The Burgers of Winnipeg

2009-08-03T11:13:00.003-05:00

what is memorable for me is my first experience at mrs. mike's. it's a drive in so we were eating in my car that day - think it was too cold to eat outside. when i was finished, i crumpled up the foil wrapper - which evidently had a little too much sauce left over - as it squirted all over my windshield. mayo and grease is surprisingly difficult to clean off glass, so i got to drive home with a nice view of grease everywhere. it was pretty cool. (and maybe a little disgusting - but whatever...)

2009-08-03T11:11:00.002-05:00

don't get me wrong though - it's still better than most. size does count after all..... just not as memorable as it could be.

2009-08-03T11:02:00.002-05:00

so the king burger is pretty solid - however, i have to admit it just isn't my favourite. something about the flavouring i guess. maybe it's the chili - i don't know. sorry winnipeg.

2009-08-03T10:56:00.002-05:00

The King Burger. not a fatboy.... but 2 patties to make up for it.

2009-08-03T10:52:00.003-05:00

The occassion? Steve and his buddy Sandy visiting from Scotland.

Mrs. Mikes

2009-08-03T10:44:00.004-05:00

Mrs. Mikes - consistently one of the top 5 among local winnipegers - i figured it was probably about time i got it on the blog......

2009-01-24T14:49:00.004-06:00

this video is unfortunately down for maintenance.

So, in honour of the monster burger, i thought i would try something a little different and post a video. well, before you get too excited, it's only a photo montage video, but still. Neil wimped out on the monster so he was regulated to taking pictures - and he took a lot, so i figured i might as well use them. It just so happened to be Hugh's birthday that day as well so he took up the challenge with me. I would however just like to point out, that these photos are in order - so yes, i did eat mine before Hugh even got to his second half.....

2009-01-24T14:14:00.003-06:00

mmm, what better way of ringing in the new year than with 6 ground beef patties on their own loaf of bread.

2009-01-24T14:10:00.002-06:00

how could you not try that? it was new year's eve following a week of Christmas over eating, so really, i wasn't that hungry, but whatever.....

2009-01-24T14:08:00.002-06:00

As we walked in and sat down, i was drawn to the wall of photos of celebrities that i really didn't know, but in the middle was this.....

2009-01-24T14:04:00.002-06:00

Just looking at this place - you know it's going to be great. As the menu says, "serving good food for over 46 years"

2009-01-24T13:59:00.004-06:00

Ok, so it's been a year and a half since i posted to the blog, and i've been feeling pretty bad about that lately so..... i figured if i was going to start it up again - it should probably be something pretty fantastic. and i think i found it. the monster burger at the Red Top Drive-In. 219 St Mary's Road.

2007-06-05T22:14:00.000-05:00

I seem to be consistently surprised at how good the dairy delight fatboy is - its got quality and quantity - overall a rather enjoyable eating experience.

2007-06-05T22:11:00.000-05:00

A tell-tale sign of a good fatboy? Messy hands.

2007-06-05T22:07:00.000-05:00

I was impressed with the amount of beef present on this particular fatboy - as you can sort of see here.

2007-06-05T22:06:00.000-05:00

Tthe fatboy in context.

2007-06-05T22:01:00.000-05:00

Now that's just a good looking burger - and its a pretty good size too.

2007-06-05T21:55:00.000-05:00

Sadly i don't get out to the south end of the city all that much anymore - but i decided to meet cormack for a fatboy after work. it was worth the trip - and it was surprisingly not that far from downtown. well it would have been had i not got stuck behind a stalled car during rush hour.

2007-06-05T21:48:00.000-05:00

well st. bonifice might get all the glory when it comes to burgers, but st. vital has some pretty good spots too. here's one of them. Dairy Delight - 467 St. Anne's Road.

2007-05-26T01:01:00.000-05:00

So I was on the Night Hawk radio show on CJOB with Lorne Edwards tonight. That's right - I was asked to sit in on a radio call in show because of this blog - odd eh? Neil came too, armed with his st. bonifice area expertise, and we chatted it up with the good burger loving people of winnipeg to find the best burger in town. I'd say Mrs. Mike's got the most votes (still to come to the blog) I have to admit though that when I found out it was going to be an hour long call in show about burgers i was bit hesitant (i don't really have what you might call a 'radio type' personality) and listening to the guest before me on the car ride over who actually sounded authoritative about the things she was talking about didn't help much either. (although i must say the fact that she was a nutritionist talking about reducing fat intake and other nutritionist type things was rather amusing) But it was actually pretty fun. I guess winnipegers really do love their burgers - there were a ton of calls and the hour went by way too quickly - there's still plenty to be said about winnipeg burgers so i guess its a good thing i have a blog. anyway i did get a list of a few places here in winnipeg i didn't know about and there was a lot of rural ones too so it looks like i'll have to make some road trips this summer. stay tuned.....

and just in case you're interested there is windows media version of the show on the CJOB website. it's friday may 25th at 11pm.

http://www.cjob.com/station/audiovault_preview.aspx

2007-05-17T23:13:00.001-05:00

I got a request a while ago to start adding locations of the places I post on this site and i thought that was a decent enough idea so i am starting by doing a quick recap of the places i've been to so far (it's really just a kind of lame filler until I can manage to eat another burger with my camera on hand - but it should be soon - I promise)

so here goes - in order of appearance:

Dairi-Wip Drive-in
383 Marion Street, Winnipeg, MB R2H 0V4

Blondie's
969 Main Street, Winnipeg, MB R2V 2B7

White Top Drive-In
409 Manitoba Avenue, Winnipeg, MB R2W 2G2

Daly Burgers
619 Corydon Avenue, Winnipeg, MB R3L 0P3

Albert Street Burgers
58 Albert Street, Winnipeg, MB R3B 1E7

Super Boy's Restaurant
1480 Main Street, Winnipeg, MB R2W 3W1

Salisbury House
Too many locations to list - if you live in Winnipeg I'm sure you can find one

Great Burger & Fry Co
290 Henderson Highway, Winnipeg, MB R2L 1M5

2007-04-16T22:41:00.000-05:00

mmm, now there's a more palatable view. overall i'd say GBF does a tasty burger. it may not warrent a drive across town but as it is less than a block from my new house - it does quite nicely. (one word of advice though - the greek fatboy - not as good as you may think)

2007-04-16T22:38:00.000-05:00

EXTREME CLOSE-UP WARNING!!!
if you have an aversion to grease don't watch.... wait a minute, if you have an aversion to grease you shouldn't be on this site so.... no apologies

2007-04-16T22:34:00.000-05:00

Tastes good......

2007-04-16T22:28:00.000-05:00

Here is the Great Burger & Fry Co. fatboy..... looks good.

2007-04-16T22:13:00.000-05:00

So in honour of the fact that the weather is finally not cold here in winnipeg and - that jack bauer is awesome - i decided to pick up a fatboy at GBF on Henderson on my way to neil's to watch 24 tonight and get this blog going again after a long winter's hibernation. I should first apologize though for not getting all those comments posted - sorry - i would suggest going back through some of the previous posts if you're interested in seeing everyone's comments.

2006-11-23T23:24:00.000-06:00

the best part of the sals experience that particular day (aside from the food of course)was overhearing the waitress inform a fellow patron that if they thought it was busy on tuesday they should see it on GST cheque day - yes - its that kinda place. oh, and hugh - if you ever read this - i think it might be a shame to close this chapter on sals without hearing about your particular experiences there - i think you know what i mean.....

2006-11-23T23:15:00.000-06:00

its nowhere near the best burger in town - but that didn't stop me from eating it.

2006-11-23T23:09:00.000-06:00

you have to add your own toppings. what's up with that? honestly how the nip has been a winnipeg tradition for 75 years i just can't understand. i mean, i get the idea of something being so bad that it has its own particular charm but come on. well, actually i can kinda buy into that last part a little bit. but just a little bit.

2006-11-23T23:01:00.000-06:00

so that's a whopping $3.00 worth of food right there. considering what it might do to your body upon eating - it may still be over priced.

2006-11-23T22:58:00.000-06:00

just in case you didn't believe me ...... (personally i think this is just so that burton cummings can afford to eat out......)

2006-11-23T22:55:00.000-06:00

In honour of Salisbury House's 75 cent tuesdays - which is in honour of 75 years of business (hard to believe i know) - i figured i should post the nip.

2006-10-13T19:49:00.000-05:00

the first time i had a superboy i ate in the restaurant - and it was ok - but there was a weird spice involved in the burger that just didn't seem right to me. years later i told this to my friend james (a long time resident from accross the street) and he told me the secret - it was the restaurant itself. now i didn't believe him either until i actually ate it outside and the weird spice thing was not that noticeable. in fact the whole experience was quite enjoyable - except for the guy who walked by wearing nothing but sweat pants which were 5X too big - that produced a couple of scary moments let me tell you. main street, what can you do?

2006-10-13T19:40:00.000-05:00

now let me tell you why......

2006-10-13T19:39:00.000-05:00

now here's the deal - superboys has a good burger (even though it's not called a fatboy) - but you really should eat it outside.

2006-10-13T19:35:00.000-05:00

so you can eat in superboys, as the table and chairs in this picture might suggest - but i would suggest you didn't.

2006-10-13T19:32:00.000-05:00

here's another fine establishment on main street - in the north end.

2006-10-13T19:29:00.000-05:00

ok, ok, i know its been a while since i posted on the blog - but i've been busy. between buying a house, renovating, working, etc, i haven't had a lot of time to take pictures of my food. but i figured i should update this thing before the snow comes for good so here's a little something from the archive - SUPER BOYS

2006-06-04T22:15:00.000-05:00

one last note - albert street burger's is only open regular business hours - so if you can't make it out for lunch during the week you're pretty much out of luck. sorry.

2006-06-04T22:12:00.000-05:00

and here's everyone enjoying their meal (well almost everyone - we were missing one person that day) al's is a definate favourite at the office. it wasn't even my idea to get burgers.

2006-06-04T22:02:00.000-05:00

one thing you may notice that is missing from the big al is the chili. which i suppose could be forgiven by the sheer amount of beef present. they do offer a chili burger called the fat albert - and while you can't beat the name - i'd have to say the chili is a bit too beany for my tastes so stick with the al.

2006-06-04T21:53:00.000-05:00

and here we see it unwrapped. that's 3/4 of a pound of beef right there.

2006-06-04T21:51:00.000-05:00

ok - time for the burgers. just to give a sense of scale - the big al is on the bottom compared to regular chesesburgers. you can probably guess which one is mine?

2006-06-04T21:46:00.000-05:00

unfortunately we never made use of the fleet gallery for this meal since it was more of a private work party of sorts - but on the upside - look at that bag full of fries - it actually ripped because of the grease.

2006-06-04T21:42:00.000-05:00

but here's the thing - once you've placed your order - you eat at the gallery across the street. how cool is that? you can just see the apron of the runner bringing an order into the gallery in this shot. the owner of the gallery used to own albert street burgers too - so that's how the eating arrangements came to be - just in case you were wondering.

2006-06-04T21:27:00.000-05:00

first, let me explain. here's a little panorama of albert street. that's albert street burgers on the left. the arrow on the right - well, that's where i work.

2006-06-04T21:22:00.000-05:00

well, we had burgers for lunch last friday - and where i work - that can mean only one thing...... albert street burgers.

2006-05-24T23:00:00.000-05:00

Blog hits the big time .... well the winnipeg free press atleast. its a start anyway. for all you out of town visitors, here is the article that was in last saturday's paper.

2006-05-18T22:41:00.000-05:00

first of all - let me apologize for the poor quality of this picture - but as you will soon find out i really don't feel that bad about posting it. so i went out to the red boot drive-in yesterday with neil and sarah to get some food before lost started. we were running kind of late (we left my place around 7:20 and lost starts at 8) so i wasn't sure if i should make the attempt or not but once i hit acadamy we decided to press on. with great anticipation we arrived at the red boot with about 25 minutes to spare, the open sign was on and all was well with world - or so it seemed. i quickly snapped this picture while neil tried the door only to find that it was locked. the less noticeable non-lit sign displayed the fact that they closed at 7. heartbreaking.

2006-05-07T22:30:00.000-05:00

and that brings us to the end. i wanted this shot to show off the amount of napkins i went through while eating this burger. it was fair bit - which means the burger was fairly messy which means it was pretty good. if i want a burger i can eat while driving i'd go to mcdonalds. if i'm going to sit down for a fatboy (or in this case a deluxe burger with cheese) its kinda nice to know you kinda have to give it your full attention. so all in all, daly burger gets my approval - despite no drive-in, and no fatboys on the menu. actually it was kinda good to be sitting in the restaurant in this particular case as we had to wait for about an hour until boris (the photographer) met us to take my picture with the burger for the paper. it was kinda weird already talking about my sordid eating habits (a subject neil, john, and steve were only too happy to contribute to) with david, but things really got weird when the camera came out. i can't say i ever thought i'd be posing with a hamburger for the paper. but i suppose there are worse things to be known for. in the meantime the article should be out in a couple of weeks so stay tuned......

2006-05-07T22:13:00.000-05:00

and now for the close-up. mmm, isn't that appetizing? i'd like to draw your attention if i may to the greasy, melted cheesiness coming out from under the edge of the bun next to the fries.

2006-05-07T22:04:00.000-05:00

and here is the deluxe burger with cheese and fries. quite tasty.

2006-05-07T22:03:00.000-05:00

anyway, so here are our burgers getting prepared. the first thing that caught my eye were the buns. they were considerably larger than what you normally see. not that there's anything wrong with that - i am italian after all. i do enjoy bread.

2006-05-07T21:59:00.000-05:00

needless to say, i did in fact join david for a burger at the daly burger the following week - along with john, neil, and steve. (i feel slightly better about myself if i don't eat alone - you know what they say - about alcoholics and drinking alone...)

2006-05-07T21:51:00.000-05:00

well i suppose i've kept you all in suspense for long enough.......so here's what happened. i was contacted about 2 weeks or so ago by this guy (david sanderson - arrow pointing to his head) who writes an "icons" column for the free press. he said he was doing a piece on burger places, saw my blog, and thought it would be fun if i joined him for a burger and shared my opinions for the article. plus he was going to buy me a burger - didn't take much to twist my arm.

2006-05-04T21:53:00.000-05:00

so i had an interesting and somewhat surreal experience at the daly burger this week. i'll tell the whole story this weekend but in the meantime i think things are looking up for the blog......

2006-04-18T23:44:00.000-05:00

and here's the whole family at my uncle's for easter dinner - and my sister's birthday

2006-04-18T23:38:00.000-05:00

sorry - no burgers today, but on a personal note my sister, her husband, and my neice came to winnipeg for easter. here is emma after a long day at the zoo

2006-03-25T11:33:00.000-06:00

Well as you can see from this shot - this particular fatboy was loaded with mayo and other burger tyoe juices and toppings - which makes for an enjpyable eating experience - there's nothing worse than a dry fatboy. but i have to say it was lacking in the most important aspect - the meat. you can't skimp on the beef and try to make up for it with lettuce - you know what i mean?

2006-03-25T11:25:00.000-06:00

Where's the beef?!? Still looking.....

2006-03-25T11:22:00.000-06:00

Finally - the burger. Looks pretty good - although from this angle you can't actually see any meat present - not such a good sign.

2006-03-25T11:19:00.000-06:00

Now fortunately for me i live in the south end of the city, but unfortunately that means i don't live that close to the white top - so by the time steve dropped by with the burger, it was a bit on the cold side. But on a positive note, the grease stains on the paper bag are always a good sign.

2006-03-25T10:59:00.000-06:00

before you leave the white top make sure you pause for a moment to take in the sights and sounds of the beautiful north end. But just for a moment - you are in the north end after all.

2006-03-25T10:51:00.000-06:00

mmmm....... rich brown gravy and zesty chili sauce, what's not to like......

2006-03-25T10:48:00.000-06:00

Here we are on salter street - in the north end again - so enter at your own peril.

2006-03-25T10:42:00.000-06:00

O K, i finally dug these pictures up out of the archives and am posting the next burger place - the White Top. (but with a red roof?)

2006-03-18T11:59:00.000-06:00

wow - i just took a look at my blog the other night and realized i hadn't posted anything since july of last year. that's quite dissapointing. but don't worry burgers have been eaten since then - i just need to get the pics and post them - they will be coming shortly. In the meantime i got this picture from my uncle and aunt and thought i would post it - i finally got my master's degree in the mail.

2005-07-25T21:25:00.000-05:00

for those who can't read the fine print - "go to sals loser" ahh yes, sals. the nip is waiting.

2005-07-25T21:24:00.000-05:00

And there is definately attitude. The owner's level of meanness is legendary and the best part of the whole place ......

2005-07-25T21:22:00.000-05:00

now this brings me to the real reason to make the trip to blondies. The ambiance. It's got a couch for goodness sake. (steve, christine, luis, francis - chillin) That's just cool.

2005-07-25T21:18:00.000-05:00

but you're right steve - it wasn't that good. (sorry steve - i know you actually did like it but i couldn't resist using this picture) First off - there was no chili - a staple of the traditional fatboy. I was informed that it was due to the fact that the lady who runs the place can't be trusted to cook the beef properly if its hidden by chili. but that's ok i guess - the bacon did a lot to make me forget about that. and then there's the knife that comes with it. i'm not sure if you can trust a burger you can't pick up with your hands (unless of course its outrageously large like 9lbs or something). you have to be hands on with the grease to really appreciate it. but all in all i can't complain too much - it was a pretty good burger.

2005-07-25T21:07:00.000-05:00

So i must admit the burger did tase good.

2005-07-25T21:06:00.000-05:00

now - let's begin

2005-07-25T21:03:00.000-05:00

So here i am preparing for my measly 1/4 pounder. Not that i didn't want more - its just that this is all i could afford. I'll say this - Blondie's is not cheap. The half pound was 10 bucks and that was just more than i was willing to spend that day.

2005-07-25T20:59:00.000-05:00

Before you get too excited - this is just the 3lb burger. The 9 pounder needs a days warning so they can stock up on beef. Apparently ground beef is not as easy to come by in the north end as i thought. Sadly that is not me enjoying this 3 pounder - since they finished it by the time i got there.

2005-07-25T20:55:00.000-05:00

This is Blondie's on Main. For years i had heard these stories of this mythical, enchanted place in the north end where ground beef was plentiful and 9lb burgers abounded. But believing at the time that nothing much good could be found north of portage i never really looked into it. But i guess there are exceptions to every rule. So thanks to Francis for wanting a birthday burger and Luis for letting me use his camera.

2005-04-27T23:52:00.000-05:00

OK, now it's done.

2005-04-27T23:50:00.000-05:00

Almost done .....

2005-04-27T23:49:00.000-05:00

Halfway there ....

2005-04-27T23:46:00.000-05:00

one bite .....

2005-04-27T23:43:00.000-05:00

The Dari-Whip Fatboy. A fine burger to start off with and thought of as one of the best burgers in town among some circles. Never mind the completely unsubstantiated rumours told to me by my friends about dog food and near death experiences. I've never had any problems and ever since they increased the overall width of the burger - i've been happy. Besides all those stories just add to the flavour of the establishment in my opinion. The facts are that its a drive-in (a common attribute to good burger joints apparently) and the greasier, more unhealthy the burger the better.

mmmmmm, 64 slices of american cheese

2005-04-26T21:15:00.000-05:00

hope you're hungry cause cheese is just the beginning