Two Oliver area restaurants; one independent and one chain, go head to head in this week’s search for Edmonton’s best burger. Let’s see how they did, shall we?

The Common- 9910- 109 st

The Common has some friggin legendary Chicken and Waffles; the best in town if you ask me, so I felt pretty stupid ordering a burger when the whole restaurant seemed to be ordering C & W (it was Monday when the Chicken and Waffles are on special), but a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.

See the sacrifices I make for my readers?

There’s only one burger on the menu; the Umami burger, made with dashi soaked flank, sriracha aioli, Alpine cheese, and caramelized onions.

Umami Burger at The Common

• Meat – Making a burger with ground flank steak seems like insanity to me, and a recipe for some epic dryness. Flank is so lean- how could this burger not be dry? Thankfully the marinated flank steak is mixed 50-50 with ground chuck so there would be a bit of fat from that. When it arrived at the table it was noticeably different than all the other burgers right from the start. The meat had a rich red colour, and a great looking sear. It looked very promising. The patty was nicely seasoned, and had a delicious beefy flavour. There was no gristle. When I cut into it, the meat was quite juicy in the middle, though the edges had dried out a bit.

• Bun – The ciabatta bun was concerning to me when I read the menu, as ciabatta tends to be very chewy; a horrible quality in a burger bun. I was not expecting to find the bread to be light and airy as it was, with very little chewiness. It was soft, warm, and not too dense or heavy. A pleasant surprise.

• Toppings – Ok, so here is where a lot of other burger creators in Edmonton could take a lesson from the chef at The Common. Knowing the patty was nice and beefy tasting (as it should be), the toppings are where you’re going to add that extra punch of complimentary flavours to take your burger over the top. I loved the sriracha aioli, which added a nice little spicy kick to wake up your taste buds. There was a good quantity of it too, though I could have used an extra side to dip my fries in. The caramelized onions added such depth of flavour that makes you wonder why they aren’t used more. The cheese was a variety of swiss, and appeared on the burger as shavings. It was similar to parmesan in texture, and didn’t melt. The texture was odd, but it added a nice sharpness to the burger, and I enjoyed the flavour.

Umami Burger at The Common

This is definitely not your typical burger, but there’s a lot of good things going on here. The meat is tasty, though I still think more fat is needed in the mix to achieve the level of juiciness that I like in a burger. The meat works well with the bun, and the toppings were much better and more interesting than most.

I’m not sure this burger would satisfy my craving for a stereotypical cheeseburger though, as I’d be missing the gooeyness of melted cheese, but if I’m in the mood for something a little outside the box, this burger would be on my list.

Cost- $15 served with fries or soup

Earls- 11830 Jasper ave

I’m not much of a chain restaurant guy, so when I got a bunch of suggestions to try the burger at Earls I cringed a little. I hadn’t been to Earls in a number of years, but I always found their concept to be focused more around the short-skirted waitresses than making food I’d actually enjoy.

The Yeg Burger Odyssey was a good excuse to see if that was still true.

The choice of burger for me was pretty simple; the Bacon Cheddar Smashed Burger, with dry cured bacon, vine ripened tomato, onion, on a house made brioche bun.

Earls Bacon Cheddar Smashed Burger

• Meat- There was plenty of overhanging meat on this burger, which I like, and it had a solid crust from the smash technique. Almost too much crust in fact. It was good, but was dangerously close to being over-charred and it was probably smashed a bit too vigorously, as the patty had split and developed a void in the middle where it had broken apart. The thin patty and smash technique usually produces a burger that has retained it’s moisture, and this was no exception. This burger has a nice beefy taste, which is what I like, and a good texture with no gristle.

• Bun- Marketed as a brioche bun on the menu, what was served to me was most definitely not brioche. My server confirmed that if was in fact a regular white burger bun. It was a touch dry, but overall not a bad bun even though it was annoyingly un-toasted.

• Toppings- Nothing particularly creative here, but what they put on the burger was fresh  and done well. It had more lettuce that I would typically want, but that lettuce was fresh and crispy so I didn’t mind. The tomatoes were ripe and tasty, and added not only flavour but some juiciness to the works. It was good to see a nice, thick slice of real cheddar, though with a burger as wide at this, you could make an argument that it needed better cheese coverage. I also appreciated the bounty of mayo, as I usually find there’s not enough on most burgers for my liking.

The broken burger “void”

This was a pretty impressive looking burger and, I’ll admit, despite there still being a sea of tiny skirts I’m a little surprised that it didn’t disappoint in the taste department either. It was a bit too messy for Robyn to eat, what with the burger and bun kind of falling apart, but as a messy burger fan I didn’t mind that. The crust on the patty was really good, though teetered close to that line between delicious browning and burned disaster.

Picking a winner between these 2 is tough, as they’re so different. What it comes down to for me is which one would I want if I had a burger craving, and with that in mind I’d choose the burger at Earls. It’s got more of the aspects that I crave in a typical cheeseburger. While the Umami burger at The Common is really good too, I’d consider it more of a specialty burger that I’d only have once in a while.