The Tuesday Taste - (Burger) JABS

 

Bitter taste

in your mouth

It's too late

to get it out

Another Tuesday... another Taste? Let's take a break from the frustrations of Toronto and take a trip in Toronto! Flawless logic. Up to St. Clair Avenue West station we go, my neighbourhood from Grade 11, to check out a little burger joint regarded as one of the very best in the entire city. 

JABS (which stands for Just Another Burger Spot) began as a food festival pop up in 2021 before opening up a permanent burger slinging Wychwood home in 2022. Funny, from making food festival appearances in Vaughan, to opening shop near Vaughan Road (actually... that's not funny). This made a considerable trek for me (an east end chap of course) but the amount of praise and rave reviews I'd encountered made this a must-try on my Toronto burger list (more on that later). Plus, I really do like any excuse to visit this part of town once in a while (quite a few of my favourite secret-ish Toronto places orbit this strip).  

The atmosphere inside was fairly subdued, it being mid-afternoon on a brisk cloudy Thursday in mid-March, as I took a small table for myself in the back. Immediately the music playlist, whether it be employee design or just whatever the radio station was playing, made me existentially cringe. Songs like "Starships"* and "Party Rock Anthem" assaulted my ears as I contemplated whether the early 2010s was the most obnoxiously abrasive era for top charting pop music. Songs that wormed their way into your head via their mindless repetitive insistence upon making you party, like some uninvited stranger at a get together who loudly complains how nobody is getting wild enough (The Black Eyed Peas personified). I'm not exactly a huge fan of most popular music at the current moment either (for very opposite reasons, funny** enough) but at least we've moved past that period of "Wazzzzzup! Boom Boom Pow!". 

*seriously though, Starships is an awful, awful song and Nicki Minaj is... yeeeah not great.

**Actually funny

 

Enough of my "not old man yells at cloud not even there" shtick, how about a cheeseburger with some cheesy fries? 

 

Cheesy fries: activated. Among cheese fries, these are a bit unusual in that the cheese sauce itself really slips between these French fries and pools in the bottom of the paper dish here. It also coats a lot of the fries in a very thin layer of itself, spreading its cheesy goodness around. Can't imagine too many complains about that one, though this does not lend itself well to dipping the fries in the sauce. 

It's a very simple concoction (cheese sauce and shoestring fries) and a tasty one. Fries are quite crispy, there's just a touch of salt for the seasoning... meanwhile the thin cheese sauce still finds a way to cake the inside of your mouth with its American cheese cheesiness, semi-plasticky goodness. Plus, the fries most swimming in the bottom puddle of sauce did not get soggy either. 

What we're really here for is the cheeseburger of course, and so here is... um... wait hang on a second...

...here we go! Better to use a picture where the burger doesn't look like it's slobbering all over itself. 

Their cheese burger is likewise a simple one: pickles, cheese, JABS sauce (the stuff trying to escape the first photo) and a sweet onion jam. This thing also brings quite a scent... the smell of griddle and greasy beef just glows from this thing (can a smell glow? Ah whatever). 

This is yet another smash burger and so you're getting a thin crumbly beef patty within a (actually rather dense) potato bun. The JABS sauce is indeed quite relishy and sharp, giving the burger a nice little zing to it... while the onion jam on here isn't all that plentiful but on the bites you get it: just fantastic. Tangy, sweet, oniony without the innate stinging sharpness onions are known for... a terrific match for the heaviness of the melted cheese and juicy beef. Really the star of the show here and this would still be a very good burger even without it. 

Beyond that... well it's a cheeseburger that has the high level of quality that the flavours linger in your mouth quite happily on each bite, nor does it lose anything once it has cooled off. Simple seasoning (salt, pepper I'm assuming) is all it really needs. Getting all the little things just right, such as the lightly toasted edges of the bun... really quite tasty, with that onion jam elevating it even further. 

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Overall! So apparently there was an attempted break-in here at JABS the day before I made my visit, thus why their front door here is all boarded up. To be honest, seeing this as I got off the St. Clair streetcar severely threw me a double take. I wasn't sure if the restaurant were actually open, or if I'd misread their website and this location was more of a prep kitchen than an actual sit-down spot. Obviously as I wandered closer the truth revealed itself but the moral of the story is: don't be an asshole by trying to break into restaurants, especially smaller ones that might/probably will struggle to pay that damage off. Special circle of hell and what not.

Anyhow, this was very much a terrific cheeseburger! I greatly enjoyed it and would indeed recommend checking them out if you have yet to do so. You definitely have to like the smash style but if you're a fan, this really is a memorable one for the right reasons. 

JABS is well deserving of being so widely considered among Toronto's very best... though I myself might have them just a tiny notch below that particular level. Which hey, speaking of that...

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The 150th Tuesday Taste

So the next edition of this Tuesday review series will in fact be the 150th one! We're not exactly coming into this landmark with a lot of momentum sure, what with me barely writing any food reviews (or articles at all) here in 2026. 

Nevertheless, I'm never one to pass up an opportunity to do something big and crazy for an arbitrary goalpost... and seeing how I've reviewed quite a lot of burgers over this past half-decade (that long already? Yipes)... well, perhaps some kind of culminating recap of all that is in order. 

That's my wink wink clue as to what to expect for next time, so stay tuned! I'm hoping to have it ready to go for mid-May, there are just a few other things to do/places to try before this particular idea feels quite complete enough.

Tuesday Tune

A couple of weeks ago I saw this band live for the first ever time and I couldn't help thinking how thrilled nineteen year old me would've been to be at this show. Present day me who is double that age... well it was still quite a bit of fun (although my ears were ringing the entire next day... man I'm such a square). 

While I only knew maybe a third of the songs they played (I kinda stopped keeping up with their releases in the late 2000s) their reputation for bringing an irresistibly ferocious energy to their live performances was as advertised. Especially the lead singer "Howling" Pelle with his multiple wanderings into the crowd, climbing along the sides of the stage, or insistently manifesting we all agree this Monday was actually a Saturday (for obvious reasons). Plus the opening band, The Chats, likewise brought some serious punch though more of the straight-up snarling punk style rather than garage rock revival. 

Good stuff all around... and so here's a song that I listened to a lot back in Grade 12. 

 

And that's all for this one! Like I mentioned stay tuned for the next Tuesday review (whenever that comes) which will be that very special 150th edition and definitely worth the price of admission... which as always, is free... actually. Well... seemed like a good idea at the time! (I kid I kid). Until then... stay safe, stay warm and most of all... don't spill that mustard. 

Riding The Eglinton LRT (Line 5) For The First Time

 

For basically my entire adult life (and possibly a bit beforehand) any mention of the infamous "Line 5" Eglinton LRT has been made in exasperated ridicule. This was a transit project notorious for the massive disruption to local businesses along Eglinton during its construction, a negative effect made all the more worse via the project's most distinguishing attribute: the eternal delays in finally completing the damn thing. 

I'll spare you any ranting about why/how Metrolinx sucks (tempting as it is) but consider that the Eglinton LRT line was first greenlit in 2007 under then mayor David Miller (back in those carefree wonderful days before a plague of Fords descended upon Ontario)... with actual shovels-in-dirt construction beginning in 2011. 2011! Just think about that place and time for a moment. Taylor Swift was still primarily a country artist, the Toronto Blue Jays were wearing black and silver jerseys for some reason, Kyle Lowry wasn't even a Raptor yet (and the Raptors franchise was one of the biggest inept jokes in the entire NBA), an "Instagram" was gibberish to the vast majority of people while "Tik Tok" was just an annoying Ke$ha song... not to mention the countless actors, musicians and public figures that had much different reputations at the time (Bill Cosby still being a much beloved elder statesman of comedy, Kanye West a widely compelling artist or Kevin Spacey a much-sought revered actor, for example).  

Much of Mayor Miller's transit plans were scrapped after he left office (that plague of Fords I mentioned) but the Eglinton LRT managed to survive the red-faced blundering axe and was expected to be completed and operational by 2020. Yeah... obviously that didn't happen. Whether it was Metrolinx underestimating the logistical difficulty of constructing the project, the rapidly inflating costs to build the thing, the political head-butting for all those involved (the city, the province, the TTC and Metrolinx), a barrage of lawsuits and/or just general incompetence... the Eglinton line became a running punchline shared by all Torontonians. Just as surely as the Maple Leafs will choke in the playoffs, Line 5 will never be ready to open. Heck, earlier this year when I was reading announcements that the route was actually about to open honest to goodness for real... I legitimately didn't actually believe it! I'd just become so accustomed to this thing being a disaster, it was comfortable to envision some new calamity coming along to delay it yet again for another year or three.

Yet, no! On February 8th of this year 2026... Line 5 opened to the public and has been operating without extended disruption ever since. Being curious (and bored) I thought I'd take one cloudy afternoon to personally test this shiny new transit toy out and ride it straight from one end to the other. And take a zillion photos along the way, of course. Buckle up! Or don't, seeing as TTC trains don't actually have seatbelts... um... grab that metal loop grip thing! Yeah!

Starting at Kennedy station (I'm an east-ender after all) and I was pleased to see a train already waiting in the station. This was fairly late in the afternoon on a Friday, on the verge of the end-of-workweek rush hour... though the boarding crowd here at Kennedy was rather sparse/non-existent as you can see.

        

The inside of the train itself isn't quite as spacious as a TTC subway car but definitely gives off more room to breathe than your typical bus. Not to mention this thing is still so gosh darn new, there hasn't yet been time for the classic public transit stew of various unfortunate odours, scratches and stains to attach themselves onboard. 

After about five minutes idling in the station, the train closed its doors and lurched forward to life, beginning the journey eastbound. 

 

The route immediately goes above ground and its some slow going at first. There are a lot of major traffic light intersections on Eglinton throughout this stretch (especially once you get to Golden Mile between Warden and Victoria Park) and so there were a few long periods of sitting for red lights to turn green as cars finish turning. I had a feeling though, knowing what Eglinton changes into west of Victoria Park, that the travel speed would pick up once we got past Golden Mile. 

  

And I was right! The next few stops are much more stretched out than the eastern beginning of the line. Scenery-wise the open space (you're descending into a huge valley) is a nice break from the endless stretch of mini malls and big box store plazas between Warden and Victoria Park. Naturally, I picked a heavily overcast, blank grey day to do this little trip... 

Anyhow, this really is where the route picks up its efficiency, feeling much more like an offshoot of the subway line and less like a surface streetcar tethered to the chaotic whims of traffic.

 

It's around this point we reach the first (westward) underground station, Don Valley. I have to say that so far the aesthetic of these full-on stations on Line 5 are not exactly impressing me with their style. In fact I'm certain Kennedy and Don Valley are using the exact same colour scheme. No matter, I'm sure there will something design-wise to shake up the monotony as we get further, right? 

  

After Don Valley we re-emerge outdoors for a brief moment through the Sunnybrook Park stop, an area that always reminds me of a now-departed buddy I used to practice baseball with. Miss those days... 

There still isn't much on Eglinton here that's particularly notable: lots of open space, high rises and nasty hills if you're travelling on two wheels. Not long after this stop the train descends again underground and...

...ah nice, they swapped the generic red tiling for plain old grey concrete. Such inspired vision. 

And this one has letters in the design! Oh my...

Yep. Another underground station, looking 99.9 percent identical to the other ones...

...sheesh even the major junction that connects to the Yonge/University line doesn't have anything remotely distinguishing about it. 

Yep. It's just like the Leaside one. 

And this is just like the Laird one. 

Oh my goodness! A 'wet floor' sign! This is one station that's really breaking out of the mould here.

I know it probably seems like I'm making a big deal out of something extremely unimportant (which I am) but it is just crazy how unbelievably similar all these stations are. It's like they had four different colour templates, which were already the exact same design, and decided to randomly alternate them. 

Practical I suppose... I mean this entire transit line was an overdue mess that went insanely over budget as is... but it sure leaves the route itself with very little in the way of personality. You think of the Bloor line or especially Yonge/University... you can pretty much tell exactly which station you're at by the colour scheme of the platform (and a lot of those stations are legitimately beautiful to look at). 

 

Here? They're all the exact same bland, generic underground cavern that completely blend together in anyone's recollection. Hell, taking these pictures I tried to alternate the angles I was taking them just to make these just a tiny bit different. Maybe in the future the TTC will make some kind of effort to spruce up the atmosphere of these stations (at least some kind of little touch to differentiate them from each other... seriously) but at the moment... it doesn't get much more monotonous than this. 

 

Thankfully near the western end of the line we're released from the endless run of identically boring underground stops and emerge outside again... rolling through the Weston neighbourhood towards the Mount Dennis terminus. 

Also quite handy that this final station easily connects with the Brampton GO line and the UP Express, if that's your type of thing. 

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I suppose my final thoughts on first riding this much anticipated transit line would be thus: the biggest surprise was how much of it is completely underground and thus feels very much like a miniaturized subway ride. Almost the entire route west of Yonge (and about a third of it east) is a journey through a tunnel, which makes the ride far less scenic than I'd imagined it would be. Adding to that lack of scenery, as I mentioned/ranted about earlier, is how ridiculously identical (dull) all of those underground stops are. Better pay close attention for your stop because Mount Pleasant and Oakwood come from the exact same cookie cutter. 

Those aesthetic negatives aside, Line 5 is actually a very smooth crosstown trip that really covers some distance once it gets going. Going end to end (Kennedy to Mount Dennis) took me just under an hour, which isn't bad at all when you consider a Bloor subway trip from Kennedy to Runnymede-ish (the rough southern equivalent of where Mount Dennis would be on Bloor) probably comes in only ten or so minutes less than that. Not bad at all. 

The Eglinton line is actually not even yet totally complete, as there are plans to further extend it westbound from Mount Dennis towards Centennial Park/Pearson Airport (Renforth to be exact) by 2031. Not sure I'd be making any wagers on that being completed in half a decade (fool us all once) but in the meantime, Line 5 does seem to at least (and at last) be an excellent option for getting across the upper core of Toronto. It may have taken almost twenty goddamn years... but holy moly is it an upgrade over the downright awful experience that were the Eglinton buses. If you like cramped trips that bounce and shake over extremely bumpy roads and take forever... boy did we have something for you! Yeah, don't think anybody is crying any tears over those retirements.