caramelized onion – Michael Eats

Grilled Cheese Cheeseburger at Wendy’s

Published on May 20, 2025May 20, 2025 by Michael Nusair1 Comment

Location: 5250 Dundas Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.wendys.com/en-ca

Wendy’s has apparently been in Canada for 50 years, and to celebrate, they’re serving a cheeseburger with two grilled cheese sandwiches for buns. As you do.

No, grilled cheese sandwiches as buns isn’t exactly the most original or fresh idea at this point, but it’s still the type of novelty fast food nonsense that gets me through the day. Most new fast food burgers just add a different sauce or whatever, and it’s like, come on, guys. I know you can do better than this.

Wendy’s: I commend you. I don’t think the burger was particularly good, but hey, you tried.

Here’s how Wendy’s describes the Grilled Cheese Cheeseburger: “A quarter-pound of fresh, 100% Canadian beef topped with cheese, caramelized onions, and mayo all between a grilled-cheese bun on top and another on the bottom. Three sandwiches. One burger.”

The biggest issue here? I don’t think anyone gave the person who made my burger the memo that a grilled cheese sandwich is supposed to be grilled. I mean, maybe I’m out of the loop, but I’m pretty sure that’s how grilled cheese is supposed to work? Otherwise it’s just a cheese sandwich?

Both sandwiches had been lightly toasted on one side, but not enough to particularly melt the cheese. The bottom one was partially melted, but the cheese in the top bun was fully cold.

This means that you’re getting double the bread for no reason. It’s a lot of bread! And because it was mostly untoasted and fully unbuttered (and slightly stale), it’s all very, very dry. Between the mega-dose of bread and the not-especially-juicy burger patty, it was legitimately hard to eat. It was like the Wendy’s version of the saltine challenge. If my bites were too big, my mouth dried out. I was reaching for my drink between every mouthful.

And I like caramelized onions, but the combo of the sweet onions and the punishing amount of mildly sweet bread meant that the burger really needed some pickles or veggies or something to break up the one-note flavour.

I really wanted to like this, but no. I’m sorry, but no. This burger seems like it should be fun, but my life is now appreciably worse for having tried it. Thanks, Wendy’s.

Delicious Sandwiches at San Wich

Published on March 11, 2025 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 616 Gladstone Avenue, Toronto
Website: https://www.instagram.com/sanwichto/

Gus Tacos has several locations throughout the city and is reliably tasty, so when I found out they had opened a sandwich shop called San Wich, I was all over it.

Right now it’s take-out only, though they do seem to have space for a decently-sized patio next to the restaurant, so once the weather improves, I’m guessing that’ll be a thing.

I tried a couple of the sandwiches: the beef barbacoa (“Mayo, harvati cheese, beef barbacoa, caramelized and raw onion in a bun”) and the cubana (“Mustard, mayo, pickles, braised pork, ham, harvati and gouda cheese in a bun”).

I really liked them both. The beef barbacoa was absolutely crammed with tasty beef, which was nicely tender without ever feeling mushy. And, of course, beef and caramelized onions are best friends. I skipped the raw onions, and while I don’t regret that choice (raw onions are gross; I’m right and the rest of the world is wrong), I think their crunchiness probably would have enhanced things (too bad they’re so gross — again, you are wrong about this, don’t argue with me about it, just accept it).

As for the bread, the fresh, fluffy roll works perfectly. My only knock against the sandwich is that some kind of acidity — a zippy sauce or some kind of pickle — would have been nice to cut the richness, but otherwise this was top-notch.

I think the cubana was even better. Like the barbacoa, the quality of the various meats was stellar, and unlike the barbacoa, this one was nicely rounded out by the mustard and the pickles, which do a great job of making the sandwich feel less one-note heavy.

I will say, however, that this might have been the greasiest sandwich I’ve ever eaten? The bun was slippery and was dripping the entire time I was eating it. It was like the whole thing had been dipped in a vat of oil. So it might give you a heart attack, but you’ll have a smile on your face when it happens.

I also tried a slice of the tres leches cake; I didn’t photograph this, and honestly, the less said about it, the better. Still hungry after the meal? Get another sandwich!

French Onion Cheeseburger at Wendy’s

Published on April 1, 2024 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 5250 Dundas Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.wendys.com/en-ca

French onion soup is delicious. That’s just a fact. If you disagree with that statement — sorry to break it to you, but you have bad opinions about soup.

Cramming French onion soup flavours into a hamburger is such a foolproof idea that I’m shocked you don’t see it more often. That’s not to say that you never see it (I actually reviewed a French onion soup burger for my burger blog a few years ago), but I think this is the first time I’ve seen it at a fast food joint.

The burger, as per Wendy’s menu: “A quarter-pound of fresh, never-frozen Canadian beef, two slices of cheese, caramelized onions, crispy onions, and a seasoned mayo sauce. Your favourite fancy soup is now your favourite fancy burger.”

(Is French onion soup fancy? I feel like any dish whose primary appeal is gobs of melty cheese can’t be classified as “fancy,” but maybe I’m wrong.)

The burger doesn’t do a particularly great job of capturing the flavours of a bowl of French onion soup, mostly because the cheese is American rather than the traditional gruyere (or even something vaguely gruyere-like, which does exist in processed cheese form). On the other hand, it’s delicious, so who cares.

It’s a really, really good fast food cheeseburger; one of the best I’ve had in quite a while, in fact. Gooey American cheese and griddled onions are best friends on a burger, the crispy onions add some nice texture, and the seasoned mayo sauce adds a nice dose of creaminess and richness.

And the patty itself was reasonably juicy and had a decent (if very mild) beefy flavour. Of course, that’ll depend on the location you visit, but I feel like Wendy’s is the most consistent fast food chain in that regard. It’s good more often than it’s not.

Porchetta Roll

Published on February 6, 2018February 6, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 4120 Dixie Road, Mississauga
Website: http://www.porchettaroll.com/

I have a very, very hard time saying no to a porchetta sandwich. So when I found myself at this particular plaza and saw that there was a new porchetta-based restaurant? Well, I wasn’t planning on eating lunch, but I guess I am now.

The menu is mostly based around porchetta and rotisserie chicken. I got the porchetta sandwich, which comes topped with arugula, caramelized onions, garlic aoili, and mustard.

The obvious comparison is Porchetta & Co., and no, it’s not as good as that. The pork — while tender and tasty — was underseasoned, and there was zero crackling in my sandwich.

I won’t say that a porchetta sandwich is pointless without crackling, but come on. Crackling. I need it.

It probably doesn’t help that the last porchetta sandwich I ate was this one in Italy, and literally every other porchetta sandwich is garbage compared to that. It’s an unfair comparison, but I couldn’t help it.

Still, it was a tasty sandwich, and a pretty decent deal at about ten bucks with tax (they absolutely cram the sandwich with porchetta — I’d say it’s double if not triple the amount they give you at Porchetta & Co.). I’d probably ask for it without the caramelized onions next time; they were tasty and perfectly cooked, but their sweetness overwhelmed the subtly-spiced pork.

Boar

Published on November 7, 2013 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 3 Glebe Road East, Toronto
Website: http://www.boarsandwiches.ca/

Boar is a spinoff of Black Camel, which serves some pretty solid sandwiches. Because of my affection for that place, I’ve been meaning to check Boar out for a while, though I don’t typically find myself near Yonge and Eglinton, so it took a few months to get there.

They serve Italian sandwiches like veal, sausage, and meatball, with your choice of various sauces and condiments.

I’m a sucker for a good veal sandwich, so I ordered that with tomato sauce and caramelized onions.

It’s a bit different from the traditional veal sandwich that they serve at a place like California Sandwiches: rather than being dipped in the tomato sauce, the breaded, fried veal cutlet has the sauce spooned on top.

These types of sandwiches typically feature a smooth, blended sauce with a fairly mild flavour. The sauce here, on the other hand, is rich and chunky, with the intense flavour of a sauce that’s been reduced to its purest essence. It’s pretty fantastic, and pairs perfectly with the tender, perfectly fried cutlet.

The only misstep are the caramelized onions (and that’s my fault, since I was the one who chose them); though they were perfectly cooked and sweetly flavourful, they were a little bit too assertive and just got in the way of the outstanding interplay between the rich sauce and the crispy cutlet.

It’s mostly a take-out place, though they do have a small dining room off to the side. With the exposed concrete walls, the rustic wood tables, and the boar’s head mounted on the wall, it has a vaguely creepy vibe that made me think Leatherface was going to bust in at any moment, chainsaw roaring. But the sandwich was so good that this could have happened, and I still would have called the visit a win.