Bareburger- Good for your soul and the planet

Who:        Food Writers
What:       Menu Tasting
Where:     BAREBURGER  - 111 Dundas St. W. Toronto
When:      Earth Day - April 22
Why:        To launch the new International Franchise for New York's Bareburger Restaurant

Twitter/Instagram:  @bareburger  #bareburgerTO





I spent my Earth Day Dinner in the best possible way.  I spent it with some of my favourite Food Writers at a brand new restaurant called Bareburger. The first International franchise extension from their New York location.  It just opened in the last couple of months in a really great location on Dundas just west of Bay Street.  It will cater to the Ryerson students, the City Hall, Hospital and other government offices and since it's not far from the Eaton Centre it's also convenient for tourists looking for healthy burgers and sides. We were introduced to owners Ragu and Euripedes (EP) and Chef Andrew who were all very excited to share their food with us.

It was fitting that we had our dinner on Earth Day because they have set their food standards very high.  They are kind of like the Chipotle of Burgers where their priority is to serve the best quality local food.  All of their meats are Free-Range, Pasture Raised, Humanely Raised, Antiobiotic, Gluten & Hormone FREE.  Their fried items are cooked in NON GMO  Canola oil. Their food is not only better for the planet it's better for your health and the health of the community where the restaurant lives.

Ok I know you want to know how the food tastes.  I am happy to say the menu isn't just regular burgers and fries.  Their young Executive Chef Andrew has created a great menu with the classic burger and fries fare and then added stepped up additions to the menu.

Their menu has a lot of choice so as Chef Andrew stated he never gets bored of eating food on the menu.  For their burgers there are 3 different kinds of buns, select a patty from choices of beef, bison, elk, wild boar, duck, turkey sweet potato & wild rice, black bean & quinoa.  Nine different kinds of cheeses, 4 different kinds of bacon, 11 different kinds of sauces, 5 different spreads and 13 different vegetables.

We sampled 3 different kinds of burgers:

1. The Standard had beef, colby, stout onions, dill pickles, special sauce on a brioche bun.
2. The Blue Elk was Elk, Amish Blue cheese, back bacon, stout onions, pineapple relish on a sprout bun.
3. The El Matador was Bison, cheese curds, pickled jalapenos, guacamole, green leaf, pico de gallo on a brioche bun.

They were all amazing,  I think my preference was the El Matador because I loved the toppings.

The Sides:

Onion Rings were the first thing we tried and were served with about 8 different sauces and sweet potato fries.  We all shared plates so I only got one onion ring and one sweet potato fry but wow were they delicious.  Incredible crunch on the onion rings and the dipping sauces were all influenced by big bbq locations in the U.S. where the chef and the owners had lived or spent time.  A really great blend of flavours and they use agave instead of sugar to sweeten some of them.

We also had Poutine with smoked brisket and Montreal cheese curds.

We tried a couple different salads:

1. Guapo Chop - little gems romaine lettuce, cheese curds, pickled jalapenos, red onions, pico de gallo, guacamole, tortilla chips and avocado basil dressing. Ours was served with the most amazing buttermilk battered fried chicken breast pieces.
2. Cali Fresh - Baby spinach, cauliflower hummus, red quinoa, grape tomatoes, watermelon radish, red onions, sprouts, lemon tahini dressing.

We also tried a Vegan addition of their Farmstead Collard Slider with sweet potato and wild rice patty, cauliflower hummus, tomato and baby kale wrapped in Collard Greens.  Probably not something I am likely to order because there were other things I preferred more but a great choice for restricted diets.

And finally after we were all completely stuffed out came some amazing Ice Cream cookies and a Black & white milkshake.  The ice cream cookies served were 3 different flavours, an apple pie ice cream and oatmeal raisin cookie, a peanut butter ice cream in a chocolate cookie and my personal favourite a roasted marshmallow ice cream in a snickerdoodle cookie.  They use Greg's Ice Cream and the Marshmallow flavour is my favourite flavour of all of their flavours.   The black and white milkshake was vanilla and chocolate ice cream with coffee beans and chocolate syrup on top.

It was a delicious meal and the owners are all passionate people with a lot of integrity. They love Canada and were told about opening here by one of their suppliers.  What I thought was really interesting was the fact that they had a lot of their vendors at the media night.  There is an obvious genuine connection and mutual respect between them which is always a sign of a successful operation.  There was so much attention to detail from the marketing materials to the design of the space to the combinations of ingredients. All carefully thought out.

As a Food Revolution Day Ambassador I can honestly say that I whole heartedly recommend going to this place.  
It's a lovely space, the people are very accommodating and the food is just amazing and it's all a win win situation for everyone.  I hope they like Canada so much that they open another location in North York so I can become a regular or maybe I need to get another job in the area.  I worked in that area a few years ago and wish they were open then because I know I would have been there a couple of times a week for sure.

Review - Wahlburgers Open in TO

A New Kid, Blue Blood,  Marky Mark, entourage creator actor and Chef brother Paul, some of the Wahlberg clan from Dorcester, Mass. bring their Wahlburgers Restaurant growing empire to Toronto for the first Wahlburgers restaurant in Canada.  Both Mark and Donnie Wahlberg have a great history with Toronto with their films, shows, fans and friends so they thought it would be the perfect location for them to expand into Canada.

The Wahlbergs can also be seen in an A&E reality series about the Wahlberg family and the restaurants.

The restaurant in Toronto had their soft opening this week but their GRAND OPENING is November 15th, 2014.

Since I was already in the area for the Chocolate Show I decided it was a good time to go check it out and try their family recipe Burgers.

Let's start with the restaurant before I get into the food.  You can't miss the Neon Green signature colour chairs that jump out in the space.  There are a couple of banks of TV monitors with various sports channels and a loop of their A&E reality show promo.  I would love to see one dedicated to some of their individual work like their films and live shows.. maybe that will come.

It is a sit down restaurant even though the food is a fast food type of food.  I think you can get take out but when I walked in I was immediately welcomed and directed to a seat.   The waitresses are typical young girls with short black skirts and white shirts.  It caters to the sports bar crowd or a young group of friends that want to hang out and grab some quick bites.

The space used to be a hair salon so there is another level above but I think that will be a spill over seating area.

They play classic rock music fairly loud but not as loud as a bar would be.  The space is pretty airy and bright from the large windows but I bet would be a bit darker on grey days but it still has a nice fresh feel about it.  Gone are the dark pub days that hide the beer spills in the carpet.

And now to the food.   I ordered an Ice tea to start... I'm not a beer or wine drinker and prefer water or ice tea with my meals.... yes I am boring but I enjoy my food.   They do have all kinds of drink concoctions but this was the afternoon and the people in the restaurant were mostly drinking beer.

I then ordered their OUR Burger which is their main signature burger.  It's a pretty classic burger with Paul's sauce which is probably similar to the Mayo, ketchup, relish, mustard combination.   It's a flat top grilled burger that doesn't have any gourmet things stuffed inside.  It's just a basic clean burger that gets it's flavour from the flat top crust they build into it by cooking it properly and leaving the juices in it and not over cooking it.  It was very tasty and it hit the spot.  I would like to see a bun that could stand up to the juices a bit more.  I like soft hamburger buns but don't like it when they fall apart when you are trying to eat them.

I also ordered the Tater Tots.  They were just basic tater tots and as you would expect.  I think it might be nice for them to include a Nacho cheese sauce as a side to them as a nod to their longtime friend Nacho who has been bugging them to do a burger in his name anyway.  I think that a cheese sauce would elevate them for sure instead of just ketchup on them.

Now let's talk about the location.  It's located on Blue Jays Way across from Wayne Gretzky's and attached to the Soho Metropolitan Hotel.

Here are my pros and cons on this location.
It's a sports bar restaurant located across from the same type of establishment.  Con.
It's located in the Soho hotel which can be a pro and a con.  A pro because tourists may go because of the familiarity with the Wahlberg brothers and US restaurant.  Con because it's mostly a tourist area.

Where I would have loved to see this would have been within a block of Roy Thompson Hall and the Bell Tiff Lightbox where there are always events that people of Toronto and tourists attend and also connected to the events at David Pecaut Square.  There are restaurant spaces available on King Street across from Roy Thompson Hall and I think somewhere around there would have been great.  I am probably purely thinking of myself here as I would go there more often when I am at Roy Thompson Hall for the film festival or at the many festival and non festival events at the lightbox that I go to.  It's a bit of a walk from Roy Thompson Hall when you only have an hour to go, eat and rush back for the second screening at Roy Thompson Hall.   But I am sure that wasn't their priority when they found the location but I have to say it is a nice space and I will probably go there when I have time to kill when I am around the Lightbox and just want to get a decent burger and fries.   I didn't try the fries but I will the next time I visit Wahlburgers.  

I hope they are successful and open a couple more in other parts of the city... like the north end maybe??   yeah me wishing again.

So drop by for their Grand Opening on Nov 15th if you are in the area.  

Here is their info:

Wahlburgers Toronto, 46 Blue Jays Way (at the SoHo Met), Toronto,  416-489-8922  Open 7 days: Sun-Wed 11:30AM - 12:00AM, Thu-Sat 11:30AM - 2:00AM

  @WahlburgersCA