I Survived The Grid T.O.'s Burger Week!

The Grid TO's 2nd annual Burger Week came to a close last night and I'm happy to report I successfully tripled my burger intake this year without dying. (Don't worry, I only tried one place last year so I haven't embarked on a second career as the successor to Man vs. Food - yet.)

Similar to Summerlicious, Burger Week is a great excuse to round up friends for burgers and pints at restaurants both old and new. Thanks to my burger buddies and inadvertently my parents ("oh are you going out to eat burgers again? Bring us back one!") who helped round up the troops and keep up morale.

Here are some snapshots of the places we visited:

This End Up is a cozy sandwich and cocktail shop in Little Portugal with fantastic fries and a friendly, unpretentious vibe. Their burger week offering was a yummy mix of grilled ground chuck, seared hickory-smoked pork belly, tomato and apply chutney, umami mayo and arugula.  The variety of flavours played out nicely and the burger was moist and juicy thanks to the fatty slab of pork belly that was as large as the patty.  The restaurant also stocks a small selection of donuts from San Remo Bakery in Etobicoke that shouldn't be missed!

Next up was the jerk burger with jerk mayo, spicy mango salsa, goat cheese and lettuce from NY Fries' popular burger chain South Street Burger Co. This burger was pretty close in taste to South Street's regular offerings, but it was still great to score one of their premium patties for $5.  The spicy jerk seasoning balanced out nicely with the creamy goat cheese, crisp greens and the mango chutney added a just hint of tropical sweetness - no complaints here!

Our most epic Burger Week adventure happened accidentally when we set out to try Holy Chuck near Yonge & St. Clair on Saturday night. Apparently everyone else had the same idea as we waited almost two hours for this burger beauty: one beef patty, one bacon patty, double cheese and bacon all drenched in homemade bacon dressing.

Everyone was in good spirits though as the restaurant staff handled the crowd like pros, and the burger didn't disappoint with its decadence as evidenced in the photo above :)

Overall it was a fun and crazy weekend and I'm super glad that I squeezed in a visit to the gym in between the festivities! I'm definitely looking forward to next year's menus, but for now you can find me happily detoxing with a salad and lots green smoothies :)

Have a happy (and healthy) Monday!

♥