French fries – Page 22 – Tasty Burgers

Jackson’s Burger

Published on March 9, 2014March 9, 2014 by Michael Nusair1 Comment

Location: 374 Yonge Street, Toronto
Website: http://www.jacksonsburger.com/

After a few mediocre (or worse) burgers in a row, it’s nice to be reminded that good things do exist in the world. Jackson’s Burger is definitely a good thing.

It’s a small place on Yonge right near Gerrard; it’s easy to miss, and even easier to overlook since it is surrounded by other quick, casual eateries (not to mention a Five Guys just a couple of blocks over). But you’d definitely be remiss to skip this one; it’s a gem.

There’s only a handful of tables in the small restaurant, so if it gets popular you may have a hard time getting a seat. This, sadly, doesn’t seem to be an issue at the moment, but with burgers this good, the word will hopefully be getting out soon (though I said the same thing about White Squirrel, and that didn’t exactly pan out, so… who knows).

Like most of the burger joints that have been popping up in the last couple of years, they serve diner-style griddled burgers. On top of beef, they also serve chicken, lamb, vegetable, and fish burgers. I’m of the opinion that a “hamburger” made of anything other than beef is a sandwich on a bun masquerading as a burger, so I obviously stuck with beef.

The burger comes with your choice of cheddar or mozzarella; I went with cheddar. I had it topped with tomato, pickle, and Jackson’s Sauce — a house-made garlic mayo.

I unwrapped the paper and immediately noticed the rich, dark brown crust on the patty — a good sign that the person behind the griddle knows what he’s doing. I suspected that I was in good hands, and taking a bite confirmed it; it’s a very good hamburger.

That great crust adds a ton of texture and flavour. It’s also obvious that the place is using above-average beef, because the burger has a really nice beefy flavour. It’s not the beefiest hamburger I’ve ever had, but it’s definitely above average.

The well done patty could stand to be a bit juicier, but that’s a fairly small complaint as it certainly isn’t dry (the beef is also a little tightly packed, but again, that’s a small complaint). I also wish that the patty were a bit bigger, because even on my sparsely-topped burger I felt like it wasn’t quite as prominent as it should have been; I wanted more. A double burger is probably a better bet, though that’s technically not on the menu, so you can request it but they may or may not do it (though I don’t see why not).

The pickle and tomatoes were both good, though I’d strongly advise against the Jackson’s Sauce. Cloyingly sweet and aggressively garlicky, it was completely overwhelming, and was trying very hard to overwhelm the taste of the patty. If they weren’t using such good quality beef this wouldn’t be as big of an issue, but when the burger is this good I want to taste it.

The soft, fresh bun was a great compliment to the patty.

As for the fries, they were absolutely outstanding. They were perfectly cooked and amazingly flavourful; it’s been a while since I’ve had fries that tasted so good. My only complaint is the ridiculously large portion they give you. I know that’s an odd thing to complain about, but it’s an insane amount of fries for one person and they’re just so damn good. When you first get them you think to yourself “oh, well I’ll eat about half of these and leave it at that” but then you start eating them and that immediately goes out the window. They’re impossible to stop eating.

The Rude Boy

Published on February 23, 2014March 9, 2014 by Michael Nusair3 Comments

Location: 397 Roncesvalles Avenue, Toronto
Website: http://therudeboy.ca/

I’ve actually been wanting to check out The Rude Boy for a while. I tried to go there one afternoon when they first opened, but at that point they weren’t serving lunch, so I went home sad and burgerless. I tried again a couple of weeks later, this time in the evening, and they were all out of hamburgers. Again, I went home sad and burgerless. Striking out twice dampened my enthusiasm somewhat; it was dampened even further when I tried a sampling of their cookery at last year’s Burger Day and found it dry and mediocre. But I still knew that I needed to check it out at some point, so here we are.

It’s a sit-down restaurant, and though it’s fairly small, they’ve managed to cram a fair amount of tables in there. It’s a little cozy (if you’re tall, you’ll probably be bumping knees with the person you’re sitting with), but it’s fine.

They have the requisite assortment of creatively-topped burgers on the menu; I normally like to get a restaurant’s namesake burger, but in this case the Rude Boy was topped with peameal bacon, regular bacon, and a fried egg, among other toppings. I like to be able to judge the burger itself, so I went with the much more simply topped The Natural: “lettuce, onion, pickle, tomato, ballpark mustard, smoked jalapeno ketchup.” My burger also came with cheddar, though I think that was a mistake since it isn’t mentioned on the menu.

I had hoped that the dry burger I was served at Burger Day was merely the result of them being overwhelmed from having to cook so many burgers at once; sadly, this isn’t the case. The Rude Boy is yet another Toronto burger joint that serves a lamentably dry burger. Honestly, this used to get me worked up to no end, but I think I’m starting to become numb to it. Another dry burger? Of course! Of course it’s dry. Why should a burger be juicy? Who wants that, right??

Okay, maybe I’m not as numb to it as I’d like to be. It still bothers me. It makes no sense. It’s not that difficult to make a juicy hamburger. Just put more than two seconds of thought into the cuts of beef you use to make your hamburger. That’s it. You can’t just grind up any random cut of beef and call it a burger. Well, you can, but if you have any kind of desire to make a burger worth eating, a little bit more than that is required. If the beef you’re using is too lean, you’re going to end up with a dry hamburger.

I really wish I didn’t have to mention this in every other review that I write.

Aside from the dryness, it’s not bad. The well done patty was griddle-cooked and had a satisfying crust. The salt-and-peppering of the patty was a bit overly aggressive, but other than that it had a decent flavour. Nothing particularly beefy, but fairly tasty regardless.

The condiments all complimented the burger pretty well. I was worried that the ketchup and the mustard would overwhelm the patty, but they were applied sparingly enough that they weren’t particularly noticeable. As for the bonus cheese, it was fully melted and suited the burger well.

The bun was a highlight. Super fresh, with a perfect balance between heft and tenderness, it was one of the better buns I’ve had in a while. The patty, however, was a bit undersized for the bun.

The burger comes only with a small handful of chips on the side, so I ordered the Parm Fries as well. I think the “Parm” in the name might be a bit of an overstatement — the fries are topped with a sprinkling of shredded Parmesan that’s so half-hearted it may as well not even be there. Still, they were decent fries. A big soggy, but otherwise above average.

Tilted Kilt

Published on February 9, 2014February 18, 2014 by Michael Nusair1 Comment

Location: 157 York Blvd, Richmond Hill
Website: http://www.tiltedkilt.com/

The Tilted Kilt is basically a Hooters knockoff — it’s got lots of TVs playing whatever sporting event happens to be on at the moment, and of course, lots of busty, very cleavage-y waitresses for the clientele to gawk at.

I don’t know if it’s even fair for me to shine too bright of a light on the food, because let’s face it — food isn’t high on the list of reasons that people come here. And while the discussion of whether a place like this is completely misogynistic or just harmless fun is certainly a conversation worth having, this is a burger blog, so… let’s forget about that and talk about the burger.

They have a handful of hamburgers on the menu, but the BBQ Bacon Cheeseburger is the only one labeled as a signature item, so that’s what I got. It’s topped with “Applewood smoked bacon, cheddar cheese, crispy shoestring onions and Guinness BBQ sauce.”

The patty is promisingly described on the menu as being made from their “choice butcher’s blend” and “always fresh,” so I had hopes that it would perhaps be a bit better than your standard chain fare. These hopes were quickly dashed, but it was a nice thought.

The burger was grilled (though perhaps incinerated is a better word) and was cooked about as far past well done as a burger can get and still be served in good conscience.

It didn’t have that telltale rubbery texture that you tend to get from frozen patties, but it certainly tasted prefabricated.

And it was dry. Oh dear lord was it ever dry. It may have been the driest burger I’ve ever had; if not, it was certainly a strong contender. It was very tightly packed and super dense, which certainly didn’t help matters.

It had surprisingly little taste. There was a slight off beef flavour, and some acrid bitterness from the charred exterior, but mostly it just tasted like a big unpleasant hunk of tough, chewy nothing. Towards the end I was actually dreading each mouth-drying bite, but I soldiered on and I finished it. Partially because I was reviewing it, but mostly because I’m a glutton who will eat pretty much anything you put on a plate in front of me.

The burger also — oddly enough — had a funky, vaguely fishy aroma that made it all the more off-putting. That was a first.

This was labeled as a BBQ burger, and while I typically find BBQ sauce to be a little bit too overwhelming as a topping on a burger, they either applied it so sparingly that I couldn’t taste it, or they forgot it altogether.

There were also supposed to be crispy shoestring onions on there, but like the BBQ sauce they seemed to be missing in action. Normally I appreciate a sparsely-topped hamburger, but in this case the patty was so dry and horrible that these condiments were sorely missed.

The bacon and cheddar were both definitely present, and they were both fine, though they couldn’t do much to make this hamburger even remotely worth eating.

The bun was the sole bright point. Buttery, slightly sweet, and just dense enough to hold up to the burger without ever becoming overwhelming, it absolutely deserved to be a part of a better hamburger.

As for the fries, they were about on par with the burger — they were bland, cardboardy, and required gobs of ketchup to be even remotely edible.

The P&L Burger

Published on January 12, 2014January 12, 2014 by Michael Nusair1 Comment

Location: 507 Queen Street West, Toronto
Website: https://twitter.com/thepnlburger

P&L Burger has pretty big shoes to fill. It’s sitting in the same location as the tragically short-lived White Squirrel Snack Shop, which served a downright amazing hamburger that immediately became one of my favourites in the city. Farewell, White Squirrel… you were too beautiful for this world.

This new place actually stems from Parts & Labour, whose burger was popular enough to win a reality show competition, and to justify a whole new spin-off restaurant. Armed with that knowledge, and knowing that any burger served in this location was going to have to be compared to my poor departed White Squirrel, it was obvious that P&L Burger had a pretty steep mountain to climb.

They have a handful of burgers on the menu, but I went with the signature P&L: “cheddar, bacon-onion jam, iceberg, dill pickle mayo.”

P&L’s griddled, seven ounce patty is made out of brisket, a fattier cut of beef that is much more appropriate for hamburger cookery than the lean beef that so many misguided burger joints in Toronto curse their burgers with. What’s this? An actual juicy burger that doesn’t completely dry out my mouth? What is this wizardry? Living in Toronto, it’s easy enough to forget that such a thing can even exist.

The patty also has an amazingly pronounced crust that might just dethrone Toronto’s previous champion of the ever-desirable Maillard reaction, Burger’s Priest. With the coarsely ground, loosely packed beef cooked to a perfectly juicy medium rare, and with that delightfully crispy crust, it’s pretty much textural perfection.

But of course, there is the inevitable White Squirrel comparison, and the P&L burger does fall a bit short. It’s a very good burger, but it lacks that magnificently beefy flavour that made the White Squirrel’s hamburger so amazingly memorable.

It’s also a little bit over-condimented. Between the cheese (which was nice and melty, I should point out), the tangy dill pickle mayo, and the bacon-onion jam, there’s a lot going on in this burger. It was a tasty combo, but it was a touch too assertive; it shifted the condiment-to-patty taste ratio too far into the direction of the condiments. It certainly tasted good and probably won’t be an issue for most, but if you’re like me and feel like the beef should be the star of the show, you might be a bit disappointed.

The sesame seed bun, however, was nice and fresh and complimented the burger perfectly.

As for the fries, they seemed like they should have been very good, but they were underdone and a bit chalky.

Like with my last review, I should note that there seem to be consistency issues. My burger was cooked to medium rare and was juicy and amazing; my dining companion, on the other hand, got a burger that was cooked all the way to well done and was excessively dry.

Fresh Burger

Published on December 15, 2013December 15, 2013 by Michael Nusair6 Comments

fresh
Location: 9206 Leslie Street, Richmond Hill
Website: http://www.fresh-burger.com/

It’s always unfortunate when a restaurant flirts with greatness — comes so very close — but just can’t quite get there. Fresh Burger is, sadly, such a place. And they’re close; they really are. But they bungle one key element. Alas, greatness is just out of their grasp.

Fresh Burger sells classic American-style hamburgers a la Burger’s Priest, Holy Chuck, or Five Guys, which involves placing ball of fresh ground beef on a hot griddle and smashing it into a patty. It’s a style of burger cookery that was almost impossible to find anywhere in the GTA even a few years ago, and which has now become increasingly abundant. This, as I’ve mentioned before, warms my heart.

(A note about the picture — they provided plastic forks but not knives. I probably should have just asked them to cut the burger in half for me, but instead I attempted to cut my burger in half by turning my fork upside down and using the stem. As you can tell from the mangled remains, this was not my best idea ever.)

I’m just going to get the bad news out of the way first, because this is a restaurant that otherwise has so much going for it. The beef they use is too lean. If you’ve read many of the other reviews on this blog (or if you eat a lot of burgers in the GTA), you’ll know that this is a distressingly common issue in the city.

In this case, the problem is advertised right on their menu: they use ground sirloin to make their burgers, which is an exceptionally lean cut of beef, and which is pretty much the last thing you want to be making a hamburger out of.

A note to all burger joint owners: Lean burgers = dry burgers. A good hamburger needs at least 20% fat content, if not a little bit more. Hamburgers are not, and never will be, health food. Fat is your friend.

The hamburger was cooked all the way to well done, par for the course at GTA burger joints. If you’re going to salvage a lean burger, you really shouldn’t cook it too far past medium. A well done burger made with lean ground beef is one hundred percent guaranteed to be dry. That is not my opinion; that is fact.

This is all a roundabout way of saying that the hamburger at Fresh Burger was quite dry. Happily, this is the only misstep for an otherwise above average burger.

Most notably, even if the meat is too lean (and it is), it’s definitely above average in quality, with a rich beefy flavour. The coarsely ground, loosely packed beef has a really great texture which actually helps mitigate the dryness quite a bit — it’s dry, but thanks to the the satisfying texture, it doesn’t feel nearly as dry as many other offenders in this category.

Another plus: the patties have that great, dark brown crust that you can only get by cooking a burger on a really hot flat-top griddle.

The menu is fairly bare-bones, with either a cheeseburger or a double cheeseburger to choose from. I went with the double, but the single is probably the better choice with a burger as lean as this.

The burgers come topped with pickles, onion, tomato, lettuce, secret sauce (a mayo-based Mac-sauce-esque concoction), and nicely melted American cheese. Classic toppings for a classic, fast-food-style burger.

The fresh, squishy bun has just enough heft to hold up to the patties and condiments; like the toppings, this is a perfect fit for a classic burger such as this.

As for the fries, they weren’t anything I’d get too excited over, but they were above average and quite tasty.

Fresh Burger is frustrating. One small change could instantly transform it from a very good burger into a great one, and place it on a shortlist of the GTA’s best burgers. But it is what it is, and despite my one fairly substantial reservation, it’s still quite tasty and certainly worth eating.