FRESH BURGER

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been craving a good burger. With no time during the week to run to Burger’s Priest or Holy Chuck, I looked for options outside of the city and found Fresh Burger in Richmond Hill. The uptown location was a perfect lunch stop between Saturday errands.

Atmosphere: Fresh Burger is located in a strip mall next to a Tim Horton’s. The walls are painted a bright red and menus are prominently displayed. For a burger joint, there’s lots of seating with tables and a bar along one window. Decor is simple and clean. We arrived at noon, just after they opened and were the first customers. There was a steady stream of customers during the time we were there.

Service: Walking up to the counter, the Fiance and I took a bit of time to talk through our options. We wanted to maximize our burger experience. The person manning the counter (the owner?) patiently waited for us to be ready and answered our questions. Once we’d placed our orders, utensils, napkins and drinks in an open refrigerator were self serve. We grabbed an empty table and our order was ready after a short wait.

Food: The burger was fresh off the grill. As soon as our order was placed, the cooks started on the patties. I had the Fresh Burger combo topped with onions, pickles and sauteed jalapenos, and an upgraded poutine side. The Fiance ordered the 14oz Double Prime Burger. His was a big burger, even the bun itself was a good inch wider than mine. It was a midday nap inducing burger, delicious.

My fresh burger had a wonderful, warm toasted bun, melted cheese and a loosely packed patty. Both our burgers were super juicy and required more than a couple of napkins. I loved that the sauteed jalapenos were actually really spicy. There’s been a times when I’ve added a “spicy” topping to my burger only to be disappointed with the level of heat. Fresh burger did not dilute anything. It was hot and amazing. I also really liked their pickles, that were again really flavourful. My taste buds only picked up a slight difference in flavour between the prime and normal patty. The prime one was a bit meatier but I wouldn’t have a preference between the two.

My poutine was great, simple and with generous helpings of hot gravy and cheese curds. With the temperature of the gravy, the cheese curds melted nicely and pulling the crispy fries apart created long strings of cheesy goodness. I would highly recommend upgrading the combo.