The Tuesday Taste - A&W Mini Burgers

 

 

 

When I come home feelin' tired and beat

I go up where the air

is fresh and sweet (up on the roof) 

I get away from the hustling crowd

and all that rat-race noise

down in the street

 

 

Another Tuesday... another Taste! As the lead photo suggests, four tastes in fact. 

 

If you've been a longtime reader of the TT throughout it's now multiple re-incarnations... yes we are doing A&W yet again. I've probably reviewed A&W more times than I've even eaten McDonald's in the past half-decade. They featured in my Veggie Burger Showdown, my Breakfast Sandwich square-off... I compared their Teen and Mozza burgers at a location that in it's previous pub form was a long time ago summer job of mine... gave thoughts on their old Nashville hot chicken sandwich with fries... hell I even did their limited time "Best Ever Burger" collaboration with Matty Matheson (maybe the sheer fattiest burger I've ever eaten... still good though). At this point, I could probably recite the menu, no?

So yeah! There are a lot of reviews about A&W on this site. And yet, seeing as all of those previous articles are from 2021 or early 2022... another piece about A&W was overdue, right? No! I'm not going to write about something like the Double Great Grandpa Burger just because I've never tried it. Clearly my motivation and ideas towards featuring this fast food chain had exhausted steam quite a long while ago...

...until I realized I'd never actually reviewed the Buddy Burger. Son of a gun.

Writing about just the Buddy Burger would make this my shortest review ever (even shorter than the 'offensively meh' Four Brothers pizza). Hmmmm. Well A&W offer a bunch of other small items on a value menu of sorts... why don't I just review some of those as well? Heck I've already done it with both Wendy's and Jolibee (geez forget The Tuesday Taste... this week should be called "The Tuesday Old Weblinks Dump").

A&W doesn't really offer anything like tiny nachos, chili, mashed potatos or very tasty pineapple-like beverages... and I don't much care about their wraps... so mini-burgers it is! Two of these might be limited time: the double burger called a "Stacker" and the more decorated chicken offering they're calling the "Spicy Piri Piri Chicken Buddy". The other two are the normal Chicken Buddy and the classic beef Buddy Burger avec fromage. 

 

 

This here is your "Stacker" and HO GEEZ THAT IS A BIG HUNK OF LETTUCE. Seeing as I showed up to my local A+Dubs here in the Beaches around 11pm on a Sunday... because it was the end of the day did they just go "screw it, plop the whole thing on there it's easier than throwing it out"?

Whatever it was, no complaints because I love crunchy, watery lettuce like this. A true shocker from any fast food joint, wherein usually you're far more likely to encounter thin faded wisps that exist only for appearances sake. This was... actually... fresh. The fact that it might be more lettuce than burger isn't a problem for me, anyway.

Diving into the other 47 percent of this thing (take away that huge tomato slice too and I think we're down to a 1/3) well, the beef patties are entirely fine. They're thin and not particularly juicy, but you get a somewhat hint of beefy flavour and some greasy griddle on top. Also not overly seasoned with salt (if anything it could use a micro-pinch more) which is my consistent complaint with Eh-and-Dubya's regular sized burgers. 

As I've said before I'm not really a "double burger" guy (a stance earning much disagreement and ridicule) but there are exceptions and this is one. With patties this thin on a burger with so much other stuff (like an entire patch of lettuce) you need to at least double them lest their entire presence be drowned below. 

Quick note on the other unmentioned stuff: pickles and a "new sauce". Fast food pickle slices are fast food pickle slices, always too soft for my liking but at least you can taste these. The "new sauce" is really your standard Thousand Islands Dressing-like sauce that is perfectly serviceable for a burger like this.                     

The other potentially limited time item is this Piri Piri Spicy Chicken Buddy. Well, they eased up on the lettuce a bit this time.

I've always found A&W's chicken entirely fine by major brand fast food standards (superior to many, but not my favourite). I'll get into this more with the regular Chicken Buddy. For now, lets examine what they've added here to this special featured item: lettuce, tomato and a piri piri sauce. 

Come on, the sauce is the only thing at all interesting to discuss. My experience with Piri Piri is extremely limited (think I may have bought a Nando's hot sauce once?) so tasting it here, I'll say it isn't like your typical spicy mayo-like spread you usually find. Kind of a grounded, chili flavour with an odd residual sweetness (lemon, as it turns out) that really took my taste buds a while to describe it. I can see why it so classically pairs with chicken... a spicy sauce that does a few different things alongside a particular meat that isn't exactly known for it's own dominating flavour. 

'Spicy' is in the title, so lets discuss that. At first, a few bites in, I totally shrugged it off and laughed at the "Spicy" label of this thing... but it later snuck in just enough to tingle my tongue and warm the mouth to a slight extent. The spice is there and does build slowly, just far from the point of producing actual flame. Accessible spice, I'd say. 

The biggest problem here is the tomato: the sweetnesses clash. This Piri Piri sauce and tomato slice just aren't complimentary to each other, like two drivers on a thin circular road going opposite directions. I'll dock the sandwich a point on composition, but since you can, ya know, just take the tomato off... it's hardly a big deal.

 

 

While we're on the chicken train, might as well dive into the regular Chicken Buddy burger.

Myself, I've always avoided the Chicken Buddy. I probably tried it once or twice ten years ago when they debuted it, was underwhelmed, and never went back... until now (wuhahaha).

Uh right. Anyhow, I can remember why I never went back. Not because it's horrible, not at all. This is okay breaded chicken. Not much to say as far as herbs or spices go beyond a basic hint of pepper, and it has no crunch whatever, like absolutely none. Poke it, your finger will indent it! And that's the same with either mini chicken sandwich here... so that's not super great. 

What this regular Chicken Buddy needs more than anything though, is something else. Desperately. It's just chicken, pickles, mayo and bun. Fun. That's a basic combination that works brilliance on truly great fried chicken sandwiches, because that chicken is so damn good, crispy, and so precisely marinated and seasoned that you don't need any other frills (maybe coleslaw). 

Here? Look, I get I'm dissecting very cheap fast food items happily intended to appeal towards drunken people stumbling home from the bar (always wondered why all these A&Ws are open late...) so it isn't completely fair to measure this against something like Chica's, or even Dave's Hot Chicken. And yet, reviewing it I have to hold it against some kind of level... and so it's my opinion the Chicken Buddy just doesn't have enough. Frankly, I can't even decide what it needs (coleslaw) to make it more of a something. As is... it's a something to wolf down a couple of and hope it doesn't come back up with the Jager shots.      

Still, flavour-wise there is much, much worse (I shudder even remembering it) and for something so small you can at least taste the chicken when you get an okay bite of it (there aren't many). It is also my opinion that the very worst fried/breaded chicken I've ever had fall in the 'too crunchy' department, not the 'too soft'. Too soft (as long as it's cooked properly, otherwise that's a whole other much worse problem) I can handle somewhat. Too crunchy? You know what I mean with this: overly battered, bulbs of it fried to death in every bite, every bite tasting of old fryer oil and the crunch is like chewing a rock... all acting as an airy gross shell for stringy, tasteless chicken inside. Sweet dreams are not made of these. Lets move on.      

 

 

Finishing with an old longtime friend, a forever affordable and reliable late-night companion... the Buddy Burger. Hmmm... maybe that second description suggests something els--I mean no you get your head out of the gutter!        

The Buddy Burger is kind of a weird one for me. On the positive side... it is rather unique. No other fast food joint offers something like this, in such small form, that is simultaneously simple and distinctive. And there isn't anything complex to it: thin beef patty (the exact same they use for the Stacker), ketchup, basic mayo (barely any), and those dirty fried onions that are truly the key to it all. 

It all works (I could do without the ketchup personally, always forget to ask) so I think the problem is I'm just sick of these. The charm has worn out for me. It is a simple burger and there isn't much to carry it beyond the ketchup and greasy onion taste, and I don't think doubling the patty takes you particularly far away from that. I even added cheese just for this review (in the past I'd rarely do so) and sadly barely noticed it except for a bite or two. Decent cheddar, by fast food standards... but there's just too much bun and ketchup for anything else to have any chance. 

Sorry, old friend. Please don't take it personally when a few months from now I still hit you up post-midnight after a few. Okay, nevermind clearly my head is the one in the gutter.     

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Overall. Look it's A&W, there are a zillion of them everywhere, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is doing commercials for them, and I've personally reviewed them a half-dozen times now. See you again when they dabble with a fish sandwich or a pulled pork thing! But in seriousness, there's no point in me recommending them or not... unlike perhaps some of the smaller places I've been writing about recently, you definitely know what A&W is about.

Since it has been a couple years though... after reviewing them again my belief holds that A&W is a clear notch above your other major burger chains we have in Ontario. Their burgers are of overall similar quality to Wendy's but trounce them via creative specials, meanwhile with McDonald's or Burger King it's not even remotely close. I'd barely classify those as real food. 

I suppose Harvey's on a very good day makes it very, very interesting... but a dry meh Harvey's burger (and I've had a few) makes it a tough matchup. You can only taste "grill" for so long. At their absolute best? Probably lean Harvey's. One thing I appreciate about both: you never get that "I just ate a pretty heavy fatty meal and yet am still hungry" feeling afterwards. You simply feel... full. How novel.        

Anyhow, I tried four things. Lets rank them, bottom to best:

 

4. Chicken Buddy - Decent-ish chicken desperately seeking help. Too hollow even when drunk.

3. Buddy Burger - It is what it is. Does hit a guilty spot when drunk though.

2. Piri Piri Chicken Buddy - Shows what a more enhanced Chicken Buddy could do. Quite alright.

1. Stacker (Double) - The thin beef pattys still disappear(ing) in the fade but composition-wise a very solid, okay tasty burger. Needs more lettuce though. 

 

Final final conclusion: A&W use the exact same buns for all of these mini burger things and while all were soft and fresh enough (unlike *cough* McDonald's *cough* Subway *cough*)... after eating these four bread heavy sandwiches with that exact same texture, that very neutral bun flavour, all in the span of six hours... I'm not having any of these again for quite a while...   

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Funky Jobs On The Run

I've worked a lot of various jobs in my adult life, the vast majority of them in bars/restaurants, and as such some of the extremely brief ones do stand out in my memory for something comedic and/or bizarre. Enjoy this new semi-short feature on the TT. 

 

Lady Marmalade

Yep, the very same one you're thinking of. Queen of the Busy Brunch Restaurant (on Broadview now but formerly on Queen East). This was February 2020: COVID-19 was still but a mere vague notion in the middle-to-back end of the news cycle, the weather had been semi-decent, and I was nearly broke. I saw a posting for a dishwasher and so applied to Lady Marmalade, thinking this could tide me over for a while until something more in my wheelhouse came along. 

They brought me in for a trial shift at 7am(bah! gross!) on a Tuesday, showed me around the kitchen and put me to work. It's awful boring and repetitive work, but I was focused and for a few hours felt I was doing steady. Of course, being as absurdly busy as they are pretty much everyday of the week, they have an enormous prep kitchen in the basement... which also goes through tons of dishes that have to be washed with near similar priority.

See, among my many many jobs... dishwasher has never been one of them. At least, not for long. Once lunchtime hits and everything starts piling up significantly more, the sous chef calls down to one of the prep guys to come up and give me a hand. The prep dude arrives, runs through all the piles of built up dirty dishes and pots in like fifteen minutes without breaking a sweat... meanwhile I'm standing awkwardly and uselessly nearby in the back of this kitchen, unsure if I'm more shocked at discovering I'm so terrible or more impressed at this fella being so good, all while not really able to help or do anything. 

Immediately after everything is cleared, the general manager tells me they have another trial shift arriving soon, hands me a written cheque for the four-ish hours I worked and says "we'll let you know ". Can't remember if she ever actually did, but she obviously didn't have to. This was like the Tanzanian Devil having to take over for Droopy (I'll mix my cartoon similes how I please, damnit!).

Hey, at least they paid me... 

 

 

A Trip Along Dundas Street

I'm rather obsessed with maps, city maps especially, and I absolutely love this kind of stuff. This fella goes along most of Dundas Street here in Toronto (notorious for it's twists and confounding general path) and explains or theorizes why, using old maps, how modern Dundas looks the way it does. He isn't the most charismatic presenter, even if this world weren't comparatively the YouTube/TikTok Age (think dry university lecturer) but he knows his stuff and is genuinely informative.          

          

 

Tuesday Tune

Just one of those songs where it's near impossible to be in a bad mood when you hear it.  

That's all for another week! What will be next? Will it be tasty? Who knows! I sure don't! Until then, stay safe out there, stay dry, and most of all don't spill that mustard.