Hey, so here’s an update. Whitespot makes good burgs. Actually, the ones at Red Truck Brewery in Vancouver are pretty fabulous diner style ones as well.
So ya, realized that running a blog is a pain in the ass and don’t post anything anymore. However I checked out the new Canada Food Guide and realized it warranted a review.
https://food-guide.canada.ca/en/
K, so a couple things… where’s the burgs damnit. So consider that for starters.
But that being said I can distill the new food guide into the following statement of fact: too much of too many under seasoned foods, nice servicewear though.
The best food guides have an element of nationality. If this was stacked up inside a beaver or had piles of game slathered in maple syrup I would be all over it.
And that’s it. You can argue with the statement, but let’s just be reasonable and admit you’re wrong.
4.2/10
k thx bye
afternoon lovely blog follower. You’re looking mighty swell today!
Got a bit of a double whammy here for ya today. So i was really feeling the need to get out of the office for a bit today, so opted to be a bad person (well at least from my arteries’ perspective) and grab some burg action. I know they get too much love on here, but due to convenience ended up again at Quesnel A&W. IMO most convenient place in all of Canada to grab a burger! Anyway, enough of the love fest, let’s get down to the biz.
So I decided to rock a coupon which got a Teen Burger and onion rings for $6.50 minutes or so. A&W rings are kinda “meh”, but if you ask for a side of their chipotle mayo and use it as a dipping sauce there’s a new found awesomeness. The combo is so good, surprised that its not a default type upsell that they offer. I’m sure someone at A&W must realize what they’ve got there. Anyway, that’s the tangent.
The burg is while we’re all here. The teen is A&W’s offering that’s aligned with other full traditional burgers like the BK whopper. Has the works so to speak: lettuce, tomato, onion, cheese, bacon, pickles, ketchup, mustard & mayo. I generally like this style of burger and view it as the quintessential contemporary burg.
So, this burger was kinda offset, but I think it had nothing to do with poor assembly, just a transportation issue. After a quick tweak we have a brilliantly assembled burger.
The teen after a little tweak
First few bites were really pleasant with little bits of all of the ingredients ending up in every bite. I found that insufficient mayo was used in this particular one though, and was missing the creaminess that typically cuts through the strong acidic elements of this particular burg. Also, someone got a little carried away with the onion – asspiles of it were buried under the patty. One of the tomatoes had too much core, and they both were really mushy. I don’t think i can put too much weight on the tomato flaw strictly due to how hard a good tomato is to source in northern Canada in the winter.
overall, I got to say it was a well done burger. Hats off to the folks at the local Quesnel two mile flat A&W. Solid burg that hit the spot despite a few flaws.
7.3/10
alright, lemme put it out there, we never see Kobe beef in Canada despite what you’ve heard. However, we do get access to the breed of cattle used for it; wagyu. Some farmers in other parts of the world have gone to great lengths to create a product from a wagyu cow that is very similar to traditional Kobe, with varying degrees of success.
on a recent trip to Vancouver I was soloing it up at Hawksworth (fantastic resto btw), and needed some grub. Was going to get their burger, which I’ve yet to try, and is meant to be amazing, but was tempted by another menu item – a mound of wagyu.
Bordeaux , bourbon, and wagyu: lunch of champions
Went for it – was solid. The flavor of the wagyu cow is distinctly different from the other breeds we often get in North American restaurants. Has really subtle richness to it. In any case, was a pretty awesome lunch, and would recommend either / or wagyu beef and Hawksworth restaurant if you’ve got a few extra bucks burning a hole in your pocket.
Oh and speaking of Wagyu, there are a couple of ways to buy it for home use in Canada. There’s a couple of farms in Alberta that are raising the breed and selling products online, plus one in central BC (Vanderhoof to be precise) that I found. I’m sure there are plenty others out there though. Would be pretty dope to create a homemade wagyu burger 😉
http://www.kobeclassicbeef.com/
http://www.brantlakewagyu.ca/
http://www.bestbcbeef.com/kobe-beef.html
decided to rock out an impromptu lunch burg on this lovely Wednesday. Hit up the local a&w which is basically the only burg I can score near the office. Opted for a classic, the mozza – not one of those disturbing bastardizations they’ve been creating recently, but the real deal.
So I bust into the to-go burg sack and find a sad looking sandwich . This thing is sitting crooked, the bun is squished; generally looks like it’s been through hell and back. Unfortunatly though, I’ve got a job to do – devour this burg.
It’s a mozza – it’s squished
First couple of bites are kind of crap because ratios are way off due to horrible assembly job. But when I get into the core of this burg, I’m reminded what a fine piece of burgstruction the A&W Mozza is. The subtleness of the mozzarella allows for the tastes of the beef, bacon, and seasoning to shine through. The appropriate quanties of lettuce and tomato give the burg an air of freshness and crunch without dominating the pallette. The simple thousand island’esque sauce makes a nice tangy counterpoint to the whole thing while providing some moistness near the bun. The A&W mozza is truly one of the best balanced fast food burgers there is. Right up there with McDonalds’ tours de force, Big Mac & big extra (RIP).
although this burg looked like it was assembled by an orangutan on bath salts, I just can’t pan it. I’m giving this experience with the A&W mozza burger a:
7.8/10
so hey, I know there must be one burgerextravaganza super-fan out there. To you I appopogize good sir, or madam. I’ve been totally crap at updating this. Crisis of motivation really .
plus I lied to you
I came back from Hawaii with loads of burg pix and review notes, then proceeded to drop phone containing them into he Pacific Ocean. Well after 8 months of procrastination at least. Those absolutely thought provoking burg notes and pics are now forming part of a coral reef.
Enough excuses. I’m sorry. Peace, love, burgers
So if you have by chance watched any Canadian television in the past couple weeks, you’ve likely noticed wendys spamming a new burg. bacon mushroom melt on brioche. Sounds amazing right?
Looking semi-sexy
Thats what I thought too. Had some time to kill in YVR so I figured id give it a go. One word: over-promise, under-deliver.
i guess that’s 4.
Huh? I want mushrooms!!
So Ya, what’s the scoop? Basically boils down to this. Bun = good, but pretty far removed from any brioche I’ve ever had. Patty = typical Wendy’s (Ie okay for fast food). Mushrooms = minimal. And smothered in some weird sauce that was cream of mushroom soup’ish. Bacon = undercooked. Cheese = fast food cheese (fine by me).
I expected more. You should too after seeing how amazing it looks in ads. Wendy’s, your marketing department wins – my wallet loses. Boo.
score = 5.2 / 10
( would have scored a bit higher if it weren’t for dissapointment factor and soggy bacon)
So hey, I’ve been downing burgs like they’ve been going out of style over the last few weeks and have some solid new reviews coming. In the midst of a tropical burger hunt, which has seen some big burger game fallen. dont want to write up reviews on my cell phone when I could be out slaying burgs.
more to come soon. Damn skippy
Today is just one of those days; I needed to cram something into my burger hole. So I hopped in the old 4 wheel drive sleigh, braved the -23 weather and headed down to perhaps the worlds biggest name in burgs, McDonalds.
Given the extreme conditions, I decided to make this trip a double-header. Two picks were made from the value menu, the McDouble and Bacon Cheeseburger.
2 burgs enter, no burgs leave
First up, bacon cheeseburger! In hindsight I probably should have eat these in a different order due to the flavour fest that is the bacon cheese, but whatever. Anyway it’s a pretty good burg. Has a couple small pieces of bacon, some pickle slices, processed cheese, weird mcdonalds onions, ketchup and mustard.
Mcd’s bacon cheese from quesnel- dec 7, 2013
Loads of flavor in this thing for such a small burg. Kinda gnarly though too. Very fast food burgery. Kinda mixed in scoring this thing; on one hand it’s total crap, on the other it does the job of feeding the fast food burger craving really well. Given that McDonald’s isn’t trying to churn out an elegant product, I’ll give this tangy grease bomb:
7.4 / 10
Next up mcdouble
Mcdonalds mcdouble. Purchased in quesnel bc, dec 8, 2013
this thing is basically a double cheeseburger where they go cheap and only give you one slice of cheese. That’s cool with me though, let’s the taste of the beef come through more. And yes, despite what you may have heard mcdonalds uses beef, not some lab grown bioflesh.
i actually was feeling this mcdouble more then the bacon cheese today. Perhaps that’s a biproduct of overindulging last night and my body desperately needing as much greedy beef as possible. But hey, whatever, it’s not my job here to try to filter out bias. I throw down burg reviews that come from the gut. Or go into the gut. Or something like that.
in any case, today’s mcdouble:
7.8 / 10
well done mr. mcdouble.
Mushroom mozza burger has been ingested. Pretty good. Deviates a long way from traditional mozza burger, to the point where it shouldn’t even be categorized the same – only similarity seemed to be bun and patty; even the mozza itself was different. It seemed to use a more real mozza, stringy vs. the normal processed stuff on the traditional. Gone was the bacon and burger sauce. Instead there was mushrooms, sauteed onions and a mixture of mayo and grainy dijon. All in all, pretty good, but not amazing. Definitely prefer the traditional mozza.
ps – i stole this picture of the burg from some other dudes site.
Score: 6.6 / 10