The menu at The Burg, the latest entry into the gourmet-hamburger restaurant craze, is extensive. You can build your own burger, with patties of certified Angus beef, bison, turkey, chicken or even halibut. You can try a variety of themed burgers featuring condiments such as house-smoked bacon, aged cheese or roasted jalapeno peppers.
That part of the menu is for other people, though. I set my eyes on The Man Among Boys, a $20 burger, no sides included. And I have to have it. It is a burger that challenges my manhood, seducing me with the promise of an afternoon spent in meat coma.
Don’t you just love it when a menu calls out to you? “I dare you, I double-dog dare you.”
It comes with a knife stuck through the middle, to hold the two thick patties together. Add bacon, sweet jalapenos, provolone cheese, garlic aioli, caramelized onions and sauteed mushrooms, all inside a bun infused with a hint of red pepper. The result is an orgy (Can I use that word? Darn it, yes I can) of peppery flavour and two juicy patties that are, dare I say it, a little pink in the middle.
It is kind of like … meat heaven, a place where vegetarians and all sorts of other people whose dietary restrictions end in the suffix “-ans” don’t go.
I’ve had some of the best burgers in North America. I have eaten at the legendary Kuma’s Corner in Chicago; I’ve had a burger as big as my head at Hodad’s on Ocean Beach in San Diego. The Man Among Boys belongs in that hallowed group, a rarity in Canada where we burn our meat and don’t embrace gluttony in the same way as our friends to the south.
I finish the whole thing. Our server compliments me about my feat. Like a snake, I won’t need to eat for a month.
10190 104 St., 780-760-1780
