardinal sin of cheeseburger cookery: the cheese isn’t fully melted. In my world, that would be a crime punishable by serious jail time. Get out of here with that.

The Commoner

Then there’s the brioche bun. I knew it was trouble as soon as I cut into it; it’s dry and dense. Again, I’ve certainly had worse, but it’s not great.

Everything else was fine, though the Dijon mayo was somewhat overpowering.

The Commoner

It’s not a great burger, sadly. On the other hand: my dining companion had the huevos rancheros and said it was the best he’s ever had, and the fries that came with the burger were spectacularly delicious. French fry perfection. So there’s that, at least.

2 out of 4

Ronto’s Burger

Published on October 27, 2019 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 772 College Street, Toronto
Website: https://www.rontos.ca/

Generally speaking, if a burger joint exists in the GTA, I want to review it. It makes no difference to me whether I’ve heard good things / bad things / nothing about it. My impossible goal is to review every burger place in Toronto, though obviously that’s an epic task that I’ll never complete.

So the fact that I hadn’t heard a single thing about Ronto’s Burger certainly didn’t deter me from checking it out, though it did make me skeptical that it was going to be particularly great.

Ronto's Burger

As it turns out, I shouldn’t have been skeptical; Ronto’s Burger is surprisingly fantastic.

I ordered the namesake Ronto’s Burger: “One beef patty, Ronto’s sauce, lettuce, cheddar cheese, tomato, onions.”

It’s a griddled six ounce patty; it’s slightly more substantial than the typical smashed burger that’s so common in the city, and the added substance is quite nice.

Ronto's Burger

The patty is really good; it’s got a pronounced crust from the griddle and it’s abundantly juicy despite being cooked to well done. The texture is right where it should be, with coarsely ground beef that hasn’t been overhandled. It’s great.

It’s not the beefiest tasting patty I’ve ever had, but the beefy flavour is definitely there, and it’s quite satisfying. I wish it hadn’t been cooked all the way to well done — it’s ever-so-slightly tough — but considering how good it is otherwise, that’s a minor complaint.

Ronto's Burger

Though the menu calls the cheese cheddar, it’s clearly American, which definitely isn’t a bad thing. It’s gooey, salty, and perfect for this type of burger.

The Ronto’s sauce wasn’t my favourite, however. It’s fine — it’s actually quite tasty. It’s the usual zesty, Mac-Sauce-esque concoction, but it’s a bit too zesty for its own good. It overpowers the beef, which is a shame when the patty is this delicious.

Ronto's Burger

The nicely toasted, soft and fluffy bun is mostly perfect, aside from being slightly too wide for the patty.

As for the fries, they’re generic battered, frozen fries, but they’re well prepared and tasty enough for what they are. They come with a little container of Ronto’s sauce for dipping; that stuff works much, much better with fries than on the burger.

3.5 out of 4

Cabano’s Comfort Food

Published on August 18, 2019September 1, 2019 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 75 St. Nicholas Street, Toronto
Website: http://cabanos.ca/

I just counted, and my list of hamburgers to try for this blog currently sits at 154. Suffice it to say, it’ll be a while before I get to all of them. If you’ve left a comment or sent me an email suggesting a burger I should try and I haven’t gotten there yet, that’s why.

I’ve been hearing good things about the burger at Cabano’s since they were located in Vaughan. I’ve been meaning to check the place out for years.

Well, I finally got there, and yeah — it was worth the wait. The burger didn’t rock my world, but it’s very, very good.

You can either get the no-frills cheeseburger, or the Cabano burger, which is a double cheeseburger that comes topped with Cabano sauce, lettuce, onions, and fried pickled jalapenos.

I got the Cabano, and it’s a quality burger; it does pretty much everything right, and very little wrong.

The patties are smashed and griddled, because of course they are. This is Toronto. If you attempt to cook a burger in any other style and serve it in a restaurant, the police are going to show up at your house, roll you up in a carpet and throw you into a river.

They’re cooked all the way to well done, which can sometimes be an issue, but absolutely isn’t here — they’re basically perfect. They have a nice crust from the griddle (though only on one side), and the texture is absolutely outstanding. They’re tender and abundantly juicy. Perfect.

They have a pleasant but mild beefy flavour; that’s the one area where the burger is lacking. Because the patties were otherwise so superlative, I was looking for that nice strong beefy hit that you get from truly top-shelf hamburgers, and it wasn’t quite there.

It didn’t help that the patties were overwhelmed by the gooey American cheese. I’m not sure how many slices they used — Two? Three? — but it was too much. The cheese was clearly the dominant flavour. It easily overpowers the mild beef.

Otherwise, the toppings were great. The Cabano sauce was the typical tangy mayo you’ll find in so many burgers, and the chopped onions and lettuce work quite nicely (I’m normally not a fan of raw onion, but these were mild enough to not offend).

The fried jalapenos, however, are the highlight. They’re crispy and a little bit spicy, with a nice vinegary bite that helps cut through the burger’s richness.

The bun — a Martin’s Potato Roll, I think, which are becoming delightfully common in the GTA — was quite good as well.

As for the fries, they weren’t great. They tasted lightly battered, which I’m not crazy about. They were also undercooked. Considering how good the burger was, they were shockingly shoddy.

3.5 out of 4

Uncle Betty’s

Published on August 4, 2019September 1, 2019 by Michael Nusair1 Comment

Location: 2590 Yonge Street, Toronto
Website: https://www.unclebettysdiner.com/

The burger at Uncle Betty’s is odd — it’s really tasty in a lot of ways, but it’s also fails as a hamburger on a pretty fundamental level.

It’s the patty. It’s the meatloafiest meatloaf burger I’ve had in a long, long time. The flavouring of the beef is aggressive, and any natural flavour from the meat is completely wiped out. The spicing punches you in the face. It’s too much.

Worse, it has that off-puttingly squishy texture that plagues some meatloaf burgers, and it’s got it bad. Despite the fact that its cooked all the way to well done, the texture of the beef is essentially akin to eating a burger rare, only mushier.

The texture only emphasizes how un-burger-like it is. It’s not necessarily the most unpleasant thing in the world, but if I had eaten this blindfolded, it would have taken me a whole bunch of guesses to get to hamburger. The spicing of the beef and the soft consistency makes it taste more like a Sloppy Joe.

Otherwise it’s actually quite good. The burger has an impressive amount of crust from the griddle (or grill? The menu says it’s grilled, though it tasted griddled to me) — this gives it some nice texture, and helps to mitigate the patty’s mush factor.

It’s topped with a lot of stuff — garlic aioli, mustard, pickles, sport peppers (which is a Chicago thing, apparently, and kinda like a less spicy banana pepper), an onion ring, and cheddar cheese.

Normally this would be way too much stuff, but the aggressively-spiced patty stands out even under the deluge of toppings. It helps that everything is quite tasty, and it all goes together very, very well. The cheese isn’t melted all the way through, but there’s so much other stuff going on that you can barely notice.

The bun is quite good, too — I think it’s a Martin’s Potato Roll or something similar. It has a great balance between fluffiness and heft.

If the patty were better, this would be an outstanding burger. It’s nicely cooked, and all of the toppings are great. That patty, though. Oh well.

As for the fries, they’re thinly-cut and nicely seasoned (I think they’re using some kind of seasoning salt, but it’s mild enough to not call attention to itself); they would have been great if they had been served hot or even warm, but alas, they were room temperature (at best).

2.5 out of 4