Yonge and Dundas – Tasty Burgers

3 Brewers

Published on April 16, 2017 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 275 Yonge Street, Toronto
Website: https://les3brasseurs.ca/locations/3-brewers-yonge

3 Brewers is a Canadian casual chain restaurant, which means by law, it has to serve mediocre food.

Oh, did you not hear about that law? Yeah, parliament recently passed a law saying that every Canadian chain restaurant has to serve food that is “mediocre at best, with drab, uninspired cuisine that instills a profound sadness into its customers” (that’s a direct quote from the legislation).

So of course, the burger at 3 Brewers — I got the 3 Brasseurs burger, which comes topped with maple Amber beer sauce, smoked Gouda, bacon, lettuce, tomato and onion — is mediocre. I mean, they wouldn’t want to break the law, would they? The burger here stayed very firmly within the bounds of the legislation; it made me sad, just like it was supposed to.

It wasn’t the worst thing ever, I’ll give it that. It was griddled and pleasantly crusty, and all the toppings were pretty good. The smoked Gouda was nice and melty (if a bit too strong) — but then who cares when the burger itself is so poor? The maple amber beer sauce must have just been globbed into one spot in the middle of the burger, because I got a couple of very sweet bites, and the rest of the burger was sauce-free. The bun, aside from having an exterior that’s a bit too crunchy, was also pretty good.

It’s the patty that really made me sad. It tasted like the patty from pretty much every other chain like this — it was well done, dry, and completely lacking in flavour. The beef is lousy, but not too lousy — it’s the cheapest thing they can get away with without it being too flagrant (it’s not a frozen patty, at least). It tastes like nothing, but it doesn’t offend.

As for the fries, they were fine. A little bit better than the burger, but again, not good enough that they’re going to risk getting shut down. Because of the law, of course.

2 out of 4

Hangry Burger

Published on April 24, 2016 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 435 Yonge Street, Toronto
Website: http://hangryburger.com/

If you’ve ever wondered what the hamburger equivalent of a shrug is, look no further. Hangry Burger now exists to answer that question.

That’s the thing: it’s not a bad burger. There’s nothing offensive about it, and I didn’t dislike eating it. But it’s not particularly good. It’s just… it’s fine (you can’t see me right now, but I’m shrugging pretty hard).

This is going to be a pretty short review, because I honestly don’t have all that much to say about it. It’s hard to muster up all that much enthusiasm to write about a burger that’s so thoroughly middle-of-the-road.

I ordered the Hangry Burger, which is their no-frills choice, and had it topped with Hangry sauce, pickles, and tomato.

The patty had some colour from the griddle, though it was cooked all the way to well done and a bit dry. It was also too finely ground, giving it a mealier texture than I’d like — but I’ve certainly had worse. As for the flavour of the beef? Remember all that shrugging I was doing earlier? Yeah, I’m still doing it.

The toppings were fine, though if the Hangry sauce was anything other than plain mayo, I couldn’t taste it.

The bun, too, was fine, though it was clearly too big and dense for the simple single-patty option — the bun-to-patty ratio was way off. The fact that it was cold and untoasted probably didn’t help.

As for the fries, they looked good, but they were a bit overcooked. They were vaguely bitter, with a borderline burnt flavour.

2.5 out of 4

Bareburger

Published on January 25, 2015January 25, 2015 by Michael Nusair3 Comments

Location: 111 Dundas Street West, Toronto
Website: http://111-dundas-st-w-toronto.bareburger.com/

It makes me really happy when I think about how good it’s gotten for burger-lovers in Toronto over the last several years. A few years ago, with the dearth of great burger choices in the city, Bareburger would have been a breath of fresh air. But now? Not so much.

And Bareburger is a fairly popular chain in the States, with most of its locations around New York City. I’ve been under the impression that New York had us handily beat in the burger department, but if this place is good enough to thrive there, it might not be so clear-cut.

It’s not even that Bareburger is bad, per se. It’s fine. There’s just nothing particularly noteworthy about it.

It’s a nicely designed restaurant, with lots of light coming in from the windows. Unlike a lot of burger joints in the city, it’s waiter service, with more than just burgers on the menu (and more choices than just beef for the burgers).

You can either pick one of their handful of pre-topped burgers, or you can customize your own. I went with the Standard: “beef, colby, stout onions, dill pickles, special sauce, brioche bun.”

Like I said, it’s fine. The griddled burger comes cooked to well done (they say medium well on the menu, but this sucker was gray throughout), and while it was vaguely juicy, it was dryer than I’d like. It was also a little bit too dense, and somewhat tough.

The patty has a very mildly beefy flavour, which was entirely wiped out by the burger’s toppings. In particular, the zesty special sauce completely knocked out any flavour from the beef itself. It wasn’t bad, don’t get me wrong — it was just a bit overwhelming.

The other toppings were pretty good as well. The fully melted colby cheese was mild and creamy, and the caramelized stout onions were dark brown, with a sweet, rich flavour.

I wasn’t as keen on the brioche bun. It was okay, but it was way too dense and substantial for the task at hand. It was also a good thirty percent wider than the patty itself, leaving me with a ridiculous amount of bun on my plate after the patty was long gone. Come on, guys. Seriously. This is burger making 101.

I feel like I’m piling on more criticism than this place deserves (again, it’s not bad), but I have to mention that it’s alarmingly expensive. The burgers are all in the 12 to 15 dollar price range, and that doesn’t include a side. Fries will run you another three bucks. Factor a drink and a tip on top of that, and you’re looking at spending well north of twenty bucks. I don’t always pay a ton of attention to this in my reviews, because it’s the quality of the burger that really concerns me, but these prices are a little bit intense, especially considering the only-average quality of the food.

The fries, too, were good but not great. But hey, let me close things out with a couple of things I really liked. They have a handful of interesting sodas on the menu — I have a hard time saying no to a unique soda, so obviously I got one. I went with blueberry, and it was surprisingly good. The blueberry flavour was really outstanding; it almost tasted like a blueberry pie in soda form. It was one of the best sodas I’ve had in quite a while.

For dessert, my dining companion ordered the Snickerdoodle ice cream sandwich; I wound up splitting it with him, and oh man was it good. I think it might even have Bang Bang beat for the title of best ice cream sandwich in the city. The cookie was cinnamony and chewy, with the absolute perfect ice cream sandwich consistency — dense, but not too dense, with just the right amount of chew. And the super creamy ice cream had a satisfyingly intense roasted marshmallow flavour — I think it was either from Greg’s, or very similar to what they serve there. It was the absolute perfect match for that cookie. I’m not even kidding: you need to go there just for that sandwich. It was outstanding.

2.5 out of 4

The Senator

Published on December 21, 2014March 1, 2015 by Michael Nusair3 Comments

Location: 249 Victoria Street, Toronto
Website: http://thesenator.com/

I was actually pretty excited to check out the Senator — any restaurant that’s been around since the ’30s has gotta be doing something right, and the place is absolutely lousy with old-school diner charm.

I’d also heard some pretty good things about their burger, which is reportedly made with beef from Cumbrae’s — one of Toronto’s more well-known butchers of note — and which is refreshingly cheap at $9.95 (including fries).

You know that part in Goodfellas where a character thinks he’s becoming a made man, only to be led into an empty basement where he has a brief moment of horror before a bullet goes into the back of his head? That was my reaction when I was served this burger. Excitement to horror in about 0.5 seconds.

Is boiling burgers a thing? Is that something that they do? I didn’t think so, but I really don’t know how else to account for the lifelessly pallid, colourless patty they put in front of me.

I’m going to assume that the patty was griddled, but I honestly don’t know how you cook a burger like that without getting even a hint of browning on the patty. If this weren’t so clearly undesirable, I’d think it was deliberate. Because seriously, how do you accomplish that? How do you cook a piece of meat on a hot surface without browning it? But it can’t possibly be on purpose. Can it?

This wasn’t a one-off mistake, either, because my dining companion had the burger as well and his looked identically sad.

Of course, if this were just a matter of appearances, then who cares? But a burger gets a lot of its flavour and texture from the griddle or the grill, so in a case like this, it’s losing out on quite a bit. You can tell from the first bite that something very essential is missing.

It was also a meatloaf burger, and had enough stuff mixed into the patty that its Cumbrae’s pedigree was completely wasted. No beefy flavour here; just onions and spices and other stuff that you don’t need. It’s meatloaf — but then again at least meatloaf has a glaze and a nice brown crust from the oven. I can’t repeat this enough: this tasted boiled.

If it even matters, the texture of the patty was otherwise okay. I think it was a bit too finely ground with a slightly mealy texture, and the well done patty was drier than I’d like, but I’ve certainly had worse.

The burger comes with lettuce, tomato, and caramelized onions off to the side. The tomato was sliced a bit thick, but the toppings were otherwise fine. However, between the sweetness of the onions and the slightly sweet (and ever-so-slightly dry) bun, it was kind of sweet overload. I wound up putting mustard on the burger to try to combat this, which I almost never do (I typically find it to be a bit over-assertive on a hamburger). It helped, but there wasn’t much to be done here; it was a lost cause.

The fries weren’t much better. They were completely soggy and practically dripping with grease, with the overwhelming flavour of oil that’s been reused one (or two, or three) times too many.

They even, somehow, managed to mess up lemonade. This is a drink that consists of three ingredients: lemon juice, water, and sugar. How do you get that wrong? Missing one of those three essential ingredients would do it. The drink was astringently sour, without even a hint of sweetness. If it’s not sweet at all, is it still even lemonade? Or is it just watered down lemon juice? More importantly, if everything else is this bad, does it matter?

1.5 out of 4