Outrigger is a sort of sleek gastropub type place on the corner of Beech and Queen with a sweet patio (something soon to be relevant again, perhaps). They've even crammed in live bands in their entrance way before. The kind of spot you visit on a summer evening for a decent dinner before catching a matinee at the Fox Theatre across the street.
It's so close to my house that I've eaten there before, but for this series I had to try them again. I was craving a burger like madness so went for their jalapeno and avocado choice.
The price is steep (about 19 bucks) but that comes with fries and a mini salad, so you get some variety. I'd definitely prefer a lonely burger option at a lesser price, but I find most sit-down type restaurants don't offer that.
The salad is your standard house fare: a sweet vinaigrette dressing which is pleasant, but dominates the generic spring mix greens and stringed carrots. The fries though exceed expectations. They taste lightly battered, with a soft crispiness that lets the potato melt out with each bite. It's a good sign if your fries are still delicious when cold. Definitely far superior to the frozen potato sticks so many places fry-and-try to get away with. Top notch stuff and if they did a poutine (they don't, weirdly) I'd be back to try that sometime.
As for the burger... well it's less than the sum of it's parts. A tasty soft, lightly toasted bun (the way it should be), the jalapenos and avocado add an incredible dynamic of spice and smooth accessibility... but the patty itself isn't anything special. It tastes like something your buddy would pull out of the box and grill in a backyard. That's not a bad flavour... just I expected a bit more. The texture of the meat itself very much resembles a frozen patty you'd buy from a grocery store, a bit crunchy on the outside while maybe too soft inside, and those swerving strings in the beef the result of a meat grinder. It's extremely unremarkable.
Overall, it's a fine restaurant. Go for the fries, avoid the burger.
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