fries – Page 33 – Tasty Burgers

BQM Diner

Published on April 2, 2012June 25, 2012 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Website: http://www.bqmburger.com/
Location: 354 Queen Street West, Toronto

When a burger joint’s menu proudly advertises the fact that all of their burgers have less than 10 percent fat, I’m immediately on my guard. A burger should strive to be many things; low fat is not one of them. It is a universally accepted fact that a good burger needs a bare minimum of 15 percent fat; a preferable number is anywhere between 20 and 30 percent. This is where a burger’s juciness comes from. So if you’re advertising low fat burgers, you’re pretty much just coming out and admitting that you serve dry hamburgers. Not a good sign.

The BQM Diner is a small-ish restaurant, with almost comically small booths. Seriously, the booth was probably the smallest one I’ve ever sat in; I’m pretty sure I could have head-butted my dining companion without having to lean forward all that much.

The menu, oddly, offers three different cuts of beef: chuck, brisket, or sirloin. Sirloin is a definite no-go; though there is the perception that sirloin is a “fancy” cut of beef, thus making it more desirable, it is actually quite lean and a terrible choice for a burger. It may work well as a steak, but a burger is a different beast altogether.

I was leaning towards the brisket, because it is the fattiest cut, and I was concerned by the menu’s 10 percent fat boast. However, the waitress came by and rendered it all moot — all they had left was the chuck. It seemed odd that they were already out of 2/3rds of the menu, given that it was lunchtime and early in the day, but since chuck is a fairly standard cut of beef for a burger, I wasn’t too perturbed.

I ordered the BQM, labeled as “the Boss’ favourite,” which comes topped with caramelized onion, horseradish, garlic aioli, lettuce, and tomato. The waitress asked if I wanted it medium or medium-well. It’s always a good sign when you get asked how you want your burger cooked; I asked for mine medium.

The burger came, and it was immediately apparent that it was a little overcharred on the grill — it was pretty much completely blackened, giving it a strong smoky flavour that did overwhelm the beef a bit.

The burger actually was fairly juicy; it helped that it wasn’t cooked to well done like at most places (the burger actually came out much closer to medium rare than to medium), but I would be very surprised if this burger truly only contained 10 percent fat. I suspect that the 10 percent fat claim only really applies to the sirloin burger.

Though its flavour was a bit obscured by the liberal amount of charring on the burger and by the horseradish, it was still pretty clear that this was an above average burger, with a nicely beefy flavour. The toppings generally suited the burger fairly well, though the aforementioned horseradish was probably unnecessary. I’m generally not a fan of assertive flavours like horseradish on a burger, because they tend to overpower the taste of what is supposed to be the star of the show: the patty. It is a shame to disguise that flavour, especially when you’re dealing with good quality beef like they’re clearly using here.

I also got the fries on the side, and though they were a bit on the soggy side, they were obviously freshly cut and quite tasty.

Goody’s Diner

Published on March 19, 2012September 12, 2012 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: ~~133 Manville Road, Scarborough~~
UPDATE: It appears that, sadly, Goody’s Diner has closed down.
Website: http://www.goodysdiner.com/

When a place gets a 300+ post thread at Chowhound, you pretty much have to sit up and take notice. When that thread deals largely with the greatness of the establishment’s burgers, you can pretty much guarantee I’ll be there at some point. So of course, I eventually found myself at Goody’s Diner, an unassuming little place tucked away in a drab business park. Not the most auspicious of locations, but it’s the food that counts.

A quick glance at the menu reveals a burger called the Goody’s Burger; since it’s my general policy to to get any burger named after the restaurant, the selection process was quite easy. The friendly waitress came by; I ordered. Fries or salad? Yeah, okay, I’m really going to order a salad. With a hamburger. (to be fair, my dining companion ordered the salad and said it was above average.)

A short while later, the burger came, and it is enormous. The menu labels it as an eight ounce burger (i.e. half a pound) and that’s definitely no exaggeration. The thing is massive. It’s not kidding around, that’s for sure.

The Goody’s Burger comes topped with “grilled peameal bacon, mushrooms, jalapeno havarti, caramelized onion, lettuce and tomato.” First things first, this is a meatloaf-style burger; they tell you right on the menu that it’s mixed in with “roasted garlic and our secret spice blend” (and I have to thank them for this — there’s nothing worse than expecting a standard burger, only to get one perfumed with onion, garlic, and who-knows-what-other-spices. This style of burger can be perfectly tasty, but there is no doubt that it is very different from a traditional burger and should be labeled as such).

And it is actually pretty tasty. Meatloaf-style burgers are not my favourite, however this was definitely one of the better ones that I’ve had. It was quite juicy, and the spicing wasn’t too aggressive, allowing some of the burger’s beefiness to shine through. The burger was a bit chewier and more sausage-like than I would prefer, but that seems to be par for the course for this style of hamburger.

As for the many toppings — they would almost surely overwhelm a smaller, more traditional burger. But between the gigantic size of the patty itself and the strong spice blend, the burger is definitely the dominant flavour here. The toppings compliment it quite nicely, as does the soft yet substantial bun.

Though the fries are of the battered variety (like the meatloaf-style burger, this is generally not my favourite), they are above average; crunchy, potatoey, and without the overly processed flavour that battered fries tend to have. They’re also lightly seasoned with rosemary, which makes them pretty tasty on their own without much need for a dipping sauce.

Holy Chuck

Published on February 6, 2012March 16, 2012 by Michael Nusair3 Comments

Location: 1450 Yonge St., Toronto
Website: http://www.holychuckburgers.com/

I think there’s one thing I have to get out of the way before I talk about the burgers at Holy Chuck. Whoever owns the place obviously likes The Burger’s Priest. A lot. Both places have similar menus (right down to the presence of a cheese-stuffed, deep fried mushroom), serve a similar style of hamburger, and have similarly religious-themed names.

I don’t think there’s anything particularly wrong with this. Though The Burger’s Priest was a bit of an oddity for Toronto, all they’re doing is serving the type of burger that’s been ubiquitous in the States for many, many years. Specifically, much inspiration was taken from In-N-Out, a well known burger chain in the southwestern United States. If we start seeing even more places that serve burgers in this style (and do it well) in Toronto, that would make me a very happy man. Perhaps if enough of these places open up and people realize how burgers are actually supposed to taste, we’ll start seeing the decline of frozen patty purveyors like Johnny’s, and meatloaf sandwiches masquerading as burgers like Lick’s. I can dream, can’t I?

Anyway, Holy Chuck.

I actually went at lunch, without a particularly huge appetite, and planned on getting something reasonably small — probably single patty. But my general policy is to order any burger off the menu that shares a name with the restaurant, and in this case the eponymous burger consisted of two patties, two slices of cheese, sauteed onions, and bacon. So much for small. I also opted to upgrade to the combo, because, well, go big or go home, right?

After a five minute or so wait, I got my burger, as is. It didn’t strike me that this burger needed any further condiments, though even if it had, I would have been out of luck — for this particular burger, the menu very emphatically states “NO TOPPINGS ALLOWED!“

My first impression was that the cheese appeared to be unmelted, though cutting into the burger it was clear that this was thankfully not the case.

Look at that burger. Seriously. Behold. Yes, it’s as good as it looks. Beefy, juicy, greasy, with a perfectly brown crust from the hot griddle, this is close to burger perfection. The flavour isn’t quite as richly beefy as at The Burger’s Priest, but it’s close. The soft sauteed onions compliment the burger perfectly, as does the thickly cut bacon. The cheese is American, de rigueur for a burger such as this; so too is the supple, soft bun.

Actually, let me talk about the cheese for a bit. Two slices is the standard for a double cheeseburger (it’s what they serve at the Priest, and pretty much everywhere else a double cheeseburger is found). However, I’m starting to think that two slices is just too much, and that one slice is more appropriate. One slice gives the burger a welcome creaminess and a nice cheesy tang; two slices threatens to compete with the beef in the flavour department. This is fine if the beef is iffy, but if I’m eating somewhere like Holy Chuck where the beef is above average, I want the toppings to compliment the burger, not compete for dominance.

And yes, the beef is definitely above average here. Cooked medium well with a blush of pink, the beef is packed with flavour and is fantastically juicy. I overheard a fellow customer ask if the burgers could be cooked to order, and the man behind the counter responded that yes, they can do anything from rare to well done. I had already ordered my burger when this nugget of info was revealed; however, though my preference is generally medium rare, this burger was so perfect at medium well that I might just leave well enough alone and continue ordering it without any alterations when I return.

I’ve heard the complaint leveraged that the Holy Chuck burger is too greasy. This is nonsense. If someone tries to tell you that they think the burger is too greasy, smile, nod, and immediately discount anything that this person has to say on the topic of hamburgers; it’s sad to say it, but they are lost to the horrors of Toronto’s mediocre burger scene. We’re so used to too-lean, overcooked and completely dried out burgers that the burgers like the ones served at Holy Chuck stand out as odd. But this is how a burger is supposed to taste. A burger that is edible without the assistance of at least a couple of napkins is, to put it bluntly, not worth eating.

I mentioned before that I had a smallish appetite and was considering not getting the combo, but oh boy, am I glad I did. The fries are perfect: crispy, salty, flavourful, with a fluffy interior and just the right amount of crunch. I’ve eaten a lot of French fries in my life, and these were among the best that I’ve ever had. Suffice it to say, this is one area in which Holy Chuck beats the Burger’s Priest quite handily.

If you’re just skimming this review (it is a little wordy, I’ll admit it), the Reader’s Digest version is this: go to Holy Chuck. Now. Even if it’s not quite as good, it easily rivals The Burger’s Priest for fast food burger dominance in Toronto. Wading through so much burger mediocrity for this blog, it’s easy for forget why I even love burgers so much in the first place. Holy Chuck is just the reminder that I needed. It is a ray of light piercing through the darkness. It’s pretty fantastic.

The Burger’s Priest

Published on July 11, 2011July 29, 2012 by Michael Nusair8 Comments

Location: 1636 Queen Street East, Toronto
Website: http://theburgerspriest.com/

In many of the reviews that I’ve written thus far, I’ve complained about the burgers being too dry. I started to wonder: was I making that complaint too much? I doubted myself. Am I insane? Is a burger not supposed to be as juicy as I think it’s supposed to be? Have I been unfairly maligning hamburgers that are, in reality, acceptably juicy and not — as I perceive them to be — egregiously dry?

I started to have what amounts to a burger-lover’s existential crisis. Maybe the perfect hamburger, as it exists in my mind, is just not feasible in the real world. Maybe my standards are astronomically high, and a good burger is supposed to be a bit on the dry side. I started to try to justify it in my mind: maybe dryness helps add character to a burger. Maybe dryness, in the way that it tends to suck the moisture out of your mouth, makes you hyper-aware of the meat you’re eating. Maybe the increased effort it takes to chew and swallow dry beef only increases your appreciation of the meal at hand.

Basically, Toronto’s awful burger scene started to mess with my head.

Thank God for the Burger’s Priest. This is a place that opened up a couple of years ago to immediate hype. I instantly knew I had to go there, and yet it took me two long years to actually go. In the meantime, having heard nothing but effusive hype about the place, I was afraid that my expectations were getting unreasonably high.

I’m happy to say that aside from one fairly major caveat, the place has lived up to my expectations and then some.

An aside: I must apologize for this photo. One of my food blog pet peeves is the ubiquitous photo of a half-eaten burger being held in the photographer’s hand. I don’t want to see your stupid hand, or your gross half-eaten meal. Sadly, the folks at the Burger’s Priest didn’t have any knives they could give me, so I had no way of feasibly cutting my burger in half. And yet I had to show you the inside of this glorious hamburger. So here we are.

Moving on. You’ve probably heard that the restaurant is small. It’s smaller than you’ve heard. About the size of a large walk-in closet, this is a take-out place only. There are a few stools, but you’re probably better off taking your food outside and sitting down on one of the grassy patches in the vicinity of the restaurant. Of course, this will be a challenge once it starts to get really cold, but right now the weather is just too nice for me to even think about the ugly unpleasantness of the Canadian winter.

I walked in, and it being an off time (around 2:00), I was able to immediately order a Double Double from the vaguely surly woman behind the register (I’d be a bit surly too if I were crammed into that tiny space with four sweaty cooks) and within a few minutes, I had it in my hands.

I opened the bag, and rivulets of grease and burger juices began to flow from my burger. This was a glorious burger to behold: glistening, with a gorgeously browned crust that can only be the product of a burger chef who really knows what he’s doing. The two patties each had a slice of bright orange American cheese (a must for a true, classic cheeseburger) that were gooey and melted.

Just looking at it, I knew it was going to be a great hamburger.

And it was; but let me get that big caveat out of the way first. The patties were excessively salty. At first I thought that perhaps they were using a overly-salty brand of American cheese, but my two dining companions both elected to go cheese-free, and they too found the saltiness issue to be problematic.

Aside from that, this was pretty damn close to burger perfection. It’s telling that despite the oppressive saltiness of the beef (it really was quite salty) I still enjoyed the hell out of this burger.

It’s a gloriously, magnificently, decadently juicy burger. One bite and I immediately knew that my burger crisis was completely unfounded. Yes, a burger can and should be juicy. I held the proof right there in my hands.

The medium-well patties had a great, beefy flavour (which was, sadly, partially obscured by the saltiness) which was only magnified by that amazing crust. Seriously, take a closer look at that crust and tell me that you don’t want to eat that burger right this minute.

The gooey cheese complimented the burger perfectly; the other toppings were standard burger fare, and worked quite well.

Like the American cheese, the soft, squishy bun may turn off those who have become accustomed to fancier burgers. Those people are wrong. This is a classic bun for a classic burger; it provides just the right amount of heft without getting in the way, and gives the burger a perfect bun-to-beef ratio.

The medium-cut fries were golden brown with a robust potatoey flavour. They were a bit soggy, but that may be because I didn’t start eating them until after I had finished my burger.

If it weren’t for the over-salted patties, I’d easily give the Burger’s Priest a perfect score. Alas, as much as it pains me to do so, I cannot give a perfect rating to such a salty hamburger — despite the fact that I’m fairly certain that this visit was just an aberration, and that the patties normally have a reasonable amount of salt. However, I’ll definitely be going back at some point soon. If my suspicions are correct, I’ll update this post and change the score.

Update (7/27/2011) – I just went back. This time I got a double burger with no cheese and my usual toppings (mayo, pickles, tomato) just so I’d be sure about the saltiness issue. It was perfect. The burger had just enough salt to highlight its absolutely amazing, almost ridiculously beefy flavour. It was just as juicy as last time. This was a burger so beefy and so juicy that it puts every other Toronto burger joint to shame. Seriously — every Toronto burger joint proprietor should be forced to eat a burger here so they can see how a burger is supposed to taste. It’s easily the best burger I’ve had in Toronto, and probably one of the best burgers I’ve ever had. I can now happily bump this up to the perfect rating it so richly deserves.

Update 2 (7/29/2012) – I felt like I would be remiss if I didn’t update this review to note that, on my last couple of visits, the aforementioned ridiculously beefy flavour has been greatly diminished. It’s still a great burger, and still a very strong contender for best in the city, but it is no longer anywhere close to the best burger I’ve ever had.

W Burger Bar

Published on June 27, 2011August 18, 2011 by Michael Nusair1 Comment

Location: 10 College Street, Toronto
Website: http://www.wburgerbar.com/

Unlike a lot of burger places in Toronto, the W Burger Bar is a real, no-foolin’ restaurant: waiters, tables and all. The prices, though, are about in line with what you’d typically pay at a burger place in Toronto, so you’re not getting charged extra just for the pleasure of sitting down in a restaurant and being served (aside from the tip, of course). That’s not to say that this place is cheap, only that paying in the ballpark of seven bucks for a burger is, sadly, pretty much the norm in Toronto.

The menu lists a variety of daily specials; thinking it was Wednesday, I was all set to order the Kobe burger, which normally costs 19 dollars (!) but is marked down to ten in the middle of the week. In fact, I did order it, or attempted to do so, at which point my waitress patiently explained to me that no, it is not Wednesday, it’s Tuesday. Whoops.

Tuesday’s special is the bison burger, but since this is a burger blog and not a sandwiches-that-kind-of-look-like-burgers-but-aren’t-actually-hamburgers-at-all blog, I opted to take a pass on that one.

I wound up ordering the regular beef burger. Which is fine — it probably makes for a more useful review, as I suspect that most people will be reluctant to spring for the pricier Kobe and will be getting plain ol’ beef.

I’ve been to the W Burger Bar once before, and I recall that last time I was given the choice to have my burger griddled or grilled. This time I wasn’t asked, and it came grilled. It wasn’t a problem for me, as I like both cooking methods pretty much equally, but if you have a preference one way or the other I’m assuming you can still request it.

The burger is actually pretty damn solid. Nicely grilled and not too densely constructed, this was probably one of the better tasting burgers I’ve had recently. It had a surprisingly complex beefy flavour, and was obviously made from higher quality beef. The biggest issue here is the pervasive dryness that plagues so many Toronto burger joints. The burger had some juiciness to it, but it was definitely drier than it needed to be.

Toronto burger establishments, take heed: fat is your friend. You’re not doing us a favour when you use leaner, “healthier” beef. A hamburger needs a a good amount of fat, especially when cooked to the legally-required well done.

Boy, do I wish that more burger places in the city would cook to order (there are a few restaurants that do this, but it is very, very rare). If this burger had been cooked to medium or medium rare, the too-lean issue would have mostly faded into the background. This could have been a great hamburger, instead of merely a good one.

As for the toppings, there’s a fairly lengthy selection to be had; I went relatively simple, with pickles, tomatoes and chipotle mayonnaise. The mayo added a creamy tanginess, though no actual heat (chipotles are supposed to be spicy, are they not?). The pickles and tomatoes were fine. The soft sesame seed bun was fresh and complimented the burger well.

My dining companion ordered the 50/50 fries (half regular fries, half sweet potato) of which I sampled a few. The thinly cut fries were a little soggy, but tasty nonetheless.