Damn you, Moxie.

Moxie's.

When you visit the website for Moxie's and you click on "About Us," the following schtick literally starts off the description: "Moxie's Grill & Bar operates 63 premium casual restaurants in seven provinces with yearly system sales over $200 million." If you're a construction worker, oncologist, folk museologist, executive coach, etc., you probably have no idea how "system sales" differs from just sales.

Moxie's mantra? Starts off: "What makes Moxie's unique and different from others? At Moxie's we believe our most strategic competitive advantage is the company's culture." That's pretty cool. It's straight out of a marketing textbook and completely alienates the diner, but I get it. This is an attractive statement for hooking potential franchisees who will take this Calgary-based premium casual chain eatery across Canada. If anyone from Moxie's reads this blog post, please check out Milestone's or McDonald's website to learn how to design for a good first impression. Pro tip: tuck the corporate stuff behind the diner's site.

The point I'm trying to make is that Moxie's is a restaurant run by those who spin and count beans, and unabashedly so. These are not food people running the show, but most Canadians are not likely to care. The urban surfer of the blogosphere might shake their heads in bewilderment, but the growth of so-called premium casual eateries makes sense. I lived in England for a couple of years and these eateries are everywhere; hell, even most pubs are chains. You have chain tapas joints and chain Parisian-style bistros and chains that are called "Pizza Express" which are surprisingly more upmarket than the name suggests.

It wasn't much to look at.

Sometimes it is about convenience - many outlets are located in suburbs. Suburban couples may want a quick date night without the kids and without a $200 babysitter bill. Sometimes it is because the food is unchallenging and consistent. There are lots of people who don't care for, or have not been introduced to, good cuisine and just want menu items that they understand. So in this light, Moxie's fits well into the evolution of Canada. The Moxie's location that I visited for this review (Riverside and Hunt Club) was only a ~5 minute drive from my office. They do brisk business lunch because the consistent, unchallenging food leaves the kitchen at good pace.

So I'm an urban yupster that likes to meet the cattle rancher providing the stuff that goes in my meat grinder. By definition I'm not supposed to go to a place like Moxie's. And I'm certainly not supposed to like the burger they serve me.

But dammit, I did. I don't know if this was the real deal, a fluke, or a set-up but the burger was actually good. I chose the Mediterranean burger, which included basil pesto, feta, and goat cheese.

Read on after the jump.

When life hands you lemons, you make burgers

My wife and I had a peculiar evening last week. We were trying to get from our place in Little Italy to IKEA in the west end, but the universe was having other thoughts and decided to throw up a few roadblocks. We took longer than we had anticipated to leave, there was an accident on the 417, and subsequent traffic was miserable. Thing is, this was supposed to be prefaced by a burger and beer at the relatively new Big Rig Brewery. We attempted to at least scrounge a review by stopping at Mill Street, but it was packed to the gills. Nearly ready to give up and get some neighbourhood pho, I spoke words that very rarely leave my mouth: "Sweetie, let's go to the Market!"

I don't like the Market much, for reasons that are entirely my own. (It's not you, Market, it's me.) It's crowded with young'uns and malcontents, crappy drivers and BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM rabble rousing they call music these days. That's its identity and Ottawa needs that area, but few things draw me there. I'll put up with it for Murray Street - the restaurant and the street itself - which seems to be avenue that calls most to dames and fellas rather than characters from Jersey Shore.

It's taking a long time for me to get to the burger, eh? I'm liking the sound of my own typing today.

But lo, amidst much darkness there lies a gleaming jewel of food and beverage known as Brothers Beer Bistro. There you may delve into an artfully-crafted beer menu and order yourself artfully-crafted brew served with a side of artfully-crafted food. Located in the digs formerly occupied by a Japanese restaurant at 366 Dalhousie, Brothers has a slick yet understated decor and offers some of the best service you'll ever have. The kitchen serves up gourmet spins on comfort food, including one of the best burgers I have had in the capital.

This should not come as a surprise. After all, Brothers was up for one of the OpenFile/Ottawa Citizen best burger awards, despite it being a horse too dark for the proles. To many it seemed like this place came out of nowhere to earn accolades without even concentrating on the burger as a medium.

Just how was it so good? Read on after the jump. Unfortunately the dimness of the place meant that the pictures aren't very good. Sorry!

The goat that was meh: Clocktower Brewpub

North America: the marriage between burgers and pubs is not as healthy as we might like. This is a completely unscientific statement but my hypothesis based on nothing is that most pubs just don't serve a very good burger. The exceptions are flocked to, but for some reason the majority just don't seem to get the picture that overcooked beef cardboard  gives a terrible legacy to a fallen creature.What should be such a culinary no-brainer is not.

The problem is that I like pubs. I lived in England for two years and spent a lot of that time in pubs. Studying. Lots of studying. (Love you mum and dad!) Many English pubs offer poor burgers as well but for some reason I gave that a pass because most pubs served pretty bad food regardless if it was traditional local fare or imported Americana. When I go to a pub I want a burger because that fat-carb-protein mix is a perfect culinary foundation for an evening of responsible drinking. Then I get disappointed. That said, as part of my great burger quest I insist on hitting up some of Ottawa's notable pubs to see how they fare.

One of these things is more shrivelled than the others.

Amy and I went to the Westboro location of the Clocktower Brewpub, an outpost of the Ottawa brewpub institution located in one of the many new condos perched above Richmond. I love Clocktower's beer, and have been happily drinking it since my Carleton University days. A large location inside, it has this rather grand patio that stretches between a gym and a Running Room location, each with posters not exactly congratulating you on ordering your third kölsch. There we sat and ate burgers amongst the Lulu-clad regulars.

They actually offer six burgers for those looking, all fairly standard fare but a nice selection nonetheless. I had the so-called "Angry Goat" burger, which included a 7oz beef burger topped with herbed goat cheese, hot peppers and spicy mayo.

Was it angry? Read on to find out!

The Beast of Toronto: Holy Chuck Burger

Amy and I took a whirlwind adventure to Toronto to see family and friends. I put that reason first to assure my family and friends that indeed we did not visit just because I wanted a burger review from the GTA!

Making a decision of which joint to go was the tough part. From the Burger's Priest secret menu to the very upscale Bymark Burger, the selection here is outstanding and I don't envy the task ahead for some of the 416/905/647/etc burger bloggers out there. The craze has completely enveloped the city. The deciding factor was that one of our friends is pescatarian and so we had to choose a noted burger joint that catered to her tastes in a creative manner.

There she is, freshly unwrapped. A very nicely built monster.

We settled on Holy Chuck Burger, a new but fiery competitor in the great jungle of Toronto burger joints. Open for less than a year, this modern diner at Yonge and St. Clair places its kitchen out in the open and its meat grinder in the fore of that kitchen. Chances are they are grinding your meat as you're staring at their menu considering what spin on the burger you want to try. It's quite the menu indeed. You can get a burger 'twixt two grilled cheese sandwiches or topped with a braised veal cheek or steeped in maple syrup and topped with foie gras or ground up with bacon, etc.

I of course settled for their signature burger, the "Holy Chuck", which is a double cheeseburger topped with thick-cut bacon and caramelized onions. There is a little note that follows the menu item asking the customer not to add any toppings on it, and since I'm not very contrarian I ordered the burger as-is.

So read on if you're a Torontonionian or TO-bound and want to know what the chuck's up with this cliche.

A Taste for Burgers: Burgers on Main (Somerset)

A Taste for Life is an annual event where an ever-growing group of restaurants will donate 25% of each diner's food and alcohol bill to HIV/AIDS charities across Canada. For Ottawa's event, proceeds went to two incredible charities, Bruce House and the Snowy Owl Foundation. Both of these charities and their volunteers work tirelessly to help Ottawans living with HIV/AIDS and rely on events like a Taste for Life for support. You can tell that our community is supporting this worthy effort because restaurants this year were packed. If you missed it this year, definitely participate next year, and remember to book ahead because seats went quickly.

On this occasion, Amy and I took the opportunity to join in the fun and choose a spot I've been eyeing for months now: the downtown Ottawa location of Burgers on Main.

Located on 343 Somerset, just east of Bank Street, BOM is situated in a lovely heritage home that was the former location of the ill-fated second iteration of Friday's Roast Beef House. Considering that my meal at Friday's was the worst I have ever had in Ottawa since I grew teeth, even if these burgers were horribly charred slabs of wood they would be an improvement over what existed prior. Thankfully, not only was my burger good, it was very good.

The Main of the House

Opening a downtown location, especially one on a street that has been challenged by  restaurant turnover lately, must have been gutsy for the Manotick hotspot. The decor is a random assortment of 50's memorabilia, heritage home and steakhouse, but quite frankly I didn't care in the least. It's a burger joint after all.

BOM features a pretty simple burger selection; there are a few interesting choices but nothing terribly exotic. I could have opted for something with brie and red onion marmalade for instance but instead I went with the "Smoked House Burger" featuring housemade barbeque sauce, bacon and aged cheddar on a multiseed bun.

How did it fare? Check it out after the break.

Glebe's big haunt: the Arrow and Loon Pub

Intro

The Arrow and Loon pub sits at the corner of Bank St. and Fifth Ave, in the heart of the Glebe. Since the mid-90's it has been one of the Glebe's chief watering holes for lunch, dinner, hockey games and pub trivia. The friendly service and one of Ottawa's best microbrew menus are reasons enough to go, but when I heard that they had an ambitious burger menu, the Loon moved to the top of the list.

Indeed, inspecting their website I was faced with what I call a Burgertrix (from burger and matrix, in case you're wondering). A Burgertrix offers the diner a selection of patties - in this case beef, bison, chicken or veggie - and a selection of toppings. To top it off, a "build your own burger" option was included. Wanting to test their construction skills however, I opted for menu offerings.

Silly kids, Burgertrix' are for adults.

The Burgertrix offers a challenge in that I have to taste a few different combinations to really get a sense of the chef's burger prowess. Luckily I was accompanied by my beautiful wife Amy and my dear friends Krista and Robin, organizers of the Urban Craft local craft fair. Together we selected four burger combinations, quartered them, and shared. This gave me the opportunity to get a good perspective on the menu overall. I will present one BurgerDAR representing an average score for all burgers, but will speak to each individually.

So what did we have?

• "First Avenue" - Sautéed onions, BBQ sauce, cheese and bacon on chicken breast - Amy's pick
• "Second Avenue" - Salsa, sour cream, hot peppers and sautéed onions on bison - Krista's pick
• "Third Avenue" - Spinach, roasted red peppers, hummus and garlic mayo on chicken breast - Robin's pick
• "Fifth Avenue" - Roasted red peppers, sautéed onions, goat cheese and peameal bacon on beef - My pick

Were they as good as they read? Reviews and pics after the break.

Served by the Lords of Lunch: the Arc Lounge burger

Intro

Arc the Hotel is a trendy boutique hotel in central Ottawa. Located on Slater Street between O'Connor and Metcalfe, the Arc was completely different from the competition when it first opened, heralding a contemporary design and a strong focus on food. My wife and I actually stayed there the night of our wedding; a distinct memory from those fast and wonderful days was waking up to a cheerful family and Arc's incredible breakfasts. So needless to say, I have fond feelings for the place.

There is a burger on the lunch menu that immediately looked inviting: an O'Brien's beef patty topped with "smokey-spicy" cream cheese, caramelized onions, pickles, red onion, lettuce and tomato on a strong white bun.

Normally my introductions are a bit longer, but instead I'll just give you this:

Boom.

More after the break.

Black Cat Bistro and the burger as a culinary platform

Intro

Over the years, I've eaten five times at the Black Cat Bistro, in two of the locations it has called home. I remember having exquisite Vietnamese-inspired food in the old yellow house on Murray Street that Navarra occupies now. My friends and family have all had great experiences there as the kitchen has evolved and chefs have changed. Owner Richard Urquhart has gently shepherded this Ottawa staple through the years with class and a great eye for trend. This is in many ways the Doctor Who of Ottawa restaurants; it reincarnates to keep fresh, has a dedicated fanbase, is quirky enough to be original but is firmly prime time. BCB's current incarnation on 428 Preston at Norman is of neighbourhood bistro, where the service is friendly and the food is playful. 

Every Tuesday, chef Patricia Larkin designs a burger. To some, this would be like Da Vinci doing Etch-a-Sketch, but to the Ottawa burgerati, this is clearly someone who admires the burger a platform of possibility rather than just another humble dish with a formula. Previous burger creations include the pastrami burger (smoked burger patty with pastrami spice, rye spread, mustard, pickles, cabbage), the breakfast burger (sausage patty and fried egg), shawarma burger, etc.

This night's special burger was the "curry burger," which included curry paste, fried onions, mango chutney, cucumber, lettuce, and a cilantro, mint and cumin mayo.

It might seem unfair to review a burger that may never leave those kitchen doors again, and it is for that reason that my wife graciously decided to order Richard's Angus Burger rather than her usual steak frites. We're all about teamwork for the quality of analysis here at Mike Likes Burgers. Richard's burger includes smoked bacon, sharp cheddar and secret sauce, and is offered on the menu from Tuesday to Thursday.

Reviews after the break

Shrimp burgers and social media

Chances are that many of you arrived here via Twitter. This is quite different than last week, where most of my readership was comprised of friends and family. I expected that this transition would take much longer to occur, but Ottawa's foodie and restaurant community have really embraced the blog. A big thank you in particular to Ron Eade from the Ottawa Citizen and the gang at foodieprints.

Now to last night's creation: shrimp burgers. Shrimp burgers are a delicious, healthy burger option that are quite easy to make. Normally when I try out a new recipe that has been fairly well established, I look at 10-15 on the Internet and try to determine what the trends are. Then I can identify what is vital for the recipe, or what can be experimented with. The trouble with shrimp burgers was that there were very different opinions on how to get the right consistency. Do you grind the shrimp raw or pre-cook? Do you need a binder? Grind it to a paste or keep it in chunks?

I used my newly established Twitter account to ask a couple of these questions to Emeril Lagasse, who is a guy I thought would know a thing or two about shrimp burgers. A few years ago you couldn't simply write a guy like Emeril and expect an answer back in ten minutes. Lo, Emeril, your advice was sagely. Those suckers were incredible.

We can pay a bit more now and eat shrimp forever, or pay less now and lose these delicious decapods to overfishing. I buy Ocean Wise certified sustainably raised shrimp from Whalesbone Oyster House's retail shop on Kent and Arlington in Ottawa. If possible, look for sustainably-raised or caught shrimp in your community.

Recipe after the break.

What's for dinner? The March Burger

Canadians have been talking about how this past winter was the winter that wasn't. We've experienced an incredible March so far, with temperatures reaching into the high 20's and keeping mild and dry at night. Visitors might erroneously believe that Ottawa is temperate. In honour of this exceptional weather, I decided to make a burger to toast spring.

Historically, not much is seasonal in March because we are supposed to be buried under snow at this time. When designing a burger for spring, my mind immediately went to the spring-iest of foods - asparagus - because beef and asparagus in one mouthful is profound on the palate. Sadly, the local asparagus crop hasn't hit my grocery store's shelves yet, so I opted for microgreens instead.

I used to think that microgreens were pretty ridiculous. They grow in this sci-fi nutritional paste and require silly amounts of effort to grow for their size. Carnivore-types will view them with great suspicion: they're a bitter, nutritious, impractical food that hearkens the hippie movement. They serve a culinary purpose of course; microgreens inspire the flavour of the fallow field. So it's with this mind that I used them as the key flourish of the burger.


Burger after the break.

The Booth Street Binary

Amy and I were invited for dinner to our friends Christine and Ron's on Saturday night. They too are fledgling bloggers on their own bloggific adventure. Of course, you didn't come to this blog to hear about our social life, you came for the burgers.

I'm not going to give a BurgerDAR score to burgers made by friends out of a desire to keep them as friends, even if they insist. I feel that the BurgerDAR is both an analytical tool and one that implicitly imposes judgement, which is fair game for a restaurant but a little much for a civilian. Eating burgers at friends - especially given how many of our friends are foodies - should be about the exploration of food.

Now let's get down to the burger. It was a mix of ground pork and turkey, grilled/smoked on a Big Green Egg with a bit of onion and garlic in the meat. It was topped with a smoky homemade traditional barbeque sauce and two-year old cheddar, and served on a flat bun. I added lettuce, a thin slice of red onion, and Christine's homemade red onion marmalade.

Ron didn't name it, so I did: "The Booth Street Binary;" Booth Street for their neighbourhood, and binary both because the burger is made of two meats and Ron works in computers. So it works on three levels (meats, computers, and two references), creating a paradox that invalidates the wittiness of the name. I won't dwell on this paradox; after all, this blog is not called "Mike Likes Paradoxes."

Because of a low fat content relative to typical lean beef, turkey can get pretty dry. The pork helped somewhat, and the barbeque sauce took care of the rest. Top it off with the marmalade, moisture was not a problem. The wood chips at the bottom of the Egg imparted an incredible smokiness to the meat that was highlighted by the sauce and matched perfectly by the salty cheese. Raw onion and the marmalade balanced the burger out.

I have a soft spot for flat buns. While they don't soak up juices as well as a thicker bun, for a thicker, drier meat combination like the Booth Street Binary, it was a perfect choice.

All in all, I would say it was a successful first burger step in my journey of a thousand burgers.

Petit Bill's Bistro

Intro

My wife and I had our first date at Petit Bill's Bistro, a delightful restaurant that spins French and Newfoundland cuisines together. Located at the corner of Wellington West and Smirle, Petit Bill's is one of those neighbourhood anchor joints that you get the feeling will have a long and healthy life as trends fly by.

The burger

"Bill's Burger" features a 100% beef patty from O'Brien Farms, lettuce, tomato and gorgonzola mayonnaise on a thick slice of well-toasted Art-Is-In cheddar baguette for $13. I opted for aged cheddar and double-smoked bacon, each $1.50 extra. The burger came with a good helping of thin-cut frites, the same that come with their famous lobster poutine, an Ottawa staple.

The patty was well-seasoned and moist, and at 6oz, a good portion. Despite the flavour sledgehammer that was the gorgonzola mayo, I could still taste the flavour and firm texture of the meat. The bun was fresh, ably absorbed juices and encased the burger nicely. It was toasted enough to provide a needed crunch. The cheddar in the bun was subtle and worked nicely with the cheddar on the burger - also subtle. Double-smoked bacon provided a nice dose of salt and was cooked to be nice and firm. So far so good.

It was dim, and I haven't worked up the courage to use the flash in a restaurant!

Gorgonzola mayo, like I mentioned, is serious business and it was the defining feature of an otherwise traditional offering. The cheese is an unskimmed, blue cow's milk cheese from northern Italy, and like its other blue cheese cousins provides a wonderfully sharp flavour with fungal after-notes. I should note that "fungal" is a positive term (for me) when describing cheeses. Much of the gorgonzola imported to Canada is often on the smooth rather than crumbly side, so mixed with mayo it makes a beautiful combination. That it did not overwhelm the simple beef was amazing and a big kudos in my books. It does, however, need a counterpoint.

The lettuce was unfortunately wilted and the tomato warm so they didn't provide enough crunch or freshness to balance the fat. A thick slice of red onion, or something edgier like pickled turnip, would have taken Bill's Burger from great to excellent.

I give the folks at Petit Bill's a big thumbs-up for supporting local producers of fine food products in their burger. 

Given the contemporary feel and casual-upscale stature of Petit Bill's, $13 is very good value. I would recommend adding bacon, but the cheddar is superfluous and doesn't substantially add to the burger.

The sides

Petit Bill's makes amazing thin cut fries. Soft with some residual crisp, skins on, not greasy. Served up with malt vinegar they're a great accompaniment. I paired the meal with a glass of 2009 Kingston Estate Petit Verdot from South Australia, whose full, peppery body was a great match for the burger.

BurgerDAR

Bill's Burger gets a 5/3/4. I definitely recommend.