fries – Page 12 – Tasty Burgers

Rick’s Good Eats

Published on September 11, 2016 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 6660 Kennedy Road, Mississauga
Website: https://www.facebook.com/RicksGoodEats/

Remember that Food Network reality show where people competed to have their recipes featured in grocery stores? One of the best things to come out of that show was a butter chicken lasagna (trust me, it’s a lot better than it sounds), and the guy who made that has apparently used some of his winnings to open his own restaurant in Mississauga. Not surprisingly, the menu features Indian-fusion dishes like butter chicken mac and cheese, cinnamon toast matri, and of course, a hamburger.

So, it’s near my work, looks interesting, and has a burger on the menu? Yeah, I’m all over that.

Their burger is dubbed the Punjabi Cheeseburger, and comes topped with “melted cheddar, fresh tomato, sautéed onion & Achari mayo.”

Given the Indian-fusion label, I sort of figured this was going to be a meatloaf burger, with spices and other stuff mixed into the patty. And yeah, it’s probably the meatloafiest meatloaf burger I’ve had in a while.

I’m certainly on the record as not being a big fan of this style of hamburger, but you know what? If you’re going to make a meatloaf burger, this is the way to do it. Yes, the aggressive spicing completely wipes out all of the beef’s natural flavours, but the patty is otherwise right where it should be — it’s got a nice texture (which can be especially problematic with this style of burger), a good amount of crust from the grill (at least I think it was grilled — it was tough to tell with all the stuff going on), and was actually pretty juicy.

And even the taste, which is about as far from classic hamburger as you can get, was quite good for what it was. It’s not subtle at all — it’s pretty much a face-punch of Indian flavours — but it’s really satisfying.

The toppings — including melty, mild cheddar and the tasty Achari mayo — all suited the burger quite well, as did the soft, fresh, and lightly toasted sesame seed bun.

As for the fries, they were of the battered variety — also not my favourite, but also done quite well. They’ve got that crispy/creamy combo in spades, and were dusted with a tasty (and not overwhelming) spice mixture.

3 out of 4

McCoy Burger Company

Published on August 29, 2016August 29, 2016 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 3334 Yonge Street, Toronto
Website: http://mccoyburgerco.ca/

It’s a bold move opening a burger joint on this particular stretch of Yonge Street, mere steps away from both the Burger’s Priest and the Burger Cellar, and just a few blocks north of Stack. That area is pretty well covered in terms of burger availability. You’ve gotta have confidence in what you’re selling to wade into that scrum.

So with cojones like that, I wanted to like McCoy Burger Company. I really did. And I didn’t dislike it; it was just aggressively average.

They’ve got a few pre-topped burgers on the menu, and a few different meat choices aside from beef (chicken, lamb, turkey). I did my usual thing and went with the simplest choice: the plain McCoy Burger, which I had topped with mayo, pickles, and tomato.

The patty has a little bit of crust from the griddle, though it’s not really enough to add a whole lot of texture or flavour. The menu, confusingly, refers to the patty as being “grilled to perfection,” even though it has obviously been griddled (I think they just don’t realize that there are different words for grilling or griddling a hamburger).

The texture is actually pretty good — the loosely-packed patty had a nice, coarse grind, and though it was cooked all the way to well done, it was still a little bit juicy.

It’s the flavour that really sinks the burger. They season the patty with some kind of spice blend; that’s generally not my favourite, but it wasn’t too overwhelming. The biggest problem is the flavour of the beef itself; it’s just kind of tasteless, with a slightly off flavour that you typically only get from middling quality beef.

It’s a shame; with better tasting beef and with a bit more crust from the griddle (which they obviously know how to do — the video on their website shows a burger with an impressive amount of crust, so your mileage may vary), the burger could have been well above average, but instead it’s just a resounding shrug.

The fries, on the other hand, were great — featuring an addictively crispy exterior and a fluffy interior, they were really hard to stop eating.

2.5 out of 4

Indie Alehouse

Published on August 14, 2016 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 2876 Dundas Street West, Toronto
Website: http://www.indiealehouse.com/

Indie Alehouse is the type of place that could probably skate by with mediocre food and still do okay. I mean, it’s right there in the name; their specialty is clearly their selection of interesting house-made beers.

But, if the burger is any indication at least, they’re clearly putting a bit more effort into their food than you might think. That’s always nice.

(An aside: I don’t know what the hell is going on with their name. They can’t seem to decide if alehouse is one or two words. On their sign, it’s “Indie Ale House;” on their menu, it’s “Indie Alehouse;” and on their website they alternate between both, though the one-word version seems to be a bit more frequent. “Alehouse” is also slightly more common around the internet, so that’s what I’m going with. Setting aside the confusion online, the fact that they themselves can’t seem to decide is just flat-out bizarre.)

Of the handful of burgers on the menu, I went with the Indie Burger: “2 fresh ground ‘Indie blend’ patties, bacon, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, toasted bun.”

It’s a solid burger. I don’t think it’s anything that you’re going to lose your mind over, but it’s good. I don’t have any major complaints.

The two well done patties are a bit on the dry side, but they’ve got a generous amount of crust from the griddle and a good texture overall. They’re not the beefiest-tasting patties I’ve ever had, but they certainly don’t taste bad.

The toppings, too, are all quite good. Let’s face it, it’s hard to go wrong with bacon and melty cheese. Plus, the zesty sauce and the pickles add some zip, and the tomato and lettuce add freshness. It’s a good balance.

But while the sweet, fresh bun is mostly pretty good, it’s way too big for the patties. The beef-to-bun ratio is slightly off, but more pressingly, the bun is way too wide for the beef. We’re talking serious bun overhang. It’s a bad scene. Prepare to either leave a bunch of bread on your plate, or have several meat-free mouthfuls.

As for the fries, they’re about on the same level as the burger: quite good, but nothing too mind-blowing.

3 out of 4

Doomie’s

Published on June 5, 2016June 8, 2016 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1263 Queen Street West, Toronto
Website: http://doomiestoronto.com/

I honestly never thought that I’d be reviewing a veggie burger for this blog. I mean, I try my best to avoid reviewing hamburgers made with any meat other than beef, so a veggie burger seemed completely out of the question.

Then I saw some pictures of the Big Mac clone at Doomie’s. I kind of had to try it.

For the unaware, Doomie’s is an L.A. export whose M.O. is serving vegan versions of over-the-top junk food like chili cheese fries, chimichangas, and of course, hamburgers. “Vegan” and “health food” tend to go hand in hand, but I’m sure even vegans want to eat deep-fried junk every now and then.

I feel like I need to preface this review by saying that I went into Doomie’s with a completely open mind. I realize that I’m a bit of a burger snob, but good food is good food. If the veggie burger here were delicious, I’d be more than happy to sing its praises.

That being said? This might be one of the worst hamburgers that I’ve had in my entire life.

I ordered the Big Mac clone, which isn’t technically on the menu. The waitress jokingly pointed out that any resemblance to that particular burger is purely coincidental (since no one wants to incur the wrath of ol’ Ronald’s lawyers). But it’s available if you ask for it.

It looks impressive, I’ll give it that. Aside from the fact that the watery sauce was leaking from the burger like blood from a gut-shot corpse, it looked impressively like the real deal.

Eating it was a challenge. I’m not sure why the sauce was so thin, but it completely soaked through the bun and made the burger impossible to eat without a handful of napkins. And the parts of the bun that weren’t soaked through with sauce? They were either suffused with grease, or sogged up by mushy cheese (yes, mushy cheese — more on that in a bit).

Of course, eating this burger was also a challenge because of how gross it was. I mean, let’s not beat around the bush.

Those veggie patties are going to haunt my dreams. I just don’t think that food science is able to accurately replicate the taste and texture of beef. If you’re going to serve a veggie burger, your best bet is to not even try, and just serve something in a patty shape that tastes good.

Doomie’s, sadly, tries to replicate beef. The results are flat-out horrifying.

The veggie patties here have somehow managed to take everything I hate about frozen burgers, and magnified it tenfold. That rubbery, vaguely hot-dog-like texture you get from really cheap frozen patties is here in spades, but where this patty goes horribly wrong is the flavour. It just tastes off to a degree that’s downright surprising. I don’t even know if I can describe that flavour, other than to say that it tastes like you left a frozen patty out in the sun until it turned suitably rancid. It was flat-out disgusting.

Then there’s the cheese, which — though it actually tastes close enough to the type of processed cheese you’d find on a Big Mac — has that aforementioned mushy texture. Imagine taking shredded up tissues and soaking them with cheese-flavoured water, and you’ve got a pretty good idea of what to expect.

The other toppings were all fine, aside from the watery sauce (which, to be fair, tasted pretty close to the real thing). But when your burger features two patties as foul as these on unpleasantly sodden bread, the toppings are completely irrelevant.

As for the fries, they were battered — not my favourite — but for that style of fry, they were pretty good.

0.5 out of 4

Piano Piano

Published on May 8, 2016 by Michael Nusair1 Comment

Location: 88 Harbord Street, Toronto
Website: http://www.pianopianotherestaurant.com/

At the end of 2015, Chef Victor Barry shut down Splendido, a fine-dining destination that served meticulously-prepared multi-course meals. It was frequently named one of the best restaurants in the city, if not the entire country.

Early this year, Barry renovated the space and relaunched as Piano Piano, focusing on much more casual fare like pizza, pasta, and yes — a cheeseburger. How could you not be excited by the idea of a hamburger prepared by one of the best chefs in the city? How??

Well, I was excited.

And then the burger came and I got even more excited, because it looked perfect. It’s pretty simple: two patties, two slices of cheese, lettuce, pickle, Dijonaisse. But look at it though. Those glistening patties, just the right size for the bun; the melty cheese; the dark, mahogany-brown crust from the griddle… it’s what cheeseburger dreams are made of.

Or at least, it looked that way.

My struggle to cut the burger in half made it distressingly clear that something was amiss. A good burger should be yielding and tender; cutting it should be like putting a hot knife through butter. This was more like trying to saw into a particularly tough steak.

This burger was so bad I almost can’t even believe it. Like, how can a chef who is presumably as talented as Barry put out anything so horrible, let alone something as simple as a hamburger? I can’t wrap my mind around it.

I will say that everything but the patty itself was pretty good — the gooey American cheese, the classic condiments, the fresh bun with just the right amount of sweetness and heft — it was all basically right where it should be.

The patty, on the other hand, was misguided on every level. More pulverized than ground, it was tightly packed, tough, and horrible. It also had an off-putting sausage-like consistency, possibly from having salt mixed in with the beef. Between the unforgiving density of the beef and the oddly rubbery texture, it just didn’t want to get chewed. It was kind of like eating hamburger-flavoured gum.

The taste wasn’t much better. It was overwhelmingly peppery, which turns out to be a good thing, because this is beef that needs to be disguised with whatever you can throw at it. It had a gamy, leftover meat flavour that was seemingly trying to compete with the texture to see which could be more awful.

Horrifying texture versus appalling flavour: whoever wins, we lose.

Oh, and did I mention that it costs twenty-two bucks? Because it costs twenty-two bucks. So not only is it gross, it’s probably one of the more expensive burgers in the city. It’s easily — hands down — the worst hamburger that I’ve ever had from a high-end place like this.

Actually, it’s one of the worst burgers I’ve had in quite a while.

I think this might be the point in the review where you assume that I’m being way too picky. It looks pretty good, you’re thinking. How could it be that bad?

Okay. Try it then. I dare you.

As for the fries, they were the polar opposite of the hamburger. They were amazing. Though they’re a bit more thickly cut than I generally prefer, they were the perfect combination of crispy exterior and creamy interior. Eating them with the hamburger is kind of like alternating between smelling a sweet, delicately fragrant flower with someone farting directly into your face.

1 out of 4