meatloaf burger – Tasty Burgers

Avenue Open Kitchen

Published on January 6, 2020 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 7 Camden Street, Toronto
Website: https://aveopenkitchen.ca/

I probably shouldn’t like the burger at Avenue Open Kitchen quite as much as I did — mostly because it’s a meatloaf burger, which isn’t my favourite style of hamburger, putting it mildly.

Actually, no, that description doesn’t quite cut it; it’s not just a meatloaf burger. It is the meatloafiest of meatloaf burgers. The patty absolutely slaps you in the face with its oddly sweet, heavily-seasoned flavour. The taste of the beef? Completely gone.

So, I hated it, right? Well, about that…

Avenue Open Kitchen

It’s otherwise so well prepared, I couldn’t help but enjoy it.

I had heard that that the banquet burger is the thing to order here, so that’s what I got. And yeah, that’s what you should be getting; the bacon is nice and crispy and the gooey American cheese is perfectly melted. Bonus: their saltiness helps to balance the sweetness of the patty.

Avenue Open Kitchen

That patty is quite sweet, though. It’s so weird. I’m guessing they’ve mixed in some kind of sweet sauce into the beef? It’s not bad, per se, but it’s strange.

Avenue Open Kitchen

Still, everything else about the patty is so right that it almost makes up for the wrongness of the flavour — its got a great crispy crust from the griddle, it’s very juicy, and the texture is on point (it’s slightly too soft, but that’s par for the course for a meatloaf burger).

The toppings are the usual suspects, and the soft, fluffy bun suits the burger perfectly.

Avenue Open Kitchen

As for the fries, they’re nothing to write home about, but they’re solid.

3 out of 4

Uncle Betty’s

Published on August 4, 2019September 1, 2019 by Michael Nusair1 Comment

Location: 2590 Yonge Street, Toronto
Website: https://www.unclebettysdiner.com/

The burger at Uncle Betty’s is odd — it’s really tasty in a lot of ways, but it’s also fails as a hamburger on a pretty fundamental level.

It’s the patty. It’s the meatloafiest meatloaf burger I’ve had in a long, long time. The flavouring of the beef is aggressive, and any natural flavour from the meat is completely wiped out. The spicing punches you in the face. It’s too much.

Worse, it has that off-puttingly squishy texture that plagues some meatloaf burgers, and it’s got it bad. Despite the fact that its cooked all the way to well done, the texture of the beef is essentially akin to eating a burger rare, only mushier.

The texture only emphasizes how un-burger-like it is. It’s not necessarily the most unpleasant thing in the world, but if I had eaten this blindfolded, it would have taken me a whole bunch of guesses to get to hamburger. The spicing of the beef and the soft consistency makes it taste more like a Sloppy Joe.

Otherwise it’s actually quite good. The burger has an impressive amount of crust from the griddle (or grill? The menu says it’s grilled, though it tasted griddled to me) — this gives it some nice texture, and helps to mitigate the patty’s mush factor.

It’s topped with a lot of stuff — garlic aioli, mustard, pickles, sport peppers (which is a Chicago thing, apparently, and kinda like a less spicy banana pepper), an onion ring, and cheddar cheese.

Normally this would be way too much stuff, but the aggressively-spiced patty stands out even under the deluge of toppings. It helps that everything is quite tasty, and it all goes together very, very well. The cheese isn’t melted all the way through, but there’s so much other stuff going on that you can barely notice.

The bun is quite good, too — I think it’s a Martin’s Potato Roll or something similar. It has a great balance between fluffiness and heft.

If the patty were better, this would be an outstanding burger. It’s nicely cooked, and all of the toppings are great. That patty, though. Oh well.

As for the fries, they’re thinly-cut and nicely seasoned (I think they’re using some kind of seasoning salt, but it’s mild enough to not call attention to itself); they would have been great if they had been served hot or even warm, but alas, they were room temperature (at best).

2.5 out of 4

Wallflower

Published on November 25, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1665 Dundas Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.facebook.com/WallflowerTO/

Here’s a hot tip for all the restaurants out there: if you don’t want to serve a hamburger, don’t serve a hamburger. Please don’t feel obligated to have one on the menu just because everyone else is doing it. If all the other restaurants were jumping off a bridge, would you do that too??

The burger at Wallflower feels like it was made by someone who doesn’t like hamburgers, doesn’t particularly get what makes them so delicious, and who decided he was going to try to put his own spin on it. The subsequent burger is an unpleasant misfire that’s unlikely to please anybody.

Wallflower

I can’t find the menu online, so I’m not sure how they describe it, but it’s topped very simply with lettuce, tomato, and a grainy mustard.

The grilled patty is the biggest offender here. It’s a meatloaf burger through and through — I’m not sure what they seasoned it with, but it tastes more like kofta than a traditional burger. Not only that, but it’s overseasoned to the point that there’s zero beefy flavour. None. The burger could have been made with pork, chicken, or kangaroo for all of the flavour it had.

Wallflower

It’s also way too dense and finely ground, giving it an unpleasantly tough, chewy texture. So you can’t even say “well, it’s an untraditional hamburger, but at least it tastes great!” It’s a chore to eat.

The lettuce and tomato were overbearing, but basically fine. The sweet grainy mustard was way over-applied, and tasted completely out of place on the vaguely Middle Eastern-inspired patty.

Wallflower

The bun wasn’t much better — it was too wide and too thick for the burger, and was dry and unappealing.

It came with a side of salad and potato wedges, both of which were about on par with the hamburger. The salad tasted like it was completely undressed, and the wedges were chalky and lukewarm.

0.5 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

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