Yesterday afternoon I took my little bears up to SFU for a walk about and a burger at the SFU location of Big Smoke Burgers and I’m sad to say, while the walk about was fun, we were not impressed with the burgers.
First off, perhaps I am getting to be a grumpy old man but I did find the music in that location of Big Smoke Burgers to be far too loud. Yes, it is a burger joint on a university campus but there were more than a few families with little kids in the place and the music was actually so loud that it was difficult to hear the conversation at our table.
As for the food, well, let’s just say that my little bears said they would prefer to go back to our usual Friday afternoon burger joint – A&W.
I will admit that while my kids did not like the burgers, I did like the beef in the burgers. It tasted good and although a little too lean, it was a generous portion (I got the 6 ounce beef) and had the look and feel of a hand formed beef patty.
I asked the server which burger best represents their burger place. I added in that I was planning to write a blog post about the food blog. She told me that the Big Smoke Burger is probably the best. So that’s what I had.
It was skimpy on the caramelized onions but had a great chunk of lettuce and tomato in it. I asked for the pickle slice to be added inside the burger.
The smoked Canadian cheddar melted onto the beef patty was too thin to have any impact on the flavour of the burger.
Anyway, my bears are at a point in their lives where they don’t want anything green or resembling “salad” in their meals so they each had a cheeseburger without lettuce or tomato or pickles. I combo-ed the kids burgers, adding fries and a fountain drink to one burger and onion rings and a drink to the other. Side note, they don’t have root beer as a fountain drink option.
Both kids asked for mustard on their burgers. And wow did they get mustard!
The burgers were oozing mustard. Even from picking it up the mustard dripped out of the burger. There was mustard smeared on the paper the burger was served on and there was mustard all over my kids hands from the start. Ugh.
While very visually appealing, when we bit into the onion rings, we found the coating to be crisp but then the entire onion came out of the coating in one molten hot ring of onion. The onion part of the onion ring was not cooked well enough and the batter had a strong bitter after taste. The kids would not eat any of them after one bite.
The fries were good. Probably the best part of the meal and there was a generous serving of them for a side dish.
It is very unlikely I will return to Big Smoke Burger on the SFU campus. Three burgers with fries, onion rings and two fountain drinks for $33…not good value. As my bears said, everything about the A&W burger experience is superior. I tend to agree with them in this case.