pub – Tasty Burgers

The Rhino

Published on March 15, 2020 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1249 Queen Street West, Toronto
Website: http://www.therhino.ca/

My visit to The Rhino was completely unplanned — I was in the area, I wanted to check out a burger, and hey, that place looks like it serves a hamburger. No recommendations, no research, just a random pop-in.

My dream in situations like this is that the burger will turn out to be amazing, and that I can announce a hidden gem to the world. I mean, anyone can go and review a place that everyone’s talking about. Who cares? Finding a restaurant that people wouldn’t have heard of otherwise — that’s a service to the world.

The Rhino

That absolutely, positively isn’t what happened here, but hey, I can keep dreaming. One day.

The Rhino burger: “hand-pressed ground beef patty, lettuce, tomato, red onion, pickle, brioche bun. Served with fries or house salad.”

The Rhino

It’s not good. And it’s not good in such a boring way that I don’t even particularly feel like talking about it. It’s the usual bad burger trifecta: the beef is too finely ground, it’s packed too tightly, and it’s too lean. It’s crazy dry. I normally eat a burger as it comes, but in this case I just couldn’t stomach it. I had to put on copious amounts of mustard (which I typically find to be way too assertive as a burger topping) just to give it some moisture, and to give the bland, personality-free beef some flavour.

The Rhino

I will say that the medium well patty is perfectly grilled, which gives it a great amount of smoky flavour. Not enough to save it, of course — but it that element was nice nonetheless.

And the fresh brioche bun was quite good (not that it particularly matters).

The Rhino

As for the fries, they were delicious, with a delicate exterior crispiness and a perfect amount of fluffiness. They were seasoned with big, flaky grains of salt that added more texture and nice pops of flavour. They were top notch.

1.5 out of 4

The Commoner

Published on February 2, 2020 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 2067 Dundas Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.thecommonerrestaurant.ca/

Here’s a classic good news / bad news type of situation. The good news: The Commoner seems like it’s a quality restaurant. It’s quite popular, and most of the food they served when I visited was very good.

The bad news: the hamburger. It’s not great.

The Commoner

The Commoner cheeseburger, as per the menu: “Brioche. Lettuce. Tomato. Pickles. Onion. Provolone. Dijon Mayo.”

Nothing about the burger is awful, but nothing is particularly good, either.

The patty is grilled (I think? It’s got that char flavour that you typically only get from the grill, but it’s possible that it was just enthusiastically griddled), and while it’s cooked all the way to well done, it’s fairly juicy. But the texture is off — I think the grind is too fine — and it’s a little bit tough.

The Commoner

The flavour of the beef is another issue. It’s generally inoffensive, but it also has a mild gaminess. It’s not in your face, but it’s there, and it’s unpleasant.

I can maybe forgive the shoddy flavour of the meat; it’s possible that they got an iffy batch from an otherwise quality supplier. What I can’t forgive, however? The cardinal sin of cheeseburger cookery: the cheese isn’t fully melted. In my world, that would be a crime punishable by serious jail time. Get out of here with that.

The Commoner

Then there’s the brioche bun. I knew it was trouble as soon as I cut into it; it’s dry and dense. Again, I’ve certainly had worse, but it’s not great.

Everything else was fine, though the Dijon mayo was somewhat overpowering.

The Commoner

It’s not a great burger, sadly. On the other hand: my dining companion had the huevos rancheros and said it was the best he’s ever had, and the fries that came with the burger were spectacularly delicious. French fry perfection. So there’s that, at least.

2 out of 4

The Belsize Public House

Published on August 19, 2018August 19, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 535 Mount Pleasant Road, Toronto
Website: https://thebelsize.pub/

As much as I love the griddle-smashed burgers that are so omnipresent in the GTA, it’s hard to resist a big, fat grilled burger. But it’s much, much harder to find a really good burger cooked in that style, so when I heard that they serve a tasty one at The Belsize Public House, I was all over it.

They have a couple of burgers on their menu; there’s the Hoser Burger, which features peameal bacon and cheddar, and the no-frills Grilled Burger, which comes topped with lettuce, tomato, and onion. As I’m wont to do, I went with the simpler of the two.

I’ve cut through so many burgers over the years that I can pretty much tell instantly if a burger is going to be iffy. This one was suspiciously difficult to saw in half, and the alarm bells were going off in my head. They were screaming.

As I feared, it wasn’t very good. The Belsize makes every mistake you can make to end up with an unsatisfying burger. Literally every single one: the beef was clearly too lean, the texture of the grind was way too fine, the beef had been overhandled and was too tightly packed, and it was cooked all the way to the tippy tippy top of well done (if not a little bit further). The meat was so dense. It was a punishingly tough chew. There was a vague amount of juiciness there, but not even close to enough to make any kind of impact.

The flavour wasn’t much better; aside from the fact that I’m pretty sure they had mixed salt and pepper right into the patty (it was distractingly peppery), the flavour of the beef was almost non-existent. And what little flavour there was tasted vaguely off. It wasn’t good.

The toppings were fine, and the fluffy bun was actually pretty perfect. That patty, though…

I will say that my dining companion had the jerk pork sandwich and really enjoyed it, and the fries and the coleslaw that came with the burger were both quite tasty. The fries, in particular, were seriously delicious, with an addictively crispy exterior and perfectly creamy interior. So it’s possible that everything else coming out of the kitchen is tasty. But they bungled that burger, and they bungled it hard.

1 out of 4

Belfast Love Public House

Published on October 9, 2016 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 548 King Street West, Toronto
Website: http://donnellygroup.ca/belfast-love/

Despite an ostensive Irish theme, Belfast Love’s menu is pretty much all generic upscale pub — thin crust pizzas, fancy salads, the obligatory chicken and waffles (at what point did chicken and waffles graduate from an occasional novelty to something that’s 100% obligatory for every restaurant with an unfocused menu like this one?). And there’s a burger on the menu. Because of course there is.

Well, a cheeseburger, to be specific. “House ground chuck, American cheese, iceberg lettuce, tomato, mustard mayo.”

It looked good, I’ll give it that. And I liked the toppings — the melty American cheese, the fresh tomato, the crunchy iceberg lettuce, and the mayo/mustard combo all worked quite well. The patty itself, on the other hand…

I’m always afraid that, the longer that I do this, and the more and more that I obsess over the minutia of what makes a burger great (and vice-versa), I’m becoming increasingly out of touch with how normal people (i.e. people who don’t think about things like grind coarseness and beef-to-bun ratios on the regular) experience a hamburger.

So it was nice when my dining companion echoed my sentiments on this burger exactly, confirming that I’m not being an overly picky weirdo (at least not in this particular case).

Because no, this was not a good hamburger. The texture of patty was downright weird — dense, with an oddly chewy, vaguely sausagey texture. I suspect they’re mixing salt in with the ground beef, which tends to make the texture of a hamburger sausage-like.

It probably didn’t help that the griddled patty was cooked to well done and then some, but I suspect that even perfectly cooked, this would have been a funky patty.

The taste wasn’t much better. Whatever flavour the beef might have had was completely annihilated by the downright insane amount of pepper. It was so peppery; it was nuts. Literally the most peppery-tasting hamburger that I’ve ever had. I don’t know if the pepper was mixed in with the beef along with being used as seasoning on the patty, but the flavour was everywhere. It permeated every bite; there was nothing else.

The bun was fine, though it was slightly too dense, and cold throughout despite being toasted.

As for the fries, they were great. Easily the highlight of the meal. Not too thick, not to thin, perfectly cooked, just the right amount of salt… good stuff.

1.5 out of 4

Batch

Published on March 27, 2016 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 75 Victoria Street, Toronto
Website: http://batchtoronto.com/

Batch is shockingly great. It’s a corporate brewpub — it’s owned by Creemore Springs, which is owned by Molson. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect the food to be passable at best; something along the lines of chain fare like Kelsey’s or Milestones, with the several beers on tap being the main attraction.

Based on this one visit, at least, that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

The Batch burger is described on the menu as “dry aged beef + cheddar + red onion + ranch mayo.” It’s served by default at medium rare; an immediate point in their favour.

As I cut into the hamburger, I could already see juices on the plate. Another several points.

Yes, it’s an amazing hamburger. As advertised, it came cooked to a perfect medium rare, with an immensely satisfying, deep brown layer of crust from the griddle. And it’s juicy — so, so juicy, to an extent that’s almost four-leaf-clover-rare in a city that’s so dishearteningly crammed with dry, overcooked patties.

Aside from the awe-inspiring juiciness, the texture of the beef is just right. It has a nice coarse grind that hasn’t been overhandled, resulting in a patty that has the perfect amount of tenderness without ever tipping the scales into soft and squishy territory. It’s so good.

The flavour of the patty is also well above average, though this is the one area where the burger stops just shy of greatness. Though it certainly has a nice beefy flavour, it wasn’t quite as pronounced as it could have been. It’s still better than most — but when you’re a straight-A student, that one B+ feels like a failure, even if in any other context, it’s an amazing grade.

The toppings were similarly superb. Though the menu claims that the cheese is cheddar, I’m not so sure; it was either a creamier cheese along the lines of brie, or a higher-class processed white cheddar. Whatever it was, it was mild, creamy, and suited the burger perfectly.

The red onions were soft and griddled; to me, a hamburger and grilled onions are like peanut butter and jelly. Best friends 4 eva.

I was a bit concerned about the ranch mayo, as that dressing has a pretty assertive flavour, but it worked perfectly. It added a nice hit of flavour without getting in the way. The other toppings (lettuce and tomato) were solid, as was the soft, fresh bun.

The fries, sadly, were pretty weak. I came at brunch, so I’m not sure if they were supposed to be some kind of amalgam between french fries and home fries, but they just didn’t particularly work. They were way too thick, slightly chalky in the middle, and just all-around unsatisfying. The funky house-made ketchup helped, but even then, the fries couldn’t even begin to hold a candle to that outstanding burger.

The meal ended on a high note, however. The coconut cream pie — with its rich, custardy flavour and perfect balance of coconut — easily gives the famous Scaramouche pie a run for its money.

3.5 out of 4