cheeseburger – Page 13 – Tasty Burgers

Broncos Slider Bar

Published on November 8, 2015 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 127 Strachan Avenue, Toronto
Website: http://www.broncosrestaurant.com/

Broncos Slider Bar – a spinoff of Branca, a tapas joint – is the latest restaurant in the city to specialize in so-called sliders.

No, they’re not sliders in the original sense of the term, but I’ve come to accept two things about this:

1) The definition of the word “slider” has now lost all connection to what it used to mean. It went from referring to a very specific style of hamburger, to a small burger of any style, and now to any small sandwich that’s served on a bun. And the way things are going, it will soon refer to any food that happens to be bite-sized. The English language is constantly evolving; no point in trying to fight it.

2) The specific style of burger that originally birthed the word “slider” will never be served in Toronto – or at least, not until I finally make good on my idle chatter and open my own burger joint.

Both points make me sad (particularly number two), but it is what it is.

Anyway, word-nitpickery and burger-style-snobbery aside, Broncos actually serves a pretty good hamburger.

It’s a classic, fast-food-style cheeseburger – griddle-cooked, and topped with melty American cheese.

The patty has a good texture, a decent amount of juiciness, and a satisfying beefy flavour. Combined with the nice brown crust from the griddle and the gooey cheese, it’s clear that someone in the kitchen knows their way around hamburger cookery.

I would, however, ask for it without mustard next time, or at least ask for less mustard, because the amount applied here just detracted from that great patty.

The other toppings are solid – the pickles did their usual hamburger-improving thing, and even the onions were pretty good. I’m normally not crazy about raw onions on a burger (or anywhere, for that matter), but these weren’t too strong, offering some mild oniony flavour and a little bit of crunch, without overpowering.

Sadly, the bun was an absolute disaster. It’s way, way, way too big and dense for the task at hand. It works well on their other sandwiches, which tend to be messier and crammed to the gills with stuff, thus necessitating a bun with more heft. On the burger, however, the substantial bun throws the beef-to-bun ratio so far off that it’s almost ruinous. Seriously: it comes alarmingly close to flat-out ruining the hamburger. It completely overwhelms the beef. It’s a damn shame, because with a better bun this would be a great burger, and now it’s merely good.

The fries, on the other hand, were great. They look kind of pale but they taste amazing – crispy, creamy, perfect.

3 out of 4

Outtakes Backstage Bistro

Published on August 2, 2015 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 3555 Highway 7 West, Woodbridge
Website: https://www.cineplex.com/Microsite/OutTakes

What do you do if you’re planning on eating a burger before seeing a movie, and the burger joint turns out to be closed? And the backup place, too? If you’re a rational person, you’d say to yourself “Well, I guess I’m not eating a burger today,” and then move on with your life. If you’re me? You eat a movie theatre burger. Because how could that possibly go wrong?

Let’s be honest: I probably shouldn’t be reviewing this. No one in their right mind would order a hamburger at the movies, and even if they did, they’d do it with the full knowledge that they’re going to get something pretty lousy. If you order anything other than popcorn, nachos, or candy at the movies, you are fully complicit in the food crimes that follow.

They have a few different burgers on the menu; I went with the simplest one they had, which is a plain cheeseburger topped with ketchup, mayo, mustard, lettuce, and tomato. That’s a bit heavier on the condiments than I typically like, but in this case I figured the burger would need all the help it could get.

It’s a frozen patty, because of course it’s a frozen patty. This is one case where I can’t even get mad at a place for taking a taste-compromising shortcut like that. I mean, is anyone really expecting the pimply-faced teens at the theatre to grind and cook fresh beef? The fact that they even sell stuff like burgers and chicken sandwiches at a movie theatre is kind of crazy; of course it all comes from a freezer.

Though I’m pretty sure the burger actually started its life as an above average frozen patty, it was held for who-knows-how-long in one of those stupid warming drawers that have pretty much ruined fast food, and was thus completely devoid of anything even resembling moisture. It was sucked dry, with a salty, off flavour that didn’t even taste vaguely of beef.

The cheese — which was cold and unmelted — actually tasted like real cheddar, with a surprisingly sharp cheesy flavour that helped distract from the generic frozen patty taste. The lettuce and tomatoes were fine, and the various condiments tried their best to disguise the burger’s flavour.

The bun was the best element here by far. It was soft and fresh, with a slightly sweet flavour and just enough substance to hold up to the burger nicely.

I’m sorry to break this to you, bun: you did great, but you died in vain.

This would normally be the part of the review where I’d talk about the fries. I decided to spare myself. I mean, how much awful food are you expecting me to eat for your amusement? I think the burger is probably enough.

1 out of 4

Fran’s Restaurant

Published on May 24, 2015 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

frans
Location: 20 College Street, Toronto
Website: http://www.fransrestaurant.com/

I was perusing the menu at Fran’s with no particular desire to order the burger — but then something caught my eye. On the menu, they claim to have invented the banquet burger. A banquet burger, for the unaware, is another name for a bacon cheeseburger.

I’m a little bit skeptical that the bacon cheeseburger was created at a diner in Toronto; I’d say it’s more likely that they invented the term banquet burger, but hey, who knows?

Either way, they’ve clearly been serving it for a long, long time (they’ve been around since the ’40s), so I figured I’d be remiss in my burger blogging duties if I didn’t give it a try.

The menu also states that they make their burger patties with a “special blend of spices and seasoning.” I’m generally not a fan of burgers with stuff mixed into the patties, so I’m not going to lie: I was skeptical. But you know what? Sometimes places like this can surprise you.

This was not one of those times.

It’s so meatloafy. Like, crazy meatloafy. I could talk about how strongly spiced it is, how the flavour of the beef is completely gone. I could talk about how it’s ground way too finely, and has a texture that’s closer to sausage than to hamburger. I could talk about how a burger like this completely misses the point of what makes a burger so great in the first place. I could talk about all that, but instead:

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The banquet part of this burger is actually the highlight; the creamy mild cheddar is nicely melty and gooey, and the thick-cut bacon was way above average. Too bad they’re both resting atop a mediocre patty.

The fries are even worse. At least they put some effort into the burger, even if that effort is ill advised. The fries are just bottom-of-the-barrel frozen fries. I am continually baffled by how terrible frozen fries like this continue to be served at restaurants. They taste so lousy, and really, is it that hard to cut a potato into strips? Get out of here.

1.5 out of 4

Smash Kitchen and Bar

Published on May 10, 2015 by Michael Nusair3 Comments

Location: 4261 Highway 7, Unionville
Website: http://www.smashkitchen.com/

The problem with the abundant, booming popularity of hamburgers in this city is that for most restaurants, having a burger on the menu is more of an obligation than an option. Unless a restaurant is dedicated to a very specific type of cuisine, there’s gonna be a hamburger on the menu.

Remember that scene in Chef where Dustin Hoffman crushes Jon Favreau’s dreams of cooking a personal menu, telling him that he’ll continue to cook what he’s become famous for, and he’ll like it?

I imagine that some variation on that scene plays out every time a chef in a restaurant like Smash Kitchen and Bar decides he has no interest in making a hamburger.

Oh, you don’t want to serve a burger? Do you still want to be employed tomorrow?

This is all a fairly roundabout way of saying that the burger at Smash feels perfunctory. It feels joyless. It’s not bad; it’s alright. But it’s clearly made by someone who doesn’t quite understand what makes a good hamburger so special. By someone who doesn’t really care.

I ordered the Smash Burger, which is described as being topped with “Cheddar cheese, onion rings, Smash sauce.”

I normally like to mention whether a burger has been griddled or grilled, but honestly, the burger was so middle-of-the-road that I don’t remember. Nothing about this hamburger is particularly memorable, other than its in-your-face mediocrity.

It wasn’t horrible, but the patty is vaguely meatloafy and oddly sweet, with a middling, barely-there beefy flavour and a slightly mealy texture.

The condiments were fine and the bun was fine. The whole thing was fine. It’s certainly not great, but it tastes okay and it basically gets the job done.

It’s clear that the kitchen at this restaurant can put out food that’s better than okay, because the fries were quite good, as were the appetizer and dessert that I tried. But it’s also clear that they serve a burger not because they want to, but because they have to.

Basically: it’s obligatory. And it tastes obligatory.

2 out of 4

The Daughter

Published on April 19, 2015 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1588 Dupont Street, Toronto
Website: http://farmhousehospitality.tumblr.com/

I’ve been hearing good things about the burger at the Farmhouse Tavern. This is not a review of the Farmhouse Tavern. I was in the area, and it was lunch, and the Farmhouse Tavern was closed. Solution: The Daughter, a spinoff restaurant, which is open for lunch, and which also serves a burger.

That burger? The Franklin Burger, per the menu: “Farmhouse beef / bun / sauce w/ cheese / lettuce / tomato / onions.”

It’s pretty good. The sizable patty (probably about six ounces) has a nice crispy crust from the grill, though it is leaning a bit towards over-charred.

It’s also too tightly packed; though the medium rare-ish middle of the burger (it’s somewhere between medium and medium rare) is nice and tender, the more well done edges suffer from over-density, and are a bit too tough.

Still, it’s a fairly juicy burger, which helps make up for some of its deficiencies. The mild (but nice) beefy flavour is also a firm plus in this burger’s favour.

I wasn’t too crazy about the cheese, however. The menu doesn’t specify the type of cheese, which turned out to be goat’s cheese. It’s an unusual choice for a hamburger, and eating it here, it’s pretty clear why. The strongly salty, sour flavour is way too assertive in this context, completely overwhelming the flavour of the beef. It’s not bad, but the balance of flavours is off.

The sauce is a tangy, Mac sauce-esque concoction, though again, the flavour here is pretty much all goat’s cheese, all the time.

The other toppings were fine, and the soft, fluffy sesame seed bun was above average.

As for the fries, they were really crispy and creamy and tasty; complimented with the curry-tinged ketchup, they were pretty stellar.

3 out of 4