goat’s cheese – Tasty Burgers

Location: 30 Eglinton Avenue West, Mississauga
Website: https://www.thewilcox.ca/

I’ve certainly had worse burgers than the one they serve at The Wilcox, but it’s rare that I eat one that feels so thoroughly misguided on every level.

The Wilcox Burger: “wilcox chuck, brioche, goat cheese, roast red pepper, crispy onions, tomato, arugula.”

The Wilcox Gastropub

I should start with the patty itself, which has been griddled all the way to well done and then some. It has a nice crust on its exterior, but the meat is gray and dry and punishing. It’s the type of burger where you have to be careful not to take big bites, because it’s like trying to eat a pile of saltines — your mouth just can’t produce enough moisture to deal with it.

The Wilcox Gastropub

The flavour is an upgrade over the texture, but it’s not great. This is a kitchen sink burger where the taste of the beef is basically moot, but in the few bites I got of the patty alone, it wasn’t much to write home about. The beef is bland but inoffensive.

The Wilcox Gastropub

Then there’s the goat cheese. I mentioned this in my review of the burger at The Daughter, but you almost never see goat cheese on a cheeseburger, and there’s a reason why. The intense salty flavour and crumbly texture completely overpower the beef.

All of the other toppings are fine, in theory, but the configuration in which they’re applied here just doesn’t work. The mix of flavours is discordant and vaguely unpleasant. They clash. The whole thing feels wrong in a way that’s hard to put your finger on. It’s off.

The Wilcox Gastropub

I came at brunch, so instead of fries, the burger comes with potato hash. The cubes are deep fried, so they basically taste like crispy fries in a slightly different shape. They’re quite tasty.

1.5 out of 4

Location: 1588 Dupont Street, Toronto
Website: http://farmhousehospitality.tumblr.com/

I’ve been hearing good things about the burger at the Farmhouse Tavern. This is not a review of the Farmhouse Tavern. I was in the area, and it was lunch, and the Farmhouse Tavern was closed. Solution: The Daughter, a spinoff restaurant, which is open for lunch, and which also serves a burger.

That burger? The Franklin Burger, per the menu: “Farmhouse beef / bun / sauce w/ cheese / lettuce / tomato / onions.”

It’s pretty good. The sizable patty (probably about six ounces) has a nice crispy crust from the grill, though it is leaning a bit towards over-charred.

It’s also too tightly packed; though the medium rare-ish middle of the burger (it’s somewhere between medium and medium rare) is nice and tender, the more well done edges suffer from over-density, and are a bit too tough.

Still, it’s a fairly juicy burger, which helps make up for some of its deficiencies. The mild (but nice) beefy flavour is also a firm plus in this burger’s favour.

I wasn’t too crazy about the cheese, however. The menu doesn’t specify the type of cheese, which turned out to be goat’s cheese. It’s an unusual choice for a hamburger, and eating it here, it’s pretty clear why. The strongly salty, sour flavour is way too assertive in this context, completely overwhelming the flavour of the beef. It’s not bad, but the balance of flavours is off.

The sauce is a tangy, Mac sauce-esque concoction, though again, the flavour here is pretty much all goat’s cheese, all the time.

The other toppings were fine, and the soft, fluffy sesame seed bun was above average.

As for the fries, they were really crispy and creamy and tasty; complimented with the curry-tinged ketchup, they were pretty stellar.

3 out of 4