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Burger Battle 2023, Round 38 - The Celtic Hearth

The Hearth is one of only a couple 24 hour restaurants in the city, and as such I have probably eaten there more than anywhere else. It's our default for post-show feasts, for example. Their entries are usually massive and often very good, and this year looks to be no different.

The aptly-named Burger Overload has an 8 oz patty, aged cheddar, thick bacon, caramelized onion, topped with a cheese sauce, crispy onions , an onion ring, mozza stick and a wing on top to garnish, all on our in house made bun. Good grief that is a lot.

This tasted like an appetizer platter on a bun with a big old juicy patty. That is far from a complaint by the way, and is probably what they were going for. Going for thick bacon made a big difference here, as the normal stuff would likely have been lost. The patty had a good sear and stayed moist. With the thickness of a half-pound patty, undercooking was a concern but it was perfectly cooked throughout.

Where this falls down is just in sheer volume. The mono-beige approach lends itself to being heavy and greasy, and without an acid element to break that up it can be a chore to work through. The caramelized onions are also the only sweetness on here, again not helping to vary the flavour profile. Hearth has a delicious in-house BBQ sauce they could have gone with to help on both fronts.

I think a lot of people will enjoy this burger because of the ingredients. It's not a classic but it has a lot of classic bar food in it, and it does work together. Someone with a higher tolerance for greasy food will do better than I did, but I did enjoy this a fair bit.

Burger Battle 2023, Round 37 - Namjim

Last year's entry somewhat surprisingly won the popular vote as best burger. I say surprising because generally it's the better-known restaurants and the more classic entries that tend to win. We were excited to see what Thai-inspired burger they came up with this time.

Wait a second...that doesn't look to be Thai-inspired! Well, no. In the year since the last battle, the folks behind Namjim launched a side venture called Best Friend Burger, selling no-frills classic smash burgers. They are very, very good for what they are. And that's exactly what they entered in the competition.

I could talk about the long, somewhat condescending writeup they provided about their burger. I could mention that we often deduct points for entries that are on the regular menu. Heck I could even say how disappointed we were that the defending champions seemed less motivated to come with something original.

I don't need to though. Because as good as this is for a classic burger, it's not even the best classic burger in the competition. In a year where so many restaurants brought their A+ game, Namjim would have needed to iterate on their regular offering to take the crown. They chose instead to run back the burger they have been offering for the last several months, and likely missed out on the Best Classic award as a result.

Burger Battle 2023, Round 36 - Yellowbelly

We made a conscious decision this year to slow down our pace after hitting 30 burgers. We used to want to be the first to finish, but really that led to us not enjoying some of the middle burgers as much as we should have. Yellowbelly got moved around a few times because of this plan, but I was also a little hesitant based on the description.

This is the Ooey Gooey Smash burger, double stacked burgers with American cheese, queso, tomato bacon jam on cheesy bun. That's a lot of cheese in one place. Somehow though, this mostly worked. The tomato bacon jam had a citrus and cranberry note to it that stood up well to all the cheese and the beef. Then bun was sturdy and contributed to the flavour profile, a rarity in this year's contest.

If you're going to use this much cheese though, they should stand out and be distinct from each other. It was hard to tell where the queso ended and the American began on here. I am not a fan of either, but that isn't relevant for this point. Going with blue cheese instead of American might sound like a big jump, but with the jam on there I think it would have added an excellent layer. Having said that, the jam itself is rather polarizing. The cranberry citrus flavour is pronounced and a little jarring, and 3 of the 4 of us at the table found it unpleasant. I liked it, but I can't dismiss a 75% disapproval.

A couple of missteps on an otherwise good burger keep this one in the middle of the pack for me, though I know others have it lower. Isn't subjective taste a wonderful thing?

Burger Battle 2023, Round 35 - Adelaide Oyster House

I have a conflicted relationship with Adelaide Oyster House. On the one hand, the food is almost always top-notch. On the other hand, the atmosphere and loud music is not my bag. I like to have conversations with my meals, and that's hard to do in there. To each their own. But their burgers have usually been top contenders, including one of my all-time favourites in the Big Kahuna burger.

Adelaide has often gone with a chicken burger, and they did again this year with the butter chicken burger: Yogurt marinated chicken thigh, butter chicken gravy, cilantro peanut aioli, jalapeno coconut sambol, lettuce, pickled red onions, served on a potato bun. It sounds like a lot, so hopefully it all works together.

For those not in the know (like I wasn't), coconut sambol is a condiment made of coconut, red onions, chilies, salt and lime juice ground into a chunky paste. It was delicious. I will definitely be trying to make it myself. Basically everything on this burger was delicious, and the Indian-inspired flavours came through nicely. The chicken was moist and well-seasoned, though not quite as crunchy as I would have hoped. I want to make special mention of the pickled red onion, which added another layer to the flavour profile and helped offset the richness of the other toppings.

Butter chicken gravy traditionally is sweet, rich, and creamy. It's redolent with warming spices without actually being spicy. While the sauces on this burger are all delicious, I did not get that flavour profile or creaminess I expected. The other gripe I had with this burger was around construction. Going with two pieces of chicken thigh is great from a quantity perspective, but even without any slippage occurring it lead to a gap in the middle of the burger with no chicken. It's not often that a burger would benefit from being cut in half, but this one definitely would have.

I would rank this burger with the best chicken burgers I have had, not just in the contest. A couple of minor quibbles keep it out of the top tier, but it's delicious and I hope it sticks around.

Burger Battle 2023, Round 34 - Exile by JAG

Somtimes you crave a Sunday afternoon burger. OK that's quite often for me, but still. Exile is one of our favourite spots in the city, with a unique decor and great food. Being in a hotel the hours are also very easy to work in, so it was a great choice for this random craving.

The kimchi smash is made up of 2 smashed stacked patties, Swiss cheese, kimchi coleslaw, gochujang sesame lime mayo, and candied thick cut bacon on a Brioche bun. Lots of my favourite words on there, and in theory it all should work together.

This burger is delicious. No two ways about it. It has all the textures, it has sweet, savoury, acid, and a little heat. You can see on the plate that the patty was juicy, and beautifully charred. Well constructed and well executed. The slaw is creamy and has a hint of sweetness to it, and that creaminess combined well with the Swiss cheese to make for a velvety texture to the toppings.

But...it wasn't as advertised. If you tell me there is kimchi, even a kimchi slaw, I expect that fermented funk (which is the name of my Bruno Mars K-pop cover band) to be in there. Tasting the slaw on its own did yield a hint of it, but nowhere near enough to assert itself on the burger. The gochujang sesame lime mayo was perhaps a little ambitious, as it didn't really come across as being any of those flavours and just gave a combined (though delicious) taste.

Is it fair to penalise a burger that is delicious because it does not taste like it says it should? I think you have to. If this had been described as a red cabbage slaw and Asian mayo, it probably would have been in the top tier. But now that you know this, you can enjoy the heck out of what is a delicious burger.

Burger Battle 2023, Round 33 - Pinnacle

One of the best things about hotel restaurants being involved in the burger battle is that it helps with scheduling. A lot of places around here tend to be closed Sundays and Mondays, so we aim to fit the hotel spots in on those days. So of course we went to Pinnacle, which is in the Delta hotel downtown...on a Saturday.

I was somewhat surprised to see that Pinnacle's offering would be a vegan one. The Buffalo...Chicken? includes Buffalo plant-based "chicken", guacamole, flame-kissed tomato and shallot jam, torched vegan mozzarella, artisan greens on a pretzel roll. We love a pretzel roll for a saucy burger, so that's a promising sign.

It was hard to remember this was a vegan burger. The taste and texture was no different from what you would expect with a chicken burger. The tomato shallot jam was sublime, to the point that I want to buy a bucket of it. Sweet with acid and a hint of the char from the "flame-kissed" tomato.

Sometimes your biggest strength is also your biggest drawback. As tasty as that jam was, it all but rendered invisible the buffalo sauce on the chicken filet. And it was there because I taste the filet on its own and that sauce was actually very good. It just wasn't robust enough to stand up to the tomato jam, which is an issue when you are calling your burger a buffalo chicken burger. You can also see in the photo that the cheese was not very well torched. That suggests char, it suggests that it's melted. This was neither.

Don't get me wrong, it's a very tasty burger and you won't know it's not meat. But when you promise me things and then don't deliver on them, it's going to hurt my overall feeling on the burger.

Burger Battle 2023, Round 32 - Andersons

One thing this city does not have enough of is specialist shops. When I started hearing about Andersons Butcher opening on Water Street, I was very excited. The excitement grew when I heard they would have a deli, and it reached fever pitch when they had a late entry in the contest.

The Anderson is a single or double Andersons patty, American cheese, house smoked bacon, pickles, onion, iceberg lettuce, Andersons Whiskey BBQ sauce and Andersons Burger Sauce. Not going to lie, I was kind of hoping they would go all-in on the deli aspect and give us a cold cut burger.

As you would expect, the patties and the bacon on this burger were phenomenal. So good in fact that I plan to buy approximately a truckload of bacon from them very soon. The overall package was reminiscent of a quarter pounder from Mickey D's, only better.

Unfortunately, that's where the burger falls a bit too. It might just be the best classic burger this year, but the whiskey BBQ sauce was decidedly faint and the other toppings were pretty standard fare. If you want adventurous or unique, this isn't the way to go. If you want classic and delicious, it very much is. A shame the hours to get it are so restrictive, but if you can manage it I recommend doing so.

Burger Battle 2023, Round 31 - The Sprout

Last year The Sprout had one of the most visually stunning entries in my time judging this contest. Putting aside our gripe with the fact that the restaurant is closed for literally half the contest period (which makes scheduling a challenge at best), we were looking forward to seeing what they would do with a vegetarian entry again this year.

The chana burger brings you a homemade white sesame bun, with basil aioli, spinach, tomato, chickpea masala patty, tamarind BBQ sauce, cranberry apple chutney, caramelized onions, "bacon" bits, and local cilantro microgreens. And my heavens does it ever deliver.

I guess I should be mad that the bun is not a sesame bun as promised, but it's better. It's this soft bun seasoned with everything bagel topping and it was amazing. The patty has a distinctive flavour while avoiding some of the mushiness you might expect from a chickpea patty. The flavour profile was distinctly Indian, and for me it was a near home run.

That said, I can see this being a polarizing burger. The combo of the BBQ sauce, chutney, and caramelized onions did lend a lot of sweetness to the burger. Hypothetically the tamarind should have leveled that a bit with tartness, as should the cranberries in the chutney, but the task was too Herculean for them. This didn't bother me, but it did bother Sarah and in retrospect it is a fair criticism. Perhaps a more robust presence of the aioli and "fakon" bits would have helped there.

This might be the best veggie burger entry the contest has ever had. It won't be to everyone's taste, but it was darn sure to mine.

Burger Battle 2023, Round 30 - Jungle Jim's

Jungle Jim's is a local chain of jungle-themed family restaurants. They have entered the burger battle before, so it wasn't a major surprise to see them again. This time they seem to have take the criticisms to heart and actually tried to make things in-house.

The Jungle Smash is a 4oz smash patty, cheddar cheese, bacon, lettuce, tomato, pickle, red onion, and Jungle Jim's house dressing. And...it's good. You can tell from the patty that it comes from the same place as the Square Burger entry, and it is similarly delicious. This chef clearly knows how to smash a burger. It's a classic burger with a small twist of house dressing on it, and it does all the classic things well. That bacon for example is perfectly cooked to the point of just being crispy. So many places overcook their bacon to the point that it's basically a chip.

The issue here though was that the house dressing, while looking a lot like strawberry yogurt, didn't really offer anything in terms of a unique taste. It was just kind of...there. There are so many great classic burgers in this year's battle that you need to come unique or come perfect, and this isn't really either. It's good, and you'll enjoy it, but it is not great. Still...go try it.

Burger Battle 2023, Round 29 - Square Burger

The Square Burger food truck popped up a couple of summers ago downtown. I had heard great things, but never been able to get to it. With winter in full force the chef retreated into Jungle Jim's, making it a pretty obvious double shot. I did not have high expectations going in, since Jungle Jim's and Shamrock City (who share the same kitchen with Square Burger) have given us some of the biggest disappointments in previous years.

Do you see those edges? This is what a smash burger should look like. Before you is the My Cousin Taco: Taco-seasoned smash patty with sour cream, salsa, cheddar cheese, lettuce, and Cool Ranch Doritos. There's also taco sauce on there, though it's not advertised.

I do not like Doritos. That'll probably get me some funny looks, but to me they smell awful and don't taste much better. Here, they worked. Somehow the chef managed to make this burger taste just like a taco, but also a burger. The toppings were well-chosen to evoke that feeling, and even the crunch from the Doritos gave the impression of a hard-shell taco. I'm not the world's biggest taco lover, but I can appreciate that this was very well done.

It did however feel a little sparse. There wasn't much in the way of cheese, and Monterrey Jack would have been the better choice for sure. Cotija would also have worked. Some pickled onion would also have helped, perhaps even some slivers of jalapeño. And where is the tomato? As it stands this does a grand job of imitating a basic taco, but a couple of extra touches could have elevated it to the upper tier.

Honestly this surpassed our expectations, by a long way. If you are a fan of basic burgers but feel a little adventurous, I can recommend giving this a shot.

Burger Battle 2023, Round 28 - Salt House

The location of Salt House has seen a few restaurants come and go, but this one seems set to make a good run there. I think this is only their second entry in the contest, but it certainly sounds impressive...

The Touton burger has a Touton Bun, Bacon Jam, 4oz House-made Beef Pattie, Canadian Back Bacon, Marble Sliced Cheddar, Maple Aioli and Goat Cheese. It sounds decadent, and honestly it is. Maple aioli could easily have been too sweet but it was just the right amount of sweet and creamy to complement the smoky tangy nature of the other ingredients. As I have said many times before (and will doubtless say again), more burgers need to be served on a touton. For the uninitiated, a touton is basically just fried dough...but it tastes like a delicious pillow. Like a bread marshmallow.

I am a huge fan of back bacon, and Salt House is unique this year in offering it. All bacon is good bacon, but I think this burger really benefits from the meatier, thicker, leaner cut. I was a little ware about the goat cheese in addition to the marble cheddar, but as the cheddar is pretty mild and the goat cheese pairs so well with maple and with bacon, the combination is surprisingly good.

What is sorely lacking here is crunch. The touton is crispy on the outside but something like iceberg lettuce or even some pickles (or dill pickle chips if you want to get really fun) would have gone a long way. It is also a little heavy with all that cheese and bacon, again something that pickled could have helped.

This burger comes really close to cracking the top tier. It's likely going to be on my redo list, in fact. Go try it

Burger Battle 2023, Round 27 - Merchant Tavern

For such a popular restaurant, Merchant Tavern has never really wowed us with their entries. We have eaten there for other things and been impressed, but the last couple of years it's just been a good but basic burger.

This year they have stepped the creativity up a little with the Double Deluxe Smash burger. Two PEI grass-feed beef burgers, a grilled cheese sandwich as the centre bun, double smoked bacon, American cheese, pickles, onion and Merchant sauce. Sounds good, right?

Honestly, the taste on this is good. Very good. The patties especially are excellent. But...it's a Big Mac with a grilled cheese in the middle. Even down to the diced onion and the flavour of the Merchant sauce. It eats heavy because of all the cheese, and then to add extra weight with a sandwich (a cheese one at that) in the middle is just a hat on a hat on a bandana.

I can understand people loving this burger. It is after all an elevated version of the most famous burger in the world, with a grilled cheese sandwich in the middle. That's a recipe for popularity. But it's not original, it's too heavy, and honestly it just felt like a letdown.

Burger Battle 2023, Round 26 - St. John's Fish Exchange

I have never had a bad meal at the Fish Exchange (SJFX). Given that I generally avoid fish, that is an accomplishment. They've given us two unique entries in prior years, even if they weren't always perfectly executed.

The Pattie Daly has two fresh ground chuck patties with two slices of American cheese, pickles and onions. Topped with three pickled onion rings, drizzled with Newfoundland Distillery’s Chaga rum-roasted garlic aioli, and blackstrap molasses barbecue sauce. A lot of impressive-sounding ingredients, and the aioli in particular piqued my interest.

These patties were nicely crisped on the edges, and the onion rings did carry the pickle flavour while also not being entirely batter. Nothing worse than a heavy battered onion.

I'm struggling with how to rate this one because I think something went weird with my experience here. Let me try an analogy. Say you had a sketch book, and you drew a beautiful picture on one page...with markers. You turn the page, and of course all those colours have bled through so you can clearly see what was drawn on the prior page...but it's washed out. That's what this burger was like for me. The aioli gave me no real flavour, the patty seemed underseasoned, and the only flavour from the BBQ sauce was sweetness.

Normally I would chalk this up to shortcomings in the burger, but Sarah had one too and had none of the same issues. I cannot imagine such drastic differences in two burgers that were presumably made side-by-side, so I can only assume they either made a mistake with mine, or my tastebuds were on the fritz. This is not at all sarcastic, by the way.

In summary I don't really know what to tell you. Maybe I will try this one again to see if I got unlucky.

Burger Battle Round 25 - The Whiskey Barrel

New restaurant alert! I don't know when it opened, but The Whiskey Barrel has not been around long. Entering the burger battle so soon is a bold move, but one I fully support.

The Barrel burger is a pan-seared, butter-basted 60/40 meat to pork chuck sitting on a bed of spicy blueberry chutney topped with crisp bacon, lettuce, tomato, red onion and mustard seed mayo on a toasted Brioche bun. It's a mouthful to be sure, but a mouthwatering one. Can it deliver?

For the most part, yes. The pork in the patty gave it a different texture that I really liked, though Sarah didn't. The classic ingredients were all exactly what you would expect them to be, though I do want to single out the choice of lettuce as being particularly good for this burger, adding extra crunch. The mustard seed mayo could have been overpowering, but (as it often does) the mayo part mellowed the mustard part and delivered a tasty condiment.

The thing that brings the overall quality down is unfortunately the other unique ingredient on here, the spicy blueberry chutney. It wasn't spicy, and it came across more as a BBQ sauce than a chutney. A sweet one, at that. Not the sort of thing to condemn a burger to the pits of indignity, but certainly enough to keep you out of an increasingly tough top tier.

Burger Battle 2023, Round 24 - Gypsy Tea Room

We have had monumentally bad luck at Gypsy Tea Room. There has almost always been something wrong with each burger we've had there, from incinerated duck bacon to excessive mustard to enough pickled jalapeños to pucker a lemon. The frustrating thing is that for most of those issues, they are down to execution on the night and not a bad concept. Last year they were greatly improved though, so we are trending in the right direction.

The Gypsy burger (the name makes me rather uncomfortable) consists of a 6oz beef chuck patty, double cream brie, partridgeberry bacon jam, baby arugula, and balsamic rosemary aioli on a toasted bun. There is a LOT of promise on this burger. Would it deliver?

Let me first of all say that for someone who does not really like brie, I have found the use of it to be excellent this year. Everyone who did it had a reason to do so, and it was always beautifully melted to be silky and unctuous. This was no exception. Brie goes well with tart berries and putting it with a partridgeberry bacon jam was a great idea.

Sadly, the streak continued. The bacon in the jam was overcooked to the point of being tough. The rosemary in the aioli had been overcooked to the point of bitterness. The jam was a bit too sweet. All those great plans scuppered by poor execution.

Strangely I almost want to try this one again in case we just caught the kitchen on an off night. The concept is so good. If you've tried it and enjoyed, please let me know.

Burger Battle 2023, Round 23 - Shamrock City

Shamrock City is known for having live music every night. They have always served bar food, but I have yet to hear anyone rave about it. Indeed it has the dubious distinction of serving us the only burger battle entry we could not finish in 2020. It can only go up from there.

The Shamrock cheeseburger promises double 3oz smash patties, double cheddar cheese, grilled onions, pickles, and special sauce. And it delivered on exactly that. This was the sort of burger you would expect to get at a BBQ, but at the house of that one friend who owns a sous vide and a smoker and a set of fancy Japanese knives. It wasn't innovative, it wasn't special, but it was a darn good cheeseburger. Everything on it was done well, the onions being the standout.

So what's going to keep it from the top? Personal taste more than anything. There's nothing really wrong with a greasy spoon-style burger, but it also doesn't do anything to make itself stand out. In a year with so many other classic burgers that also did everything well, the fact that this one is a minimalist approach will hold it back. Good, not great.

Burger Battle 2023, Round 22 - Loose Tie

I feel like Loose Tie, located where it is with a small curbside presence, gets overlooked by diners looking for somewhere to drop in. That's a shame because the food here is excellent. They went with a moose burger last year and it was excellent, so on seeing they were doing so again this year my hopes were high.

When the sauce is already running out the side, you know you are in for a messy time. It's a moose patty, battered hot peppers, swiss cheese, hot pancetta, tomato, arugula, and spicy Kewpie mayo. This might actually be too hot for some people; if you cannot handle a jalapeño this could be a challenge. But it's delicious. It's quite possibly the best moose patty I have ever had, not at all dry or gamy and wonderfully seasoned and seared. I promise, it's in there somewhere. The spiciness comes through without deadening any of the other flavours, and even the arugula is discernible. No mean feat against all those other flavours!

Really only two downsides here: the mess, and the pancetta. This is one saucy burgers, and almost impossible to keep together. Some slippage and leakage is inevitable, but this was a little more than that. The pancetta was far from bad, but it wasn't noticeably hot (maybe overwhelmed by the peppers and mayo) and it was hard to tell it wasn't bacon. But hey, when has bacon been a bad thing?

This is just another reason to go visit Loose Tie. I am a big fan of this burger and although I can't say it's in the lead, it is not far off the top.

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