Although our focus has always been on burger joints, we can't ignore the huge and hot injection of upscale beef bars popping up around Toronto. We decided to bite the bullet, and the beef, and head to the newly opened M:BRGR, an import from Montreal. It was a frigidly cold February night and we took our massive hibernation appetites to King St. West and Spadina. M:BRGR is an enormous place that resembles a nicely decorated cafeteria. It's a great looking place, at the same time warm and modern, with huge cityscapes being overrun with the occasional great ape or dinosaur. Attractive and friendly staff are everywhere. This place has a hostess and table service - not your average diner-style burger joint.
The menu was extensive, with many things going on besides burgers! Steak and frites, sandwiches, mac and cheese! They even have a $100 burger featuring fois gras and truffle. Sadly, this is out of the burger crew's league. The drink menu is also extensive, with beer, wine, cocktails, as well as sparkling lemonade, and black cherry soda.
Our friendly American-import server was full of helpful suggestions and upsells, not that it took much prodding. Why not get the fry basket featuring regular, sweet potato and fried onion strips? Why not!! Why not try the 3 sauce combo of horseradish-mayo, curry mayo and 'fancy sauce' (which is basically mayo, ketchup and mustard). Indeed! Why not!! Why not get an order of the Mac & Cheese with crumbled chips on top, to share? Yes! Sounds great!
Starting with the starters seems logical. The fries were great - crispy, not too big, not too small. The skinny little fried onions were amazing! I do think the fry basket is only shareable between two, however. Any more than that and someone won't get a fair shake (but more on shakes later). As for the Mac & Cheese; all I can say is OH MY GOD. It was so good. I don't know what kind of wacky cheese that was, but it left a warm and gooey sensation in my mouth that doesn't happen every day. And the potato chip crust!? Say no more. I would come back just for this! The horseradish sauce needed more zing but the curry mayo was nice, though not my fave spice for a burger or fry dip. Fancy sauce isn't all that.
On to the meat of the matter. All burgs come with lettuce, pickles, tomato and onion for free. Anything beyond that, and be prepared to pay! We'll start with Hamburglar. He ordered an organic beef burger with buffalo mozza, and the basic garnishes. Later, he would rue the rejection of bacon. Hamburglar loved his burger. Loved the cheese, loved the non-gamey beef, enjoyed the bun and the basic toppings. The Burglar is always generous with his ratings and tends to blow his load on the beefy flavour of the day. He gave his burger a 9, but we've seen that from him before.
On to Small Fry. The Fry is an integral part of the burger crew because he always goes for the basic, and what better way to judge a joint than on the purity of it's burger and fries. The Fry is also extremely particular and doesn't suffer poor food gladly. He ordered The Little Big Zak, composed of 1 AAA patty, cheddar,spicy fancy sauce, chopped onions, pickle, tomato and lettuce. The Fry was unimpressed. His burger and cheese were both cold. He is extremely picky about having a big, white and fluffy bun, and this left him cold. His burger was okay, but again, unimpressive. Sadly, he only scored his burger a 5. However, he loved the sides and the atmosphere, and said he would gladly return, especially for a stab at the steak and frites.
Burgermeister and myself had almost identical orders, with apple-smoked bacon (awesome!), smoked gouda (yum!) on whole wheat buns. The Meister went for organic beef and said it was excellent, as was my AAA. We both slathered the horseradish-mayo on it, but it's missing the zing. Our buns were both fine; all agree that it wouldn't kill them to heat them up a bit, but mine seemed hot enough next to the beef. I also had carmelized onions which were nicely done. WE each scored our beefs as 8. We both felt that the beef, although tasty, was missing something.
Because of the extensive and intriguing menu, we opted for dessert. This was a huge decision in of itself. With the choice of a deep dish chocolate chip cookie topped with vanilla ice-cream, a trifecta of cupcakes, and floats and shakes, how does one decide? We opted to share the chocolate cake with a shot of milk, and split two milkshakes. The cake was delicious, however, the Fry raised his persnickity head and said he felt staleness on the bottom layer. Sadly, we all had to agree that it seemed as if perhaps the outer slab had been exposed to air and become a bit crusty in one spot. The rest of the cake was superb - rich, dark and moist. Dare I say 'moisty'. The shot of milk was a cute touch as well. Our milkshake choices were vanille/caramel and me and the fry were excited to try the Cotton Candy, one of only about 3 people to ever order it. We were super-psyched to find out it had real cotton candy in it. The shakes were huge and dripping over with thick sloppy ice-cream. Meister enjoyed the vanilla/caramel but Hamburglar declared it was just vanilla, no caramel. Small Fry & I were seriously disappointed in the Cotton Candy. Being a connoisseur of all things sugary, the Fry would live on bubble tape if his teeth allowed. Although the shake had the beautiful blue hue of a stick of cotton candy, it was utterly flavourless, except for the vanilla ice-cream. The best part was the poof of real blue cotton candy on the end of the straw, which Small Fry scarfed down like a raccoon in a Burger King dumpster. We were honest with the server, and to their credit, they took the shake off the bill.
Speaking of the bill...YIKES! This place is no value menu combo. The most regulary priced item was the beer. Toppings were a minimum of $1.50 each, with cheese ringing in at a hefty $2.50. And bacon!? Don't even talk about it. They even have a menu of really expensive toppings, including the fois gras. Fancy sody-pops were also crazy-priced. Your basic burger was $12, so you're looking at a $20 sandwich by the time you add on. The Lil' Zak was only $9.95, but again, it was not well received.
In summary, we all enjoyed the atmosphere but had mixed feelings about the burgers. The sides and other meal options were excellent and we all agreed we'd like to return to try other things, and more mac & cheese. I was looking for orgasmic, and I got 'meh'. I want to feel the way my hero, Adam Richman from Man Vs. Food feels when he bites into whatever that is at the begining of the show where he says "Oh my goodness, OH MY GOODNESS!" Are we just cro-magnons in a filet mignon world? Is it wrong to enjoy a traditional back-yard BBQ burger with simple salt & pepper and steak spice seasoning?
Burgermeister put it so well when he said, "It was not the sum of its parts." Everything was good, and together, it should have been amazing; but it wasn't. We'll go back, but not for burgers.
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