review – Page 7 – Tasty Burgers

Planta

Published on February 19, 2017 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1221 Bay Street, Toronto
Website: http://www.plantatoronto.com/

When I wrote my negative review of Doomie’s a few months ago, my fear was that people would just assume that I’m being a snob and dismiss it outright — that if it’s a veggie burger, I’m going to give it a lousy review on principle. I was really hoping, walking into Planta — an entirely “plant-based” restaurant by David Lee, the acclaimed chef behind Nota Bene — that the burger would be tasty and that I could put that suspicion to bed.

Yeah, about that.

Planta’s burger is billed as coming topped with “queso, mushroom bacon, pickles, tomatillo mayo”. And it looks impressive, that’s for sure — the pictures of it in reviews like this one are what compelled me to come check it out.

Beef or no beef (and obviously I’d prefer beef) the patty itself just wasn’t particularly good. It’s mostly beans, and though it has a nice crispy exterior (I’m assuming it’s deep fried) the inside is pretty much bean mush. I’m sure there’s other stuff in there, but it basically tastes like they mashed up some beans, added a few spices, then formed that into a patty. The texture isn’t much better; it’s way too mushy, though if you ever wondered if some magical confluence would occur if you crossed baby food and a hamburger, now you have your answer.

To the hamburger’s credit, it’s not even trying to emulate beef, which was one of my main issues with Doomie’s, so there’s that at least.

It’s topped with a vegan version of queso, which was bland but inoffensive. It’s also topped with what they’re calling mushroom bacon. This tasted absolutely nothing like bacon — it tasted like smoky mushrooms. That’s not a bad thing — they were a fine burger topping. But using the word “bacon” anywhere in their proximity is a bit disingenuous.

There’s also a fairly generous amount of some kind of pico de gallo, which isn’t mentioned on the menu, but which is where a lot of the burger’s flavour comes from. It was actually pretty tasty, if entirely lacking in spice.

The bun was pretty bad, though — it was mercilessly dense. This would have been an issue even in a regular hamburger, but here it was disastrous. The soft patty completely smushed out of the sides of the bun after just a couple of bites, rendering the burger completely impossible to eat with anything but a fork and knife.

I will say, however, that the burger (when served on their brunch menu, at least) comes with a side of home fries that are absolutely delicious. They were perfectly fried, with an impressively crispy/crunchy exterior and a really creamy interior. If I ever find myself back at Planta, I’ll just order a big plate of those.

2 out of 4

McCoy Burger Company

Published on August 29, 2016August 29, 2016 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 3334 Yonge Street, Toronto
Website: http://mccoyburgerco.ca/

It’s a bold move opening a burger joint on this particular stretch of Yonge Street, mere steps away from both the Burger’s Priest and the Burger Cellar, and just a few blocks north of Stack. That area is pretty well covered in terms of burger availability. You’ve gotta have confidence in what you’re selling to wade into that scrum.

So with cojones like that, I wanted to like McCoy Burger Company. I really did. And I didn’t dislike it; it was just aggressively average.

They’ve got a few pre-topped burgers on the menu, and a few different meat choices aside from beef (chicken, lamb, turkey). I did my usual thing and went with the simplest choice: the plain McCoy Burger, which I had topped with mayo, pickles, and tomato.

The patty has a little bit of crust from the griddle, though it’s not really enough to add a whole lot of texture or flavour. The menu, confusingly, refers to the patty as being “grilled to perfection,” even though it has obviously been griddled (I think they just don’t realize that there are different words for grilling or griddling a hamburger).

The texture is actually pretty good — the loosely-packed patty had a nice, coarse grind, and though it was cooked all the way to well done, it was still a little bit juicy.

It’s the flavour that really sinks the burger. They season the patty with some kind of spice blend; that’s generally not my favourite, but it wasn’t too overwhelming. The biggest problem is the flavour of the beef itself; it’s just kind of tasteless, with a slightly off flavour that you typically only get from middling quality beef.

It’s a shame; with better tasting beef and with a bit more crust from the griddle (which they obviously know how to do — the video on their website shows a burger with an impressive amount of crust, so your mileage may vary), the burger could have been well above average, but instead it’s just a resounding shrug.

The fries, on the other hand, were great — featuring an addictively crispy exterior and a fluffy interior, they were really hard to stop eating.

2.5 out of 4

Indie Alehouse

Published on August 14, 2016 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 2876 Dundas Street West, Toronto
Website: http://www.indiealehouse.com/

Indie Alehouse is the type of place that could probably skate by with mediocre food and still do okay. I mean, it’s right there in the name; their specialty is clearly their selection of interesting house-made beers.

But, if the burger is any indication at least, they’re clearly putting a bit more effort into their food than you might think. That’s always nice.

(An aside: I don’t know what the hell is going on with their name. They can’t seem to decide if alehouse is one or two words. On their sign, it’s “Indie Ale House;” on their menu, it’s “Indie Alehouse;” and on their website they alternate between both, though the one-word version seems to be a bit more frequent. “Alehouse” is also slightly more common around the internet, so that’s what I’m going with. Setting aside the confusion online, the fact that they themselves can’t seem to decide is just flat-out bizarre.)

Of the handful of burgers on the menu, I went with the Indie Burger: “2 fresh ground ‘Indie blend’ patties, bacon, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, toasted bun.”

It’s a solid burger. I don’t think it’s anything that you’re going to lose your mind over, but it’s good. I don’t have any major complaints.

The two well done patties are a bit on the dry side, but they’ve got a generous amount of crust from the griddle and a good texture overall. They’re not the beefiest-tasting patties I’ve ever had, but they certainly don’t taste bad.

The toppings, too, are all quite good. Let’s face it, it’s hard to go wrong with bacon and melty cheese. Plus, the zesty sauce and the pickles add some zip, and the tomato and lettuce add freshness. It’s a good balance.

But while the sweet, fresh bun is mostly pretty good, it’s way too big for the patties. The beef-to-bun ratio is slightly off, but more pressingly, the bun is way too wide for the beef. We’re talking serious bun overhang. It’s a bad scene. Prepare to either leave a bunch of bread on your plate, or have several meat-free mouthfuls.

As for the fries, they’re about on the same level as the burger: quite good, but nothing too mind-blowing.

3 out of 4

Museum Tavern

Published on July 17, 2016July 18, 2016 by Michael Nusair1 Comment

Location: 208 Bloor Street West, Toronto
Website: http://www.museumtavern.ca/

This blog hit its 5th anniversary a couple of months ago — I’ve reviewed almost 150 burgers in that time. And though my love of hamburgers is as strong today as it was five years ago, doubt does sometimes creep into my mind. Do I still want to be doing this? Does the world really need me describing a burger’s beefy flavour for the hundredth time, or complaining about yet another dry patty?

It can get wearying. Especially when I visit a place that I know is going to have a lousy hamburger, and then it is lousy, and I realize that I only have a finite amount of meals to eat in my lifetime and I just wasted one so I can be snarky about it online. And there’s that voice: you don’t have to do this.

But then I eat a burger like the one they’re serving at Museum Tavern, and it’s like a choir from above. Oh right, that voice says. This is why you do this.

Which is all a very roundabout way of saying that the burger at Museum Tavern is absolutely outstanding. Like, top five in the city outstanding. How can I stop this blog when there are still burgers this good for me to eat and write about? I can’t.

Museum Tavern serves a double cheeseburger, topped with the classics (lettuce, pickles, onion, and a Big Mac-esque sauce), and with the choice between American and aged cheddar. I went with American; I’ve said it before, but American’s creamy consistency when melted, and its mild — and more importantly, not overwhelming — flavour makes it the perfect cheese for this type of burger (yes, some cheaper varieties of American cheese can be plasticky and horrible, but that’s definitely not what they’re using here).

The patties are griddled, with an awe-inspiring amount of crust that’s more than just a pretty face — it adds a nice amount of texture that contrasts really well with the tender beef.

I got a bit concerned when I cut the burger in half, as the patties were cooked to well done and grey throughout, which isn’t my favourite. But everything about this burger is so great that it really doesn’t matter. The texture of the beef is perfect — coarsely ground, not overhandled, with a consistency that perfectly straddles the line between tenderness and substance.

It’s also impressively juicy, especially for a burger that’s been cooked all the way to well done. And the flavour is great, with a satisfying beefiness that mingles perfectly with the other flavours and always remains the star of the show.

So that’s the taste/texture/juiciness trifecta — the hamburger bullseye.

The bun and toppings were great too, which means there’s nothing to get in the way of this burger’s status as one of the best in the city. Because yeah, I honestly don’t have a single complaint about this hamburger — it’s amazing from head to toe. I’m a bit late to the party (the Museum Tavern has been open since 2012), so it’s quite possible that you’re way ahead of me on this one. But on the off chance that you haven’t tried it yet? Do it. Now.

Oh, and the shoestring fries were great too. Seriously though, why are you still reading this when you could be eating that magnificent hamburger?

4 out of 4

Provo FoodBar

Published on June 19, 2016 by Michael Nusair1 Comment

Location: 308 Dundas Street West, Toronto
Website: http://provofb.com/

There’s nothing sadder than when a burger comes ridiculously close to greatness — so close that it can almost touch it — but something holds it back; the elements are pretty much all there, but there’s one stupid little thing that ruins it. I’m thinking, for example, of the burgers at the County General (felled by overly strong mustard) or Broncos (bun overload).

The burger at Provo FoodBar might just be the most blatant example of this phenomenon.

The menu describes the burger as coming with “tomato jam + aged cheddar + pain au lait bun.”

There’s some other stuff that the menu doesn’t mention (arugula, crispy onion strings), but let’s talk about that tomato jam, a.k.a. the ruiner of hamburgers, a.k.a. the worst thing that’s ever been put between two buns.

Okay, maybe it’s not that bad — it’s actually kinda tasty on its own. But it’s so wrong for this burger that it’s almost absurd. It’s overwhelmingly, disastrously sweet. It’s dessert sweet. Like, you could put it on ice cream and it wouldn’t be out of place. At all. And they slather it on both the top and the bottom half of the bun, so it’s everywhere. I attempted to remove it in the second half of my burger, but it was so thoroughly suffused into the bun and the other condiments that getting rid of it was completely impossible.

I guess it’s supposed to be like a playfully gourmet take on ketchup, but even ketchup (which is far from my favourite burger topping) has a vinegary kick to balance out the sweetness. No such balance here; just cloying aggression. This is a tomato jam sandwich that happens to have a hamburger patty in it. The jam is clearly the dominant flavour.

It makes me incredibly sad, because the patty is good. Really good. It’s all there: it’s cooked perfectly to medium (and I mean perfectly, edge-to-edge) with a good amount of crust, it’s got a great texture with a nice coarse grind that hasn’t been over-handled or too tightly packed, it’s nice and juicy, and though it’s difficult to tell thanks to that stupid jam, it has a decent amount of beefy flavour.

It’s a great patty that really, really deserves to be part of a better hamburger.

As for the other toppings, they may as well have not even be there, because this is the tomato jam show through and through.

The bun was mostly okay, though it was a bit too big for the patty. It was also somewhat ruined by the bizarre way it was toasted — it tasted like they put it in the oven at a really low temperature for a really long time until it formed a hardened, crouton-like shell. It wasn’t a deal-breaker, but it was unfortunate.

That patty, though. It was so good.

I came at brunch, so the burger came with home fries instead of the traditional French fries. They were fine, though they were a little bland, and served at a temperature somewhere between lukewarm and cold.

3 out of 4