Bless Me Father, For I Have Sinned

I didn't cook dinner for my kid tonight. We decided to pick him up from karate and take him straight to the movie theatre to see Harry Potter and let him have popcorn and sprite for supper. Yes, we are those kinds of parents.

Instead, since we were almost an hour early so we decided to visit The Burger Priest, which is just across the street from the theatre. We have tried to eat there a couple of times but both times were Sundays we keep forgetting that it's closed on Sunday. I mean, come on, he is a burger priest so he is clearly busy at church on Sundays and not at his tiny take out joint, frying up the perfect burger for hungry heathens like us.

If you live in Toronto and you are even kind of into food you have probably heard of this place since it's been written up in every magazine and reviewed from here to eternity. We have had burgers at the last three or four places that were also crowned THE BEST BURGER IN THE CITY and we were disappointed each time. People get too fancy. They make their burgers too big. They pile on too many toppings. Throwing blue cheese and bacon and caramelized onions and the charred hair of baby angels will not hide a dry, bland meat patty I am afraid. I also hate it when the burger becomes so ridiculously high that I can't possibly get it in my mouth and it ends up falling apart and I have to eat it in chunks with my fingers. Because of the over hyping of all of these burger places, we weren't killing ourselves to go here, frankly.

This is so not the case with The Burger Priest. They grind their own meat on the premises, the patty is not huge and the bun is soft and perfect and not so puffy that i can't wrap my mouth around it. It comes with your choice of the classic toppings - ketchup, mustard, mayo, pickle, onion, tomato, lettuce. You can get bacon or fried onions if you want to get all fancy pants. There is something called "the option" which is two portabellos stuffed with cheese, coated in panko and deep fried that is supposed to be out of this world but that will have to wait for another day.

Little Shack had a burger with nothing but mustard and Shack and I shared a cheese burger fully loaded, hold the greens. I cannot believe how perfect this burger was. It was moist and flavourful and not too salty and not too big. I hate feeling like I have a lead weight in my belly after eating a burger. I wasn't left unsatisfied and still hungry, just happily satiated. Just to be sure, I had a bite of Little Shack's plain burger with nothing but mustard. Yup, even totally unadorned, it was a delicious, juicy little patty full of heavenly goodness. His fries were good - crispy, fresh and plentiful. Someone ordered the chilli cheese fries and I can't vouch for the taste but they looked and smelled delicious and the gentleman who ordered them certainly sounded like he was enjoying them thoroughly.

There isn't much room, just five or six stools so be prepared to stand or to take it somewhere else to eat but trust me, you won't care if you have to stand outside in the rain and eat your burger out of hand while cars drive by and splash you with muddy sewer water after you just blow dried your hair.
It's that good.

Share this post