The Nook: 4/5



Cheese Burger $4.00  - Score: 3.9

Fatboy Burger $4.25 - Score: 4.4

Chili Burger $6.25 - Score: 3.4

Bacon Burger - Score: 3.6





43 Sherbrook Street











 

Yummy fries and gravy

We’ve tried The Nook’s excellent Clubhouse sandwich and Rueben, so why not a burger too? It’s table service and The Nook takes reservations so they’re already looking good. The Nook is known for its large portions and reasonable prices so bring your appetite. When we arrived they had us in some fairly cozy seating, but quickly relocated the group of 12 to a roomier table in the back half of the restaurant. Apparently today was the day when all the Burger Clubbers wanted to describe their dream burger to the waitress. She was amazing and took down all our very picky orders. A reasonable time later our waitress and the cook (who is all business) brought out all the food as ordered. The only incident was one “no pickle” burger had a pickle on it. Somehow they realized their mistake as the food was set down, so told the diner, “there’s a pickle on your burger - just take it off”. It was a very busy lunch time (as I’m sure it always is at The Nook), so that was pretty much the last we saw of our waitress. Cries for more drinks, serviettes and cutlery went unheeded. It may not have helped that our large group was particularly boisterous so maybe they didn’t want to encourage us to linger.


Bacon double cheeseburger


The burgers were beautifully presented with a festive little cocktail stick holding the whole assembly together. The beef patties were large and hand formed, cooked thoroughly and tasty. One of my favourite things was there was lots of chili - big meaty chunks of it! One diner thought the chili was a little lacking in flavour - we all have different tastes and that’s why we average the ratings. The bacon burgers came with four - yes four - full slices of bacon. This was certainly awe inspiring and should have resulted in a most excellent burger - but the bacon was undercooked. Way, way undercooked on some burgers. Even if you liked eating soft bacon, it was just about impossible to bite through without pulling out a slice and having it hang off your chin. Some people left their bacon on the plate - I pulled mine out and cut it up. On another day when (presumably) the grill isn’t so rushed and the bacon is cooked more, this could be a contender for Winnipeg’s Best Burger. The bun was lightly grilled, but really wasn’t up to the job at all. Coupled with the yummy chili sauce, it was a messy burger. A few people ended up eating their burger with a knife and fork. The cheese was processed (I don’t think we’ve encountered real cheese yet) but flavourful. I had two slices on my double burger. The pickles were sweet (a surprise to the pickle people) and the onions came fried, but you could also ask for them raw - the raw onions were hot though! One diner even got fresh mushrooms on her dream burger.


Darned if I could get this to focus. That’s a

fresh mushroom on the front of the burger

The table was long enough that there were two, possibly three conversation zones. I can only imagine from reading the comments later what was going on at the other end of the table where discussions were around hickies, Trix and Fruit Loops. Also whose imaginary girlfriend\boyfriend was better. It’s funny how when someone mentions “G-Spot” all of a sudden everyone can hear just fine though. When one diner, we’ll call her April, enthusiastically rearranged her fries for a burger photo-op, she earned the nickname “fluffer”. Back at my end of the table the discussion was around the popularity of different condiments. Specifically, if you bought one of those Ketchup\Mustard\Relish 3-packs, what would run out first. A great deal of the discussion focused on how large the hole in the relish squeeze bottle should be.

One of the Clubhouse\Reuben\Gyro\Burger Club founding members who was still bitter about The Nook not winning Winnipeg’s Best Clubhouse honours expressed his discord by ordering a Clubhouse instead of a burger. The BurgerClub voted him off the island. Don’t mess with BurgerClub.