Toronto – Page 12 – Tasty Burgers

Super Burger

Published on July 3, 2016 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 3327 Lake Shore Boulevard West, Etobicoke
Website: None

Super Burger pretty much follows the old school burger joint playbook to a T. Grilled burgers? Check. Run-down decor? Check. Both frozen and homemade burgers on the menu? Check. A choice of toppings from behind glass? Check. Meatloaf burger? Ch… wait, what? They don’t serve a meatloaf burger?

Huh.

The lack of meatloafyness makes Super Burger a bit of an oddity among older burger joints, but I’m certainly not complaining. Read this blog for a while and it’ll become pretty clear that I think the seasoning should go outside of a burger. And of course, the aforementioned seasoning should be salt and maybe pepper and that’s it.

No, I’m not going to get into yet another rant about the perils of meatloafery in the burger world, especially since this place doesn’t even commit that particular food crime.

But yes, they do have the choice between frozen and homemade, and yes, of course I went with homemade. I ordered the five ounce, and got it topped with pickles, tomato, and mayo.

Alas, despite the fact that it was fresh and un-meatloafified, it just wasn’t particularly good. The middling quality beef had almost zero flavour, with almost all of the taste coming from the vaguely bitter smokiness that you get from a patty that’s been on the grill for a really long time.

The texture, too, wasn’t great; the patty had an overly fine grind and an almost complete lack of juiciness, which resulted in a bit of a mealy chew.

The lightly toasted bun was mostly okay, but probably about a day past its shelf life, and the toppings were fine (the mayo was actually mayo and not Miracle Whip — another oddity for an old school burger joint).

As for the fries, they were of the battered frozen variety. Forgettable, but with enough of a crispy/creamy contrast to be quite edible.

2 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

Doomie’s

Published on June 5, 2016June 8, 2016 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1263 Queen Street West, Toronto
Website: http://doomiestoronto.com/

I honestly never thought that I’d be reviewing a veggie burger for this blog. I mean, I try my best to avoid reviewing hamburgers made with any meat other than beef, so a veggie burger seemed completely out of the question.

Then I saw some pictures of the Big Mac clone at Doomie’s. I kind of had to try it.

For the unaware, Doomie’s is an L.A. export whose M.O. is serving vegan versions of over-the-top junk food like chili cheese fries, chimichangas, and of course, hamburgers. “Vegan” and “health food” tend to go hand in hand, but I’m sure even vegans want to eat deep-fried junk every now and then.

I feel like I need to preface this review by saying that I went into Doomie’s with a completely open mind. I realize that I’m a bit of a burger snob, but good food is good food. If the veggie burger here were delicious, I’d be more than happy to sing its praises.

That being said? This might be one of the worst hamburgers that I’ve had in my entire life.

I ordered the Big Mac clone, which isn’t technically on the menu. The waitress jokingly pointed out that any resemblance to that particular burger is purely coincidental (since no one wants to incur the wrath of ol’ Ronald’s lawyers). But it’s available if you ask for it.

It looks impressive, I’ll give it that. Aside from the fact that the watery sauce was leaking from the burger like blood from a gut-shot corpse, it looked impressively like the real deal.

Eating it was a challenge. I’m not sure why the sauce was so thin, but it completely soaked through the bun and made the burger impossible to eat without a handful of napkins. And the parts of the bun that weren’t soaked through with sauce? They were either suffused with grease, or sogged up by mushy cheese (yes, mushy cheese — more on that in a bit).

Of course, eating this burger was also a challenge because of how gross it was. I mean, let’s not beat around the bush.

Those veggie patties are going to haunt my dreams. I just don’t think that food science is able to accurately replicate the taste and texture of beef. If you’re going to serve a veggie burger, your best bet is to not even try, and just serve something in a patty shape that tastes good.

Doomie’s, sadly, tries to replicate beef. The results are flat-out horrifying.

The veggie patties here have somehow managed to take everything I hate about frozen burgers, and magnified it tenfold. That rubbery, vaguely hot-dog-like texture you get from really cheap frozen patties is here in spades, but where this patty goes horribly wrong is the flavour. It just tastes off to a degree that’s downright surprising. I don’t even know if I can describe that flavour, other than to say that it tastes like you left a frozen patty out in the sun until it turned suitably rancid. It was flat-out disgusting.

Then there’s the cheese, which — though it actually tastes close enough to the type of processed cheese you’d find on a Big Mac — has that aforementioned mushy texture. Imagine taking shredded up tissues and soaking them with cheese-flavoured water, and you’ve got a pretty good idea of what to expect.

The other toppings were all fine, aside from the watery sauce (which, to be fair, tasted pretty close to the real thing). But when your burger features two patties as foul as these on unpleasantly sodden bread, the toppings are completely irrelevant.

As for the fries, they were battered — not my favourite — but for that style of fry, they were pretty good.

0.5 out of 4

Royale’s Luncheonette

Published on May 22, 2016May 22, 2016 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1418 Dundas Street West, Toronto
Website: http://www.royalesluncheonette.com/

I like surprises. Actually no; scratch that. I like pleasant surprises.

This was supposed to be a review of the burger at The Federal, but they were absolutely slammed, with a half hour wait. So we walked a few shops over and found ourselves at Royale’s Luncheonette, with absolutely no idea what to expect. I’m definitely looking forward to checking out the burger at the Federal, but man am I glad they were so busy on this particular day. Because spoiler alert: Royale’s was a very pleasant surprise.

It’s a tiny little place with just a couple of tables. The menu is posted on the wall, and you order at the counter. The burger is dubbed the Royale with Cheese. Given the name and rating system on this blog, I think you can guess that I approve of the reference.

It’s a fast-food-style burger done right: griddled patty, melty American cheese, shredded lettuce, pickle and tomato. It’s topped with a sauce that, if you’ve ever had a Big Mac, is going to taste very familiar.

I honestly wasn’t expecting all that much from this place, but I was surprised by how good it was. The patty had a good amount of crust from the griddle, and when cooked to a pleasing medium, retained an impressive amount of juiciness. It also had a nice, beefy flavour that easily cut through the zesty sauce. Beefy flavour? Juicy patty? Not overcooked? Why, I believe it’s time to do the dance of joy!

It wasn’t completely perfect, however. It was way too small for the bun — the circumference of the patty was probably about two thirds of the circumference of the bread, leaving you with a lot of bun overhang. That was a shame, as was the grind of the beef, which was ever-so-slightly too fine. But those are minor complaints for what is otherwise a superb burger.

The lightly toasted Wonderbread bun (I could see the bag in the tiny open kitchen) suited the very unpretentious burger quite well, as did the classic burger toppings — though I wish there had been slightly less of the Big Mac-esque sauce.

No fries on the menu, sadly (I doubt that the ridiculously tiny kitchen could even accommodate a fryer), but when the burger is this good, it speaks for itself.

3.5 out of 4

Piano Piano

Published on May 8, 2016 by Michael Nusair1 Comment

Location: 88 Harbord Street, Toronto
Website: http://www.pianopianotherestaurant.com/

At the end of 2015, Chef Victor Barry shut down Splendido, a fine-dining destination that served meticulously-prepared multi-course meals. It was frequently named one of the best restaurants in the city, if not the entire country.

Early this year, Barry renovated the space and relaunched as Piano Piano, focusing on much more casual fare like pizza, pasta, and yes — a cheeseburger. How could you not be excited by the idea of a hamburger prepared by one of the best chefs in the city? How??

Well, I was excited.

And then the burger came and I got even more excited, because it looked perfect. It’s pretty simple: two patties, two slices of cheese, lettuce, pickle, Dijonaisse. But look at it though. Those glistening patties, just the right size for the bun; the melty cheese; the dark, mahogany-brown crust from the griddle… it’s what cheeseburger dreams are made of.

Or at least, it looked that way.

My struggle to cut the burger in half made it distressingly clear that something was amiss. A good burger should be yielding and tender; cutting it should be like putting a hot knife through butter. This was more like trying to saw into a particularly tough steak.

This burger was so bad I almost can’t even believe it. Like, how can a chef who is presumably as talented as Barry put out anything so horrible, let alone something as simple as a hamburger? I can’t wrap my mind around it.

I will say that everything but the patty itself was pretty good — the gooey American cheese, the classic condiments, the fresh bun with just the right amount of sweetness and heft — it was all basically right where it should be.

The patty, on the other hand, was misguided on every level. More pulverized than ground, it was tightly packed, tough, and horrible. It also had an off-putting sausage-like consistency, possibly from having salt mixed in with the beef. Between the unforgiving density of the beef and the oddly rubbery texture, it just didn’t want to get chewed. It was kind of like eating hamburger-flavoured gum.

The taste wasn’t much better. It was overwhelmingly peppery, which turns out to be a good thing, because this is beef that needs to be disguised with whatever you can throw at it. It had a gamy, leftover meat flavour that was seemingly trying to compete with the texture to see which could be more awful.

Horrifying texture versus appalling flavour: whoever wins, we lose.

Oh, and did I mention that it costs twenty-two bucks? Because it costs twenty-two bucks. So not only is it gross, it’s probably one of the more expensive burgers in the city. It’s easily — hands down — the worst hamburger that I’ve ever had from a high-end place like this.

Actually, it’s one of the worst burgers I’ve had in quite a while.

I think this might be the point in the review where you assume that I’m being way too picky. It looks pretty good, you’re thinking. How could it be that bad?

Okay. Try it then. I dare you.

As for the fries, they were the polar opposite of the hamburger. They were amazing. Though they’re a bit more thickly cut than I generally prefer, they were the perfect combination of crispy exterior and creamy interior. Eating them with the hamburger is kind of like alternating between smelling a sweet, delicately fragrant flower with someone farting directly into your face.

1 out of 4