French fries – Page 24 – Tasty Burgers

Wallace & Co.

Published on July 1, 2013 by Michael Nusair1 Comment

Location: 299 Wallace Avenue, Toronto
Website: https://www.facebook.com/299WALLACE

I was browsing blogTO the other day when I saw, among their most recent reviews, a picture of a big, fat burger. I read up to “a fat ball of chuck is griddle-fried” and I was gone so fast that I’m pretty sure I left a dust outline where I was sitting.

The small restaurant has a sketchy, old-school diner vibe, with minimalist decor and a griddle — manned by a row of scruffy, bearded chefs — behind the counter.

I scanned the menu too late to notice that they make their own homemade sodas; I had already ordered a plain old ginger ale like a chump. Dear Wallace & Co. waitstaff: a little heads-up about this would be nice.

Of course, being here to review the burger, I went straight for the Dirty Burg, which comes topped with “cheddar, house bacon, fried onion, coleslaw, BBQ aioli, yellow mustard.” No, they aren’t shy with the toppings; not surprisingly, there is way, way too much going on here. The vinegary coleslaw and mustard in particular completely dominate the hamburger’s flavour profile.

All the other toppings are fine, but the strong vinegary bite of the coleslaw and the mustard make it pretty much impossible to discern too many other flavours.

The beef, however, helps to mask most of the hamburger’s shortcomings. A fairly substantial patty of fatty, wonderfully juicy beef that is nicely griddled and not overcooked makes me all-too-happy to suffer through an over-condimented hamburger. Though it’s not the beefiest meat I’ve ever had (in fact it has a disappointingly mild beefy flavour — which, of course, I was only able to discern in the few mouthfuls I got of the beef alone), it still had a decent enough taste. And man, it was so juicy.

Seriously: ask for extra napkins. It’s a saucy, juicy mess of a hamburger that fully justifies its Dirty Burger moniker. Between the fatty, loosely packed patty and the quickly disintegrating bun, it was a race against time for me to be able to finish this with my hands and not have to pick up a fork and knife.

And though the soft, fresh brioche bun had a bit of a hard time holding up to the burger and all of the toppings, it was still pretty great and definitely an above average hamburger bun. With a burger this messy, even the hardiest of buns would struggle to maintain its structural integrity, so it’s hard to fault the bun in this case.

As for the fries, they were crispy on the outside and creamy on the inside; they don’t come with the hamburger, but they are definitely worth ordering.

Marben

Published on April 21, 2013April 21, 2013 by Michael Nusair1 Comment

Location: 488 Wellington Street West, Toronto
Website: http://www.marbenrestaurant.com/

After the recent Pizzaburger fiasco (which I reviewed at A Hamburger Today), I kind of felt like going for a safer bet. The awfulness of that Pizzaburger will haunt my dreams. I needed something that actually tasted good.

So I decided to take another gander at Toronto Life’s list of the best burgers in the city, and wound up at Marben — home of Toronto’s second best burger, by their approximation.

The menu was actually fairly interesting, but of course, I was there with a purpose. I zeroed in on John’s Burger, described on the menu as coming with “Branston Pickle, braised beef short-ribs, aged cheddar, coleslaw, fries.”

(For the unaware — and I know I was — Branston Pickle is, as per Wikipedia, “a jarred pickled chutney.” It’s a British thing, apparently.)

This is not a traditional hamburger. Similar to Daniel Buloud’s famous burger, which is sadly not available at his Toronto outpost, the patty is stuffed with braised short ribs. This addition changes the hamburger’s essential character, and naturally, takes away from its burgeriness.

Is that a bad thing? It’s up to you, I suppose. I certainly can’t deny that the final product is good, though whether this modification is severe enough to make a burger no longer a burger is up for debate.

The short rib has some kind of Worcestershire-esque sauce, which is tasty enough, if somewhat overpowering.

This means that the centre of the burger, which is chock-full of the saucy, shredded short rib, is less hamburger and more upscale sloppy joe.

The short rib-less outer edges is where this tastes more like a traditional hamburger. These parts are good, but not great.

The beef is obviously of a fairly good quality, with a mildly beefy flavour. But it’s a little bit too tightly packed and dense (I would imagine that it would be difficult to stuff a patty with short ribs without overhandling the beef). This, combined with beef that is a bit on the lean side, results in an unfortunately dry burger. This is not particularly noticeable in the centre, where the medium rare ground beef mingles with the saucy short ribs, but around the edges it is clearly an issue.

The rest of the burger is quite good; the cheese and the soft, toasted bun compliment the patty very well.

When the burger arrived, I was a bit shocked by how small it is. It’s certainly not the largest hamburger in the city, but combined with the generous portion of fries, there is no risk that you’ll leave here hungry.

And those fries are seriously delicious. They’re the polar opposite of the mediocre frozen fries I was recently served at Boston Pizza; they’re crispy, potatoey, and amazingly addictive.

As for Toronto Life’s proclamation that this is the second best burger in the city? No. I seriously doubt it would be in my top 20 at all, let alone number two. It’s certainly tasty, but it’s a bit too bastardized for my tastes — and even setting that aside, it has too many issues to be considered an upper-echelon burger.

The Drake

Published on April 7, 2013 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1150 Queen Street West, Toronto
Website: http://www.thedrakehotel.ca/dining/

It occurred to me recently that, though I’ve mentioned Toronto Life’s semi-recent list of the 25 best burgers in the city on the blog before, I’ve never actually used its suggestions to determine my next review. I guess I have a hard time taking a list of the best hamburgers seriously that features an elk burger and a lamb burger (not to mention at least a couple of meatloaf burgers, and perhaps most egregiously, the mediocre-at-best Apache Burgers).

But I was struggling to figure out the next place I wanted to review, and I thought I may as well give Toronto Life a shot.

So I wound up at The Drake, a boutique hotel with a fairly popular restaurant on its first floor, and (of course) a burger on the menu — number 20 in the city, as per Toronto Life.

The Drake Burger is described as having “cheddar, Perth Bacon, Russian dressing, pickle + hand cut fries.”

Okay, Toronto Life, you win. I guess I should be taking your list a bit more seriously, because this was a pretty damn good burger.

It only takes one bite to realize that they’re clearly using very good quality beef. The patty has that distinctively satisfying beefy flavour that tells you that someone in the kitchen knows where to get the good stuff.

The grilled burger is a little bit too tightly packed, with beef that is slightly too lean. I’ve certainly had juicier burgers — but I can forgive a somewhat dry burger when it tastes this good, and when it at least has a bit of juiciness to it, which this does.

It’s also, sadly, a little bit busier than I’d like. Between the peppery bacon, the tangy thousand island, and the sharp cheddar, there’s a lot of assertive flavours competing for your palate’s attention. It’s a tasty combo, no doubt about it, but with a burger this good, I’m generally of the opinion that less is more. But of course, compared to the failure pile at The Samuel J. Moore, it’s positively heavenly, so I guess I shouldn’t complain.

The fresh sesame seed bun did a good job of holding up to the burger and was quite good. Good too were the crispy, perfectly cooked fries. Actually, no. Like the burger, they were better than good. They were pretty great.

So yes, to quote Seinfeld, The Drake is great. How could you not like The Drake?

The Burgernator

Published on March 3, 2013March 4, 2013 by Michael Nusair1 Comment

Location: 269 Augusta Avenue, Toronto
Website: http://theburgernator.com/

Whatever else you can say about The Burgernator, whoever is in charge of their marketing/branding/design has done a top-notch job. A great amount of care has obviously gone into the look and general theme of the place, including a well thought out web and social media presence. The restaurant is slickly designed, with their manifesto proudly displayed on the wall. Said manifesto promises that their never-frozen patties contain “a custom blend of freshly ground chuck,” and that they want to “rid the city of half-hearted and overcooked burgers.”

The burgers are smashed and griddle-cooked, in the style of Burger’s Priest and Holy Chuck, two of my favourite burger joints in the city. Suffice it to say, by the time I had ordered and sat down to await my hamburger, I was excited. Another great, griddle-cooked burger in Toronto? Yes please.

I ordered the Lieutenant Burger, which comes with two four ounce patties, cheddar cheese, Burgernator sauce, lettuce, tomato, and pickles. The restaurant is set up so that you order at the register, sit, then wait for them to bring you your food.

The burger arrived glistening and full of promise. It didn’t appear to have much crust, a hallmark of a really good smashed burger, but I was still ready for greatness. I cut the burger in half for the requisite photo and peeked inside. My heart immediately sank. One look at the gray, textureless slab that was the burger’s cross-section, and I knew the truth. The odds of this being a great hamburger suddenly seemed distressingly low.

You don’t have to be a burger expert to know that something is amiss here; this is not how a burger is supposed to look.

Alas, this is also not how a burger is supposed to taste. As you can tell just by looking at it, the beef is way, way, way too finely ground and tightly packed, resulting in a dense, unpleasantly chewy burger. The sad part is that it’s actually fairly juicy, but it’s negated by how insanely dense it is.

A good burger should feature beef that is coarsely ground, loosely packed, and has a certain amount of texture to it. This was just a solid, unforgiving mass of mediocre meat.

And yes, the beef is kind of mediocre. While it certainly didn’t taste bad, it had a vaguely off-putting flavour that I found somewhat unpleasant. Some nice crust from the griddle might have helped, but as mentioned earlier, there wasn’t much in that department. It was perfectly edible, but when the nicest thing you can say about a hamburger is “I was able to eat it without questioning my will to live,” then you know you’ve got problems.

The cheddar suited the burger just fine, though there is a reason why American cheese is the standard for a fast food-style burger like this — it adds a mild tang and a welcome creaminess without overwhelming the meat. But that’s a matter of preference, and while I certainly prefer American for a cheeseburger, the cheddar here was fully melted and perfectly okay.

The Burgernator sauce, on the other hand, was cloyingly sweet and really did not do the hamburger any favours. The rest of the toppings were standard stuff, save for the pickles which were weirdly tasteless.

The bun was a little too dense and bready. Which is weird, because despite its density it did a fairly disastrous job of holding up to the burger. I was able to eat my hamburger with just a little bit of maneuvering towards the end; my dining companion, who ordered one of the more substantial burgers on the menu, wasn’t so lucky. His bottom bun almost immediately disintegrated, forcing him to eat the majority of his burger with a fork and knife. Like an animal.

The fries, too, were disappointing. They were pale and undercooked; limp and unappealingly chalky. They did, however, come with a rosemary mayo dipping sauce which was surprisingly tasty.

As I left, I noticed the following inscription by the door:

Incorrect.

Jack Astor’s

Published on February 10, 2013 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

jack
Location: 1900 The Queensway, Etobicoke
Website: http://www.jackastors.com/

This is going to be a short one. It’s hard to write all that much about a burger that so conclusively straddles that middle ground between good and bad, and that is exactly where this burger falls. “Meh” is pretty much the perfect word to describe it.

Jack Astor’s is a casual chain restaurant, and as expected from a restaurant such as this, there are burgers on the menu. I wasn’t expecting much, and I got pretty much exactly what I expected: a perfectly edible hamburger that is almost instantly forgettable.

I ordered “The Classic,” which is their no-frills burger topped with lettuce, tomato, red onion (which I removed), and mayo.

The burger was fine. This being a chain place, I had feared that they might serve a frozen burger or a meatloaf burger, but this was thankfully not the case.

There are a couple of fairly significant issues that keep this burger firmly in the “meh” category. First, and most predictably, the burger is too dry. I know I sound like a broken record here; apparently wanting a hamburger to be juicy in Toronto is an unreasonable request, which is actually kind of maddening. But no, I’m not going to get into another rant about overcooking and acceptable fat percentages. Not for you, Jack Astor’s. Not for you.

And yes, the burger is overcooked, which just compounds the dryness issue. The grilled patty is a bit over-charred, resulting in a burger that is a bit too crunchy in spots. It’s also a little bit too tightly packed and dense, which makes it a tough chew.

The second issue is that it’s a bit bland. The beef is obviously not the greatest, and while it tastes okay, it doesn’t taste like much. Add in the fact that if it was seasoned with salt and pepper, I couldn’t taste it, and you’ve got a pretty bland burger.

Otherwise, the toppings were fine, and the fresh brioche bun, though slightly over-toasted, suited the burger well.

All in all, it’s not a bad hamburger — it’s just aggressively unmemorable.

As for the fries, though a tad on the soggy side, they were otherwise quite good.