Canoe Brew Pub. Victoria, BC

This is a great looking place. On the waterfront in Victoria the Canoe Brew Pub looks like a renovated old boat building facility or marina warehouse. This is a cavernous space with exposed old wooden beams and brick walls. Nice house brewed beer and happy to say, awesome burger. I had the huge braised beef blue cheese burger with a Sirens Sons Pale Ale. From the Menu: Quist farms 8 oz fresh ground chuck patty, bbq braised beef short rib meat, blue cheese, bacon, iceberg lettuce, tomato, beer braised onion, house sauce, kosher dill. Fantastic Burger, great flavors an easy 9/10. The blue cheese just came through as background flavor to give the burger an unexpected deep flavor. The burgers are hand made using fresh local beef from Quist Farms in the Cowichan Valley raised without antibiotics or growth hormones – awesome.

One small criticism, the short ribs were on the dry side (could have been a 10/10 otherwise), but all in this burger rocked.


I’m coming back for the Aussie Pub Burger next time.


Check them out at: http://www.canoebrewpub.com/

Kincaid’s Fish, Chop and Steakhouse.
Phoenix, Arizona

Signature Chophouse Burger: All natural handformed 10 ounce beef patty, with smoked bacon, Boursin cheese and caramelized onions

This is a guest review by my friend Christine, another burger aficionado. Probably a bigger lover of burgers then myself given that she ordered a burger at a steakhouse. I had the ribeye. So this is her review:
A disappointing 6.5/10. The burger had no flavour. Christine ordered the burger well done. We had a discussion on the merits of well done vs pink in the middle med rare. What can I say, Christine is still young, she’ll come around one day. And what was up with that big glob of cheese sitting on top of the burger? Christine took it off the burger to make room for the mushrooms, fried onions and other condiments that were spread out around the plate. I was actually looking at the presentation, thinking, WT..

I forgot to ask if she would order the burger again. My guess is no. From what I saw, I wouldn’t. Dissapointing.

 

By the way, my 20 oz bone in Ribeye was pretty good. Not spectacular. Above average. Maybe a 7.5/10. It sounded better on the menu: We proudly serve Creekstone Farms' premium Black Angus beef, corn fed and aged 28 days for flavor and tenderness. All steaks are grilled and seasoned with our custom rub, then topped with our steakhouse butter. Served with crispy buttermilk onion strings and red jacket mashed potatoes.

I do appreciate the fact that Creekstone farms raises natural beef, no antibiotics no hormones. I’d come back for the steak just because of that.

Check out Kincaids at: http://www.kincaids.com/

The Red Onion, Vancouver, BC Canada


My first burger of the New Year and it was pretty good.
First lets start with the menu. At some places menus are an afterthought. At others, menus are marketing tools, a chance to both inform and sell product. Here we have the marketing tool.


“previous winner of the Vancouver Restaurant Critics Best Burger award”. Right away get ready for a special burger!



“baking is done here in the morning” I assume that means the buns.



“This ain’t gourmet but it’s the best, darn purest, leanest burger you will ever eat. 1/3 pound and the beef is always fresh never frozen. Every patty is handmade and charbroiled to 400 degrees F to med. well done. The tomatoes, crisp lettuce, fried or raw onions and a unique mustard based sauce”. And, by the way who says I want a lean burger?



I had the Red Onion Burger with fried onions, cheddar and bacon. This is what I thought:


It’s not the best, but it’s pretty good. I’ve had so called gourmet burgers not as good as this. Give it an 8/10. The patty was overdone, I should have asked for it medium doneness. The patty also gets lost in the big huge bun, which was really good (do you think they actually bake the buns there in the morning?) The veggies were absolutely fresh, but too much lettuce, half inch thick in some places. The cheddar was shredded and not completely melted. This is a major pet peeve for me. I like melted cheese. I encountered the same problem at Vera’s burgers recently. The sauce was tasty but there wasn’t enough of it. Add on some garlic mayo or something similar on the bottom bun, cook the patty less and you got a kick as burger as apposed to a pretty good one.


A note on the fries. Perfectly done, home cut. Nice.


I couldn’t find a website for them, but there are lots of reviews, just Google them.

The village Tap House. West Vancouver, BC Canada

The best thing about the tap house burger was the soft sesame seed bun. Is that a good thing? The rest of the burger was just slightly above average. Good flavors, fresh veggies. There was way too much ketchup on the burger. Actually any amount of ketchup in a burger is too much for my taste. This is a funny thing, because ketchup is perfectly all right on my fries. The burger was served with a couple of large deep fried onion rings in top (nice) and a pickle wedge on the side. I like my pickles in the burger. Fresh cut fries, very nice. The burger itself was a 6.5/10 but the Tap House has great beers, so the burger beer paring options are outstanding and along with the other accoutrements the overall score gets bumped to an 8/10 .

Definitely a place to check out: http://www.villagetaphouse.com/

Vera’s Burger Shack. Vancouver, BC Canada

Vera’s started out as a Kit’s beach front, burger take out joint and grew to a chain of restaurants throughout Vancouver. Franchise anyone? The restaurants are small kitschy eateries. A fast food order type place with a liquor license. The patties are fresh made, grilled to order. My burger was a juicy drippy mess. Always a good sign. Vera’s makes very good burgers. Overall an 8/10 for my bacon cheeseburger. My only complaint on the burger was the cheese. Grated instead of sliced, the cheese did not melt over the patty. A chunk of cold cheddar on top of a hot patty just didn’t cut it.

There was a hair in my fries. Luckily the fires were served in their own basket. So the gross-out factor did not extend too much to the burger. The fries sat at the table untouched. They looked underdone anyway.

A solid burger establishment, check out Vera’s at: http://www.verasburgershack.com/

Modern Café. Nanaimo, BC Canada

The signage drew me in, a historic landmark from the 1940’s. The décor was in fact modern, exposed brick, trendy looking place. The burger unfortunately did not keep up with the décor. I can’t go over 6/10 for this bacon burger. The patty was small, the sauce was non existent. To be fair there was actually sauce on the bun but two small dabs were almost undetectable. Why bother? The menu said grilled sourdough bun. I got a tasteless whole-wheat bun. I do not like the bait and switch on menus. Alas, I would go back for the ambiance and to try some other things on the menu, but I wouldn’t have another burger here.

I can’t find their website. But read more on a few other blogs here:

http://www.gonanaimo.com/blog/2008/02/modern-caf-nanaimo.html

http://www.nathaniel.ca/blog/?p=1108

Longwood Brewpub, Nanaimo, BC Canada

I’m told that this is the only Brew pub in Nanaimo. Let me know if I’m wrong. Any place that makes its own beer is usually pretty good on the burger side as well. I had the Longwood burger with bacon with a pretty good Longwood Ale, AKA Woodies Ale.

Everything was pretty good if not a bit average. This is a perfectly acceptable and typical burger. I’ll give it a 7/10. The burger here suffers from big bun small patty (in this case also overcooked) disease. And what’s up with the whole wheat bun? Let’s be clear, burgers are not supposed to be healthy. Dripping fat juices over your fingers, a clear sign of a great burger is not lean cuisine or heart healthy. This one didn’t drip enough. Can you tell I’m not ecstatic about the burger?

I asked for hot sauce for my fries and they brought me a homemade concoction which they use for their chicken wings. Now this stuff was really good. Thumbs up for making your own wing sauce. So now I obviously have to come back for some fat on a stick. I’m thinking of a hoppy India Pale Ale pairing.


I’m also told by the server that their best seller is the Fish & Chips. So I guess I’ll be back a couple more time. I’m thinking about the dark German wheat beer they brew in this case.


Check them out at: http://www.longwoodbrewpub.com/