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An Amazing Cheeseburger at BEAR Steak Sandwiches

Published on November 6, 2024 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 550A College Street, Toronto
Website: https://bearsteak.ca/

BEAR Steak Sandwiches recently added a cheeseburger to their delightfully focused menu (they serve three things: a steak sandwich, a roast pork sandwich, and now, a burger), and yeah. Of course. Of course I need to try that. Their steak sandwich is easily one of the best sandwiches in the city. So if they’re taking a swing at a hamburger? Yes please.

Bonus: it’s a big fat chunky boy rather than the thin smashed burger that’s so omnipresent in the city. I like a smashed burger as much as the next guy, but come on. Other types of hamburgers exist.

The cheeseburger, as per their menu: “Medium rare chuck patty, American cheese, white onion, pickle, sesame bun. Sauce on the side.”

I skipped the onion, but otherwise got this as is.

Wow, it’s good. Seriously, seriously good. The patty is a thing of beauty: amazing beefy flavour, great texture, perfectly seasoned. That beefy flavour slaps you in the face in all the best ways. I know that it looks very rare in that photo, but it was cooked to a perfect medium rare and had none of the mushiness that you’ll find in too-rare hamburger patties. It was glorious.

It comes with a little tub of what I’m assuming is their chimichurri sauce with mayo mixed in; it’s seriously delicious, but completely unnecessary. When the beef is this good, I don’t need anything to distract from its flavour; the zippiness from the pickles and the salty richness from the cheese are all you need.

The bun has a bit more heft than your typical burger bun, but since the patty here is so substantial, it totally works.

My burger blog is pretty much defunct at this point, but if I were to review this there, I’d rate it a perfect four out of four. I have some minor nitpicks (the cheese could have been meltier, the grind on the beef could have been a bit more coarse, and the beef could have been slightly fattier/juicier), but those are teeny-tiny complaints about an otherwise superlative hamburger.

Ruffles Crunch Teen Burger at A&W

Published on October 1, 2024 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1130 Dundas Street East, Mississauga
Website: https://web.aw.ca/

The Ruffles Crunch Teen Burger at A&W is a standard A&W bacon cheeseburger with a bunch of chips in it. The end.

Oh, I guess I should write more? I’ll write a bit more. But that pretty much covers it.

The burger, as per A&W’s website: “A perfectly seasoned grass-fed beef patty topped with Ruffles Cheddar & Sour Cream chips, lettuce, onions, tomato, bacon, cheddar cheese and a creamy garlic and jalapeño aioli, served on a freshly toasted sesame seed bun.”

It’s not bad. The fat stack of Ruffles adds a decent amount of crunch and some nice zippiness from the seasoning. They make for a decent burger topping, but I think it’s unlikely anyone will walk away from thing thinking that chips should be on all burgers. There’s a reason chips aren’t on all burgers. They’re a bit overwhelming as a topping.

I’ll admit that I didn’t even realize the sauce was supposed to be a creamy garlic and jalapeño aioli until I started writing this review. There wasn’t really enough there for any of the flavours to stand out; it tasted like plain mayo to me.

The rest of the burger is what it is. The patty was a bit dry, but it’s tasty enough. It’s fine. The whole thing is fine. It’s a fast food burger with chips in it. It’s not one of those things where you’re like “wow, this is so much better than I was imagining!” It’s exactly what you’re imagining.

Big Arch at McDonald’s

Published on August 27, 2024 by Michael Nusair5 Comments

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

The Big Arch is kind of a big deal for McDonald’s. They’re making a pretty big deal about it, at least, and apparently it’s going to be rolling out internationally soon, though right now it’s limited to a few countries.

The idea was to make a bigger, “more satiating” burger, and they’ve certainly succeeded on the size front. It’s a big boy, that’s for sure. Just looking at it, it’s substantially heftier than your typical McDonald’s fare.

(For comparison’s sake, the Big Arch is 1065 calories, the Big Mac is 570, and the Quarter Pounder with Cheese is 530.)

The Big Arch, per the McDonald’s website: “Two quarter pound 100% Canadian beef patties, layered with three slices of white processed cheese, and topped with crispy onions, slivered onions, pickles, lettuce and delicious Big Arch sauce, served on a toasted sesame and poppy seed bun.”

I should note that I got lucky. My burger was well assembled, and the patties were fresh and a little bit juicy (a juicy burger? At McDonald’s??). As always at a fast food joint, your mileage may vary. But I really enjoyed this thing.

The element that stands out the most is the Big Arch sauce. It’s similar to Big Mac sauce, but like five or six times zestier. It’s got an almost citrusy brightness to it that actually does a pretty great job of cutting through the richness of the patties and the cheese. It’s quite tasty, which is a good thing because this is a saucy burger; they put two napkins in my bag and that was just barely enough.

Everything else works quite well. I’m normally not a fan of raw onions, but here there’s so much stuff going on that you can barely taste them. They mostly just add crunch (and the crunchiness from the fresh onions and crispiness from the fried ones are a nice combo).

I liked this way more than I thought I would. It McDonald’s-y in all the best ways. I guess the idea is that this will become a permanent part of the menu, and I hope that’s the case. It feels like it could happily live alongside McDonald’s classics like the Big Mac and the Quarter Pounder.

Tasty Grilled Burgers at Elijah’s Automatic

Published on August 7, 2024 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 821 The Queensway, Etobicoke
Website: https://elijahsautomatic.com/

I was actually quite excited to try Elijah’s Automatic, the newest venture from Shant Mardirosian of Burger’s Priest fame. It’s been a while, but when Burger’s Priest first opened and had just the one location on the east end, it was something special. Their burgers were upsettingly good. Basically perfect. That’s not to mention the fact that they pretty much single-handedly ushered in the smashed burger trend that swept through the GTA over the last decade or so.

A new burger place from the brains behind that operation? Yeah, that’s exciting.

Smartly, Elijah’s Automatic isn’t making the griddled burgers you can get at roughly a billion other burger joints in the city; they’re grilling them. It’s kinda funny that, pre-Burger’s Priest, it was hard to find a non-fast-food burger that wasn’t grilled. Now it seems like a delightful change of pace.

I ordered the Automatic with Cheese (“Two flame broiled beef patties with cheddar cheese, pickle, charred onion, mustard and ketchup”) and the beef fat fries.

It’s a solid burger. And when they say it’s grilled, it’s grilled. The smoky, charred flavour is actually a bit overwhelming. I think this style of burger might be better suited to one big patty rather than two smaller ones, which would provide a better balance between the flavour of the beef and the flavour from the grill.

It’s a shame; this article says they’re using dry-aged ribeye fat to give the burgers more flavour, but you’d never know. All you can taste is the grill.

That’s not an unsatisfying flavour, of course. I enjoyed it. My burger blog is basically defunct at this point, but if I were reviewing this there, I’d give it a solid three out of four. It’s slightly on the dry side and probably a bit too finely ground, but it’s quite pleasant. It’s more along the lines of a fast food burger on a good day than something you should go out of your way for, but it’s a tasty burger.

As for the fries, they’re battered, which isn’t my favourite style of fry, but for what they are, they’re very good.

Creamy Parmesan & Bacon Quarter Pounder at McDonald’s

Published on June 2, 2024 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

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

Why aren’t these limited-time-only burgers at McDonald’s ever a Big Mac? Why are they always Quarter Pounders? A Big Mac with some kind of different sauce in it? I’d try it!

Alas, here’s another Quarter Pounder, though I quite enjoyed this one, so I guess I shouldn’t complain.

The Creamy Parmesan & Bacon Quarter Pounder: “A quarter pound of 100% Canadian beef topped with a creamy parmesan and black pepper sauce, hickory-smoked bacon, crispy onions, pickles, ketchup, mustard and 2 slices of processed cheddar cheese served on a toasted sesame seed bun.”

I’ll admit that I got quite lucky with this one; a burger that’s hot, fresh, and well-assembled at a fast food joint is far from a sure thing, but that’s what I ended up with. A burger at McDonald’s can be juicy, apparently! Who knew?

The main thing that makes this stand out is the creamy parmesan and black pepper sauce, which is actually pretty tasty. It’s quite ranch-esque, but it does have a bit of a parmesan flavour (pepper, on the other hand, I didn’t particularly notice). Put this on a Big Mac, please.

Otherwise, crispy onions and bacon are always welcome on a burger, and everything else is standard Quarter Pounder stuff. It’s a solid fast food hamburger.