I should mention that I know where there are a couple of burger gems in this city but as this culinary adventure begins I'm optimistic that there will be burger genius randomly discovered by going to places I've never been to before. Enter The Famous Warehouse on Granville Street. How bad could it be? How brilliant could it be?
There's a trend around the Granville Street area to offer a flat rate menu. I've seen it a couple of times. I like this idea. Food was getting out of hand expensive in some places and I missed the affordable comfort food that used to be common place in pubs, bars, whatever. The bars that present this option are dear to my heart because it's precisely this kind of place where you'll find yourself, after work, an extra couple beer specials into an evening, and you'll realize you haven't eaten yet and filling that void deep inside with something other than liquid would probably be a good idea. I've spent a couple of nights at The Moose just a block away from the Warehouse where everything on the menu is $5.95 but the Warehouse decided to one up them by going a buck shy of that already ridiculously low price.
Goddamned $4.95 for everything. All day. Can that be good?
There's a lot of stuff on this menu and nestled deep in the middle of the right hand side was this promise of a pretty stellar burger. And fries too. For less than five bucks. And it looked delicious.
The menu didn't mention it but the onions were fried. That can only be a good thing. And look at that big chunk of bacon hanging out of there. The bun was, as the menu suggested, rustic. It all piled up to a pretty majestic mountain range of fries and burger. Seriously, look at that picture of the burger. It looks fantastic.
And that's where I should have left it.
Sometimes the sum of the parts is greater than the whole. The patty was thick. The bacon elegantly strewn across it like the bare thigh of a gold digger looking to have the patty take her home for some sinful act. There was a delicate kiss of mayo along the edge of the bun. There was a promise of bun crunchiness encasing a light cloud juice absorbing fluffiness. It should have come together to build something incredible. But it didn't.
What went wrong? I guess I should accept that for the price you can't expect a whole lot but when you look at this burger you can see they invested. World Famous knows they are going to lose money on this burger but they will make it back when you buy a second, or a third beer. But the patty was store bought. You could see the machine formed edges. The bacon was picture perfect but dry. How does something that is composed mostly of glistening, delicious fat end up being dry? Not crispy. I understand crispy. It was just dry. Oh, and it lacked the most important thing bacon should have, bacon flavour. It tasted like cardboard. The whole mess just mashed up into a relatively uninspired and dry goop. Thankfully there was beer to wash it down (and add flavour).
And the fries. Let it be understood that when I wake up I take a good three licks off the salt lick I keep next to my bed just to get the day started. I use too much salt in most everything I make. These fries came "seasoned" and I found I fought the amount of salt that came on them. Too much. Is that possible? Too much salt? Apparently. And it surprised me.
But it was $5. And they have Granville Island IPA on tap. That almost makes it tolerable. Okay, I'm lying. It sucked. But the IPA was good.
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