The Stockyards

Burger Day 2013

Published on June 2, 2013March 23, 2014 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

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For the last couple of years, a bunch of places across Toronto have been participating in The Grid’s Burger Week, in which a five dollar burger is added to the menu of each participating restaurant. This year, the festivities culminated in Burger Day, which is pretty much the greatest food event I’ve been to in the city. Certainly the burgeriest.

It really was a sight to behold, with dozens of restaurants all offering a mini burger (they were calling these sliders, but I think we all know that a mini hamburger is not automatically a slider). It was an embarrassment of riches, and all told I sampled 10 different hamburgers, after which I was pretty much ready to crawl into a cave and hibernate.

The sad (and kind of awesome) thing is, there were a bunch more burgers I would have liked to try, but I am not a burger eating machine, as much as I would like to be. I was also worried that the crowds would be unbearable, but I arrived right when the gates opened at 11:00, and didn’t have to wait longer than a few minutes for pretty much any of the burgers. Suffice it to say, it was a great event and I will definitely be returning next year.

But let’s talk about the burgers. Keeping in mind that I’ve eaten an insane amount of hamburgers and they’re all kind of blending together in my memory, here are my brief thoughts on the burgers I tried, in the order in which I ate them (and in case you’re wondering why the photos get more and more angelic towards the end, yes, I got grease on the lens. No, it is not easy to photograph ten different burgers in an outdoor setting with no tables while also holding a bottle of water):

Kitch Bar

Not a great start. The patty itself was pretty meatloafy, with all kinds of stuff mixed in. It was also cooked a little bit past well done and very, very dry. The nacho-esque condiments (a couple of actual nachos, pico de gallo, guacamole, and jalapeno) were fine, if a little gimmicky. The bun was cold, which was unappealing. Perfectly edible, but nothing I’d want to have again.

Fidel Gastro’s Lisa Marie
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After the poor offering from the Kitch Bar, I was afraid that I had a bunch of overcooked, poorly thought-out mediocrities in my future, but this one quickly put me at ease. It was amazing. Probably the best burger I ate at the event, and one of the best burgers I’ve had in a while, period. The beef was absolutely outstanding — coarsely ground, with an amazingly rich and beefy flavour. I was afraid the condiments — pineapple chili ketchup and banh-mi slaw — would overpower the burger, but they were pretty great, adding a tangy zip while still making sure that the glorious patty was the star of the show. The sweet, soft bun was also pretty perfect. I’m not rating these burgers, but if I were I think I’d have to give this one a rare four out of four. I’ve never been to Lisa Marie, but if they’re serving food of this caliber then I clearly need to check the place out.

This End Up
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This one was fine. Nothing too special, but fine. The rich pork belly, the cheese, and the umami mayo were actually all quite tasty, but the burger itself was a bit dry and ho-hum.

The Rude Boy
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Another so-so burger. With the pastrami, thousand island, cheese, and sauerkraut, it was essentially a Rueben in a bun with a burger patty. The patty was okay, but a bit dry and underwhelming. I’ve actually been meaning to check out The Rude Boy for a while now, but if this is their level of burger cookery, I don’t think I need to be in any rush.

The Dakota Tavern
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I actually thought this one had a lot of potential, as the patty had a really satisfyingly beefy flavour, and the grilled, almost burnt onions complimented the burger quite well. But like the last couple of hamburgers, it was overcooked and very dry.

Goods & Provisions
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I was pretty excited to try this one, as I figured the addition of bone marrow into the burger would have added a beefy richness. There was no beefy richness to be found here — just an unpleasant, almost gamy flavour that was quite off-putting. The pallid, wan patty looked and tasted like it had been boiled. It was gross, quite frankly. As for the tomato and shallot relish, it basically tasted like they boiled a tomato, threw it in the blender, and then dumped the resultant slurry onto the burger. Worst burger of the day, and one of the worst burgers I’ve had in a long while.

The Good Fork
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This was a grilled cheese burger, and unlike all the other burgers I tried, they just cooked a full one and then cut it into quarters. It was actually pretty good, though not particularly cheesy, oddly enough. The shallot-teragon jam and the remoulade were both quite good, if a little overpowering. It’s too bad, because the burger itself was fairly juicy and seemed quite tasty, but it was a bit overwhelmed by the other stuff.

Frank

If it weren’t for the unusually awful burger from Goods & Provisions, this would have easily been the worst burger of the event. The patty was super dense, dry, and way, way, way too finely ground. It tasted like they blended the beef until it became a fine paste, and then formed the paste into a patty and cooked it all the way to well done. It was pretty horrible. The condiments were mostly okay, though the pickled red onions were completely overwhelming.

Holy Chuck
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Well, it’s Holy Chuck so you know it’s going to be good. The beef patty was as juicy and delicious as ever. The burger also featured an additional patty of ground up bacon, which sounds gluttonously amazing in theory, but which was kind of overwhelming in practice. It was tasty enough, but the smoky, salty bacon patty completely overpowered the beef. And when you’re dealing with beef as good as what Holy Chuck uses, that’s definitely not a good thing.

The Stockyards
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At this point my body was beginning to shut down from the abundance of beef, so naturally it was time to eat a battered, deep fried hamburger. I questioned the wisdom of eating something this heavy when I was already catastrophically full, but am I going to say no to a cheese-stuffed battered and fried burger? No, I am not. I was not alone in this, either, because this was the only place I had to wait longer than five minutes for. And boy, am I glad that I did, because it was crazy delicious. I was afraid that it would be more of a novelty than anything else, but it was legitimately good. The crispy, crunchy, peppery batter was outstanding. I know that The Stockyards is supposed to serve some of the best fried chicken in the city, and if this is the batter they use, I can see why. Note to self: try their chicken. As for the beef, I usually find the burgers at The Stockyards to be above average, but a bit too lean. Here, being deep fried and stuffed with cheese, that wasn’t an issue. The whole thing was really, really good, and while it was far from traditional, it was so damn tasty.

And there you have it. Ten burgers later I was pretty much ready to pass out, but it was a great event and one that I will happily return to for as long as it’s around.

On Toronto Life’s List of the 25 Best Burgers in the City

Published on May 29, 2012March 2, 2014 by Michael Nusair12 Comments

Toronto Life posted its list of the 25 best burgers in the city a couple of weeks ago. It’s a so-so list that’s mostly acceptable, though it does have a handful of questionable choices (Apache? Really?). It’s hard to fault the author of the list, however; I think the mediocrity of the list is, to a large degree, a reflection on Toronto’s still-burgeoning burger scene.

Yes, despite my positive outlook in my Slab Burgers review, things are not all wine and roses in Toronto.

Things are probably no better in any other Canadian city. As ubiquitous as they are, I think burgers are ingrained in the American culture in a way that they’re simply not here in Canada. It seems odd, given how simple they are, but hamburgers are an American food, and we just don’t have the same relationship with them here in Canada that they do in the States.

Don’t get me wrong — I think in the last five years or so, Toronto has moved forward by leaps and bounds when it comes to burgers. But if you look at Toronto Life’s list, there is an abundance of fancy-pants burgers, and it saddens me that most of the best hamburgers in Toronto are apparently made by upscale restaurants. Of course a restaurant with the talent and resources (and the pricing) of a Harbord Room or a Nota Bene is going to be able to make a great burger. That should be a given.

What concerns me is how few burger joints of note there are in the GTA. If you wanted to recommend absolute can’t-miss burger joints to a visitor to our city, what would you recommend? Burger’s Priest, Holy Chuck, and… that’s pretty much it. There are a lot of good burger joints in the city these days, but very few that are worth going out of your way to try.

Whereas if you go to pretty much any big American city, there are dozens of unassuming diners and burger joints that, if they were to open in Toronto, would immediately be one of the best places in the city (and that serve up burgers that cost something like half of what burger places in Toronto charge). Even American fast food, setting aside the big guys, outshines something like 95% of the burger joints in Toronto — places like In-N-Out, Steak and Shake, Culver’s, Shake Shack, etc., all consistently put out better burgers than almost anywhere in Toronto.

Not to mention the burger styles that go completely unrepresented here. I’m thinking, most notably, of sliders — real sliders. Though the term has pretty much come to mean a small burger, a slider is a very specific (and delicious) way of cooking a burger that is completely lacking in Toronto.

I do, however, think that things are heading in the right direction, and that Torontonians finally seem to realize that a burger can be more than a flavourless puck of meat or an overseasoned meatloaf sandwich that you cram into your mouth when you need something cheap on the go. I think if things continue the way they’re going, maybe in something like five years, Toronto will be able to compete with cities in the States. But we’re not there yet.

Published on May 26, 2012May 26, 2012 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 699 St. Clair Avenue West, Toronto
Website: http://www.thestockyards.ca/

It seems to be the general consensus that for griddle-cooked, fast-food-style hamburgers, the big three are The Burger’s Priest, Holy Chuck, and The Stockyards. In fact, there is a 152-post thread at Chowhound whose sole purpose is to compare the merits of these three establishments. Obviously, this review needed to be done.

I’ve actually had the burgers here a couple of times before this visit, including once with the express purpose of reviewing it for this blog. However, I lazily held off on writing the review, and before I knew it so much time had passed that it was too hazy in my mind to write a proper review.

Every time I’ve been here the burger has been very good, but a little bit too dry to be truly great. But considering the way some people rapturously swoon over this place, I had hoped that I had merely had bad luck on my prior visits.

The Stockyards is a small restaurant — it has a handful of seats along the counter, a few by the opposing wall, and a few by the window. I’ve come here before only to find the place packed, so keep that in mind if you’re planning a visit.

This time, unlike my other visits, I snagged myself a prime seat by the counter, right in front of where the grill-lady was doing her thing. It was actually kind of hypnotic, watching her prepare several burgers — placing a ball of beef on the very hot griddle, smashing it down with a circular device seemingly made for that one purpose, letting it sit to develop a rich crust, then flipping it over. The woman obviously knew what she was doing; her technique was impeccable, and watching her so skilfully prepare these burgers was making me hungry.

But — yes, there is a but, and a fairly big one — looking at the beef, it was clear that something was amiss. The uncooked ground beef was red, with just a few flecks of white. I’ve mentioned before that when it comes to the fat percentage in hamburger meat, the absolute bare minimum is fifteen percent. Twenty percent, or even thirty, is preferable.

This looked more like ten percent, if that. It might have even been five. It was even leaner than the ground beef you typically find at the supermarket, which itself is too lean to make ideal hamburger meat. Suddenly my previous too-dry burgers made perfect sense. Beef this lean will absolutely never yield a particularly juicy burger, even with the most skilled cook in the world behind the griddle.

My burger came looking quite beautiful. Glistening, with an awe-inspiring dark brown crust, it looked pretty much exactly how you want a burger to look. I took a bite, and that perfect crust combined with what was obviously high quality beef — seasoned with just a bit of salt — resulted in a richly flavourful burger. But it was dry. How couldn’t it have been, with that beef? It was cooked all the way to well done, which obviously didn’t help, but it wasn’t overcooked (though you could make the argument that even a perfectly-cooked well done burger is inherently overcooked).

It’s actually kind of tragic, because with fattier beef, this burger would easily be a contender for best in the city. Hands down. Everything else is exactly how it should be: the amazing cooking technique, the quality of the beef, the fresh sesame seed bun (Dempster’s, if you’re curious), the toppings. It’s all, as Guy Fieri would say, on point.

(Did I really just drop a Guy Fieri reference into a review?)

But it’s dry — so, so dry, and despite this it is unarguably a very good burger. It saddens me, because with just one relatively minor change, it could be so great. Alas.

As for the fries, they were quite tasty if just a tad overcooked. However, the portion was absurdly large. After eating my fill I had barely even made a dent in the voluminous pile. I know it seems odd to complain about getting too much value, but no reasonable person could possibly finish this many French fries, leading to guaranteed food waste.