Cage Match #4: Black Cat vs. Taylor's Wine Bar

...wherein your humble blogger tries to answer the age-old question, "Is a burger ever worth $20?"  And *spoiler alert* the answer is a resounding yes.

Full confession:  the Black Cat (428 Preston) is one of my favorite restaurants in Ottawa, and I am a bit of a restaurant tramp.  I love the ambience - elegant without being pretentious or stuffy; I love the food - sometimes, when I have a moment, I'll daydream about their truffled chicken breast; I love that the executive chef is a young woman in an industry that is still very much dominated by men (Ottawa Magazine had a very interesting article on this topic here).

Every Tuesday the Black Cat features a different burger; Richard's burger (the owner) is also available Tuesday to Thursday.  The Tuesday we were there, the special burger was the Backyard BBQ burger which was topped with caramelized onions and a home made barbeque sauce on a house made onion brioche bun.  Richard's burger is topped with smoked bacon, sharp cheddar, pickles and "secret sauce".  The accompanying frites were infused with sage and served with a truffled mayo.  We ordered one of each.

Hello, Lover.

They were....awesome.  So juicy and saucy and flavourful; Jon and I immediately started swooning and waxing poetic.

Jon:  It's so good I want to cry.
Me:  This burger has made me happier than I've ever made anyone else happy.
Jon:  This burger makes me sad because it's better than me.
Me:  Go accomplish something so you can be worthy of this burger.
Jon:  I will never be worthy of this burger.  This burger is so good I'm sad it'll leave me tomorrow morning.
Me:  ....
Jon:  Too far?
Me:  Yes.

It was messy, we really violated their white starched linen napkins:

The frites were amazing as well, perfectly crisp on the outside with their infusion of sage, and as good as any I've had in Belgium.

Final score:

Jon: 10/10
Me: 10/10

Next up was the Genuine Burger at Taylor's Genuine Food and Wine Bar (1091 Bank St.) the sister restaurant to the Domus Cafe.  Their burger is available on the lunch menu; it's $16 and topped with Blackburn cheddar, pickles and lettuce on a Rideau Bakery bun, served with mixed greens and roasted potatoes.  It came accompanied by a sweet tomato chutney and garlic mayo.

It was a thick, juicy burger, the patty was pinkish in the middle; I really liked the sweetness of the tomato chutney in contrasty with the saltiness of the meat, which was seasoned.  As a whole, though, it didn't cause us to become slobbering sycophants.

Me:  It's good, but it doesn't make my heart sing.  More of a low level hum.  Or maybe a bit of scatting?
Jon:  Your heart wouldn't scat.
Me:  It's not funky enough?
Jon:  No.

The roasted potato spears were so-so, the salad was good but it's hard to swoon over mixed greens.

Final score:

Jon: 9/10
Me: 9/10

Cage Match #2: Absinthe vs. Chez Lucien

Absinthe (1208 Wellington St. W) is one of those upscale, environmentally conscious restaurants using locally-sourced ingredients.  The server informed us that they send all their kitchen scraps to the farm to feed the pigs, and then they receive the pigs back in a tastier form.  We ordered their Benevolent Burger ($14), so named because a dollar from every burger sold is donated to Cornerstone Housing for women.  It consists of 8 ounces of hanger steak from Mariposa Farm, topped with sharp cheddar and double smoked bacon on a house made brioche bun.

The service was really good - the server didn't emanate any barely concealed scorn when we told him we'd be sharing the burger (and when I told him I'd just have water, ha!) and the kitchen actually divided the meal for us:

Together as one portion, the serving size would have been substantial, and really good value for $14, considering the quality of the ingredients used.  The fries were good - crispy and dusted with sea salt, as was the salad, which consisted of arugula with shaved Parmesan and lightly dressed in a tangy vinaigrette.  As for the burger itself, the first thing I noticed was that it was so big I'd have to dislocate my jaw to get a good bite in.  The patty was nice and juicy; Jon liked that it was charred on the outside.  I personally thought it was a little too salty, but I'm also not a huge fan of bacon, don't own a salt shaker and rarely add salt to anything. So, take that with a grain of...salt.

Jon's big thing was that they weren't more creative with their toppings, compared to, say, the Works and their myriad of choices.  He wanted something more unusual.  He conceded that Absinthe's burger overall is better than that at The Works, but because the toppings are so conventional it brought his score down.

Jon:  The Works is like a movie that doesn't have much of a plot but the cinematography is gorgeous.  Like Lost in Translation!
Me:  That movie was so slow I swear it started going backwards.  Or maybe that was Kingdom of Heaven? Anyhow, I'm not feeling your analogy.
Jon:   Whereas the Absinthe burger is like a movie with a great plot, but has less style.  Like....the Matrix trilogy.
Me:   The second movie was so bad I never bothered watching the third.  Like I read somewhere once, what was so great about Zion?  It was dark, and depressing, and full of sharp things that snag the one sweater you're allowed to wear.
Jon:   What got me was, the humans weren't able to save any colorful shirts?  The computers destroyed everything that wasn't oatmeal?

Final scores:

Jon:  (patty could have been still juicier, toppings not creative enough):  9/10
Me:  (too salty): 9/10

On to Chez Lucien (137 Murray St.), which I have always loved for its ambience.  Isn't it gorgeous?

We got their Bourgeois burger ($12) which was topped with pear, caramelized onions and brie.

Honestly, I thought the taste and texture were on par with the Works - a bit dry, a bit bland.  Jon liked that it was charred on the outside, but also didn't think the flavours were punchy enough.  Value wise, you get more bang for your buck here than at The Works - fries AND salad, for a $1.50 less, though I think the Absinthe burger, while $2 more than that at Chez Lucien, is a better value due to the higher quality of its ingredients (plus $1 goes to charity, so you can feel all smug and altruistic).

Final scores:

Jon:  7.5/10
Me:  7.5/10

Cage Match #1: Vera's Burger Bar vs. The Works

Vera's Burger Shack is a west coast chain based out of Vancouver, which began as a beach concession stand in 1977.  The Ottawa Vera's is located in the Butchery on Richmond Rd. (3657 Richmond Rd.) and offers counter service with some tall tables and stools:

We filled out what we wanted on this handy checklist.  We ordered the Vera's Burger (6 oz, $5.99) with caramelized onions (an extra $0.79) bacon (extra $1.29), lettuce, tomatoes, and Vera's sauce, which apparently is a garlic mayo.

Jon, about to tuck in

 The burger, as you can see, is cooked medium rare, and charred on the outside.

Jon:  This is really good.
Me:  The patty is mushy.  The fries are mushy.  This whole meal is mushy.
Jon:  This is really, really good.  I'm about to drop an f-bomb.
Me:  At least I don't have to chew like a chump.
Jon:  Chewing's for suckers.

While Jon enjoyed it (clearly) - he thought it was your classic barbeque burger - he thought also that the 6 oz of beef wasn't substantial enough.  I just couldn't get over the texture of the beef, and the sauce seemed to be MIA; you really couldn't taste it at all.  Jon went and got a little container of the sauce so we could try it separately.  It had the taste, and consistency, of slightly thickened milk.

Jon:  It's too milky.  And a bit thin.
Me:  No kidding, it's frothy on top from being poured in, for crying out loud.  And it's not so much garlic mayo as milk that once brushed elbows with garlic.
Jon:  It's milk that once received a kiss on the cheek from garlic, who then never called back for a second date.

Our final scores:

Jon: (wasn't saucy enough, or big enough): 7.5/10
Me: (hated the mushiness, not saucy enough): 5.5/10

On to the Works, Westboro location (326 Richmond Rd.) which, as I'm sure you all know, is a home grown chain that first opened in 2001 in New Edinburgh, in the location that then housed the Fraser Cafe and now currently hosts ZaZaZa Pizza.  It was sold in September of 2010 to Fresh Brands Inc., which plans to build The Works into a national chain.  It's known for the sheer number of topping combinations on their menu.  We picked the Roughriders Comeback ($13.80, 8 oz, with caramelized onions, BBQ sauce, jack cheese and bacon), mainly because it was similar to what we just had at Vera's.

Having the extra 2 oz of meat really made a difference to the heft of the patty.  I definitely preferred the meat well done, and the burger was much saucier.  I remember the Works used to have the option of having their burgers cooked medium rare, if you signed a waiver; our server told us that due to health regulations, they're no longer allowed to do that.  Jon found the patty a bit dry, and wanted more grease and juiciness. Ultimately, he thought Vera had the better patty but The Works had the better overall burger, with more sauce and crispier bacon.

Final scores:

Jon:  8/10
Me: 7.5/10

Next up: Hintonburger vs. Chez Lucien