downtown – Tasty Burgers

Avenue Open Kitchen

Published on January 6, 2020 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 7 Camden Street, Toronto
Website: https://aveopenkitchen.ca/

I probably shouldn’t like the burger at Avenue Open Kitchen quite as much as I did — mostly because it’s a meatloaf burger, which isn’t my favourite style of hamburger, putting it mildly.

Actually, no, that description doesn’t quite cut it; it’s not just a meatloaf burger. It is the meatloafiest of meatloaf burgers. The patty absolutely slaps you in the face with its oddly sweet, heavily-seasoned flavour. The taste of the beef? Completely gone.

So, I hated it, right? Well, about that…

Avenue Open Kitchen

It’s otherwise so well prepared, I couldn’t help but enjoy it.

I had heard that that the banquet burger is the thing to order here, so that’s what I got. And yeah, that’s what you should be getting; the bacon is nice and crispy and the gooey American cheese is perfectly melted. Bonus: their saltiness helps to balance the sweetness of the patty.

Avenue Open Kitchen

That patty is quite sweet, though. It’s so weird. I’m guessing they’ve mixed in some kind of sweet sauce into the beef? It’s not bad, per se, but it’s strange.

Avenue Open Kitchen

Still, everything else about the patty is so right that it almost makes up for the wrongness of the flavour — its got a great crispy crust from the griddle, it’s very juicy, and the texture is on point (it’s slightly too soft, but that’s par for the course for a meatloaf burger).

The toppings are the usual suspects, and the soft, fluffy bun suits the burger perfectly.

Avenue Open Kitchen

As for the fries, they’re nothing to write home about, but they’re solid.

3 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

The Loose Moose

Published on October 28, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 146 Front Street West, Toronto
Website: https://theloosemoose.ca/

The Loose Moose isn’t part of a chain (though it is owned by SIR Corp, the restaurant conglomerate behind places like Jack Astor’s, Canyon Creek, and Scaddabush), but it serves a prototypically lousy chain restaurant burger: it’s exceptionally dry, it features personality-free flavourless beef, and it’s just an absolute bummer to eat.

It’s the type of burger that gives burgers a bad name. I could see someone who doesn’t eat a lot of of them ordering this, eating it, and then thinking “oh, I guess I don’t like hamburgers then?” Because it’s so far removed from what makes a good burger so great that it’s almost like an entirely different dish. It’s unpleasant.

I got the Classic Burger, which is completely no-frills, topped only with lettuce, tomato, and pickle.

This is going to be brief, because if they’re not going to put any effort into making it, I shouldn’t have to put any effort into writing about it.

The griddled patty had a decent amount of crust, but it was cooked way past well done, it was too finely ground, and it was just the driest thing in the history of dry. It was brutal. The flavour was fine, I guess (it was inoffensive, at least) but it was so incredibly dry that having to actually eat it was such a chore.

The toppings were okay, as was the bun (though it was a bit too dense). Who cares, though? That stupid jerk of a patty needs to take a long walk off a short pier.

As for the fries, they were ultra-generic frozen fries. Because why not, right? The restaurant’s on a very high-traffic section of Front Street, so I guess it’ll be busy regardless of how the food actually tastes. So why not serve the most low-effort, cheapest garbage you can find? People will eat it regardless, apparently! It’s just good business. I have a certain amount of grudging respect for that. I just wish I didn’t have to suffer through eating there myself.

1 out of 4

Portland Variety

Published on September 30, 2018 by Michael Nusair1 Comment

Location: 587 King Street West, Toronto
Website: http://www.portlandvariety.com/

I often feel like a broken record writing burger reviews. I’ve written almost 200 of these things at this point, and there are only so many ways you can describe a hamburger before you start repeating yourself (and repeating yourself, and repeating yourself).

Of course, the vast majority of people reading any given review will have popped in based on a Google search; they’ll read the review they came for, and that’s that. Those people have no idea how repetitive these reviews can be, which, oddly, makes me feel a little bit better about the whole thing.

But if you’re one of the much smaller group of people who have read a bunch of these reviews… get ready for some greatest hits. These complaints are all going to seem pretty familiar.

And yes, it’s mostly complaints, sadly. Though I’ve actually heard very good things about the burger at Portland Variety, the one I was served wasn’t particularly good.

The PV Burger, per the restaurant’s menu: “House made milk bun, smoked applewood cheddar, zucchini pickle, gherkin aioli, cassava frites.”

The main problem? The texture. The patty was way, way too finely ground and tightly packed (I’ve never made that complaint before, right guys??). It wasn’t too bad around the medium-well middle, but the well done edges were dry, dense, and chewy. It has that saltine effect, where you feel like you need to take a drink of water between each bite to prevent your mouth from completely drying out.

Otherwise, the burger is either fine or slightly better than fine. Aside from the aforementioned issues, the patty was decent enough (if a bit too peppery), with a mild beefy flavour and a decent amount of juiciness (at least around the middle). If it weren’t for the fine grind and the dense texture, it would have been a solid burger.

This would be the part of the review where I’d mention if it was griddled or grilled, but to be honest, despite the fact that it’s only been a few hours since I ate it, I’ve already forgotten. It wasn’t particularly memorable.

As for the toppings, the pickles were fine, and the cheddar was probably a bit too strong, but it was melty and tasty. The “gherkin aioli” basically just tasted like a grainy mustard. It wasn’t bad — I generally find mustard a little overpowering on a burger, but this had a nice zing without getting in the way.

The bun was great. It was easily the best part of the burger. It was soft and fresh, with the perfect amount of substance.

The cassava fries were interesting. They were mostly quite tasty, with a very crispy exterior and a creamy, slightly chewy interior. But one of them featured a papery skin I couldn’t bite through, and the mayo-based dipping sauce was seriously bland, with a broken emulsion that made it unpleasantly greasy.

2 out of 4

Fancy Franks

Published on September 18, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 326 College Street, Toronto
Website: https://fancyfranks.com/

Though the hot dogs are clearly the thing to order here (they are fancy, after all), there is a burger on the menu at Fancy Franks.

You can get a single cheeseburger, a double cheeseburger, a bacon cheeseburger, or a Fancy Patty, which comes with lettuce, chicken bacon, and Fancy sauce. I went simple with the single cheeseburger, and had it topped with tomato, pickles, and mayo.

There’s nothing that particularly stands out about it, but it’s a solid burger. I have very few complaints.

As you’d expect, it’s a smashed and griddled burger, and it’s nicely prepared. There’s an impressive amount of crust from the griddle (maybe even a little too much? It’s slightly crunchier than you’d like), and the American cheese is satisfyingly gooey. And while the flavour of the patty isn’t particularly beefy, it’s not unpleasant.

It’s cooked to well done and then some, however; while I wouldn’t call it dry, it’s not particularly juicy, either. The grind is also slightly too fine, but otherwise everything is pretty much where it should be. It’s a tasty burger.

The condiments were standard issue (though the mayo was globbed on a little bit too enthusiastically), and the soft, lightly toasted sesame seed bun was supermarket fare — but it works.

As for the fries, they were a little bit oily and weren’t quite as crispy as they should have been, but they were still tasty enough.

3 out of 4