#FoodPornFriday featuring Cheeseburgushi

Today's #FoodPornFriday post comes from Universal Studios in Orlando Florida. Specifically from an amazing restaurant called The Cowfish that is part of the Universal Citywalk.

As you may expect from the name, The Cowfish specializes in burgers and sushi. But they also have something else: Burgushi. That is what you see here. Specifically Cheeseburgushi.

I will fully admit I was leery when my mother in law ordered this. I did have to admit it looked pretty damn good when it showed up though. Come on look at that picture, you can't tell me that doesn't look appetizing. So how was it?

This was by far one of the best things I've eaten in my entire life. It was so damn good!

After finishing just one piece of this burgushi I looked at the three other specialty rolls on our table and wished they were the other varieties of burgushi. That's knowing that Cowfish has really damn good sushi, but it's nothing compared to this monstrosity they have created. An amazingly tasty monstrosity.

My only regret is that we had meal plans for the rest of our trip and getting back to The Cowfish was not part of the plan. If we ever make it back down to Orlando I will definitely make sure that a trip to Cowfish is on the itinerary and when we get there I'm ordering one of each of all the different types of burgushi.

Burger Battle: Motor Vs. Mamo

There's a battle raging right now in Windsor. A burger battle. On one front you have Motor Burger and onthe other front you have Mamo Burger Bar.

In case you haven't noticed, Windsor has become a battle zone of amazing burger joints. We've had Bubi's and Gilligan's for a while now but now there are tons of amazing burgers around the city at places like Joe Schmoe's and the Bull n Barrel. Two of the newest entries onto the field of battle, and my personal favorites, are Motor Burger and Mamo Burger Bar

Motor Burger

Motor Burger is located in the heart of Via Italia, Windsor's Little Italy, at 888 Erie Street. Awarded the Reader's Digest Canada's "Best Gourmet Burger" medal in 2012 and followed up with their "You Gotta Eat Here" stripes the next year, Motor Burger comes to the field well decorated.

You will find fifteen different burgers on the menu. These are all gourmet burgers made with a huge variety of fresh ingredients and toppings. My favourite is the Autostrada (Chipotle rubbed northern Italian sausage, gorgonzola cheese, sliced apple slaw), the wife loves the Twin Barracudas (2 panko encrusted haddock sliders, creamy cajun slaw, cheddar cheese, pickle). All of these are available single or supercharged. Supercharged means a scary amount of burger as they toss a second patty on there.

Supporting these fifteen lieutenants are the best damn sides in the city. Truly amazing onion rings. Sweet potato fries. Poutine and some of the greatest Mac & Cheese in the city. There are also some salads for those of you who forgot you went to a burger joint. Oh, and some great starters too, not that you really need them, a bowl of rings and a burger fills this Big Dude right up, but if you are a glutton for punishment grab the Chili Spring Rolls (chorizo chile & black bean, lime, smoked cheese, sour cream).

Added to all this great food Motor Burger has one more thing going for it. It's also an Ontario Craft Brewer. Yep you read that right. Motor Craft Ales is brewed specifically for Motor Burger. I could so use a pint of Dragula right now.

Mamo Burger Bar

Mamo Burger Bar can be found at 1515 Ottawa Street. The previous location of Sweet T's Southern Cooking and before that Smoke n' Spice. Actually Mamo was opened by the same owners and they have a real hit here.

Mamo has only ten lieutenants in their army but they back it up with a lot more support troops. The ten signature burgers are all tradition beef burgers. Well somewhat traditional. They get the meat from Shawn Morris Farms (better known as The Butcher of Kingsville), ground fresh that day. While it's not the variety you get at some other places in the city, this is the most tasty beef burger patty I've ever had. Added to those patties are some of the greatest topping combos ever. Personally I can never decide between the Wakin' & Bacon (cheddar, house bacon, fried egg & bacon jam) or The Daddy Mac (House made mac & cheese, smoked pull pork & caramelized onions).

Alongside those burgers are a couple of different sets of sides. Standard ones and deluxe specialist troops that cost a bit more to muster. These include fries, garlic fries, tater tots, Caesar salad on the low end and poutine, chili cheese fries and fried pickles for the elite troops.

There are also quite a few non-burger items on Mamo's menu. There are those same confusing salads (seriously, who goes to a burger joint to get a salad?), turkey sandwiches, pulled pork, chicken tenders, soup and chili and more. It's definitely a much more diverse set of troops.

The beer selection at Mamo isn't so bad either. Sure it's not brewed right there but they do have an Ontario Craft Beer menu and they mix up the taps pretty good.

My thoughts on the war

Both of these competitors have something amazing to bring to the battle. I think the sides at Motor Burger are some of the best in the city, if not the best. My kids love it as well, they can't get enough of the mac & cheese. I love the burgers too but I have to give an edge to Mamo Burger there. Given the choice I would choose a Daddy Mac over an Autostrada more often then not. But then Motor Burger brews their own beer, I really like beer. It's crowded though and Mamo feels more relaxed. Wait I know what will decide this battle: price! No wait that doesn't work, a burger and side at Motor Burger will cost you about $12-15. A burger at Mamo costs about the same and comes with side.

You know who really wins this battle? All of us, the people of Windsor, by having such amazing burgers made right here in our backyard.

Motor Burger: amazing burgers and great beer, what more could you want?

Windsor is turning into a mecca for burgers. There are a ton of amazing places all within a short drive of my house where I can get a burger to die for. Many people in the city think one of these stands tall above the rest and that place is Motor Burger.

It's not just Windsorites that think so either. Reader's Digest listed their Deux Chevaux as one of the top 5 burgers in Canada. They've also been featured on You Gotta Eat Here!

Motor Burger is located in the heart of Via Italia, Windsor's Little Italy, at 888 Erie Street. Right by the roundabout at Parent. Parking in the area is scarce as is seating at the restaurant itself. No matter what day of the week you go if you show up after 5pm expect to wait to get a table. This place isn't a hidden gem or a well kept secret, people know how good Motor Burger is and they pack the place every night (well except Sunday when they are closed).

One of the reasons they are always so packed is that this is a tiny place. They manged to squeeze in about as much seating as possible but the interior with all it's automotive themed artwork and distinctive lime green colour is long, narrow and crowded. It's also noisy. Always noisy. Don't head here for a quiet date night with your loved one, expect lots of people and lots of noise.

As expected the menu at Motor Burger is filled with burgers. Not your ordinary burgers either. Sure they will give a traditional cow patty if you really want it but, why would you do that when you could have my personal favourite the Autostrada? This is a chipotle rubbed Italian sausage patty with Gorgonzola cheese covered in sliced apple slaw. That's a shot of it there on the left.

My wife's favourite is the Twin Barracudas. It's two panko encrusted haddock sliders with creamy Cajun slaw, cheddar cheese and pickle. Though sometimes she's grabs a Shrimp Fuel which has a patty made with ground shrimp covered in chilies, garlic, tomato, cilantro, avocado and mango salsa. There's more options as well including chorizo sausage, fresh chicken or Kobe brisket. There's a burger here for everyone.

In addition to the the burgers they also offer a ton of great sides and appetizers. Last time there we got the Chili Spring Rolls which are made with chorizo chili, black bean, lime and smoked cheese. Have I mentioned I love chorizo before? Well I do. Along with the appetizer we got a bowl of onion rings to go with the burgers. Motor Burger has the best onion rings I've ever tasted. 

If the kids were with us we would have had to grab a side of Motor Mac and 3 Cheese. This is a baked mac and cheese that puts all other mac and cheese to shame. My kids won't eat Kraft for at least a week after a trip to Motor Burger. We didn't have the kids on our last trip which is great because it meant I could have a few Ontario Craft Beers, brewed right there.

That's right not only is Motor Burger a great place to grab some amazing burgers and sides, it's a brewery. Motor Craft Ales are brewed right there on site. 

Motor Craft Ales brews 9 different standard brews as well as a variety of seasonals. My personal favourite is Dragula. This is a Black Schwarzbier Lager Ale. The Big Block Brown is my second choice. My wife is usually partial to the C-hop Top I.P.A but tried a seasonal this time around. Jalopy, a Jalapeno Ale. I had a sip of this and it was rather good. It did pack quite the punch though.

Our last trip to Motor Burger was just before my birthday party and we ended up getting an appetizer, two burgers and a couple beers each and the total bill was about $60 before tip. Extremely reasonable for the amount of food and drink and more than reasonable for the quality.

Despite the fact it's hard to find parking in the area, and it's sometimes even harder to actually get a seat without a long wait combined with the fact that sometimes you can't even hear yourself think, I still love Motor Burger. It's one of my favourite places to eat in the entire city. 

I drove 45 minutes just to eat at Jack's Gastropub

Hoping to get in at least one more restaurant during Windsor Eat's Winter Bites we headed out to Kingsville, Ontario Saturday to try Jack's Gastropub. Now Kingsville is about a 45 minute drive out of town from where we are, so I doubt this will become a regular trip.

We got into town a little early (on purpose) and stopped in at the Butcher of Kingsville before driving around a bit to find Jack's. For some reason I thought it was located on Main St. when it was actually on Division. No big deal, Kingsville isn't very big at all and it took less than five minutes to find.

Jack's is located in a converted house. There's a small bit of parking outside and it looked like there was an overflow lot as well, but we didn't need it and I didn't think to confirm. A quick walk around the front of the place gave us a good look at a large obviously popular heated patio. It's mid January and the patio was packed, at just after 5pm. Once inside I couldn't help but point out the very cool little bar room off to the right. If I lived in Kingsville I could totally see sitting here drinking some craft beer and catching up on some reading.

We were asked if we had reservations, which surprised me given the time of day. Note to self and anyone reading this: make reservations, even if you think you are coming too early to need them. Thankfully they did have some room for us upstairs. As noted the place is a converted house. Well they didn't convert much at all. It was still very house like upstairs. We walked through an obvious living room, to the back hall, almost to the kitchen, up the stairs, past two bathrooms and into what I guess was at one time a main bedroom. Much of the original fixtures were still there. There were also lots of hats. No clue on this one, I guess someone digs hats. Cool enough.

Bad iPod pic of the Beer Menu

We got a booth seat, noted they have a high chair up here (hey cool this is a place we can bring the kids), and started looking over the menus. Note I said menus, as in plural. No I don't mean mine and my wife's I mean the food menu and the beer menu. That's right Jack's has a beer menu. I didn't think anywhere south of London had a beer menu. Awesome!

What we then realized is that we didn't have a copy of the special Winter Bites menu that brought us here. This was quickly corrected and we ordered. I went with the Pulled Pork Poutine followed by a Farm Burger, which is an all beef burger topped with bacon, goat cheese, onion tanglers and fried egg on a toasted Kaiser. Instead of a third course Jack's continued with the awesome offering up a Beer Tasting Flight.  That's right, instead of desert, you get four beers to try. For my flight of beer I decided to get Walkerville Blonde, Okanagan Springs, Maudit and Dead Elephant IPA. I will admit that I was slightly disappointed that between the bottle list and the craft beers on draft they didn't have anything I haven't tried before, but that is become more and more common as I reach the 700 beer's reviewed mark.

Flight of beers, a beautiful thing.

The beer came very quickly and it was nice to see a waitress point out which were which. I've been to a few places that serve flights that forget that important step. Our first course showed up before I had finished the first glass.

The Poutine was great, probably the best I've ever had. My pulled pork was fantastic and I tried a bite of my wife's Cheeseburger Poutine and it was good as well (though not as good as mine, score). Seriously this stuff is awesome.

Now here comes the one bad experience this whole trip. While about half way through my poutine our mains showed up. Holy cow, talk about fast. At this point we have probably only been at Jacks for 20 minutes. I can't help compare this to the disaster at Crave, this trip is like the complete opposite. Now I'm not happy the second course came out before finishing the first, but really, if it had to happen to any type of food, is it really that bad to get a burger while still eating your fries? I think most of all I just would have liked a breather and time for things to settle and to drink some more of those beers.

My Farm Burger

So that main course, how was it? Fantastic! Truly fantastic. This may be the best burger I've ever had. I'm still on the fence about it. It's most definitely up there with Motorburger. It might actually be better. I think I'm going to have to go back to Motorburger to check.

The picture over there doesn't do this burger justice. It was big, thick and amazing tasting. I couldn't even finish it, which is a rare thing for me (I'm a big dude for a reason). I also have to add, that bowl of coleslaw was great. Why I need to add that. I don't like coleslaw, well most of the time. I hate bitter, pickled tasting slaw. This was not that this was creamy fantastic slaw.

So yeah, this was good. Really good. Remember up top I said that the 45 minute drive meant this won't be a regular trip. I was wrong, totally wrong. Right now I'm sitting here typing this and trying to figure out how I can get back out to Jack's again this coming weekend, or maybe somehow tonight. Anyone know a good sitter?