#tyyteats

At some point, a burger is no longer just a burger. At some point it crosses the border squarely into “meal on a bun” territory. In my two prior years with this contest, Celtic Hearth has tiptoed expertly along that border with the grace of a tightrope artiste, somehow managing to stay squarely on that imaginary line in the...well, beef. This year though it’s as though they abandoned all pretense of trying to present a sensible-sized entry and just threw an entire day’s calories on a metal tray and hoped we came hungry. It’s a 6oz Moose burger, topped with mac and cheese, beer braised ham, crispy onions, and spicy ketchup. Words don’t really do this monster justice:

Yes, that is breaded and fried mac and cheese on top of the patty. And ham on top of that. This is a beast. To my surprise though, it did compact down pretty well at the expense of only some of the macaroni. To my even bigger surprise, these flavours worked. It’s easy on a burger this size to get overwhelmed, or for things to get lost, but nothing did here. The ham was a delight, shredded to avoid another big chunky bite and intensely flavourful to boot. The patty was either not all moose or was just as well cooked as the one at Merchant Tavern, and the crispy onions and spicy ketchup were definitely more than an afterthought.

I was also impressed by how well this held together. Some macaroni escaped to be sure, but the bun held its form and each bite gave me a good mix of tastes. Seriously though, I could eat that ham all day. The concept of this burger, a family pot luck where everyone brings a different dish, is also one of my favourite things about the contest. Tell me a story with my food!

One unfortunate downside is that this burger really is just huge, and it comes with three sides as well. One of them, the coleslaw, actually might have been better on the burger. I had trouble finishing everything, and Sarah’s daughters couldn’t finish it despite sharing one. The pickle on the top was too greasy and heavy for me, especially after everything else. And of course we do have to consider the structural integrity issues because, even though it was able to hold up, there was still a lot of escapage.

Seto is an incredibly popular restaurant locally. The Asian fusion cuisine has really hit a note locally, and the use of predominantly local ingredients is always a good way to improve your standing in the community. As a result this was the first reservation we made for the month, the day the list of burgers came out. And could you blame us?  Chinese BBQ duck burger, with spicy peanut butter, pickled cabbage & onion, and crispy bits, on a sesame milk bun. The concept of an entire burger made of duck had me drooling from the outset, let alone one made by the chefs at Seto. 

The patty was really thick and, as you would expect from a duck burger, very moist and juicy. Duck is a heavy meat, and lends itself well to this sort of thing. That spicy peanut butter was the first thing that hit the palate, and for a bit it dominated, but the gentle pickle on the slaw and the five spice seasoning on the duck soon joined it. There were ribbons of green chili in the burger, which might be too much for some people, but they are not strong chilies so if you have any spice tolerance at all you should be fine. 

As delicious as the overall package was, I do have one fairly major gripe with this burger. Had you given this to me blind, I could not have told you it was duck. Delicious yes, but absent that richer, deeper dark poultry meat flavour I expected. I don’t know if it was cut with pork or bacon, but it really did lose that characteristic duckiness.