Red Robin, Bellingham, Washington. Natural beef burgers

Honest to Goodness. Our natural ground beef contains no preservatives or artificial ingredients.

Really, when the hell did this happened and why didn’t I get the memo? I have to check in Canada maybe this is just a US Red Robin thing. This is absolutely outstanding. Natural beef just catapults Red Robin to the top of the chain restaurant list. Sure you’ve got to get past the plastic faux Disney cartoonish shtick of the restaurant design but once you do its well worth it.

I had the Burnin’ Love Burger, crispy fried jalapeños, salsa, pepper jack cheese, chipotle mayo all nicely wrapped in a burger diaper and brought to the table photo ready. This is how you serve a burger given that 90 % of our taste buds are in our eyes and the set basket design on all Red Robin burgers is outstanding.

Nice burger 8.5 – 9/10. It’s natural and it’s pink in the middle and it’s juicy and tasty, but in the back of my mind there’s that nagging feeling that it’s still a fast food burger. I think it’s the bun. You know the type; the wonder bread bun like thing that you know has way too many chemicals in the mix. Still a damn fine burger and now that I know that the beef is natural my go to burger chain joint.

Mmm beer

Fiamma Burger. Bellingham, Washington. US

Let me be clear, this is not my type of burger. I’m more of a thick patty, pink in the middle type of guy. The Fiamma burger is a thin 4 ½ oz burger patty. Not that that’s a bad thing it’s just not my thing. Fiamma makes a great burger, Bellingham’s best apparently and I’m not going to argue with that. The meat is natural, the ingredients fresh, the bun phenomenal, the burger comes rapped in a burger diaper (I love that) it’s all good and an easy 8.5 – 9 /10.

Best of Bellingham

On the other hand, a home run 10/10 if they made the same burger with an 8 oz pink in the middle patty, but that’s just my preference. And to be fair I only had the single patty burger. I don’t know what I was thinking I must have had a brain fart; I should have doubled it up. I think that alone would probably have improved my score.

In the end it doesn’t really matter, Fiamma makes great burgers. Or maybe it does? Maybe Fiamma can add a new burger to the mix call it the “Fat Fiamma” or something like that. When they do, let me know, I’ll be right there.

Garlic Cheese Fries

Hamilton St Grill. Vancouver. A backyard burger.

The Hamilton Street Burger house-ground Certified Angus Beef®, house-smoked bacon, aged cheddar, Kennebec frites, truffle mayonnaise

 

Sounds good but this is really a backyard burger. Here’s the recipe: Go to Safeway, pick up some ground beef, lettuce tomatoes some bacon, (you don’t have to make your own) while you’re there grab some Portuguese buns from the bakery and head over to your friends backyard or deck. Form meat into patties and place on grill, cook until there is nothing absolutely nothing alive in the burnt patty, meanwhile place the Portuguese bun in the oven and bake until it’s crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside so it will crunch and flake and fall apart once you stat digging in. Now, while the burger is on the BBQ, cut the tomatoes onions and lettuce and place them in the hot sun so that they wilt prior to adding to the burger. Put it all together, call your friends over and see if they will fork out $16 for this work of backyard art.

.

The Hamilton Street Grill came with such high expectations such big buzz from Foodosophy. They house grind their own meat and are therefore one of the few places in town that will allegedly cook your burger pink in the middle.

Maybe I was expecting something exceptional and maybe I just got something average. My friend also had the burger and together we agreed no more then a 6.5/10, alas it wasn’t just me.

I was hoping for so much more.

Still, I must vent.

 

Dear Mr. or Ms. Hamilton Street Grill:

It’s nice that your house ground your beef, awesome, but why kill it on the grill? And, why Angus Beef? You realise Angus Beef is a feel good brand? Last time I checked McDonalds and Burger King were serving Angus burgers. Check out Angus beef website, they produce 1.8 million pounds of hormone and steroid injected meat every single day. How about some natural organic beef?

Loose the Portuguese bun, it makes a good sandwich not a good burger. Try making your own bun. Just a thought

Put the tomatoes, onions and lettuce in the burger not on a hot plate. That way they won’t wilt by the time it comes to the table.

Yours Truly

Mister Handsome Burger

PS: the Fondue was really good.

I feel much better now :)



Apple Pie with Rum & Raisin Ice Cream



Gorgonzola Fondue

Red Wagon Cafe, Vancouver, BC

I’ve heard some great buzz about the Red Wagon Restaurant, a greasy spoon serving great comfort food and using ethical products wherever possible. I’ve heard you have to try the pulled pork pancakes with Jack Daniels maple syrup. In fact when you walk into the restaurant barbequed pork fills the air and instantly makes you happy. Well, it makes me happy. It was a difficult decision not to get the pancakes, available all day, the smell was unbelievably enticing but then I have this burger blog and the Red Wagon burger uses organic beef and they make it in house and they didn’t freak out when I asked if they could cook the patty medium rare. Oh well the pancakes will have to wait for next time.

The burger was great; it was cooked and delivered a beautiful pink in the middle. Great flavour, everything inside of the buns was great, but then the bun, not fresh, crumbly, totally disappointing. It’s like giving my wife diamond earrings wrapped in newspaper and without the blue Birks box. It’s like taking a Ferrari engine and putting it into a mini van. It’s, it’s, it’s like great and flavourful ingredients in a crappy bun!

In the end it’s nice but…..9/10. So close.

You know what you have to do.

Rogue Kitchen and Wetbar, Vancouver Canada – cooked to 160 F

I came about the Rogue burger purely by chance. A working dinner a new place never before visited a burger on the menu and a pleasant surprise.

The 9.2 oz ROGUE burger

ultra juicy, two napkin, house ground sirloin burger cooked to 160 F, sesame brioche bun, bacon, cheddar, lettuce, tomato, pickle, sweet relish, mayo

Phenomenal burger! 10/10. Everything is spot on. Huge luscious patty, ground and formed in-house cooked pink and juicy. All the accoutrements work in perfect harmony.

Sorry about the photo, my crappy Blackberry camera does not do this burger justice.

I recently wrote about “pink in the middle” burgers. There is no law against pink there are only excuses. Rogue makes no excuses.

Still on my agenda the Hamilton Street Grill and La Brasserie two other Vancouver establishments that I understand will also make no excuses.



Look for my new tag “pink in the middle”

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.

Flying Canoe West Coast Pub, Courtenay, BC Canada

Maybe it was a latent sub conscious response to not being able to order the Bison burger during a recent trip to the Yukon that made me order the Bison Burger at the Flying Canoe West Coast Pub in Courtenay.

It also reads pretty good: Vancouver Island Bison Burger Hand formed spiced patty, Okanagan merlot cheddar, purple dijon mayo


So the hand made in house claim from the menu and enthusiastic "it's great" comment from the bars thespian/waitress sealed the deal.


BTW, whenever the server responds with a "it's great" to a question about something on the menu your next question to them should be" OK, what on your menu is crap"? The honest servers usually have an answer and should be trusted. The thespians get confused and tow the company line with "nothing everything is really good". These people should not be trusted, there is a high probability of a very mediocre burger (or anything else you've ordered for that matter) coming your way.


My server unfortunately falls in the latter category. Not that my "in house made Bison Burger" was bad. OK maybe it was a bit bad, a 5/10, a crumbly bunness of small non flavoured patty "greatness".


Ho hum, at least the Canucks won game 2.