beef – Michael Eats

Chicken Cheeseburger at McDonald’s

Published on April 11, 2024 by Michael Nusair1 Comment

Location: 1001 Islington Avenue, Etobicoke
Website: https://www.mcdonalds.com/ca/en-ca.html

I recently wrote about the Surf ‘N Turf Burger, which features a double cheeseburger and a Filet-o-Fish patty crammed into one thing. It’s part of McDonald’s new Remix Menu, which is all about cramming things together to see what happens.

The Chicken Cheeseburger is basically a Junior Chicken and a cheeseburger crammed together. McDonald’s describes it as “a combo of two classics featuring a crispy chicken patty made with Canadian-raised seasoned chicken and a juicy 100% Canadian beef patty, all topped with a slice of melty processed cheddar cheese, a tangy pickle, onions, ketchup and mustard on a toasty bun.”

Like the Surf ‘N Turf Burger, it’s fine. It’s more of a fun novelty than something you’d likely want to go back for, but it’s okay.

The combo of fish and beef in the Surf ‘N Turf Burger was vaguely off-putting, so I guess this one is a bit better in that there’s nothing befuddling about it. The slight crispiness and peppery flavour of the chicken patty complements the cheeseburger reasonably well. But the beef and the chicken both want to be the star — they can’t decide who should be a supporting player, so the whole thing feels a bit neither here nor there.

Unique Chinese Food at Tangritah Kabab House

Published on December 17, 2023December 17, 2023 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 900 Rathburn Road West, Mississauga
Website: None

One of the things I like about living in Toronto is that not only is pretty much every country’s cuisine available to try (which I explore in another blog, 196 Plates — I think it might be about time to bring that one back), you can actually get so much more specific than that.

This place — which specializes in Uyghur cuisine — is a great example of this. “Chinese food” tends to be put under one enormous umbrella, but China is a huge country, and its food is wildly different from region to region.

I tried a few things here, and it was all extremely delicious. First up: a dish the menu only refers to as “fried meat.” I think it was beef, though it might have been lamb (if it was, it didn’t have much of a lamby flavour). Either way, it was super tasty, with a bunch of tender meat, nicely cooked onions, and a very cumin-tinged flavour that was extremely addictive.

Next up was the Tangritah Special Langmen, which is an Uyghur dish in which hand-pulled noodles are topped with stir-fried veggies and meat. The flavour here was a bit less distinctive than the fried meat, but the noodles had a really satisfying chewiness, and the veggies and meat were perfectly cooked (again, I’m not sure what the meat was, but I’m gonna say beef).

Finally, I tried the samsa, a bun filled with a mix of lamb and onions. This looks like it might have initially been crispy on its exterior, which would have been nice, but it was either steamed or microwaved to reheat and was soft throughout. Regardless, it was quite tasty.

Delicious, Beefy Sandwiches at Marq’s Chicago Beef

Published on November 6, 2023 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 707 Dundas Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.marqsbeef.ca/

If you’re looking for a tasty, beefy sandwich, look no further: you’ve found it. Go to Marq’s and thank me later.

As the name implies, Marq’s serves Chicago-style Italian beef sandwiches, which features a whole bunch of roast beef on a French roll, served with a beefy au jus sauce (which, unlike a French dip, is incorporated right into the sandwich).

The sandwich is served as saucy as you like it: either juiced, dipped, or dunked, with dipped being the default level. You can further customize your sandwich with giardiniera (spicy pickled veggies) or sweet peppers, or if you want to really live it up, both.

I got the sandwich dipped with both, and it was extremely tasty. It’s exactly what you want it to be — the beef has a great flavour, it’s super tender, and the sauce-soaked bread is the perfect vehicle. That’s not to mention the zingy giardiniera, which does a great job of adding some brightness to the very heavy sandwich.

There’s not much else to say about it — it’s a great sandwich. There’s a whole lot I liked about it, and nothing that I didn’t.

Tasty Buns at Bao Mama

Published on April 4, 2023April 4, 2023 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 100 City Centre Drive, Mississauga
Website: https://baomama.ca/

Bao Mama currently has a temporary pop-up in the Food District at Square One (until April 16th), but if you miss them there, you can check out their permanent location in Scarborough. And you might want to do that, because their Filipino-inspired buns are thoroughly tasty.

The first one I tried was the hip hipon crispy shrimp bao, which features crispy fried shrimp topped with a zingy sauce and “Asian house slaw.” The shrimp was a bit overcooked, but this was otherwise quite satisfying, with a nice contrast between the fluffy bao and the crispy fried shrimp, not to mention the tasty slaw and the slightly sweet sauce.

I also tried the triple B braised beef asado bao, which is stuffed with a generous amount of tender braised beef, and topped with the house slaw and crispy onions. This was easily my favourite of the two; that ultra-tender, very flavourful beef is something special.

They have a tangy, sweet chili sauce you can get on the side, and this stuff is a must — it complements both baos perfectly, and does a great job of amping up the flavours and adding a mild kick.

Meaty Sandwiches at German Doner Kebab

Published on March 14, 2023 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 246 Queen Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.germandonerkebab.com/

German Doner Kebab is a German chain with locations around the world that specializes in — surprise, surprise — doner kebab.

They have a few things on the menu, though it all revolves around the doner kebab, which is meat that’s cooked on a vertical rotating spit, shawarma-style. They serve chicken, beef, or a mix of both.

I ordered the Original German Doner Kebab, which features a whole bunch of meat (chicken and beef, in my case), veggies and sauce on what they call toasted sesame waffle bread.

It’s tasty enough, though the way the sandwich was constructed meant that there was a ton of meat on the bottom, veggies in the middle, and sauce on top. I tried my best to alternate bites between the three sections so I’d get a variety of flavours, but it was basically impossible to get a mouthful with all three components.

The sandwich comes as it comes, so I wasn’t told anything about the sauces or any of the toppings, but according to the website they have three sauces: signature spicy sauce, signature garlic sauce, and signature yogurt sauce. I wish it were spicier, but otherwise the sauces were quite tasty: they were sweet, garlicky, and a little bit tangy. They would have done a great job of balancing out the saltiness of the meat, but unfortunately there was a voluminous layer of veggies between the meat and the sauce, so I didn’t get any mouthfuls with both.

Because yeah, the meat was very salty. The level of seasoning was so intense that it entirely overwhelmed the flavour of the meat; I tried a bunch on its own (as you can see from the picture, a decent amount had tumbled out of the sandwich before they even brought it to me), and none of it particularly tasted like chicken or beef — it just tasted like generic, salty meat. I literally couldn’t tell any of it apart. They might have accidentally given me one or the other instead of a mix, but the fact that I couldn’t figure out what any of it was supposed to be is… odd.

Still, it was tasty enough; there were no off or gamy flavours here, so it certainly wasn’t unpleasant to eat. That’s not to mention the bread, which was nicely toasted, with a satisfying exterior crunch and fluffy interior that (mostly) held together despite how messy the sandwich was.

It’s hard to wholeheartedly recommend this place when Otto’s Berlin Doner is serving a very similar sandwich that’s much, much better. But if you’re in the area and you’re looking for a hearty, quick meal, you could definitely do worse.