Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Earls Chilliwack. BC Canada

I’ve had many many burgers at Earls. Function of work mostly. Earls is generally a good place to meet clients and colleagues for lunch. And usually the burgers are pretty good, somewhere between 7 or 8 out of 10 on a consistent basis. So it was very disappointing to have the worst Earls burger of all time at their Chilliwack location. The bun is of huge importance in the overall burger picture. So when the bun is old and crumbly and you can’t eat the burger because its disintegrating in your hands, no matter how good everything inside is, it’s just game over for me. I’m a bit of a fresh bread nut. In this case on top of the crap bun, the burger was way too salty. I spent the next 4 hours licking my lips and downing Dosani. 5.5/10 this time around, sad sad sad. The sadder thing still, I’ll be having many more Earls burgers in the future.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Five Guys Burger and Fries West Vancouver. Canada


 
Five Guys Burger and Fries is widely advertized as president Obama's favorite burger joint. CSpan did a piece on him visiting the outlet in Washington DC with secret service in tow. I imagine not too many of the chains customers usually arrive in a limo.

Started by 5 brothers in the 80's, five guys now boasts over 1500 locations. I guess they've finally made it to Canada. Is it just me or are there just a slew of chain burger places popping up everywhere? By the way I still haven’t had a Fatburger. Am I missing anything?

Five guys makes a pretty good burger. Everything on the burger is fresh. The patties are small (3.5 oz) so naturally you have to go with the double burger. Rule of thumb, anything under 6 oz and its an automatic double. I find the meat gets lost otherwise.

I’ll give it an 8/10 for this burger. There was lots of plastic cheese. I added what turned out to be glow in the dark green jalapeƱo peppers. The sign over the grill said: “We cook our meat juicy and well done”. How the hell does that work? One of my patties had a bit of pink in the middle and that's how I prefer my burger medium and juicy. But I guess with all the mustard, mayo and plastic cheese there is some juice.

I'm not going to slag Five Guys too much, after all this was a good burger, but the place still feels fast food like.

The fries were great, fresh cut, specially grown for the chain. They remind me of New York Fries outlets, just a bit thicker but with that same meaty potato and heavy dark tasting skin.

I'll be back when I'm in in a hurry and want a quick good burger.