Boon Burger
December, 2011
79 Sherbrook St
204-415-1391
info@boonburger.ca
Twitter: @boonburger
Boon Burger sits on an obvious corner, in the heart of Sherbrook
Street beside the Charisma complex (don’t park at
Charisma while visiting Boon). This area
has seen a proliferation of restaurants sprouting in the last while and I
haven’t encountered anything bad in the area yet. Boon is a tiny little establishment that can
accommodate a grand total of 24 diners, and you’ll have to share bench seating. There’s no liquor here so you’ll have to mingle
with your neighbours over one of their many organic or natural drink
selections. If you’re not the mingling
type, no worries, it has never taken more than a few minutes for my burger to
arrive.
As a package, the wonderful Boon Burger delivers almost everything
you could want from a burger. The
magnificent sauce and the delicious caramelised onions dance in unison with the
wonderful, organic, whole grain bun. I
can’t quite make out the red pepper peach chutney but the sauce has an exotic
flavour and I attribute it to the chutney.
The patty—even with nice seasoning and flavour—may be the weak link in
this chain. The texture tastes like a
meat patty with too much flour or breadcrumbs.
The grilled patty tries too hard to emulate a meat patty when it doesn’t
have to.
For many years, Underground Café’s Sun-burger set a stellar
standard for meatless burgers. From
reputation alone, every vegetarian burger will get inevitable comparisons to
the Underground sandwich—and with good reason.
The Sun-Burger stands as a entity of its own without trying to imitate
its meat cousin. The Boon Burger could take
a lesson from the Sun to move from “very good burger” status to “great burger”
status.
The Buddha Burger takes this next step and delivers a truly
delicious sandwich. Starting with the
same bun, the Buddha houses a dripping cacophony of goop, including a red
pepper peach chutney, and an alluring aromatic curry mayo. Fresh cucumber, tomato slices with lettuce
and just enough red onion to finish off the perfectly balanced melange of
accompaniments. The patty itself has a
blend of textures, stemming from the ground chickpeas and brown rice. This richly seasoned patty isn’t trying to imitate
any meat counterpart; this patty stands as a unique entity on its own that
Buddha himself would be proud to eat.
While half of Boon’s menu features burgers, they also offer
a limited selection of non-burger items.
The [not the same ol’] poutine starts with perfectly cooked fries that
you swear are deep-fried. Since Boon has
no deep fryer or microwave on premises, you see proof that baked can be as good
as fried. The smothering of delicious
gravy again tests your taste buds, as you would never tell that this base has
no beef. Finally, any meathead would
have a hard time telling that the gooey cheese is completely vegan. Scallions finish off this dish by adding nice
texture and taste to the poutine. I’m
not sure what ingredient provides a long-lasting, spicy finish but it sure caps
off one of the best poutines I’ve had outside of Quebec.
Sadly, many of my friends will never experience the
wonderful food that Boon serves within its modest doors. While those carnivores sit and sharpen their
teeth at home, they miss out on one of the truly great dining pleasures in Winnipeg. Good for them, as it leaves more seating for
me.
**** ½ /5
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This is a free product that I'm happy to bring to you. If you enjoyed reading this, please consider clicking on the accompanying ads. This is the only payment I receive for offering this public service. Thank you as always for reading.
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