GTA – Page 9 – Tasty Burgers

Aloette

Published on February 25, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 163 Spadina Avenue, Toronto
Website: https://aloetterestaurant.com/

I was traveling when Aloette opened, and seeing pictures of the burger made me want to drop everything I was doing and get on the next plane home. I mean, it’s a burger created by one of the best chefs in the city. It’s topped with fried cheese. How could it not be amazing??

How indeed.

It seems I’m fated to continually be disappointed by Toronto’s best chefs. First there was Victor Barry. Then Grant van Gameren. And now, sadly, Alo’s Patrick Kriss.

Of course, there are different levels of disappointment, and this one was much more mild than the other two: I actually enjoyed the burger at Aloette. But I was expecting my socks to be knocked off. I’m looking down, and yep: there are my socks, firmly on my feet.

The Aloette Burger comes topped with shredded lettuce, pickle, onion, mayo, and the aforementioned Beaufort cheese. The toppings are mostly quite good. When you first look at the burger, the big pile of lettuce seems overdone, but I think the fine shredding makes it look poofier than it actually is. It was just right. The soft bun just barely holds up to the messy burger, but it manages. It’s good.

The cheese was, shockingly, the weakest element. It was good in theory — gooey, with a satisfying cheesy brown crust on its exterior. It was actually quite delicious. But just because something’s delicious doesn’t mean it belongs on a hamburger; it was sharp and assertive, and it completely wiped out all of the hamburger’s other flavours. It would be absolutely amazing in a grilled cheese sandwich, but on a burger it’s all wrong.

The patty didn’t seem to have much of a beefy flavour, but then how can you even tell with that cheese? The bulk of the flavour was a mild bitterness from the slightly burned exterior. The patty mostly had an amazing mahogany-brown crust from the griddle, but there were a few spots that were blackened and bitter.

And while the beef was somewhat juicy, the well done patty was kind of dry. It was also a little bit too finely ground and a bit too tightly packed, resulting in a patty that’s tougher than it should be. When you’re eating a burger and thinking “why is this taking so long to chew?” then you know you’ve got problems.

Still, I’m coming off super negative here, so I should make it clear that I actually quite enjoyed the burger: it was tasty. It has way too many issues to be anything better than just good, but it is good. It’s just not even close to the burger perfection I was hoping for.

As for the fries, they were a bit overcooked (most of them were potato-chip-crunchy, which is a bit much), but otherwise quite tasty. They also came with a tangy dipping sauce that was easily the highlight of the meal.

3 out of 4

Jumbo Burgers

Published on July 3, 2017July 3, 2017 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 685 Runnymede Road, Toronto
Website: None

Jumbo Burgers is yet another orange-hued old-school burger joint in Toronto, which means it’s probably lousy. Not to be a pessimist, but these places pretty much all either serve a flat-out terrible frozen burger, or if you’re lucky, a freshly-made hamburger that has so much stuff mixed in it may as well be meatloaf.

Well, good news: Jumbo Burgers falls into the latter category, and it’s actually not too bad. It’s not particularly good, mind you, but when the alternative is a rubbery slab of sadness bound together by pink slime (sorry: lean finely-textured beef), a freshly-made meatloaf burger is a pretty big win.

Like almost every other burger joint of a certain age, you order your hamburger and then pick your toppings from behind the glass. I went with pickles, tomato and mayo (which, again, like most older establishments, was actually Miracle Whip or something similar).

It wasn’t bad. The burger had a good amount of char from the grill without being burnt (like most places that were open before the fall of the Soviet Union, the burgers are grilled rather than griddled. Yeah, these places all followed the same template back then).

The patty had a pretty pronounced meatloafy flavour, I’m assuming from garlic and other spices mixed right in with the beef, but as far as this type of burger goes, I’ve certainly had worse. There was still a vague beefy flavour, even if it was mostly wiped out by the spices.

The well done patty was a little bit dry and a little bit tough, but again, I’ve had worse. Like I said: it’s not particularly good, but it’s not bad, either.

The toppings were fine, aside from the aforementioned mayo substitute. The bun was slightly too big and too dense; the beef-to-bun ratio was off, but it was otherwise a decent bun.

As for the fries, they were a bit undercooked, but aside from that they were pretty good.

2.5 out of 4

George the Greek

Published on June 18, 2017 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 3575 Lake Shore Boulevard West, Etobicoke
Website: http://eatatgeorgethegreek.com/

So, it turns out it’s actually not a great idea to go to a restaurant based on one post from some random guy on a message board. Who knew! (What? That’s just common sense? Literally everyone knew that? Hmm.)

George the Greek is one of those really old school places that has two types of burgers on the menu: a cheap hamburger (i.e. a bottom-of-the-barrel frozen patty) and a more expensive “homeburger” (which, logic dictates, is one that they make themselves).

I ordered the homeburger, only to find that George the Greek has pulled a C & Dubbs — it’s also a frozen burger. It’s one of the thicker, premium varieties of frozen burger, but a frozen burger is a frozen burger: rubbery hot dog texture with a mildly unpleasant, salty, off-meat flavour.

If you could see me right now, you’d see that I’m giving a very vigorous thumbs down while making a farting noise.

The burger had a pleasant, mild smoky flavour from the grill, and the toppings were fine (I went with pickles, tomato and mayo — and the mayo was actually mayo, not Miracle Whip, which a frequent and unwelcome substitution at old school joints like this. So that was nice.). The bun was pretty good too — it was standard supermarket fare, but it suited the burger quite well.

Alas, there isn’t much you can do to make a lousy patty like this particularly palatable.

As for the fries, they were slightly better than the hamburger, but they were a bit undercooked and completely unseasoned.

1.5 out of 4

Rasa

Published on June 4, 2017 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 196 Robert Street, Toronto
Website: http://rasabar.ca/

Though I’ve had burgers that were almost ruined by one particular topping before (I’m thinking of the mustard overload from the County General, or the insanely sweet tomato jam from Provo FoodBar), the burger at Rasa might just be the most glaring example of this unfortunate phenomenon.

Rasa’s burger is topped with provolone, gochujang mayo, pickles, and “scrapchi.” No, I don’t know what scrapchi is either. But I do know that it doesn’t belong on a hamburger.

It’s clearly some kind of variation on kimchi, but it has a strongly funky, overpoweringly fishy flavour that was fairly unpleasant, and not quite like any kimchi I’ve ever had (I should note that I really like kimchi, and I’ve been to South Korea, so I’m not exactly a neophyte when it comes to the stuff). It was a bulldozer of flavour, and absolutely destroyed any other tastes in the burger. This wouldn’t have been quite as big of an issue if the scrapchi actually tasted okay. But it has an intense rotten fish flavour that was kind of gross.

I might have had a more misguided topping on a burger in my lifetime — but if I have, I cannot remember it. It’s possible that it was just a bad batch? Because I can’t imagine that anyone would intentionally put anything that off-putting on a hamburger.

It’s a shame, because the burger is otherwise pretty good. Though the patty doesn’t have all that much beefy flavour (which I was only able to discern in the couple of bites I got without the scrapchi), it’s quite juicy, and the texture is pretty great.

The waiter mentioned that it would be cooked to medium rare, though it was actually much closer to rare. A lot of rare burger patties have a tendency to be a bit squishy, but that’s not the case here. The patty had a good amount of bite without being too dense, and held together quite nicely. I wish, however, that there had been a bit more crust from the griddle (or any crust at all — in fact, the exterior of the patty was so colour-free that I’m not even sure if it was grilled or griddled. I’m just guessing that they griddled it).

The bun held up nicely to the substantial burger, and the other toppings were fine (particularly the satisfyingly gooey provolone), but that crazy scrapchi pretty much wiped everything else out.

As for the fries, it didn’t come with any — it came with a very small handful of taro chips instead. That makes the burger fairly pricey at 17 bucks.

2.5 out of 4

The Wren

Published on May 28, 2017February 9, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1382 Danforth Avenue, Toronto
Website: http://www.thewrendanforth.com/

After seeing pictures of the various burger specials at the Wren roughly a billion times on Instagram over the last few months, my excitement level was pretty much at a fever pitch; it’s not easy to get me to venture too far east in Toronto (I’m lazy, you see), but for an amazing burger? Yeah, I’ll go out of my way for that.

Alas, this place suffers from a very pronounced case of Sweet Jesus-itus — highly Instagrammable, but otherwise not particularly great.

I ordered the Backyard Burger, which is the most bare-bones burger they serve (they also have a much more Instagram-friendly creation called the Uncle Buck Burger, not to mention the veritable Instagram-catnip that is their rotating special).

The Backyard Burger comes topped with lettuce, tomato, onion, ketchup, mustard, and mayo.

Sometimes, you can just look at a burger’s cross-section and know you’re in trouble. If you can tell just by looking at a burger that the grind is too fine and it’s too densely packed, you’re in trouble.

And yeah, of course the grind was too fine and it was too densely packed, because just look at it. Look at it and weep.

It was also cooked all the way to the wellest of well done, and was almost entirely moisture-free. It wasn’t the worst patty I’ve ever had, but it was kinda unpleasant to eat.

The taste, while not offensive, was non-existent; there was no particular beefy or meaty flavour. Aside from the subtle smokiness from the grill, it didn’t taste like anything.

Everything else was fine. The burger comes topped with ketchup, mustard, and mayo, which is more condiment-heavy than I’d usually like. Here, however, those condiments are actually fairly essential to provide the burger with some much-needed moisture. I actually could have used more.

The bun, though a little bit too crackly on its exterior, was mostly quite good. It held up to the patty and the toppings nicely, and didn’t overwhelm.

The fries were the clear (and only) highlight. They were perfectly cooked and tossed with a seasoned salt that made them taste pretty great on their own — no dip required.

1.5 out of 4