At Harvey's with my dad

It took me about three posts worth of content before I started telling folks around the office that I was writing a blog about burgers. The ideas was met with great appreciation and now I count several colleagues as loyal readers. My bosses up the chain know too, coming for advice on a Friday about where they should go for burgers on the weekend. One even offered up a parable that inspired this post.

Like many parents, he takes his daughter periodically to McDonald's as a treat and she really enjoys it. A few months ago they found themselves in the west end near a Harvey's and rather than drive around to find the nearest McDonald's. He bought her a burger, she took one bite, and firmly declared that she never wanted to go to McDonald's again. After relating this story to a few friends of mine, each had reminisced about the same experience that they had with their fathers. Was I tapping into a special central Canadian tradition?


My father used to take me to Harvey's as a child as well. We would go to the slightly ramshackle location at the corner (apex?) of Baseline and Merivale, which has since been rebuilt, and scarf down a burger and onion rings, eating inside on those ridiculous swivel-chairs because dad's MGB was too low for drive-in windows. Needless to say I had the same reaction twenty-something years ago than my boss' daughter had: 1) I couldn't understand why other chains wouldn't let you order your own toppings, and 2) while the toys were all well and good I preferred eating the better burger. Looking back, that realization was clear step towards adulthood. On our epic roadtrips through the US I would always pine for Harvey's and feel a bit sorry for my American cousins for not having access to this wonderful place. Eventually I grew up, became a yuppie food snob and turned my nose up at fast food offerings.

One of the better looking burgers from a fast food joint. Look, real bread!

Founded in 1959 in Richmond Hill, Ontario, the chain quickly expanded in the face of heavy competition until it was purchased by Cara Food Operations, an air and rail catering company, in 1977. Today there are about three hundred location of Harvey's and they are clustered almost entirely in eastern and central Canada. Typical of the GTA, the original location was demolished to build condos. Locations are scattered across Ottawa, in both urban and suburban communities. Dad and I lunched at the location on Bank and Riverside.

Harvey's is similar to Five Guys in the sense that there are few gimmicks and the customer chooses their desired toppings. The chain offers a regular burger - single or double - a premium "Great Canadian Burger" (GCB),  chicken burger, veggie burger and hot dog.  Seeing as I'm a pretty great Canadian, I opted for the premium option with a side of onion rings.

Did it meet my unreasonably high, childhood-reminiscing expectations? Read on after the break.

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.

Spicy salmon roll burgers

Ottawa's culinary evolution occurred fairly recently. I grew up here and have seen the city's tastes expand as different cultures colonize it. The population has grown and urbanized. Ottawans are demanding a more varied cuisine.

Sushi is a good example of a food introduced early in the foodie trend, and is so ubiquitous now that many people will probably find peculiar the idea of living without it. Few among my parents' circles had ever tried the raw fish-'n-rice delicacy, much less eat it on a weekly basis. I doubt that they thought in the 1970's that their children would be slinging back the stuff in malls or in their cubicles.

I have never been to Japan and I didn't have a Japanese friend until I moved to the UK for grad school. So it was quite late that I discovered that sushi preparation here differs from that in Japan. The chefs' training is very lengthy and difficult, regulations dictating the handling of food are stricter, and the Japanese palate and cultural norms emphasize different consumer tastes than ours. No big surprise. What is fascinating is how we have translated sushi culture to something that has become so familiar.

When I went to design a burger concept then, my mind drifted to sushi. Here is a quintessentially North American food paying homage to a North American spin on a foreign food. It's like authenticity's second cousin. Anyway, I selected one of my favourite maki and went to town.

I give you the spicy salmon roll burger. A wild sockeye burger with ginger, garlic and green onion; topped with toasted nori, avocado and Sriracha mayonnaise. I forgot cucumber in mine, but the burger needed it (see why below), so I'm going to add cucumber to the recipe. I served it - wait for it - on a roll.

Salmon burgers are healthier alternatives to beef burgers if you're feeling like you need a break from red meat. I've got instructions and other salmon-related trivia after the break.

Your 'ol buddy on Rochester Street

There's an old house on Rochester Street between the corners of Beech and Norman that stands defiantly amidst a street of low rises and government offices. The Rochester Pub is a relaxed local watering hole with a draw much wider than just the neighbourhood. A great selection of craft brews on tap, good music not too loud and the cozy interior that makes it one of the better places in Ottawa to congregate with friends over a pint. It certainly draws in a good crowd of people across age groups on most nights, well after bureaucrats have left for the night. Warm stucco walls and dim lighting make it an inviting place to hang out for a few hours of conversation. The Rochester is not the type of place that will become a chain; it's the quiet guy in the back of the bar that takes life slowly.

We went on a Monday night, which for most places would be classified as an off-night, but the Rochester was packed with regulars for pub trivia. A woman crooned questions on the microphone as teams debated their answers over fish and chips and a beer. It was great to be a fly on the wall and take in the atmosphere. Given how busy it was, the food would probably be on.

The Rochester offers four burgers, all beef. There is a standard hamburger and cheeseburger; a "smokehouse" burger with bacon, cheese and barbeque sauce; and a "Mediterranean" burger with tzatziki, feta cheese and fried onions. The first two were a measly $7.00 and $7.25 respectively; the latter two were $7.95. Pub grub at rock-bottom prices.

I ordered the Mediterranean burger. Tzatziki is the Grand Condiment: it offers freshness, umami and garlic that is incredibly satisfying, especially paired with something crunchy like crispy fried onions. I had high expectations given my previous experiences here that the burger would be really good.

Not so much. Review 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

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.

Bison and Bambi at Dick's Drive-In and Dairy Dip

Intro

On days like yesterday when it's 25 degrees and sunny, I, like millions of Canadians, enjoy sitting outside and eating a good burger. So my wife and I did just that. On Merivale Road. Romantique, n'est-ce pas?

Eight years ago, when the venerable Dunkin Donuts chain sounded its death rattle in Ontario, a family saw potential in the bones of the 1485 Merivale Road location and opened a 1950's style burger and shake shack called Dick's Drive-In and Dairy Dip. For all you locals, 1485 Merivale is located on the "diagonal" Merivale, the one north of the split, but south of Baseline.

The menu is impressive, needless to say. The Nguyen family have managed to merge classic diner grub with some more exotic meat selections, most of them locally sourced. Besides the classic beef burger in various sizes and permutations, you can grab a chicken, turkey, salmon, lamb, bison, venison, ostrich, or kangaroo burger. That last one is a notable exception to the "locally sourced" moniker, unless someone around town has decided to raise kangaroos in a bid to finally make Canada "the Up Over." I digress.

I went more exotic and ordered a venison burger with a side of their famous panko onion rings. Amy had a bison burger (her favourite) with poutine. I ate enough of Amy's to confidently BurgerDAR the bison as well.

I enter this review with a bit of trepidation. Dick's has gathered a massive following, with many foodies extolling it as Ottawa's best burger. Will I split from the herd and declare Dick's to be anything less than its reputation? Keep reading to find out.

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.