For your grownup tastes
As I was listening to some old broadcasts of the Radio Derb that have been so conveniently collected onto a single web page
at Udolpho, I was reminded of Derb's old observation that a hamburger
is perfect food, as it is all your basic food groups in one convenient
package. That is so very true, when you think about it. "Hamburger Today" is a blog devoted to the hamburgers around America, and makes me hungry just by reading it.
Usually if I just want to get a cheap normal burger around here, I'll go to Harvey's which is probably the best of all the regular big-name chains around here since its burgers feel most like you are eating real food. Fortunately, all these big chains are competing with each other with their value deals, so I guess that I should thank all the shareholders of these companies for subsidizing other people's dining and fighting the inflation beast. Two dollars for a value cheeseburger at Harvey's, can't beat that and don't need anything else to get your tummy full. This competition probably won't end as drastically as it did in Finland where there used to be three big chains, and each time one of them announced some special meal deal, the other two always had to follow suit within a few days. Now there are only two chains since "Carroll's" had to fold and was bought by Hesburger, so I don't know if this competition still continues.
I remember the first time I came to Canada when we went to Harvey's, and I didn't like it then because it was too "meaty" compared to McDonald's-style burgers that I was perhaps more used to back then. Obviously my tastes have matured since then. I still don't like Harvey's fries, though, so usually if I am hungry, I utilize some lateral thinking and simply eat two burgers instead of a burger and fries. There is no law against that, and as all my readers should know by now, I am not a slave of conventional and calcified attitudes and habits. I really had to wonder when Harvey's came up with "Big Harv" which is otherwise like a regular burger but larger, since two value cheeseburgers cost less but as far as I could tell, contained more of everything between them. Not eating fries is also a good strategy in those hamburger restaurants whose burgers are fine but whose fries are just icky, such as A&W or Johnny Rockets.
Back when my wife lived in this town as a happy-go-lucky schoolgirl, she used to eat lunch at one local burger joint called "Pete's Place" whose burgers and fries she swore by. Then we got married and I took her away to Finland so she didn't get to have her favourite burgers, but we did eat there many times each time that we came here on vacation. The place served burgers and gyros which I thought were quite good, although I wouldn't go as far as call them the very best that I have ever had. Unfortunately, now that we would actually live around here, Pete's Place is gone, no longer operational, vanished. If I understood correctly what happened, Pete's Place moved to some other location in the GTA, but I have no clue where it would be, and a google search didn't reveal it. Whenever we eat a burger in some place new to us, I always ask my wife if that burger is as good as Pete's. But it just never seems to be.
There is this one burger place, "Wally's", one block away from where we live, so we occasionally eat there when we don't feel like cooking in but we don't feel like walking any further either. The place is very "greasy spoon", assuming that I have understood this lovely little idiom correctly, and it caters to a markedly lowbrow clientele with its tabloid newspapers such as Toronto Sun. Heck, when I walk past it during an evening it kind of reminds me of a Finnish pub. I have to wonder how long this place will last, though, since with the current construction boom I would assume that the land that the place sits on would be worth a lot more with some 30-story condo on it, seeing that three such condos are already going up right next to it.
Everything changes and you can't step into the same river twice. A few years ago there used to be a Wimpy's Burger about a mile from where we live. That place is now also gone, which is sad, since I think that I ate there twice and very much enjoyed the simulacrum of the fifties. (These days we have Johnny Rockets at the mall for that purpose.) The burger patty at Wimpy's was wide and thin, and as far as I could tell, the patty wasn't frozen but the meat was actually ground and grilled on the premises. At least it tasted like it was, so even if it wasn't, that's good enough for me.
A few miles to the other direction, there is one hamburger place which I bet is some kind of a historical relic, at least it looks and feels like it. I don't know if the "John Anderson" burger joint has anything to do with the American presidential candidate of the same name. With a name like that, how can you not get elected? I know I would vote for a guy based on that name alone. But that is how the creative destruction works in capitalism, releasing resources to other places where they can be used more profitably.
Many years ago in Tampere there was a small restaurant called Mexas which I guess tried to be some kind of poor man's CBGB at night, judging from the lower level with a small stage for bands and the very "rock" bathrooms around there. The whole place was very dirty and dingy, but they served really great burgers and especially fries, which I would even say were the best fries that I have ever had anywhere, although time may have polished these memories. The food at Mexas was not only delicious, but it cost about half of what a similar meal of burger, fries and drink would have cost in similar local restaurants such as Colorado, Memphis, Amarillo... hmmm, I seem to notice a general trend in how these places are named. Damn you American cultural imperialists! We were willing to tolerate cigarette smoke just so that we could enjoy their delicious burgers and fries, so anybody who knows how much me and my wife generally hate cigarette smoke should know from this how good their food was. Fortunately, the place then just mysteriously folded one day and never came back. I guess they forgot to turn profit.
Eating döner kebab inside pita bread or with French fries or in an iskender form would perhaps be a more European and especially Finnish thing to do than eating hamburgers, since the Turkish and Mediterranean immigrants seem to be running these places pretty much everywhere you go. For example, Tampere with its 200,000 inhabitants currently sports 58 kebab restaurants. I can't even begin to count how many delicious kebabs I ate during my student years, and I don't think that my kebab habit was all that uncommon among young Finnish males. For some mysterious reason, I still have not tried any of the local shawarma/kebab/iskender joints during the five years that I have lived in Canada, since I'm afraid that I would be disappointed. It just wouldn't be the same, even if it were, you know what I mean?
Usually if I just want to get a cheap normal burger around here, I'll go to Harvey's which is probably the best of all the regular big-name chains around here since its burgers feel most like you are eating real food. Fortunately, all these big chains are competing with each other with their value deals, so I guess that I should thank all the shareholders of these companies for subsidizing other people's dining and fighting the inflation beast. Two dollars for a value cheeseburger at Harvey's, can't beat that and don't need anything else to get your tummy full. This competition probably won't end as drastically as it did in Finland where there used to be three big chains, and each time one of them announced some special meal deal, the other two always had to follow suit within a few days. Now there are only two chains since "Carroll's" had to fold and was bought by Hesburger, so I don't know if this competition still continues.
I remember the first time I came to Canada when we went to Harvey's, and I didn't like it then because it was too "meaty" compared to McDonald's-style burgers that I was perhaps more used to back then. Obviously my tastes have matured since then. I still don't like Harvey's fries, though, so usually if I am hungry, I utilize some lateral thinking and simply eat two burgers instead of a burger and fries. There is no law against that, and as all my readers should know by now, I am not a slave of conventional and calcified attitudes and habits. I really had to wonder when Harvey's came up with "Big Harv" which is otherwise like a regular burger but larger, since two value cheeseburgers cost less but as far as I could tell, contained more of everything between them. Not eating fries is also a good strategy in those hamburger restaurants whose burgers are fine but whose fries are just icky, such as A&W or Johnny Rockets.
Back when my wife lived in this town as a happy-go-lucky schoolgirl, she used to eat lunch at one local burger joint called "Pete's Place" whose burgers and fries she swore by. Then we got married and I took her away to Finland so she didn't get to have her favourite burgers, but we did eat there many times each time that we came here on vacation. The place served burgers and gyros which I thought were quite good, although I wouldn't go as far as call them the very best that I have ever had. Unfortunately, now that we would actually live around here, Pete's Place is gone, no longer operational, vanished. If I understood correctly what happened, Pete's Place moved to some other location in the GTA, but I have no clue where it would be, and a google search didn't reveal it. Whenever we eat a burger in some place new to us, I always ask my wife if that burger is as good as Pete's. But it just never seems to be.
There is this one burger place, "Wally's", one block away from where we live, so we occasionally eat there when we don't feel like cooking in but we don't feel like walking any further either. The place is very "greasy spoon", assuming that I have understood this lovely little idiom correctly, and it caters to a markedly lowbrow clientele with its tabloid newspapers such as Toronto Sun. Heck, when I walk past it during an evening it kind of reminds me of a Finnish pub. I have to wonder how long this place will last, though, since with the current construction boom I would assume that the land that the place sits on would be worth a lot more with some 30-story condo on it, seeing that three such condos are already going up right next to it.
Everything changes and you can't step into the same river twice. A few years ago there used to be a Wimpy's Burger about a mile from where we live. That place is now also gone, which is sad, since I think that I ate there twice and very much enjoyed the simulacrum of the fifties. (These days we have Johnny Rockets at the mall for that purpose.) The burger patty at Wimpy's was wide and thin, and as far as I could tell, the patty wasn't frozen but the meat was actually ground and grilled on the premises. At least it tasted like it was, so even if it wasn't, that's good enough for me.
A few miles to the other direction, there is one hamburger place which I bet is some kind of a historical relic, at least it looks and feels like it. I don't know if the "John Anderson" burger joint has anything to do with the American presidential candidate of the same name. With a name like that, how can you not get elected? I know I would vote for a guy based on that name alone. But that is how the creative destruction works in capitalism, releasing resources to other places where they can be used more profitably.
Many years ago in Tampere there was a small restaurant called Mexas which I guess tried to be some kind of poor man's CBGB at night, judging from the lower level with a small stage for bands and the very "rock" bathrooms around there. The whole place was very dirty and dingy, but they served really great burgers and especially fries, which I would even say were the best fries that I have ever had anywhere, although time may have polished these memories. The food at Mexas was not only delicious, but it cost about half of what a similar meal of burger, fries and drink would have cost in similar local restaurants such as Colorado, Memphis, Amarillo... hmmm, I seem to notice a general trend in how these places are named. Damn you American cultural imperialists! We were willing to tolerate cigarette smoke just so that we could enjoy their delicious burgers and fries, so anybody who knows how much me and my wife generally hate cigarette smoke should know from this how good their food was. Fortunately, the place then just mysteriously folded one day and never came back. I guess they forgot to turn profit.
Eating döner kebab inside pita bread or with French fries or in an iskender form would perhaps be a more European and especially Finnish thing to do than eating hamburgers, since the Turkish and Mediterranean immigrants seem to be running these places pretty much everywhere you go. For example, Tampere with its 200,000 inhabitants currently sports 58 kebab restaurants. I can't even begin to count how many delicious kebabs I ate during my student years, and I don't think that my kebab habit was all that uncommon among young Finnish males. For some mysterious reason, I still have not tried any of the local shawarma/kebab/iskender joints during the five years that I have lived in Canada, since I'm afraid that I would be disappointed. It just wouldn't be the same, even if it were, you know what I mean?
People in California have it lucky, with In & Out Burger. They make a terrific burger.
Peter
Iron Rails & Iron Weights
Posted by Anonymous | 10:37 PM
I used to eat a lot of kebabs too when I was still living in Finland but then I made the mistake of eating one in Northern Cyprus.
Due to the fact that the place is run by the friendly Turks everything was really cheap, and the meal cost something like $1 with a pint of beer included. I also guess that kebab was still running half an hour before I ate it and the whole thing tasted like real food.
Like good real food. After eating that it was impossible to continue to eat the Finnish made fake kebabs anymore.
Posted by /mek | 12:37 AM
I think we have a copycat here:
http://merko.salpaus-edu.fi/~dicdom/gallery/08%20eddie%20rocket's.jpg (the photo is from Dublin, Ireland). Lahti has the most Kebab joints/person, fleamarkets too. I wonder what that tells about my former home town...
Posted by Paaria | 2:45 AM
I also remember the Mexas-restaurant here in Tampere. I think it was in 1998 when it closed it doors. After that there was in cellphone-shop in the place and people working there were complaining that people came in and said "oh, I thought you were selling hamburgers there". A two years ago they then demolished the whole building and now there's new hotel in the place.
I really miss the atmosphere and food in Mexas. The food was good and cheap for poor student. And the place was also usually full of those sexy goth-girls. :)
Posted by Anonymous | 3:23 AM
I heard the cook of Mexas works now in Pancho Villa.
Posted by tommi | 5:10 AM
There is certain undeniable similarity between Johnny Rockets and Eddie Rockets, at least on the outside.
Posted by Ilkka Kokkarinen | 5:52 PM