The Roxy Burger

910 Granville St
Vancouver, BC
www.roxyburger.com

Guest Panelist: Kentish Anthony Steele III CANADIAN ROXY BURGER



BUFFALO BURGER


So, Roxie Burger, having 'burger' in it's name is a tough one...does it deserve a category all on it's own? I'm thinking anything with 'burger' or 'shack' is going to have to go on a separate page. Whatever, I'll deal with that later.

OK, so Kentish is a veteran of 'the strip'. We met when I was looking for an apartment and almost moved in with him...but I digress. He gave me some history behind the place. So, it used to be called the Planet Cafe and was supposedly one of the first casual bars in the Granville entertainment district. As the Strip began to change into more of a 'scene' new owners took it over, but always failed (suckas). So, the Roxy Night Club opened up next door, became wildly popular. To take advantage of the young-superdrunk-'i need a fucking burger, man' demographic, they opened up Roxy Burger next door.

Right. The burger. This is why I love going with someone else...you can order 2 different burgers and split them...Hence the combo-review.

So, after ordering a bucket of Bud and turning my attention to the hockey game I ordered the Buffalo Burger. It comes with the regs and a neat n' spicy chipotle ranch sauce. The presentation is frigin proper with the pickle mounting the top of the bun (yum). HOWEVER, the patty was super thin and dryer than the inside of Nicole Richie's veins. The sauce was good, though. AND, they provided a sog barrier (see previous blogs). Oh! And you can add tons of stuff: you know I had cheddar cheese, sauteed onions and mushrooms...BONUS

My Rating: If I wanted to eat some Nicole Richie I would have been present at her last lypo appointment. But nice pickle.

Kentish's burger: The Canadian Roxy Burger.
Every time there is 'Canadian' in the name you can be sure there will be bacon in it. Creative. So, this one went over a bit better. The patty was thick and juicy and made the whole thing super sloppy...Kentish added mushrooms which were great and it came with cheese at no extra charge. Again the presentation was really pretty. It was good, but not the highlight of my experiences...but a decent burger nonetheless.

My Rating: Meh...

The Black Frog

Guest Panelist: Emily Oja




I gotta say that the Black Frog is one of my favorite pubs in Vancouver. It is right at the end of Cambie, just before the railroads and has a terrific view of Canada Place (which, incidentally, changes colours at night).

So, my guest panelist for the day was Ms. Emily Oja, a fantastic dresser and champion speed-knitter (you should see this shit...it's just a whir of yarn, sweat and incessant 'klacking'). She is an expert because she watches the food channel a lot. Only, her day-to-day culinary exploits rarely go beyond Kraft Dinner and '2 liters' of chips (courtesy of Tom), but whatever.

The burger: Despite the fact that our server was a vegetarian, she was very helpful in answering the question I had for her. The chef told her (and I'm sure he said it with a look of total disbelief) that the meat in the burger was 'ground meat' - ok. Thanks, man. So, I'll call it chuck.

You guys, this burger was amazing. It had the regs and a pretty good sun dried tomato may (no pickles, which was momentarily disappointing). They couldn't do it medium rare but it maintained it's magical beefy juices. I put cheese and mushrooms on mine (a buck extra each, but worth is) and it was so frigin amazing I fell of my chair 4.5 times. It is huge, it has a sog barrier, they serve it on a GRILLED, WHOLE WHEAT BUN...WTF? I am in awe of this mastery of burger-making. They don't charge for Caesar salad instead of fries, either.

Emily had pretty much the same reaction. She started running around the bar and showing the other customers her burger and made them smell the inside. It was inappropriate but funny.

So, yes...do eat their burger. They Kill.

My Rating: Shut up, I'm making love to this burger, can't you see that?

OH, AND I AM GETTING A CAMERA, I PROMISE

Malone's Bar and Grill (Kits)

vs.

2210 Cornwall St. @ Yew
Vancouver, BC
www.malones.bc.ca

Okaaaaaaay. So, I've already talked about burgers with non-beef patties right? Well, here's the first review of the non-beef kind.
Malone's Bar and Grill, a supposed institution in Vancouver, boasts 'over 20 burgers and sandwiches', only 5 of which can be classified as a true burger. I will distinguish reviews by burger and try not to base future ventures to Malone's on this specific experience (I said I'll try...).

Oh, Fusion Tuna Burger, why did you sound so awesome and turn out to be so...well...inedible???

So, what's in it? Well, a grilled cajun tuna filet, for starters, complimented by salsa, guac, pickled ginger, wasabi aoli and 'all the fixings'.

MEXASIAN? Whaaaaaaaaa? People, if you want to do fusion, you must specialize in it (I know I will end up eating those words in a future post but for now...shut it). Just cuz the word rolls off the tongue does not mean it will work. It's like mixing tequila with sake...it will always make you barf.

So now we have Luche libre vs Samurai...actually, that would be a wicked match to see....
It was a fight to the death between the jalapeños and the pickled ginger.
SCORE ONE JALAPENO
The jalapeño-heavy salsa brought the ginger to its knees and did away with any hint of the powerful, pink root.
I did get a dill pickle though. Weird.

The tuna. I die a little inside every time I think of the tuna. I know, unless it is a seafood restaurant don't expect much. But frig, this was a triangle of fishy doom slathered with Cajun spices. Unfortunately the spices weren't powerful enough and I could still taste the tuna.
To add to the mush was the guac which now hinted of wasabi. Actually the guac and wasabi could have made a nice nacho dip but here it was just adding to the problems.

Triangle-burning-fish-mush, you ruined my day, you asshole.

Well, I've come this far so I may as well finish it...
Uncreative bun selection (white), but that could not have saved the burger .
AND PLEASE! if you are going to add a liquidy ingredient, like salsa, on top YOU MUST GRILL THE BUN (the sog-barrier).

All in all, thank god I had beer...or three.

My Rating: Would you wear a sombrero with a kimono? I though not.

The Denman St. Free House

1780 Davie St.

Vancouver, BC

I am going to preface this by saying that I am not bashing the whole place. Just the Burger. The Free House is actually a wicked little restaurant with one of the best views in the city, great cocktails and service. The rest of the menu looks pretty solid and the wine list doesn't suck. BUT the "Fat Burger with Skinny Fries' is simply mediocre. I had heard that they had the best burgers in town with fresh ground tenderloin and in-house seasoning. The first time I asked for medium rare and they said 'no way'. How can you have fresh ground tenderloin and not offer a range of cooking options? WTF, seriously. So, its served with provolone (always a burger bonus) onion confit and the regs for filler. The bun is a multigrain bun grilled thin (this is actually really good for any burger) so its a bit crunchy. This sounds great, right. Umm, no. SO DISAPPOINTING. The fact that it was both creative and disappointing just pushed it into the realm of pretension (that sounds pretentious, doesn't it?).
It wasn't just over-cooked, they defined 'cooking the shit out of something' making it crumbly and super dry (k, that's the biggest no-no). Over-spiced doesn't even begin to describe the the clusterfuck that took place in my mouth. The onion confit was way too sweet, overpowering and sloppy (the should have lightly caramelized them, but whatever). K, I know this sounds harsh, but when your dealing with a rep for the best burgers in the city you better be ready to have the critics go after you. It had so much potential, which is why it was so disappointing.

I went back this weekend, cuz as I said, it is a beautiful spot. I ordered the burger again hoping for a miracle. WHY WHY WHY? The only redeeming quality was the use of orange tomatoes, which are sweet with lots of flavor. But they refused to cook it medium rare, it was surprisingly under-spiced (at least my tongue didn't bitch me out this time) and generally blah. And to top it all off, the caesar salad was friggin nasty. How do you screw that up?? But my Bloody Caesar was good. So, the experience wasn't a total loss

My Rating: "hey Free House...GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER AND MAKE A DECENT BURGER...live up to your rep, k?"