Guest Post: I Heart (Ham)burgers

This summer, my husband and I went on trip to Minneapolis, MN. While we were there, we hit up a quaint little Cuban place called Victor's 1959 Café. We went there because we had seen it featured on an episode of the Food Network's Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. We were seated outside and given menus. After humming and hawing over what to get, I finally decided on the Black Bean Burger.

According to the menu, the Black Bean Burger is "a veggie burger with a Cuban twist!" On it were black beans, sliced tomato, cheddar cheese, sour cream and spring mix. I opted to add sliced avocado to the burger as well. It was served up on toasted Cuban-style bread with yuca frita on the side.

All I can say is that this burger changed my life. It was no average veggie burger - it was slightly crispy, and flavorful with a delightful texture. The avocado and sour cream were a divine combination to the crispy patty, and the bun...THE BUN! It was lightly toasted on the bottom and insanely soft and no other word but HEAVENLY on the inside.

As you can see, it was also HUGE. Which I didn't mind, as this delicious burger served as both lunch and supper that day (and tasted mighty fine cold to boot!).  And in case you were wondering, the yuca frita (root fries) were also sooo good. Like a potato with a slight hint of sweet potato, and maybe turnip? Hard to explain, but delicious.

In summary, this was probably the best burger I have ever eaten in my entire life. Looking at this is making me drool - can I eat this every day, please??

VERDICT: Favourite! Maybe even Last Meal worthy!

Burger Bulletin

On my birthday this summer I was lucky enough to go Mum's at the Golf Course. It had a very different atmosphere from their other location, which has a diner feel. I had previously been told by a friend that there was a burger I needed to try here: the 40 Creek Double!

It comes with lettuce, tomato (I gave mine to Kristin), strips of bacon, two types of cheese, 40 Creek BBQ sauce, condiments and two patties of your choice, either 6 oz. handmade or 4 oz. sirloin (or angus, I can't remember which).
I chose the handmade patties and, man, did I chose right. Amazing beef! It was cooked through and seasoned well.
Put all together it is quite tall. I had difficulty biting from top to bottom, but the burger is so good that you don't really care. You just shove your face into it to get another amazing bite, regardless of the quickly accumulating mess.
This is the best burger I've had eating out in Brandon and suggest everyone try it, but make sure to bring a hearty appetite.

In a more recent burger development, A&W has expanded their burger offerings beyond the Burger Family to their close personal friends: Four Buddy Burgers are now on the menu.

The Little Buddy Burger

They are smaller, snack oriented burgers and are available as a single or double, with or without cheese. Starting at $1.75 with the Little Buddy Burger, A&W's value burgers are more expensive than the McDouble and some don't even have cheese.
I'm personally fine with cheeseless burgers, so the only issue to settle is whether or not the Buddy Burgers are worth the extra money.
I tried the Little Buddy Burger. It's composed of a fluffy, seedless bun, tantalizingly seasoned patty, Teen sauce (aka mayo, which I declined), ketchup, mustard and fried onions. They come in a pap--
FRIED ONIONS?! No fast food place offers fried onions on a value, snack burger. My mind has already been blown and I haven't even tried it yet.
It is a very good little burger. The onions complement A&W's secret seasoning very well. There is a generous squirting of both ketchup and mustard, plus the bun looks, feels and tastes like a real bun. I bought two buddies since we were driving through supper to visit family. I'd devoured one before I'd even finished filling up on gas. It's a burger I never want to stop eating.
Thinking of going back to a McDouble now feels like thinking about eating doll-house food. The extra 36¢ (plus more for upgraded Buddies) is worth it every time! Better quality + Fried onions = New snack of choice. If I subtract will power from that equation then the result would be: EAT EVERY DAY!!!

Buddy Burger picture courtesy of http://s3-media4.ak.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/L_TgQpUfhjeRgpgWeZeCQw/l.jpg

Burger Brief

It has been a considerable time since I've written about hamburgers. I have been considerably busy, though I have also eaten a considerable amount hamburgers in this time. Here are the burger highlights
Weirdest - Burger Pizza

We had borrowed bikes from the city of Adelaide and taken a ride down to the closest beach. We took a tour and decided to get some lunch. I was intrigued with the burger pizza that was on menu. I've had them before, but when this one arrived it was unlike anything I'd ever encountered before. The bottom was a pizza topped with beef, onion and cheese, basically a normal burger pizza. The toppings didn't end there, however. On top of the pizza was fresh lettuce and tomatoes and a quartered burger bun! It was the most literal burger pizza I've ever eaten. I'm sure it tasted fine, but in the end its strangeness is what sticks in my memory the most.

Top 3: The best of the best of my burger encounters since being back in Manitoba.
3 - Blondie's

1/2 burger

Shortly after we got back my mom took us to Blondie's, a burger joint on Main street in Winnipeg, just south of Kildonan Park. The place has a unique atmosphere (click the link to find out more) and a dazzling array of burgers starting at large and building up enormous beyond all reason. I chose the 1/2 pound burger and it was as big as Kristin's head. Luckily I was very hungry. I quartered it with the steak knife provided in lieu of the usual toothpick or plastic sword. The remaining quarters were still bigger than the largest burger I could buy at McDonald's or the like. It was delicious and beyond filling. It took some doing, but I did manage to eat the entire thing.

2- Dave's Hot 'n' Juicy Burgers

Recently Wendy's upgraded their burger offerings. Their classic burgers have become Dave's Hot 'n' Juicy Cheeseburgers. Wendy's has always been my favourite fast food chain. I feel it is the least like fast food. I was a bit worried when I heard of the change. It's not often good to mess with a good thing.
Then I tried them. Mess away, Wendy's, mess away! The beef definitely lives up to the name and is a definite upgrade. The toppings, as always, are fresh. What brings it all together and takes it over the top for me is a brand new addition: the butter-toasted bun. The added crispness of the bun and butter flavour make for a great burger that is unlike any the competition can offer.
Dave would be proud.

1 - Lots of Meat Burger

My favourite burger of the last while, is also the most recent. We went to the Clay Pot in Brandon. It's just down the street from us and yet I'd never been there. The menu is quite diverse, from diner style burgers and sandwiches, to more normal entrees and even a wide selection of sushi! It's everything I've ever wanted.
I had the Lots of Meat Burger because, well, I love meat. It has a patty, cheese, bacon, a slice of fried ham and a fried egg. Fried ham was the only burger topping I'd never encountered before. The burger was very good. The beef was savoury and plentiful. All the toppings worked well together, especially the addition of the ham. It makes me want to go to the Clay Pot everyday. I'm pretty sure I could never get tired of this burger, but, hey, if I did I could just order the sushi.

photos borrowed from: 

http://www.urbanspoon.com/rph/332/1443832/464180/winnipeg-blondie-s-restaurant-it-s-as-big-as-his-head-photo

http://the305.com/2011/09/20/40335/

http://www.urbanspoon.com/u/map/1559458/restaurant/Winnipeg/Clay-Pot-Cafe-Brandon

Salisbury House Cheese Nip

There is something distinct about a Salisbury House nip, other than the fact that they are called 'nips' and owned by The Guess Who former frontman Burton Cummings.

No, Sals nips are distinct in their own right due to their own glorious taste. Always piping hot, the nips come on a soft, thin bun. The meat has all the right things going on - garlic, onions, and otherdelicious unspecified seasonings. A big thing for me with food is texture. If the texture is off, if I suddenly bite into something hard or gummy while trying to enjoy a hamburger, the experience is instantly ruined and I get turned off of the restuarant for a while. But I have never had this experience at Sals. Consistant, delicious, and comforting (maybe that should go on their sign).

I think the main thing that makes Sals burgers so good is the carmelized onions. The slight crunch and sweet taste combined with the soft burger and bun make this a tastebud treat. Its worth a try, beleieve me.

VERDICT: I want to go eat one RIGHT NOW.

photo borrowed from flickr.com/photos/41828430@Noo/3259323734

Doritos Cheeseburger

Welcome to a slightly delayed edition of I ♥ hamburgers. We were in New York and busy seeing the sights and doing the do-s. Much to my surprise I only had one hamburger in New York and it was from the Metropolitan Museum of Art cafeteria and was nothing to write home about, nor blog about either. Just a run-of-the-mill cafeteria burger, though it had fancy museum-type cheese.
The first thing that comes to mind for me when I see Doritos Cheeseburger is adding some (most likely nacho cheese) Doritos to a cheeseburger and having a flavour and crunch explosion, much like putting onion rings into a hamburger. While, that would be great and I have probably done something like that in my lifetime, the Doritos Cheeseburger I'm talking about now is completely different.
Doritos has a line of tortilla chips called Late Night. These are chips that do their best to accurately mimic the taste of what the bag says they taste like. One of the newer flavours is All Nighter Cheeseburger. We were stopped in the last town in Maine before the New Brunswick border getting gas and a little snack. I had already picked out a small bag of Salt 'n' Vinegar, but we walked by a Doritos display on the way to the checkout. They stood out like my eyebrows when I don't wear glasses. Some of the bags of chips said Cheeseburger! I couldn't help myself. I immediately set down my puny S'n'V bag and grabbed the cheeseburger chips.

I was barely back to the interstate before I asked Kristin if she could pass me a cheeseburger. (I'm funny like that.) I was kind of leary before first trying it. I've had pizza chips before and they just don't quite cut it, but I took a deep breath, kept watching the road and chomped down.
I was shocked. Aside from the crunchiness the experience was exactly like eating a cheeseburger. Kristin and I were both amazed. The beef taste was there along with all the condiments. It was realistic in a way that no chip I'd ever tried before was. If I wasn't driving and could have closed my eyes, I may not have believed that I was eating a chip. They are that good. Kristin figured they tasted most like McDonald's hamburgers and I thought for a while, while eating quite a few crunchy, triangular cheeseburgers, and decided that they taste most like Dairy Queen cheeseburgers to me.
 Doritos may put a little bit more mustard on their cheeseburgers than I usually do, but I'm not so picky anymore and love these chips. I really wish they were available in Canada. Another product to add to the please-bring-these-here list, especially since they are now my favourite Doritos flavour.

photo borrowed from http://www.everyview.com/2010/01/16/doritos-late-night-all-nighter-cheeseburger/

I ♥ hamburgers!

Welcome to the February edition of I ♥ hamburgers! Today I'm going to talk about McDonald's McDouble: the poor relation of the double cheeseburger.

In Brandon the advent of the McDouble was silent and somewhat aggravating. I was used to ordering the $1.39 double cheeseburger and then one day I ordered and it was suddenly $1.79. I didn't really notice it until I got home. The next time I was in a McD's I did a double check of the value menu and saw that the double cheeseburger had been replaced by something called the McDouble. At this point I was intrigued. What could have bumped the regular double off the menu? Why would this newcomer get the Mc moniker that the double had worked so hard to claim? I basically had to order it. I was also hungry.
When I get to my seat I open up the wrap to try and solve this mystery. What I find looks an awful lot like a regular double cheeseburger. There is one bun, two puny McDonald's burger patties, ketchup, mustard, those pesky über chopped onions, a couple of pickle slices and cheese. WAIT A SECOND! The cheese is different. A McDouble only has one slice of cheese. That is exactly half the cheese found on a double cheeseburger. My first thought was something like McDonald's thinks one slice of cheese is worth 40 cents?! Why would McDonald's just change the price without telling us? I figure the amount of double cheeseburgers people would buy reflexively before finding the McDouble at the value price would net McDonald's a hefty profit.
It was about now that my hunger kicked in and I stopped philosophizing and bit into my McDouble. (I have to add a note here: I most likely ordered my first McDouble with just ketchup, though I order them now just without onions and then take the pickles off and give them to Kristin.) As my father would say, it was a taste sensation. The double cheeseburger is pretty good, but the one difference in the McDouble is all the difference. In the McDouble McDonald's has finally mastered the all important meat to cheese ratio. The double cheeseburger was always just a bit too much cheese for me. I found myself removing it whenever I could. Pulling the corners off, etcetera. Now, with the McDouble the cheese is finally, perfectly balanced with the meat. I understand why it gets the "Mc" where the double cheeseburger didn't.
At this point I do have to say that Kristin says that there are a lot of people who like cheese, her included. I'm not disagreeing with that. The perfection in the meat-cheese ratio applies only to my taste. Also, in raising the double cheeseburger's price McDonald's has made the love of cheese even more expensive.
I recommend the McDouble for snacking, meals, when you think you might be hungry but aren't quite sure, when Kristin is bugging you for some pickles, for when thinking of food makes you hungry, well, for any occasion really. It's good!

photo borrowed from http://www.mcarkansas.com/6230/

I ♥ hamburgers!

Holidays and travel have postponed this month's I ♥ hamburgers a few days, but just think of it as a flight: great when it arrives on time, but never really expected to ;)

Kristin and her family have always told me about the hamburgers at Choy's restaurant. It used to be in Strathclair, but now resides in Shoal Lake, a town away. Kristin says it is one of her favourites. Janna used to hide her unfinished cheeseburgers under the table, but now she just splits them between three people so nothing goes to waste.

I was happy to end up at Choy's between Christmas and New Year's to visit a friend of Kristin before he heads off to Macedonia. We all got hamburgers. I was feeling particularly hungry, so I ordered the double cheeseburger with fries. It comes with relish and fried onions, oh and of course cheese. I took the onions off and got ready for the Choy's experience. Normally I would have added ketchup to a burger such as this, but I wanted the authentic taste... okay, I was too timid to ask the server when she came around, so had to do without. A Choy's burger is on the small end of the burger spectrum, easily grasped by one hand. The patties are very meat-y and finely ground. They have the chinese burger taste, which is so good, and probably so MSG. The bun is like a regular bun you could buy at the store except slightly greasy. Overall, it was quite good, but the burger was a bit dry. That is probably my fault for removing the onions, so next time I'll ask for ketchup and it will be excellent.

photo borrowed from Choy's menu (http://www.mts.net/~choy1/biz_menu_canad.htm)

I ♥ hamgurgers!

Hamburgers are one of my all time favourite foods. So, in honour of them I am starting a monthly feature: I ♥ hamgurgers! I love homemade hamburgers. I love fastfood hamburgers. I love appetizer slider-burgers. I love chinese restaurant hamburgers. I just love hamburgers!

In the first installment I am going to feature a burger that I get to eat very infrequently: A Harvey's Ringer. Putting onion rings on burgers has only entering pop-cuisine fairly recently and I've only lived in one place that had a Harvey's (and it was in the airport) so I rarely get the chance to partake in this excellent example of burgermanship. I would classify Harvey's in the upper class of fast food restaurants. I love that they leave the topping of the burger totally up to the customer, Subway-style. You never have to feel weird or demanding requesting things be added or removed from your burger; since it starts as a blank slate, Harvey's gives you complete control in completing it. I usually get lots of lettuce, pickles, ketchup and a small squirt of hot sauce. Once seated I remove the pickles and give them to Kristin: 1) because she loves pickles and 2) because I like the pickle taste, but find that a pickle dominates the taste of everything around it. If removed, the pickle juice gives a nice pickle undertone to the burger, which is fantastic.

We were in Charlottetown for Thanksgiving and for our last lunch before heading back home we stopped at the Harvey's. Now, I have to confess, I didn't actually order a Ringer, I just got Frings (which is a mixture of fries and onion rings) with my cheeseburger combo and put some of my onion rings on my cheeseburger. It was great having two distinct crunches in the burger: lettuce and fried, breaded onion. The burger was so good it was the food I discussed most following Thanksgiving and it takes something very special to top stuffing.

photo borrowed from http://smartcanucks.ca/harveys-canada-free-original-burger-with-bacon-cheddar-ringer-purchase/