GP: The Burger's Priest.

The Burger's Priest caught a little buzz last week here in TO thanks to picking up a Zagats ranking of third on places to eat in Toronto. With locations out in Scarborough on Queen East and between Lawrence and York Mills on Yonge, here's what you need to know:

1) If you're the kind of person who expects to walk in, get your burger in 1 minute, and go sit down: you're missing the point. This is not McDonalds: everything is cooked to order so you best be prepared to wait a bit.

2) Whether or not it's the "best burger you've ever had" is subjective and perhaps a bit hyperbolic. You'd have to have pretty specific taste buds to not at least say that it's good comfort food though 'cause it is. Just a basic simple ground beef burger topped to your specs and cooked until it's done. In the "what was in here that was going to kill you is now dead" sense, not the "charred to a crisp" sense. So, it stays nice and juicy with a good amount of flavour. (note that this is the default, if you want well done, ask for it)

Its not a place I'd eat at all the time, but it's definitely one of those worth poking your head into now and then to treat yourself to a nice snack.

Guilty Pleasures: There was a pie in this box...

Sadly, it's gone to a better place now...

Just to extend a bit, when I was growing up we had strawberry bushes on one part of the property and rhubarb on another (also: blueberries across the road), so I had lots of this kinda thing for the few years my mom was into making preserves/jams/etc... Tremendous soft spot for it.

Not so much for rabbit. Which my dad also... farmed... for a bit. Nor the racing pigeons. Which we didn't eat, but feeding a coop full of the shit machines is not high on the list of things you want to do at 6 years old.

On the other hand, I do miss the kennel of Irish Setters. Awesome dogs - Setters and Retrievers are the only Dogs I'd ever have - but I'd never own one in the city. They need room to run.

Guilty Pleasures...

Smoke's Poutinerie. I highly recommend the Triple Pork or the Pulled Pork. Order Small unless you plan to share.

A lot.

Side note: the movie I wanted to see last week doesn't open here until this week and apparently Dinner for Schmucks has been de-clawed - leading me to suspect I could write about it without ever seeing it and get pretty close to the actual plot. Sooooooo.... hiatus time until the interesting stuff opens...