The Stockyards

Wow two burgers in a span of four days! I am on a roll. I originally wanted to go to La Bruschetta for lunch, but missed their lunch seating by 15 minutes... who stops seating for lunch at 1pm?! Anyway, since we were at St. Clair West I decided the next option would be The Stockyards. As you may or may not know, I've been eyeing it for a while yet it is so out of the way that I never had the opportunity to go, and I'm also not sure that I want to go out of my way to go to a dinky little place with not much seating. Before I keep rambling on, I must say, this is the most overrated burger joint that I have been to. So overrated that I'm bolding the word overrated.

We got the Beast style burger - $14. My burger from GBC three days ago was half the price and gave me double the enjoyment. That was expensive to be getting just a burger with no sides. 

As much as I normally enjoy thick patties, griddled burgers, cheese, etc. - which this burger had - it just didn't do it for me. This definitely did not get anywhere close to living to its hype. I might have had better luck with just a single patty, because the beef was so overwhelming with blandness that I didn't feel like I had buns or cheese on my burger. The burger had secret sauce, cheese, carmelized onions, pickles. and lettuce. The first few bites were good, but it actually just got tiring to eat. How can a burger get tiring?

messy

In short, it tasted like a really fresh, juicy, thick, double big mac - which actually surprises me because these are usually the adjectives that I want in a burger! For some reason either it just didn't work, or something was lacking. Also, the secret sauce at a lot of places now seem to be some variation of Mac sauce. 

Despite my disappointment in the burger, let me tell you about their 4 piece fried chicken dinner! Absolutely phenomenal.  Best fried chicken I've ever had.

   

Now this my friends, was worth the $14!

Gourmet Burger Co.

I was so hungry for a burger as I had dreamed of one all day at work. I decided to finally try GBC, which is beside Wow! Sushi (really good sushi by the way).

I go and order the $6.95 Works burger, sans the sauteed onions and the tomato. It had lettuce, sauteed mushrooms, regular cheddar, bacon, and GBC sauce. I opted to add jalapenos and their garlic dijon mayo, and ordered it to go. Oh boy did my stomach beat me for that as it had to wait another 10 minutes before it got to feast.

oh the anticipation

I quickly unravelled it to discover:

beautiful.

Wow! A picture perfect burger even though it had been tossing and turning in my take out bag for a while. The patty looked thin at first, but the buns weren't thick either. It also somehow paired perfectly so that there was no extra beef or bun parts sticking out. Nothing about the burger was dry. Taste wise, the ratio I would have to say is perfect - it definitely made me a believer of thin patties again. My only concern was, where's the cheese? No wonder they called it "regular cheddar".

cheese is where?

I wish I had asked what GBC sauce is. I'm going to assume it was some kind of mayo because I couldn't really taste the dijon mayo, and I had this light creamy pinkish sauce that kept dripping out. Price is definitely better than decent compared to many of the other burger joints, which is quite a huge factor for me to be a repeat customer. I also liked their choice of garnishes. OH and guess what? I had their whole wheat bun! Now that's a first. You can view their full menu here. I'll be back....

All Beef Party - Toronto Life

This is an interesting post... Toronto life posted "Toronto’s 25 best burgers ranked in order of heart-stopping, messy magnificence"

The top of the list is Harbord Room, which is one that I've been eyeing as well. Among those that made the list I also would like to try Stockyards and Marben... And I'm also curious about e11even and Queen and Beaver! Didn't think that a MLSE restaurant or a pub burger could be of such significance. I'd like to also know how these burgers were rated for the list...