Burgers ...on the Brain

I was still in London and Emma and I had been checking out on-line the places that the Food Network show "You Gotta Eat Here" had covered.  There were two places:  Relish and Prince Albert Diner.  We had a plan that once we were not dieting we would indulge in some 'You Gotta Eat Here' places.  Both the London restaurants are burger places so we had burgers on our mind.

However, afer shopping for hours we were famished and no where near downtown where the two 'You Gotta Eat Here' places are.  Compromise was required because it was almost 2pm, and I most especially, was starving (perhaps I should not have declined the "delicious" spinach shake Emma had offered me for breakfast (pardon me while I throw up in my mouth a little bit).  Here is the face of evil as I corrupt Emma from her raw and only healthy food diet.

Serendipitously ... as we pulled out of the plaza, there was a brand new burger joint:  Union Burger "UB".  And for almost 2pm, the place was pretty busy -- a definite good sign.  So we agreed we'd check it out.  After all, we were already thinking of burgers all weekend.

At UB, you get your choice of beef (ahhh sigh ... cow meat ... sad face) or grilled chicken, you can order it on a bun or as a wrap and you can load it up with tons of toppings of your choice.  They also have about 6 specialty burgers ... I chose the 'Great Canadian' beef burger which comes with thick cut peameal bacon and cheddar cheese.  Emma picked the 'Peppercorn' beef burger which comes with cracked black pepper, caramelized onions, lettuce, whiskey bar-b-que sauce and goat cheese.  Emma also got the pickles and kalamata olives on the side.

They make all the burgers to order so you have to wait for them to cook.  This joint is licenced so, if you want, you can enjoy a beer while you're waiting for your food.  I was driving back to my folks within a hour or so so it was fountain pop for us on this day.

My burger was delicious; they were not joking that the peameal bacon was definitely thick cut so there was good smoky salty bacon flavour in every bite.  The peameal bacon was not dry and the beef burger was moist and flavourful.  It was not greasy and the bun was soft with a nice crispy outside.  Emma said the peppercorn burger was not overly peppery but there were occasional peppery bites.

We also shared one order of fries which are hand-cut and delicious.  Emma claimed the fries were 'cold' but she's prone to over-exaggeration (I mean seriously the 2 bedroom suite at the Delta Chelsea was NOT disgusting!  Seriously ... over-exaggeration!).  The fries were warm but not hot.  But they were still delicious and between the two of us, we could not finish all this food.

Definitely a decent burger and way better than fast food.  For the moment UB joints are located primarily in southwestern Ontario ... so I'll have to keep watching to see if they open a franchise closer to Ottawa to check it out.  In the end, I think it was a great compromise from Prince Albert or Relish ... which we think are basically college hang out places ... you can't trust the opinions of drunken college kids trying to scarf some massive amounts of fried foods at 3am.  Been there ... done that.