"It's the last, great adventure
left to mankind"
Screams a, drooping lady
offering her, dream dolls
At less than extortionate prices
And as the notes and coins
are taken out
I'm taken in
to the factory floor
Another Tuesday... another Taste! Staying on the burger train, this week I chugged off to try Burgers and Fries Forever, sampling indeed their burger and their fries... but they were all out of forever. Damn it! I want my money back...
Burgers N' Fries Forever (or BFF, a deliberately planned abbreviation surely) started out in Ottawa back in 2013. Founder/owner Jamil Bhuya and his co-founder Evan Ostrander had noticed a dearth of burger options in the Centretown neighbourhood and saw a clear opportunity, experimenting with various techniques until finding the right recipe to bring their Halal smash-style burgers to Ottawa. With the help of Bhuya's savvy social media marketing as well (plus this demonstration on an Ottawa morning show surely helped spread the word) BFF opened to enough success to become a mini-chain in the 613 (I confess to not actually knowing if Ottawans refer to their city that way).
Soon the time came for BFF to try expanding to the big(ger) city, Toronto... which they did in 2020 despite, you know... 2020. Once again riding a moderate wave of success and a strong social media presence, they branched off to a second Toronto location in Liberty Village that opened up... like a month ago? Maybe? I checked the Google Reviews and none go further back than June.
Good timing for me! What was not good timing... the Honda Indy. There was a whole lot of noisy revving filling this sunny Friday afternoon that you could hear even all the way up on East Liberty Street. Certainly made it hard to vroom vroom focus on whatever vroom vroom else you were doing that vroom vroom vroom.
Like I said, burgers and fries but no forever sadly. Their menu (like most of these indie burger spots) is streamlined and simple: a quintet of beef burger options, fries or onion rings, some dips and milkshakes... maybe a chicken option, maybe not (BFF does). Though tempted by the "Melt" (swiss and cheddar cheese, beef bacon and BBQ sauce) I went for their "American" burger, with some fries and their garlic aioli dip.
Starting with those fries, which are indeed as crispy as they look. Again I'm no expert (or even novice) on this kind of stuff, but I wanna say these were fried in beef fat/tallow? There's a particular taste to them I've encountered many times in other french fries.
Regardless of whatever it is, these are pretty darn good. Lightly seasoned with just salt, the crispiness is extremely on point (like a slightly firmer crispy), there's a good amount of oiliness but not too much... while the potato within is soft and fluffy. I love fries like this wherein the texture and flavour is strong enough on its own to not even a dip of any kind (those packets of ketchup got nary a look from me).
The garlic aioli was significantly less of a hit, although not bad by any measure. I like my garlic sauces to be extremely garlicky (like beyond any level of reasonable sanity) and this just doesn't have anything close to that. It strongly reminds me of the President's Choice brand garlic mayo they sell in those little squeeze bottles... a slight undercurrent of garlic to it but it's mostly just rich and creamy.
It's fine... but not my kind of thing for a french dry compliment.
BFF's "American" burger (single patty) brings a lot of sweet: caramelized onion, ketchup, pickle, soft potato bun (also inherently sweet) and cheddar cheese (there's apparently some mustard in here but I barely detected it).
The amount of sweetness does dominate the flavour on every bite, though thankfully not to the point of overwhelming. As a burger it's... pretty all right. Good but not exceptional... like what a standard smash burger would/should probably taste like. You've got some enjoyable texture, the beef is consistently cooked throughout, there are some crispy caramelized edges and the whole burger feels quite squishy in your hands.
A burger that's a bit better than the sum of it's parts, since all of it individually tastes fairly standard/average but it combines for a good cheeseburger. There just isn't any particular element about it, beyond that ketchup and caramelized onion sweetness (those onions are pretty nice) that's especially memorable. It all tastes pretty much the same throughout, that together but crumbly texture holds through... which is fine and enjoyable but it just doesn't ever go anywhere beyond that. At one point (a bite without the soft sweet onions) it reminded me of a really good version of a Wendy's Junior Cheeseburger.
Last week Atomic Burger blew my mind because the dry aged beef of that burger had so much lingering flavour... each bite worth savouring because that wonderful taste never felt repetitive or boring. The last bite was just as vividly exciting as the first.
This BFF burger is much more in the realm of "that was tasty, I'm less hungry now..." the end. Solid flavours but they don't have any of that "wow" factor to them. It's an example of the old adage (probably from sports) of "it's much harder to go from good to great than it is from bad to good". Greatness can be hard to quantify exactly but you somehow just know when you encounter it... BFF does not.
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Overall... a solid but forgettable smash burger. Hard for me to recommend because would I take BFF over any of the big fast food burger giants? Absolutely. But it's also not remotely close to the titans of Toronto smash burgers like Harry's, Rosie's, Rudy etc. It's in a bizarre zone of goodness that won't disappoint and will satisfy... alas there are other options that will provide a much more memorable experience that you'll really want to tell people about.
As such... I guess go try them if you're curious? I can't say you definitely should go, but I don't wanna dissuade you from trying them either. Wait, I got it! Their fries are genuinely terrific... that itself is worth checking out. Bless you potatoes... you're my true BFF...
To finish I quickly want to mention an employee review from Glassdoor, who mentions Burgers and Fries Forever as a good place to work with helpful management, with the only cons being that "after working in the kitchen you kind of smell like a burger". I just find that very funny for some reason.
Tuesday Tune
One of my very favourite albums when I was seventeen (I've loved Peter Gabriel basically my whole life, seeing him live a couple years back was just... no words incredible) and listening to Lamb again after quite a long long time... yeah it's still an absurdly great record.
That's all for another week! Until next time, stay safe, stay cool... and most of all don't spill that mustard.
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