Tag: French onion soup

French Onion Grilled Cheese at Phancy’s Bodega

Published on by Michael NusairLeave a comment

French Onion Grilled Cheese at Phancy's Bodega
Location: 2473 Dundas Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.phancybodega.com/

French onion soup?  Yeah, that’s delicious.  Grilled cheese?  Obviously great.  So if you’re going to cram the two together, clearly I need to try that.

They have a bunch of tasty looking hoagies and grilled cheese sandwiches at Phancy’s (I’ve heard the Buffalo chicken is particularly good), but once I saw the French onion soup sandwich, it had to happen.

French Onion Grilled Cheese at Phancy's Bodega

The French onion grilled cheese, per Phancy’s menu: “Truffle french onion mayo, provolone, caramelized french onions on butter toasted pullman loaf.”

It’s a quality sandwich.  How could it not be?  It’s got a whole bunch of caramelized onions and gooey cheese, so of course it tastes good.

French Onion Grilled Cheese at Phancy's Bodega

The fluffy, slightly sweet brioche-like bread isn’t a perfect match for the sandwich, however.  It has a hard time holding together under the deluge of greasy toppings, and its sweetness is probably overkill.

Something like sourdough would bring bit more heft, not to mention a zingy counterpoint to the very sweet caramelized onions (the sandwich is really crying out for something acidic to cut through the extreme richness, though I suppose that would muddle the French onion soup theme).

French Onion Grilled Cheese at Phancy's Bodega

Still, it’s a very tasty sandwich, though I should note that this was maybe the greasiest, heaviest grilled cheese sandwich I’ve ever eaten.  It was like taking a wrecking ball to my guts.

Don’t make any big plans after eating this thing, is what I’m saying.

French Onion Cheeseburger at Wendy’s

Published on by Michael NusairLeave a comment

French Onion Cheeseburger at Wendy's
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.

French Onion Cheeseburger at Wendy's

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.

French Onion Cheeseburger at Wendy's

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.