Scott M.’s Review

The Experience

Well Fridays do deserve burgers for lunch so I headed down with a friend to the Original Motorcycle Gourmet Burgers Etc. at Temperance and Yonge.

The place is not a greasy spoon type but instead the more polished "I’d rather a chic experience than authentic experience" type place with a lot of wood grain and polished steel. Scaled back and classic. It really does remind you of the mid 40′s types who wear leather jackets and drive mini-vans and a lot less of "I lost an eye when I was 10 in meth lab explosion" attitude I’d expect from a biker theme. Think more "Wild Hogs" experience than "Easy Rider".  I digress.

The ordering style is pretty much the typical Acme, Hero and Craft type – walk in, pick your burger and your toppings, go sit down and wait.  And they ask your name instead of giving you a number… we all know that numbers are degrading (and hard to remember).

No nonsense order placement, which is good.   For the first time you need to read through a list of condiments just to find out if they have any really special sauces (which they don’t and I’m good with that – chipotle mayo is almost a cliché to me nowadays).

The seating was good and no wait staff meandering about – although the dude did almost clear my root beer before I was finished.  For a Friday, the place was pretty empty – I’ll have to keep my eye on that.

The Burger

Their shtick is that its not a burger… its a STEAK burger.  Which is like saying that your tuna sandwich isn’t a tuna sandwich, its sushi avec la pain.  They come from the same animal and yes, you used a better grade meat – but don’t be a retard – when you grind it up and put it on a bun, its a burger.

They offer a number of burger styles – like a banquet, philly, pesto etc…  I usually am not into that so much but mushrooms and swiss cheese is pretty much my favourite burger topping so I went with the Philly (which is Mozzarella, grilled onions and mushrooms) –  added fries and some overly inflated root beer in a bottle.

The burger is 6oz and served on a nice soft brioche type sesame seed roll.  Excellent choice for the bun as its airy, supplies substance to the burger without being chewy or tough.  Kudos.

The burger is definitely beefy (must be the steak), about 1/2 inch thick and tasty – although I found it a bit salty.  The ground is packed pretty tightly which in turn meant the burger was pretty juicy and held together. I find it hard to tell with a tight grind if the burger is medium (as their menu suggests).

Toppings were decent – soft grilled onions and mushrooms and the mozzarella is nicely chewy.  Cheddar or other toppings (like bacon) might be salterific as the burger is pretty salty.

I realize that this is a burger review, but the fries here are worth a mention – nice and crisp but fluffy inside.  Not too much salt and hot throughout.

Overall – I actually liked this burger quite a bit even though I commented on the salt a few times.  Maybe I’m getting old.  The bun really saved the burger for me – soft and airy is king.  The price, however, I thought was a little dear and I’m not sure why.  It was 11.95 for a burger which is typical if you were in a pub – however fries and the expensive cane sugar (?) root beer came out to $16 for the whole thing.

We DID however get a couple of keychains out of the deal –  nice swag. There are probably a bunch of minivan keys dangling off of these things all over the city :)

Bottom Line

Average rating:

3.75/5