Dangerous Dan's Diner

Since I was going with Penny to eat "Niger"s today (our little joke about my iphone autocorrect fail), I decided we should go to a sit down place, rather than the eating your burger in your car thing so that we have nice little girl chat time while monstrously scarfing down burgers.  We walked into Dangerous Dan's to find that it was well, half-half, as in half sit down restaurant and half sit in your car kinda place.  

nice luxurious leather car seats

It wasn't the kind of diner we expected: we ordered our food and paid and they bring it to the table.  They also seem to do a lot of take out and deliveries, as we heard one of the employees complaining about needing an extra delivery driver or a better one. Ew, wouldn't my burger be soggy by the time it gets to me? Instead of sitting down at the table and meticulously go through our options, we had to decide on the spot. Go big or go home. We got what we came for- the $24.49 Quadruple C Collosal Colon Clogging Combo: a 24oz burger with a quarter pound of cheese, 4 slices of bacon, 2 fried eggs, a poutine, and a milkshake.  And just for comparison, we got the 8oz $5.99 mozzarella and mushroom burger.  

they referred to the 8oz as the "little guy"

This was one of those rare foods that look just like the picture or better. It'd be a good model for those Dove campaigns - no photoshop needed. Just in case you thought I'm now some pro photographer with immense perspective photo taking skills, here's a picture of the Quad C with my burger model:

perhaps she just had a small head?

The chocolate milkshake was also gigantically delicious.  And so was the poutine.  A very nice classic fries with cheese curds and gravy, and I don't usually care for poutines.  As for the burger, we ate "little guy" as if it was nothing.  I had to get it just to have a burger that I can comment on, as I did not see any probability of holding Quad C to my mouth with my hands, and eating a burger with your fork is too undignified to let it keep its name as a burger. It was possibly the greasiest burger I've had thus far, as the beef started falling apart.  That gets negative points- the patty should not be falling apart.  The tables beside us saw the Quad C approach our table and repeatedly said "I wanna watch her eat it!" progressively louder as if we didn't hear them the first time. 

the quitter's way of eating it

Don't get me wrong- I did in fact attempt to compress the burger for consumption. I tried my hardest and all I got was some beef.  Unfortunately it was so greasy that the bottom bun was actually sticking to the plate, making it even harder to lift the 2lb burger.  To Penny's pleasant surprise, the middle of the burger was still hot after 15 minutes.  This is also great from a food/safety point of view - that they can cook the thick meat to the right temperature without overcooking the burger. The 1/4 pound of cheese was not just any processed cheese - it actually tasted like the Black Diamond cheddar cheese that you complement with crackers.  The bacon was good and fried eggs on a burger is a pretty good idea.  The bun wasn't toasted but it's ok, because I don't think we're even supposed to notice that the bun was there.  

My verdict on this burger: Definitely not something you can have more than once- it was so distractingly difficult to eat that taste wasn't even a concern.  The cheese was good but didn't melt very well, and the burger breaks apart too easily.  However, the "little guy" is a definitely well worth the mere price of $5.99.  Nothing to crave for though, but their club sandwich did look yummy and the poutine was definitely yummy. 

Steer Inn Burgers

I really can't believe this is my first time at Steer Inn after 14 years of living in Richmond Hill. I imagine this place was built when everything around it was still farmland. This joint is right in my own backyard- it's literally a 7 minute walk from my house.

apparently my backyard is huge, thats how fresh my beef is

I was deciding between getting this or the third pounder from McD's since I still have yet to try it. We were having an intense game of Scrabble on a rainy Saturday evening when we decided to go for a wine and food run really quickly so that we can resume our game.

warning: playing Scrabble causes burger cravings

Irrelevancy aside, we parked in the empty lot of the ghetto joint passing by teenagers smoking up in their car.  Note to self: munchies food.  The old man taking our orders looks like he hates his job and the other old man who made our burgers told us that we're gonna become regulars. I got the $5.10 banquet burger, which was a wide 4oz thin patty with yummy bacon and too little cheese.  The buns that enclosed my beef was tasty but toasted to a little too hard for my liking, and there was too much of it.  

bun to beef ratio 3:2, needs to be the other way around

They had some homemade secret sauce which I couldn't distinguish whether it was the sauce that gave the flavour or the beef.  It was little saltier than other burgers I've had.  There was nothing special about it but it wasn't bad. Maybe next time I'll get the double cheeseburger instead to get a better bun to beef ratio.  Yes, I suppose there is a next time since it is incredibly nearby and it closes at 3am, perfect for post-drinking munchies.

Wednesdays at London Pub

$2.  I think thats all I need to say for this post.  Well, also this, cuz that's what we usually go for: 

its pitchers of beer, duh. what else would it be

If you're looking for somewhere to kick back on hump day with cheap beer and burgers and you happen to live in the boonies of Richmond Hill like me, you will feel like a winner at London Pub. Wow I never knew they had a website!  I just thought I'd throw in that their toonie tuesday wings are also a steal.

y'know, like an actual hump to get over? 

$11.50 domestic pitchers and $2 Big Ben Burgers, what can really go wrong?  If you insist that the burger sucks, well.... look buddy its a fucking toonie with any drink, even a coke.

 even cheaper than KFC's toonie tuesdays.

I got the sweet potato fries as a side for $3.99 (it doesn't come with one obviously).  They had chipotle mayo as the dip which I used for my burger.  I can see from my screen that you're anticipating for my review of this inexpensive burger.  Really, it came nowhere close to sucking.  A good 5oz or so of tender, flavoured meat.  Was it just a frozen patty from President's choice? It's very probable, but it was pretty decent!  However they toasted my bun so it was kind of hard and somewhat thick hence it kept hitting the side of my mouth.  You can also add cheddar, swiss, or mozzarella cheese for $0.99 which we found out later.  It's not part of my best burger candidates, but its cheap, better than Harveys, and there's beer. Just go, you can't blame me for trying to save you some money at a pub after upper scale pubs like Allen's. Only on wednesdays though, regular price is like $10.

Allen's

A busy pub on the Danforth for the older crowd with a more upscale menu – not the typical pub food.  They had a whole page on the menu dedicated to their burgers, including a history about their fresh organic hormone free cows or something along those lines.  Clearly I hadn’t read it – there was too much text and I was hungry and already had too much to read, choosing their non-complimentary toppings for my burger.  The most basic burger started at $10.25 without any sides – which is quite reasonable for a pub, until you realize that each piece of lettuce and slice of tomato costs $0.25. I also ordered what I thought was a side Caesar, to realize when I got the bill it was a $9.25 caesar salad, so I guess it was literally $0.25 per piece of lettuce plus charges for cheese and croutons.  

10 pieces of juicy romaine heart + chunky parmesan and homemade Caesar dressing

I ended up getting a burger with swiss cheese, bacon, and a piece of lettuce - $13.50, which isn't bad at all.  My server asked how I would like my burger done – I was totally caught off guard! I never knew that it was safe to eat a burger not well done.  So I got medium rare as per my steaks and it came like this:

singular $0.25 piece of lettuce beside my sexy burger

I took a bite, and this starts happening:

bloody awesome.

Definitely a juicy, succulent, burger with a nice flavour but not too overwhelming.  It’s also a thick, tender patty between nicely toasted buns, which should have met all my criteria; yet the more burgers I eat, the more demanding I'd inevitably get.  Sort of like when you woo a girl with Tiffany’s and her expectations increase overtime. I paid $1.50 for cheese, but it was nowhere to be seen.  Unlike Apache or Bamburger’s oozing cheese.  I also really care about sauce I suppose, cuz those garlic, chipotle, or horseradish mayos or homemade bbq sauces (which they didnt have) totally replace the typical ketchup, mustard, and relish.

thanks mayo, for making everything taste better

On another note, I got an iPhone, which should explain the photo quality difference if anyone noticed that it went from shitty to shittier. Despite the 5.0mp camera, I still think my Blackberry took better pictures. I thought that apps like instagram would help enhance the pictures, but even that wasn't helpful.  In fact, it just made the burgers look hipster.

see how hipsturr my caesar turned

In conclusion: the patty definitely met my standards for thickness and juiciness.  I personally think Allen's in the top spot but barely beating its competitors by a hair, all because of the lack of cheese. Highly recommended, but do make reservations if you plan to go around dinner time.