Big Smoke Burger

To avoid any confusion over exactly which restaurant this is, I’ll start by saying that this place was formerly known as Craft Burger. But Top Chef Judge Tom Colicchio who owns restaurants (what Food Network star doesn’t own a few fancy restaurants) had already trademarked the same name. This led to a minor legal squabble which resulted with this chain adopting the name Big Smoke Burger.

the Big Smoke Burger at the Eaton Centre

One thing that shows that this is a great burger place, is the long line-ups everytime we go here, even though there are other hamburger joints in the Urban Eatery – Eaton Centre.

Notice the quality smoked cheese in the bottom left corner of this picture

If you couldn’t tell from what we said earlier, this is one of our favorite restaurants.

We always order the same burger when we go here (chipotle mayo, grilled mushrooms and smoked cheese) and it’s always incredibly delicious. The chipotle is spicy to the right degree and the smoked cheese adds depth. Another good thing about these sandwiches is that the patties are extremely juicy, unlike a certain place that claims to be a Priest of Burgers. That’s right, once again I’ve brought up my arch-nemesis The Burgers Priest. Its surprising they aren’t bombarding me with angry comments.

If you look at the bottom of the picture, you can see drops of meat juice NOT fat. Sorry for the less than pretty photo but I was just trying to make a point.

The gravy for this poutine has actual flavour instead of just being a salty roux slathered over fries. Just like everything else here, the fries are hand-made (fresh cut, not frozen) and extremely tasty. I think the only way to describe the exact level of how good this place is… we use Big Smoke Burger as a baseline to which we compare all other burgers.