fast food – Page 5 – Tasty Burgers

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.

Five Guys

Published on June 6, 2011June 26, 2011 by Michael Nusair2 Comments

Location: 2150 Burnhamthorpe Road West, Mississauga
Website: http://www.fiveguys.ca/

When I heard that Five Guys was coming to Canada, I was understandably excited; there’s been a lot of hype around this burger chain, and I was excited to see if it could live up. Well, it’s been a couple of years (they started their Canadian expansion in Alberta), but Five Guys is finally here.

The Mississauga location is pretty big, and the decor is no-nonsense: the red and white checkered theme runs throughout the restaurant, which is filled with simple wooden tables, and big bags of potatoes and peanuts (you can help yourself to to peanuts while you wait for your burger). There are no pretensions that this is anything but a fast food burger joint (unlike, say, McDonald’s, with its weird new coffee house aesthetic).

You line up at the cash register near the entrance, you tell them what you want on your burger (it’s the standard assortment of toppings, with grilled mushrooms and onions adding some variety), they give you a number, and you wait for your order to be ready.

The order comes in a big paper bag, regardless of whether you’re eating in the restaurant or taking the food home. I’m assuming the reason for this is the way they serve their fries: they overfill the container of fries, allowing the excess to fall into the bag. It’s a huge portion, and the large order of fries can easily feed a group of four. The fries are pretty great, too — they offer regular fries and “Cajun style” fries, which are doused in a very strong Cajun seasoning. The Cajun fries are an interesting novelty, but the seasoning is overpowering, and they grow tiresome pretty fast. Stick with the regular fries.

But what about the burger? Ah yes, the burger. It’s cooked in the classic American style of smashing a ball of ground beef down onto a hot griddle, which gives each burger an irregular shape and gives the meat a tasty brown crust.

The patties are cooked to well done, but they remain pleasingly juicy with a satisfyingly beefy taste. It’s not the richest, beefiest hamburger you will ever eat, but for a fast food place it’s pretty damn good. On this particular visit the burger wasn’t quite as juicy or beefy as previous visits (I’m told that they are in the process of switching over from American to Canadian beef and are still working out the kinks), but it was still well above average.

The burgers come tightly wrapped in a thick foil wrapper, which is kind of ingenious because it allows the supple bun to get slightly steamed, suffusing it with hamburgery goodness. And indeed, the buns compliment the hamburgers pretty much perfectly: they are soft, pliant and slightly sweet, and allow for a perfect beef-to-bun ratio.

It’s kind of sad that a big American fast food chain has managed to waltz in and outshine something like 90 percent of the local burger joints, but that is exactly what has happened. And I have to say, I am heartened by the crowds at this place. The Mississauga location of Five Guys has been open since January, and of course it was very busy when it first opened; people were curious. But here we are a few months later, and the place is still pretty crowded every time I go. Torontonians are voting with their wallets — we’ve had enough dry, flavourless burgers, enough meatloaf sandwiches, and enough frozen patties. Hamburgers are a quintessentially American food, so I guess it’s only appropriate that an American chain is coming in to show us how it’s done.

I’m seeing some complaints that Five Guys is overpriced; it’s pricey, sure. But you get what you pay for. You want a cheap burger? Go to McDonald’s and order off the value menu. Let me know how that works out for you. And to be fair, if you want a roughly equivalent burger at McDonald’s (which would probably be one of the Angus Third Pounders), a combo will run you something like eight bucks. That’s only a couple of dollars cheaper than a burger, fries and a drink at Five Guys. I will happily pay the extra few dollars for a vastly superior burger.

The Acme Burger Company

Published on May 30, 2011June 26, 2011 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 735 The Queensway, Etobicoke
Website: http://www.theacmeburgercompany.com/

I can’t help, hearing the name Acme Burger, but to think about the Road Runner and his furry nemesis, Wile E. Coyote. Those cartoons were among the funniest and best shorts produced by Warner Brothers in the golden era of the 1940s and ’50s. I’m sad to say that this restaurant is definitely not the hamburger equivalent of the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote cartoons. Which is to say that this was not among the best hamburgers that I’ve ever had. Boy, that was a pretty tenuous connection, wasn’t it?

Driving up to the restaurant and seeing signs for chicken souvlaki and Greek salad, my expectations went down precipitously. Generally speaking, if a burger joint has souvlaki prominently on the menu, then the burgers being served up are probably going to be Greek style (ie. with onions and other spices mixed in). As I mentioned in my burger commandments, this is not my favourite style of hamburger. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that a burger like that shouldn’t be called a hamburger at all, but I know many would disagree on that point.

The restaurant is laid out a la Harvey’s or Lick’s — you order at the register, you wait, then you tell them what you want from the toppings behind the glass. It’s the usual assortment of toppings; nothing too exotic. I went with tomato, pickles and mayo.

I took my first bite, expecting my taste buds to be assaulted by an oniony, meatloafy patty, and… what’s this? Just meat? Let the good times roll! Sort of. Well, not really.

The patty is a little small. I ordered the six ounce, though I suspect that they gave me the four ounce by mistake. It’s kind of overwhelmed by the large bun, but the bun tasted pretty fresh and didn’t interfere with the burger too much. If the patty had been slightly larger, it probably would have worked much better.

The meat is tightly packed and mostly flavourless. It has a vague meaty flavour, but most of the patty’s taste comes from the smokiness imparted by the flame-broiling. It’s also fairly evident that the beef being used is far too lean, as the well done patty was completely dried out and without a hint of juiciness.

I suspect that the patties have been industrially made — certainly, it’s safe enough to say that Acme doesn’t grind their own meat in house. But I have eaten much worse as far as prefabricated burgers go. They don’t have that strange chewy texture that frozen burgers tend to have, so it’s likely that Acme uses pre-made, unfrozen patties.

I also had an order of fries, which were actually the highlight. Lightly crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside, they were fresh, hot and had a good amount of salt. I suspect, however, that the folks at Acme are not changing the oil as often as they should be, resulting in a slightly stronger oil flavour than I’d like. Despite this, the fries are definitely above average, even if the restaurant itself is not.