GTA – Page 18 – Tasty Burgers

Chef Burger

Published on February 22, 2015 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 8910 Yonge Street, Richmond Hill
Website: http://www.chefburgers.ca/

Burger? Check. Cheeseburger? Check. Fries? Check. Onion rings? Check. Tongue sandwiches? Check. Wait, what?

You don’t often find a burger joint with multiple tongue sandwiches on the menu (both calf and lamb), but Chef Burger’s Middle Eastern owners obviously have a bit more on their mind than just burgers and fries.

I was actually kind of tempted to get one of those tongue sandwiches, but then how would I satisfy my insatiable need to review more and more burger joints for this blog? I ordered the namesake Chef Burger, and had it topped with their special sauce, along with pickles and tomato.

The grilled, well done burger is somewhat juicy, but it’s too finely ground, giving it a vaguely mealy texture. I’ve certainly had worse in this regard, but I do wish that the grind was a little bit more coarse.

It’s also a meatloaf burger — but as far as these types of burgers go, the flavouring is pretty subtle. I definitely noticed onions in there, but it otherwise wasn’t very aggressively spiced. You’d think this would allow the burger’s beefy flavour to shine through, but not really. It’s surprisingly bland. It doesn’t taste bad, but it’s very neutral-tasting beef.

Any issue with the flavour of the burger itself, however, is almost entirely moot if you get your burger topped with their special sauce — a garlicky, tzatziki-esque concoction that, while tasty, completely overwhelms any other flavour that the burger might have. It’s good, but man, it is seriously in your face.

The other toppings are pretty good, and the bun is surprisingly good. It looks like it should be too big, but it’s fresh, light, and fluffy, and suits the burger perfectly. It also has a very lightly crispy exterior, which is always delightful.

The fries, however, aren’t great. They’re not terrible; they’re just run-of-the-mill frozen fries. They suit their purpose, but don’t do much more than that. My dining companion got the onion rings, which are pretty much the same deal: frozen, mediocre, okay.

2.5 out of 4

O&B Canteen

Published on February 1, 2015 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 330 King Street West, Toronto
Website: http://oliverbonacini.com/Canteen.aspx

I’m at the Lightbox to watch movies semi-regularly, so I’m actually kind of surprised it took me this long to check the Canteen out. I used to enjoy getting pastries from here when I was on my way to a movie, but a couple of TIFFs ago I got a croissant that totally put me off the place. It looked like a croissant but tasted like Wonder Bread. It was shockingly bad.

The O&B Canteen has an all-over-the-place menu that ranges from jerk chicken and prawn curry to pulled pork and pizza. And of course, a burger. It’s a mish-mash of dishes that might lead you to believe that the restaurant is a Jack of all trades, master of none, and… well, you’d be correct (at least if the burger is anything to go by).

The Canteen Burger comes topped with “bacon, aged cheddar, pickled jalapeño, herb mayo, hot house tomato,” and also includes a side order of fries.

It’s fine, I guess. The well done patty generally has a decent texture, though it’s dryer than I’d like. The taste is a bit more questionable. The beef is pretty tasteless, and has a vague gamy flavour that was kind of unpleasant. However, this is less of an issue than you’d think; it’s nearly impossible to taste the beef with all the stuff they’ve got piled on top of it.

The toppings are pretty tasty, at least, which is good because that’s where about 95 percent of this burger’s flavour comes from. Though the cheddar was almost completely unmelted, it tasted good. The sharp cheese and creamy mayo contrasted nicely with the vinegary bite of the abundant pickled jalapeños, and though the tomatoes kind of got lost in the mix, it was overall a pretty good combo. It doesn’t quite make you forget how mediocre the burger itself is, but it helps.

The bun was amazing. Super fresh, with a very delicately crackly exterior and a fluffy interior that still had enough substance to hold up to the many toppings, it was pretty close to bun perfection (I guess I should give their pastries another chance).

The fries were also above average, and came with a delicious curry-tinged ketchup for dipping. So basically, everything was actually pretty good — except for the burger patty itself. Which is kind of an important element in a hamburger. You know, just a little bit.

Since I mentioned prices in my last review, it’s only fair for me to point out that for 17 bucks for the burger and fries, it’s a bit expensive. This wouldn’t be a problem if the burger was great. The burger was not great.

2.5 out of 4

The Senator

Published on December 21, 2014March 1, 2015 by Michael Nusair3 Comments

Location: 249 Victoria Street, Toronto
Website: http://thesenator.com/

I was actually pretty excited to check out the Senator — any restaurant that’s been around since the ’30s has gotta be doing something right, and the place is absolutely lousy with old-school diner charm.

I’d also heard some pretty good things about their burger, which is reportedly made with beef from Cumbrae’s — one of Toronto’s more well-known butchers of note — and which is refreshingly cheap at $9.95 (including fries).

You know that part in Goodfellas where a character thinks he’s becoming a made man, only to be led into an empty basement where he has a brief moment of horror before a bullet goes into the back of his head? That was my reaction when I was served this burger. Excitement to horror in about 0.5 seconds.

Is boiling burgers a thing? Is that something that they do? I didn’t think so, but I really don’t know how else to account for the lifelessly pallid, colourless patty they put in front of me.

I’m going to assume that the patty was griddled, but I honestly don’t know how you cook a burger like that without getting even a hint of browning on the patty. If this weren’t so clearly undesirable, I’d think it was deliberate. Because seriously, how do you accomplish that? How do you cook a piece of meat on a hot surface without browning it? But it can’t possibly be on purpose. Can it?

This wasn’t a one-off mistake, either, because my dining companion had the burger as well and his looked identically sad.

Of course, if this were just a matter of appearances, then who cares? But a burger gets a lot of its flavour and texture from the griddle or the grill, so in a case like this, it’s losing out on quite a bit. You can tell from the first bite that something very essential is missing.

It was also a meatloaf burger, and had enough stuff mixed into the patty that its Cumbrae’s pedigree was completely wasted. No beefy flavour here; just onions and spices and other stuff that you don’t need. It’s meatloaf — but then again at least meatloaf has a glaze and a nice brown crust from the oven. I can’t repeat this enough: this tasted boiled.

If it even matters, the texture of the patty was otherwise okay. I think it was a bit too finely ground with a slightly mealy texture, and the well done patty was drier than I’d like, but I’ve certainly had worse.

The burger comes with lettuce, tomato, and caramelized onions off to the side. The tomato was sliced a bit thick, but the toppings were otherwise fine. However, between the sweetness of the onions and the slightly sweet (and ever-so-slightly dry) bun, it was kind of sweet overload. I wound up putting mustard on the burger to try to combat this, which I almost never do (I typically find it to be a bit over-assertive on a hamburger). It helped, but there wasn’t much to be done here; it was a lost cause.

The fries weren’t much better. They were completely soggy and practically dripping with grease, with the overwhelming flavour of oil that’s been reused one (or two, or three) times too many.

They even, somehow, managed to mess up lemonade. This is a drink that consists of three ingredients: lemon juice, water, and sugar. How do you get that wrong? Missing one of those three essential ingredients would do it. The drink was astringently sour, without even a hint of sweetness. If it’s not sweet at all, is it still even lemonade? Or is it just watered down lemon juice? More importantly, if everything else is this bad, does it matter?

1.5 out of 4

Stein Burger and Koop

Published on December 7, 2014 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1285 Elgin Mills Road East, Richmond Hill
Website: http://www.steinburgerandkoop.com/

This was actually my second time going to Stein Burger and Koop. It wasn’t my second time eating there, but it was my second time at the restaurant. A couple of friends and I visited a few months ago; we were seated and handed menus, and then promptly ignored for the next half hour. None of us were in a particularly confrontational mood, so we eventually just left, sad and burgerless. The amazingly bad service (or non-existent, more accurately) would have been impressive if it weren’t so frustrating.

I guess everyone deserves a second chance, so I recently found myself back at the restaurant; the service was much better this time (well, there was service, which by default means it was better).

Stein Burger and Koop is essentially a sports bar, with mostly burgers and wings on the menu, and the usual generic selection of sandwiches and wraps to round things out. I went with the Steinburger, which is no-frills with just lettuce, tomato, onion, and their “signature sauce.”

It’s a smashed and griddled burger, because apparently that’s the law. Didn’t you hear? They passed that law. All burgers have to be smashed now.

It’s fine. There’s not much crust from the griddle, and the well-done burger was quite dry, but it was okay. Nothing about it offended me. There wasn’t much beefy flavour (or any flavour at all, really), but again, it was perfectly edible.

The toppings, too, were fine. The onions were too strong for my taste (but then I find most raw onions too strong, so that’s on me) and the “signature sauce” basically tasted like plain mayo, but it all got the job done.

The soft, fresh bun was mostly okay, though it wasn’t quite up to the task at hand; even with the fairly dry patty, the bottom bun sogged up and was close to falling apart in the last few bites.

But whatever. There are certainly worse burgers in the GTA. You can eat here, I guess. When you do, you’ll think to yourself “Yes, that was a burger I just ate.” Then you’ll stand up, walk out the door, and never think about it again. It will be consigned to the trash-dump of your memory, where all the hundreds of anonymous, unmemorable meals that you’ll eat throughout your lifetime will go to be forgotten about forever.

Maybe a few months later someone will ask you about it. “You ate there, right?” they’ll ask, looking to you for some form of guidance. “How was it?” You’ll rack your brain, straining to remember if you’ve ever even been there, let alone how the burger was. This will be for naught. It’s gone. Nothing about that visit has remained.

On your deathbed, in that brief moment after your heart stops beating and your brain shuts down, a synapse — unused for decades — will suddenly fire. You will remember that meal, that mediocre burger. “Oh yeah, I guess I did eat there” you’ll think, and then darkness.

2.5 out of 4

Stupidburger

Published on November 30, 2014 by Michael Nusair1 Comment

Location: 9750 Weston Road, Unit #2, Vaughan
Website: http://www.stupidburger.ca/

Stupid burgers need the most attention.

Sorry for the random paraphrased Simpsons quote, but I literally cannot hear the name of this place without thinking of that particular line.

It’s certainly an odd name for a restaurant, but if an unusual name is what it takes for a burger joint to be noticed these days, so be it.

I’ll admit it though, my expectations weren’t super high. The only thing I had heard about this place was this lukewarm review from a fellow Toronto burger blogger. Between that and the name, I dialed my expectations way down.

If nothing else, the place is delightfully affordable. Though they have a really extensive menu with all kinds of pre-topped burgers and various patty choices, I went simple with just the regular 6 oz burger. As a combo with fries and a drink, it came up to less than nine bucks with tax.

Given the prices I’ve gotten used to paying at Toronto burger joints, it’s almost suspiciously cheap.

I’m just going to say it then: it’s a really good burger. Though nothing about it blew me away, it gets pretty much everything right and very little wrong. It’s griddled, with a decent amount of crust. It’s nice and juicy despite being cooked to well done. It’s coarsely ground and not too tightly packed, giving it a really satisfying texture. It has a mild but very pleasant beefy flavour. And the fresh, lightly toasted bun suits the patty perfectly.

I really enjoyed it. It’s nothing I’m going to lose my mind over or urge you to go way out of your way to try; it’s just a perfectly executed fast-food-style burger that’s really tasty and satisfying. Considering the price, you can’t ask for much more than that.

As for the fries, they were seriously tasty, and right on par with the hamburger.

Stupidburger… more like… notstupidburger, right guys?

I’ll show myself out.

3.5 out of 4