This past week was
burger week here in Toronto, and it was glorious! A huge thanks to the wonderful food lovers over at GridTO who organized the event; they continue set the bar higher and higher when it comes to food coverage across our amazing city. We love food of all kinds from simple to gourmet and the best part about this food event was how affordable it was. C'mon, $5 burgers across the city at great establishments with major proceeds benefiting
The Stop community food centre, thumbs up all around. Check out all the
great places that participated in the burger love fest. And you know we're such suckers for good burgers, I'm not going to even shy away from it. After a week long burger feature across the city, everyone gathered at week's end for the ultimate party with $3 slider versions of what they served all week. The weekend sky was gloomy no doubt, and we had a lot of work to do, but May and I rolled out of bed late 1030am, shared a bananna for 'breakfast', and made our way to
Wychwood Artscape Barns. You know, just so we had a little bit of fruit in us, and a little less guilt about packing in the meat for lunch. And good thing we got there right when it all started because I heard later on when we got home, that they ran out of sliders 3 hours after it all begun; yes, over 11,000 sliders sold in the first annual event. We're going to do our best to share our engorgement; with a short description and some of our favourites. I think it is hard to really call one burger the absolute best because it really depends on how many burgers you've had (i doubt one person tried them all), and even good quality beef after a few will all start to all taste very similar so its hard to properly distinguish or evaluate. There were definitely some standouts for different reasons, so here we go!
The first two are the $5 burgers we visited during the week at their respective restaurant.
Habits Gastropub on the left hooked us in with their Beer battered Cremini Blue Crab Burger with a corn relish. The burger had a tasty combination that could hold up against the cattle competition, but we felt it could have been fried at a better temperature, as ours was on the greasy side. We also shared a confit duck poutine to add to our meal. On the right,
The Beet served us an organic lamb burger with apricot chutney, Quebec mozzarella and pickled jalepeno. It was good, but not particularly memorable; however i really enjoyed the watercress almond soup for a $4 side upgrade.
Now onto, the burger day sliders! Our first slider was
Barque's smoked brisket burger, with candied bacon, sauteed mushrooms, aged cheddar, chipotle mayo and house-made pickles on a Portuguese bun. May didn't like the fact her bun was cold, but otherwise the overall burger had a really nice smokey punch that we enjoyed. On the right is
Bestellen's Stilton, house-made HP sauce, onions and rocket. I wish i knew what cut the meat was, but either way the patty was charred nicely and had a nice soft tasty bite to it together with the sharp cheese and carmelized onions.
Bestellen's was also the prettiest burger of them all as you can see.
E11ven's California burger had prime shoulder chuck with lettuce, tomatoe, pickle, onion, mayo, mustard topped with jalapeno havarti and sliced advocado. Their slider had the most pronounce supporting flavours, it was refreshing yet it had a sharp richness from the cheese and advocado. The slider on the right is
Keriwa's bison patty with Saskatoon berry chutney, wild leeks, aioli and thunder oak gouda on a red fife bannock bun. The bison was a welcomed change in taste, and the berry chutney was a perfect compliment to the meat and as much as I liked the bannock, we felt there was a little too much in proportion to the entire burger.
The Caledonian served up a unique haggis and lamb patty topped with housemade highland chutney on a brioche bun. The haggis was there but subtle, as the lamb was the major flavour, very well made and completely for lamb lovers.
The Gladstone served up a beef short rib burger with house cured bacon, tomato marmalade, sheep's milk cheddar and pickled red onions. As a last second decision, I think they revolutionized the afternoon by serving their burger upside down which definitely added to the overall enjoyment and presentation (hehe); but honestly, I would say their patty was the best beef patty that we tried; it was seasoned very well and was the most memorable, and not to mention perfectly shaped.
Hrvati Bar served up a two flattop ontario beef patties with smoked mozzarella, carmelized onions on a croatian steamed bun. By far the best slider bun and a good beef carmelization. And to end off our lunch, we had to get the dessert burger by Yogalicious. A probiotic frozen kefir chocolate "patty", kiwi relish, roma strawberries, a mango cheese slice on a sesame seed pastry puff. A very inventive and fun palatte changer but we wouldn't have been upset if we had another burger 'burger' instead. And... that's it! Out of the 25 or so burgers, we managed to try about 10 of them (8 of them on burger day); so I think we did pretty good considering. We each had one of the first two sliders before we smartened up and realized we could just share one at a time and try more. Admittedly, we tried more of the black tie burgers vs. the $5 burgers since they all cost the same on burger day. And although its hard to declare a best burger, we had some that stuck out of the bunch. The
Hrvati burger was very unique and by far the tastiest of the $5/resto entries.
The Gladstone had the best tasting patty and
E11ven was the most refreshing.
Bestellen is easily our burger of choice, as the toppings are likely what we'd put on our own burgers if we gourmet'd it up on our home grill. So we can declare
Bestellen's, the burger we-could-eat-everyday-anytime. So
Rob Rossi, save us a seat, we'll be coming again soon! burger'd out! ps. if anyone is interested, we'll be donating our time and photography at the
NightMarket in the Honest Ed's Alleyway on June 20th. Come out for fun evening under the moon, a bustling street scene and of course, food carts! Tickets went on sale today, and again proceeds go to
The Stop Community Food Centre
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