Pink in the Middle

I like my burgers pink in the middle. People think I'm crazy. I'm sure to be infected with E-Coli and die an agonizingly slow and painful death. At restaurants when I ask for a medium rare burger I often get a pained expression and, in Canada anyway, the standard reply, "sorry but it is illegal to serve burgers medium rare. We have to cook the burgers through and well done". They tend to leave out the obvious, "sorry your burger is required to be dry, tasteless and crappy".


What restaurants are really saying and what they are really worried about is that they don't trust their ground beef source. I can't say I blame them, with the size and scope and questionable practices of the industrial meat industry it's hard to trust the quality of commercially produced ground beef.


Here's a novel idea: grind your own meat! Is there a kitchen and facilities in this restaurant?


I have long suspected that there is no such law. Just think about it for a second, it's illegal to serve a burger medium rare but perfectly legal to serve beef tartar. Or perhaps beef Carpaccio anyone?

From a link on Vic Burger I came across this posting at Foodosophy. They argue that there is no law on the books preventing restaurants from serving medium rare burgers.

Alleluia! Vindication!


This is a food quality issue period. The article goes on to identify 3 Vancouver restaurants that grind their own meat and offer burgers medium rare:




Refeul Burger



1. Refuel


2. Hamilton Street Grill


3. La Brasserrie.








I can certainly attest to Refuel the burger flavour and quality is off the charts and is definitely one of my favourites in Vancouver for sure.



Guess were my next two Vancouver burgers, and subsequent posts, are coming from?


Stay tuned.


A special thanks to Vic Burgers and Foodosophy for the heads up.