I Like Burgers

I like all burgers, really. Chicken burger, shrimp burger, whatever, it's all good. Sandwiches can be fun to make and easy to eat. But let's face it, when we think "burger", most of us are thinking hamburgers. And above all, I love hamburgers. I don't think that one hamburger is massively better than any other hamburger though. I'm happy if I'm eating a good burger. Give me a different burger on a different day and I'm pretty much going to be equally happy. So I'm unlikely to make much effort for "THE BEST BURGER EVER" because there isn't really a big difference for me. Happily, I live within a 5 minute walk of .... 7 burger places? Let's discuss further.

McDonald's - Sometimes I feel like eating the little kid's meal burger. It happens.

Hero Burger - OMG this place sucked so much. I went years ago when it was all hyped up and was amazed by how much I paid for a crappy burger.

A&W - I like A&W because I both root beer and burgers make me happy.

White Squirrel Cafe - This was ok. I actually like the littler burgers, this is the kind with a thicker patty, which I sometimes find a bit difficult to eat. The toppings were ok too.

Sense Appeal - I really liked this burger! They'll cook to your desired doneness. Thicker patty, on the smaller side, which is fine with me. Burgers here are cheap too, $6 for a basic one.

Big Smoke Burger - I like their cheeseburgers ok. Their burgers are kind of the size I like. It's easier to eat when they're flatter. Not sure if it's as good as it used to be; I got a burger from the Eaton Centre location and it wasn't as good as what I used to get from the King/Spadina location.

Burger's Priest - I don't like Burger's Priest very much. I think you're supposed to get one of their crazy burgers with all the stuff on it but I like my burgers to be pretty simple. I got a bacon cheeseburger here and it was kind of bland, which weirded me out. How can a bacon cheeseburger be bland?

Other burger places I've been to:

Gabardine - See photo above; this burger was pretty good. I liked how they used bibb lettuce.

Harbord Room - This was a good burger, I remember thinking I liked the Harbord Room burger more than the Gabardine burger.

Richmond Station - Small but so tasty; I like this burger quite a lot. I like their fries too.

Jules - This burger is a little weird, the bun wasn't a normal burger bun. I only got the burger once because I really like their club sandwich and quiches.

Queen and Beaver - I remember thinking this was underwhelming for the price.

Bymark - I'm not sure if I had THE Bymark burger or not? I was here for a lunch seminar and got a burger. It was ok. It had blue cheese I think, which I don't like.

Burger King - I haven't had a Whopper for years but if it was where McDonald's is, I would go sporadically.

Richmond Rogue - They topped their burger with a fried egg, bonus!

White Castle - I like this because I like small burgers.

Shake Shack - This is probably my favourite burger now. I had the Smokeshack and not only was it the size of burger I like, it was filled with toppings I like, plus the bun was soft but didn't get all soggy. Their fries were good too (surprising because crinkle cut kind of bothers me).

Travel guide: New York City

Last visited:  November 2013


Places to stay:

Umm, usually I stay with friends or family.  But once I stayed at a Marriott in Brooklyn, it was right by the bridge so it's a pretty good location and cheaper than staying in Manhattan.  The cheaper B&B / hostel options all seem to be up by Harlem or Columbia University, but it's not the most convenient area so if it's your first visit, you'd probably want to be more central.  Anywhere on the south side of Central Park is basically fine for getting around to tourist places.

How to get around:

The subway is handy and gets you to most places quite well.  Just remember to check the signs to see if you're heading uptown or downtown, and also to check if you're on an express or local train.  Note also that if you overshoot your destination and want to ride back the other way on the subway, you can't do that for free at all the stations - for some of them, the entrance to the train going the opposite direction requires and extra fare.  Lots of automatic vending machines for the swipey subway cards but if you're paying with a credit card, it'll ask you for your zip code - not sure how this would work for foreign cards.  There's also a max amount of change the machines will give you, so you might need to get smaller bills.

Taxis are also pretty cheap in NYC, especially compared to Toronto.  To get from St. Marks up to Columbia is less than US$30, I think.  So if you're feeling lazy, just take a taxi.  But for getting to/from the airports, you can get to La Guardia, JFK and Newark by public transit or by airport shuttle bus - lots of info on these if you google.

Things to see:

I'm not going to bother listing all the tourist stuff, you should be able to figure that out yourself.  But keep an eye out for reduced or free admission (e.g., MoMA is free on Friday nights).  And keep an eye out for "suggested" admission prices (e.g., the Met admission is suggested, you can actually pay whatever you want).

The photo above was taken from Governors Island, they have miscellaneous events throughout the year and it's also just a fun place to hang out.  Free ferry leaves from the building next to the Staten Island ferry building.  The High Line can be fun too, although I got bored with it pretty quickly and wandered into Chelsea Market instead (mmm food).  Note - if you're walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, the subway entrances are actually a bit of a walk from the entrance to the bridge walkway itself.  Umm, I dunno, just wander around NYC, you'll find stuff to do.

Places to eat:

Oh man, where to start?  Hmm let's start with high-end.  There's lots of places to choose from, but if you want a blow-out dinner and don't have a particular preference, I like Eleven Madison.  NYC also has a ridiculous number of options for high-end dining at bargain prices, especially if you're free for a weekday lunch.  If you want to test out how you feel about high-end dining, I'd pick Jean Georges for lunch.  If you know you want high-end but don't want to pay dinner prices, then I'd pick Eleven Madison for lunch.

On the lower end of things, I'm pretty obsessed with the tater tots at Crif Dogs.  My favourite is getting a deep-fried bacon-wrapped Crif Dog and pairing it with a dipping sauce from Pommes Frites down the street.  The tater tots are a large portion, so you'll probably want to share.  There's nothing particularly special about them except for the fact that they're deep fried and therefore awesome.  There's about a zillion places to eat in the city and most of them are really quite good, so just poke around and you'll find something good.

If you feel like venturing out and exploring, eat your way along the 7 train. Trust me. 

Love the nightlife? Got to boogie?

Again, about a million options here.  For drinks, I spend most of my time bouncing between the faux-speakeasies because I like cocktails and the random entrances make me laugh.  They all have pretty different atmospheres, so just do a search and pick one you like.  Flatiron Lounge is by far the easiest one to find.  PDT is probably one of the harder ones to get into because of the size, but it has the most entertaining entrance.

Note that a lot of the museums have bars and parties, just dig through some NYC listings and they should pop up if there are any when you're going.  I'm pretty clueless when it comes to NYC clubs, the only one I've been to was years ago and my friend brought me there.  As usual, google is your friend.  If you're looking for something quirky though, look up Dances of Vice.

DOG VS DOG

Hot dogs - the new gourmet burger?

I'm pretty sure this is where things are headed.  Although Toronto continues to have more and more gourmet burger places opening up each minute, we are generally a bit behind the times.  I'm pretty sure encased meat is where it's at.

Don't get me wrong, my love of burgers is pure and true.  But lately I've been having a bit of a love affair with the oh-so-enticing wonders of deep-fried bacon-wrapped hot dogs and Rosemary and Garlic Smoked Chicken Sausage with Sweet Chili-Garlic Mustard and Cheese-Stuffed Marinated Hot Peppers (yes, you read that correctly; feel free to re-read, it took me a few times to process the amazingness of those words).  Here, have a look at it:

Let's start with Toronto.  I'd say our street meat is actually pretty good, it's nice that they grill the hot dogs and sausages and we get a wide variety of toppings.  Today I went to The Counter and noticed they have a foot-long hot dog on the menu.  Toppings weren't particularly exciting (not compared to what I'm going to show you) but it's a start: for example, grilled onions/mushrooms/swiss cheese and bacon.  But like I said, we tend to be a bit behind the times.

Let's head on to NYC and Chicago.  While NYC has somehow become famous for street meat, I've never been much of a fan of dirty water dogs.  I mean seriously?  Dirty water dogs over grilled?  Not likely.  Anyway, maybe it all started with Gray's Papaya for me.  Gray's is a classic but I wasn't wowed when I went.  It's cheap and I hadn't had a hot dog with sauerkraut on it so it was a bit of a novelty but didn't make much of an impression.  However, NYC is home to Crif Dogs, which I love love love.  My favourite is the classic house dog, wrapped in bacon, but I certainly wouldn't turn down a Spicy Red Neck: a house dog, bacon-wrapped, with chili, coleslaw and jalapenos.

By luck I had back-to-back trips to NYC and Chicago (the journey of encased meats?) so had an interesting comparison.  Although people may talk about NYC when they talk about hot dogs, Chicago takes the crown on this one (Yet oddly, people talk about Chicago pizza and I'd say NYC pizza is way better.  Go figure).  Here's a pretty standard Chicago dog:

Think about this.  This is standard.  This is like, boring.  I assume you're now starting to see the awesomeness of Chicago dogs over NYC dogs.  But I haven't gotten to the best part yet.  Remember Ferris Bueller's Day Off?  Abe Froman, the Sausage King of Chicago?  He's like, real!  Well, sort of.  His name is Doug Sohn, owner of Hot Doug's.  While tastes vary, I'm pretty sure that whoever you are, you will likely find the Jesus encased meat of your choice at Hot Doug's (Doug is also really nice!  He works the counter!).

That is the Bacon and Cheddar Elk Sausage with Bacon-Garlic Mayonnaise and Black Mountain Garlic-White Wine Cheese.  Although I could only try two sausages on my visit to Hot Doug's, this one blew my mind.  Each component was soooo delicious!  And together they were an explosion of deliciousness!  Love love love!

But getting back to my original point (I did sort of have one) - I think that hot dogs may be the new gourmet burgers.  Case in point - I stumbled across the Eleven Madison Park bar menu online and noticed the Petite Hot Dog: bacon, gruyère cheese, celery relish and black truffles.

If this really is the next food trend, then maybe we'll get a decent equivalent in Toronto (eyeballs Hoof Cafe hopefully).

ELEVEN MADISON PARK

There's eating food and then there's a dining experience.  I've been to EMP twice in the past, once for lunch and once for brunch; both times before the current chef (Daniel Humm) took over.  I've had a soft spot for EMP since I first went there. 

Tucked away, you almost wouldn't notice it's there.

 

Welcomed inside, you'll find yourself in a beautiful art deco room.  A part of me hesitated to come to EMP for dinner because it is absolutely stunning in daylight.  Cue a 5:30pm reservation in summer to get the best of both worlds.

But another dilemma presented itself.  After having been to EMP a few times, I wanted to go all out.  Coming on the heels of a four-star review in the New York Times, a Michelin star and a James Beard award to Daniel Humm as NYC's best chef, I wanted to see what the full EMP experience was like.  But no one wanted to come with me.

Not too surprising at the price point I was looking at, but I was faced with the question of whether I scale back or gamble on being to tolerate my own company for several hours.  I gambled.  Let me present - the Eleven:

Gougeres to start.  According to Wikipedia, "A gougère, in French cuisine, is a savory choux pastry with cheese."  According to me, it is THE BEST CHEESE PUFF ON EARTH.  I had read about these but had never eaten one and had no clue what people were going on about.  It's not flaky like puff pastry, but it's very light - kind of hollow.  The outer layer is solid and the inner layer is soft.  I tried not to eat all of them because I knew I hadn't actually started into my eleven "real" courses, but I scarfed them down in about 30 seconds.  Later I was looking around and...I think this serving is normally for two people.  This will come into play later.

 

Hors d'oeuvres.  From left to right: carrot marshmallow; big eye tuna; asparagus and foie gras; morel tart; sweetbreads.  I think that's approximately correct.  Standout item for me was the sweetbreads.  I didn't think I'd like them because sometimes I don't like offal but wow.  It was like the best wonton ever (I know that sounds ridiculous but really, if you eat it, it makes sense).

Pretty, yes?  But no alcohol for me tonight, I knew how much food was coming.  Umm I totally forget what this drink was - it was second in the Soft Cocktails section and may have had a funny name.  Some who know me will realize the Herculean effort involved in me staying away from the cocktail list.  Difficult though it was, it won't be a problem - I'm already plotting to drop by EMP again at some point.

This was the first "real" course of my Eleven.  Sterling royal caviar with buckwheat and quail egg.  Mmm this was lovely.  Ok, let's count them down...

(Ten) Santa Barbara sea urchin custard with sterling royal caviar, green apple and shellfish ragout.  I didn't know sea urchin would be on the menu.  I think it's kind of icky.  I liked this dish, but I still thought the sea urchin texture was icky.  Note, service at EMP is phenomenal.  It's hard to express how good this service is; it's sort of like a friendlier, more casual version of a formal high end dinner service.  We'll get to more of this later.

(Nine) When I'm at a restaurant that claims to be in the upper-echelons of dining, I expect moments of greatness.  I expect to taste something transcendent.  I don't expect it from every dish, but once we get into high-end tasting menu territory, I want to be surprised and awed.  This... It's just a taboule right?  Seems a bit meh?  Taboule salad with spring crudites and wild herbs to be exact.  But do you see the two tomatoes?  They were two of the most amazing things I've ever had in my life.

I noticed the table next to me asked about the tomatoes also, so it wasn't just me.  Pretty straightforward, they roasted them a bit to get the skin off and cooked them lightly in olive oil.  But dear God, the flavour was unbelievable.  I wonder if I could order just a bowl of tomatoes?  The dish was very good overall but those tomatoes are like...the best food ever?

(Eight) Organic rabbit rillettes with foie gras, cherries and pistachio bread.  There was a lot going on here and it was all good.  Oddly, my favourite bit were the two candied pistachios - I think because I didn't realize they were there.  Oh and see the round ball in the back?  With a little stem?  It's a hollow pistachio ball filled with a liquid cherry centre.

Remember how I mentioned amazing service earlier?  I had called a few days before my reservation to mention that I didn't want any dishes which had a lot of foie gras in it (more than a few bites is too rich for me) and at the start of my meal my captain for the evening noted my concern and indicated that the night's foie gras dish only used the foie gras as almost a garnish and that the focus was really more on the rabbit - leaving me the choice about whether it would be too rich for me.  I like rabbit, so I said bring it on.

You know you're in a classy place when they stamp their logo in the butter and provide you with two types of butter.  Goat milk on the left, cow milk on the right.  I'm not a huge fan of goat milk, but I was all over that cow milk butter.  Umm this butter is really really good.  They gave me a little baguette and a little rosemary/olive oil bun and I wasn't going to eat it all because I knew it would make me full...but I needed to use it as a butter delivery service so I wound up eating all of it.

(Seven) This was probably my favourite overall dish of the evening.  Atlantic halibut slow cooked with artichoke and tomatoes.  There are the world's best tomatoes again!  And the artichoke puree was deeeeeeeeeelicious.  The only part I liked less were the fava beans, but only because I am somewhat anti-bean in general (texture).  Oh and that's a mussel on top (breaded and fried).

This made me laugh.  The captain appeared with a silver bowl with grass growing out of it and this lollipop "growing" amidst the grass.  Yes, I should have photographed it but I was too busy being puzzled about whether my next dish was something that looked like grass but couldnt really be grass.  Anyway, this is my carrot lollipop.  I liked it much better than the carrot marshmallow!  It was chilled so it was like a frozen lollipop!

(Six) Nova Scotia lobster lasagna with lemon verbena and heirloom squash.  I was told that this is a new item for EMP.  The giant piece of lobster was delicious!  But I was a bit distracted because the sauce was a bit salty for me and it was a bit difficult deciding how to cut things up so that each mouthful would be full of a delicious mix of food (I wish this was as difficult as life gets).

Next drink - forgot what this was called but it was cherry/mint.  Tasty!  And see those three thin books to the right?  Early in the evening, my captain popped by and dropped off three magazines in case I wanted to look at them.  Did I ever!  EMP produces its own in-house magazines written by staff and sometimes by patrons.  There was one about chicken, one about wine and one about cocktails.  Very entertaining.  Ok, still with me?  We have more to eat, we're only halfway through!

(Five)  Earth and Ocean - slow cooked poussin with Hawaiian blue prawns and seaweed.  Having the EMP magazines was awesome because it taught me what poussin (young chicken) was before this dish appeared.  I liked this one a lot!  Somewhat Asian-flavoured because of the seaweed and there was nori tucked in with the chicken.  I was sad because I only noticed towards the end of this dish that the garnish sprinkle on top was something spicy that made each bite even more awesome.

You're unimpressed right now.  I sense it.  I've shown you all sorts of pretty, colourful things and now you're bored.  BUT WAIT.  This is my special dish.  We'll call it 4.5 - braised duck leg with foie gras mousse.

When I made the foie gras call, I also asked about the duck.  EMP's duck is supposed to be amazing and I LOVE DUCK.  It's also not something I get to eat too often, so I checked into the possibility of having the duck with my tasting menu.  But the duck is for two.  It's an entire duck.  I figured I should cut my losses - I didn't want to wind up paying the duck supplement and only eating one bite of the duck, so I decided to pass and just go with a "basic" Eleven (note - my captain went back and forth with the kitchen a few times to suss out my options - again, amazing service).

But suddenly, 4.5 appeared.  They had indulged duck-obsessed me by sending over a special duck course.  The braised duck is at the bottom of the bowl and it's covered in foie gras mousse.  At first it was a bit salty but after mixing everything up it was yum!  Mmmm duck.  I'd read a lot about EMP's service going in so I knew it was supposed to be stellar but still...wow.

(Four)  Colorado lamb, herb roasted with sucrine lettuce, garden peas and Oregon morels.  Um so remember the gougeres?  And the bread service?  This is where I hit the wall.  When the lamb dish appeared, I was getting to be so-very-full.  Look close enough and you'll notice this dish looks a bit off because I started eating and forgot to take a photo first.  Brain cells and motor skills had slowed down significantly.

There was a lamb sausage, the lamb you see in front and under the peas, there is lamb cooked a different way.  Ummm I'm not sure how it was cooked but the lamb under the peas was my favourite.  It was almost like...pulled lamb inside?  But the outside was all ummm seared?  I have no idea.  Oh and there was a lamb-filled pasta also.  I was so full after this.  I think this is when I started getting up a lot more and eating much more slowly.

(Three)  The cheese course.  Ohhh man I was dying by this point.  I was actually going to pass on the cheese course but the captain and I both figured "awww just a little bit."  It was interesting, they roll up the cheese cart and you can tell them types of cheese you like / dislike if you have no clue which cheese you want.  This is when I discovered that the cheese cart selection is created by the Maitre de Fromage.  THEY HAVE A MAITRE DE FROMAGE.  I feel so uncouth.

Umm the first cheese pairing was my favourite.  I forgot that I don't like goat cheese so the first two are goat and the last (right-side) is cow.  But the goat cheese paired with "squishy orangey stuff" was my favourite.  Even though these were only slivers, I admitted defeat after eating most of it.  This also came with some warm bread which I immediately had a bite of until I remembered that continuing on that track would make me pass out on the comfy couch.  Decidedly uncouth.

(Two)  Almost there!  This is "Milk and Honey" - it's sort of like an ice cream ball filled with honey with crunchy meringue bits on top.  I successfully ate it all.

(One)  In hindsight, I realized that I could have packed up some of this instead of eating it all but that's not nearly as fun.  This is bittersweet chocolate cremeux with black sesame, carmaelized banana and yuzu.  I love yuzu!  This was good but I only ate 3/4 of it because I didn't want my stomach to explode (very uncouth).  Of course, although this is the last of the Eleven, you didn't think we were done yet, did you?

Macaroons.  I don't remember what these were because by this time I had eaten so much I couldn't hear.  There were actually more choices than this, I think maybe eight types in total?  I pointed at the pink one (strawberry basil?) and asked for chocolate ones (the next two) and was also served peanut butter and jelly and the last white one which was the chef's favourite.  I managed to eat the PB&J macaroon but boxed up the rest.

But wait!  Although we're done with the evening's dining, the fun continues...

This is what I left the restaurant with.  And no, I didn't steal any of it, they gave it to me!  We have the three magazines, a folder with a copy of my menu in it (although I think a few of the dishes aren't quite right, I adjusted some descriptions based on the online menu), my box of macaroons, a box of fruit jellies and a bottle of olive oil.

Final verdict?  So. very. awesome.