Category: Foodstuffs

You might think that September is my favorite month because it’s where my birthday lives. And you’d have been right up until a few years ago! Now, however, September is the best month because the first two weeks are Le Burger Week, when restaurants all across the country cook up special burgers that are only available during the event period. I wrote a thing about it last year.

Yes, it’s absolutely a thing that exists to stir up social media buzz one way or another, and because of that I should ignore it on principle. Counterpoint, though: burgers.

As usual, there are tons of options, and many of them are actually quite appealing. My first Le Burger Week burger of 2023 was ordered based on convenience alone; I looked up several restaurants on both Skip the Dished and DoorDash, but only one actually had their entry on the Skip menu on the first night of the event. So the glory goes to State & Main‘s How Do You Like Them Apples? burger.

“We are bringing on a taste of fall with this sweet & salty burger! Two beef chuck smash patties topped with warmed goat cheese, crispy fried onions, and peppered bacon sitting on a toasted brioche bun. Finished off with a creamy slaw and fresh cinnamon sugar apples like grandma used to make.“

I’ll tell you what I told my family when they asked what I thought about it: this burger might be the best thing I’ve ever eaten.

This burger already has a whole lot going on with just the “regular” ingredients that are present. Goat cheese, crispy onions, bacon, and coleslaw are all flavourful enough that they could have easily carried the burger without its namesake feature. But then you hit those apples. OH those cinnamon sugar apples.

I’m no stranger to combining meat with apples and cinnamon. Pork tenderloin with cinnamon applesauce is one of my all-time favourite things to eat. But on a burger? Could it possibly work? YES. Yes it can. The moment that the cinnamon flavour hit my tongue, I knew that there was nothing more that life could offer me. Nothing richer than the experience that I was having at that very moment. It would truly all be downhill from there. But I munched on through the existential crisis, making sure to savour every bite, every morsel, every greasy, sugary fingertip.

I’ve known many loves over the course of my few short years on this planet, but none so pure as the How Do You Like Them Apples? burger.

Am I being a little hyperbolic? Maybe. But the fact remains that I’m strongly tempted to go back and order another one of these (or more) instead of trying out other different Burger Week burgers. And that’s a first! So good job, State & Main. You’ve won. And I literally don’t need to even sample the competition to make that call. Nothing could possibly match the pure bliss that was your burger.

It’s just a shame that after September 14th, it will be lost to time forever.

I travelled south of the border for a day-long getaway last weekend. It’s noteworthy that this is my third trip to ‘Murica in less than a year, after having barely travelled outside of the city for the last decade. It’s kind of fun! (But also I always wind up spending too much…)

Anyway, today I’m going to talk about oatmeal.

Because I’m such an exciting person, you see.

But this is no ordinary oatmeal! No, sir! This is Cap’n Crunch Oops All Berries instant oatmeal! There was also a regular Cap’n Crunch oatmeal available for purchase but, I mean, crunchberries. When am I not going to pick crunchberries? Oh, sure, I could have simply bought both, but I try to limit the amount of excessively sugary things I put in my body as best I can. Aside from crunchberries, of course.

Also, I’m going to call this product OABmeal from now on because it’s easier to type and more fun to say.

Continue reading Oatsnboats

If this was a YouTube video, that title would include a “so you don’t have to” at the end. But this isn’t a YouTube video, because I’m old and I prefer to do my reviews the old way: with letters. Thank goodness I’m not really old and I’m not trying to do anything in print.

While I do tend to order food more often than I should, I can gladly say that I almost never order pizza any more. No, I make my own pizzas these days! Which is a very overdue blog post all its own. However! Having been sick with the ‘Rona for nearly two weeks, I have been lacking the energy to do a lot of regular things. Number one on the chopping block: preparing meals. So one day I ordered a pizza from Little Caesar’s.

The Little C will never be my first choice for pizza, but sometimes it’s just the right combination of cheap and crappy and it hits the spot like nothing else can. And sometimes they have cookie dough brownies with mini M&Ms baked in. That’s entirely why I got the pizza. I just wanted the brownies.

Continue reading I Bought Brownies from Little Caesar’s

Firstly, I have no idea why there is a “Le” in Le Burger Week. Presumably to make it seem fancier, but let’s be honest, it comes across as more pretentious than anything.

I had a total of five Le Burger Week burgers, which isn’t all that many, considering that Le Burger Week is actually a two-week-long affair now and there are hundreds -possibly even thousands (I didn’t count)- of entrees entries to choose from. I typically try three burgers a year, so five is way above average. I’d go for more, but since these are limited time burgs, you know darn well that they jack up the price on ’em. I can’t be taking out a second mortgage to afford more burgers!

That’s What Cheese Said

“Two grilled smash patties smothered in our house-made Red Ale Beer cheese sauce, topped with Candied Bacon, Crispy Fried onions & Pickles. All on a toasted Brioche Bun brushed with garlic butter topped with rock salt.”

This burg was… very, very good. Definitely up there on the scale of all the Le Burger Week burgers that I’ve tried. While there isn’t anything overly special about it, but that cheese sauce was to die for, and I also really appreciated the garlic butter on the bun. The fries, sadly, left a little bit to be desired. In the moment, I kinda wished I hadn’t bought them and had just made my own instead.

Terry’s thumbs-up is a little sideways, but rest assured that he approves.

Dr. Drake Ramoray

“A delicious Italian sausage and beef patty topped with tomato pancetta jam, lemon basil mayo, banana peppers, Monterey jack cheese, red onion, and field greens served on a brioche bun.”

I really hate to say this, but I was not crazy about this burgaroonie. The beef/sausage combo patty just didn’t work for me at all, and likely would have killed it no matter what the other toppings were. To make matters worse, I didn’t even taste the banana peppers, which sucks because usually they’re very flavourful and make everything better. At least it came with a nice, big pickle spear.

Squirtle is putting on a brave face, but he knows it’s not a great burg.

A Berry Berry Gouda Burger

“This burger is packed full of berry gouda things! Two handmade Smitty’s burger patties, topped with melted smoked gouda cheese, crispy blueberry bacon, and smothered in raspberry chipotle BBQ sauce. Finished with honey Sriracha aioli & crispy cajun onion tanglers.”

Look, I’m not going to lie here, this may be the absolute best cheeseburger that I’ve ever eaten. I don’t have a connoisseur’s palate, and I have no idea how to write about food, but just know that the combination of flavours on this burg worked. They worked hard. They put in a full eight-hour shift and then took on a few overtime hours to help make sure that the rest of the team hit their deadlines. I think the key must have been the raspberry chipotle sauce. I would like to get some for myself so I can put it on crackers and other things. Food things.

Pac-Man not only approves, but is strongly considering going back for another.

The Cows Were Vegan Burger

“Yo dawg, we heard you like beef, so we put some beef in your beef burger so you can eat some extra beef with your beef. Our braised beef burger is a delicious 100% beef 6oz patty perfectly seared, topped with slow cooked BBQ braised beef, with a couple hefty boy onion rings. Add on some smoked cheddar, miso infused mayo, and fresh made pico de gallo, and you’ve got a burger that’ll have you coming back for more, we guarantee it.”

While I enjoyed this burger, there wasn’t anything that really stood out about it. I remember when having onion rings on a burger was novel and exciting, but I think I may be a little desensitized to it at this point. Like, it’s still good, but it doesn’t get my coals burning, you know? What’s most interesting here is that this burger has a different name depending on where you look it up. The name listed above is from the Le Burger Week website, but on the DoorDash app, it’s simply called the “BBQ Chuck Burger”, which is much less creative. It caused me no end of confusion when I was doing the research to put this post together.

No amiibos were present for this burger, and were thus unavailable to provide an opinion.

The Golden Hour

“Double Smash Patty (2x 3oz All Beef Chuck) With Cheddar & Monterey Jack Cheese, Hickory Smoked Peppered Bacon, Jack Daniel’s Whiskey & Sugar Glazed Onions Sautéed In Garlic & Herb Butter, Thin Crispy Butter Frites, Baby Purple & Green Lettuce Mix, Vine Ripe Tomato, White Truffle Aioli & Black Garlic Aioli Sauces. Comes On A Custom Burnt Sugar Potato Bun!”

Honestly, there are so many different flavours here, it was hard to really tell anything apart, but MAN did they ever come together nicely! I would reckon that this is probably my second-favourite burgie of the year, edging out That’s What Cheese Said by just a little bit. As an interesting side note, the restaurant that I got this burger from serves nothing but this burger and fries, so it’s probably a ghost kitchen created entirely because some random dude really wanted to enter his burger idea in Le Burger Week. That or it’s a money laundering front or something.

Zelda also greatly enjoyed this burger, but her gloves were an absolute disaster afterward.

Autumn is just around the corner, and that means that food-selling companies everywhere are starting to roll out their pumpkin spice menus. Tim Horton’s is no exception, and they have a pretty huge assortment of seasonal goodies, most of which are in fact, pumpkin spiced.

The only thing I’ve tried is the pumpkin spice dream donut, and that’s probably the way it’s going to stay.

This is a pretty big departure from the usual “some combination of cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg” that usually comprises any kind of pumpkin spice flavouring. This donut has actual pumpkin seeds on it! Wild! And it’s quite delicious, but that’s not why I’m writing about it today.

Did you know that pumpkin seeds are edible? I didn’t! Every single jack-o-lantern prep I’ve ever been part of, or even just witnessed, had the seeds removed from the pumpkin and thrown in the trash. And, okay, maybe they’re edible but gross, so people just chuck ’em in the bin. But that’s not the case! They’re really friggin’ good! I don’t know if Tim’s has worked some kind of black magic on their seeds to make them as delicious as they are, but holy smokes I’ve never eaten a seed that satisfied my palate the may that those pumpkin seeds did. Pumpkin seeds are definitely something I’m going to be investigating further as a potential snack.

Also, I didn’t notice it before, but doesn’t that icing drizzle look like hot glue? Like, the fact that it’s not completely opaque is really weird to me. Or maybe it’s just a trick of the light, I don’t know.

Yesterday was a Pokémon GO “community day” event. It’s been lackluster for the last… two-and-a-half years due to the whole pandemic situation, but it looks like we’re back in business!

That is to say, I went out to properly “participate” in the event, and consumed far too much junk food along the way. Said junk food being the current slate of Tim Horton’s’s Dream Donuts. Have a gander!

Don’t worry, I didn’t eat all of the donut pictured above. I shared them. Or, more accurately, they were shared with me. I mean, I didn’t buy them. I’m past the donut-purchasing phase of my life.

Continue reading Revenge of Dream Donut

Preface: My favourite fruit is mango. My favourite general food is hamburgers. Rarely do they meet.

But then I got an ad for this monstrosity from Burger King in my mailbox:

So obviously, I had to rush out immediately and get myself one. And let me tell you, this sandwich does not disappoint!

Continue reading Long Live this King