Downtown Deli

One of my friends came up to visit me and I met him a few streets down from the Downtown Deli. We were walking north looking for a place to eat and I spotted this place and figured we should give it a go.
I ordered the club (quite frankly, I think a good club is hard to come by and is a good judge of any establishment because its basic and should be done well no matter what) and sweet potato fries and a fancy bottled pop.
We ordered and sat down in the restaurant and within 10 minutes our food was on our table brought over by the «waitresss». Our food was delivered to the table and I was pleasantly surprised at the portion sizes. The meal all in was about $ 16 and I was hoping that it wouldn’t be yet another overpriced food place that served tiny portions. I like getting my money’s worth when I eat. My club was perfectly put together and cut and my sweet potato fries were overflowing. Yum.
My friend ordered onion rings with his sandwich and the came in the same size box as the sweet potato fries but there were about 7 – 10 onion rings all in a clump. I would have been disappointed if I had ordered them, but they were yummy just the same.
I’d come here again if I was in the mood for a good sandwich. It’s not too conveniently located for me so I don’t know that I’ll return soon, but I’d recommend it if you’re in the area.

This place happens to be attached to our office building. I considering trying it out once, but after viewing the menu, I changed my mind. When a Groupon became available, I thought it seemed worth a shot.
I waited around for over 30 minutes for one roast beef sandwich and a pickle. The Groupon was supposedly for $ 10 worth of food, but given the size of the sandwich, it doesn’t seem like it would be worth it.
When I got back up to the office, I noticed that they had put mustard on my sandwich, when I had asked for none. I grudgingly plodded back downstairs and had a new sandwich made very quickly. The store was quite busy, and only one person in the kitchen, so I can understand their difficulties.
The staff were very apologetic, but there’s enough other options in the area that I don’t think I’ll be back.

This place is easy to miss being on a side street off Yonge. Inside are blow ups of well known delis like Katz’s, Carnegie, 2^nd Ave. and Sarge’s. To me, it signaled the places they wanted to emulate. Luckily, I’ve been to all those places so I could figure out how closely they hit the mark. Unfortunately, they come up short when compared to these places that have been around for decades.
Food: There’s 3 sandwich sizes offered: small, large and XL. I had the large pastrami on light rye. The large is a little larger than the recommended serving size as set by nutritionists, so about a normal sized sandwich anywhere in the world, unless you eat at Katz’s, Carnegie, etc., in which case, it’s small by comparison. The pastrami itself isn’t hand sliced like at the delis hanging on the wall, and you can barely taste the spicing. Plus, they only offer yellow, dijon and honey mustards. Spicy brown mustard fans will need to wait until after the planned renovations when they plan to get rid of the small size and add brown mustard. But at least the sandwich comes w/​a quarter slice of sour pickle. I combo’d the sandwich w/​sweet potato fries which are pretty tasty and would go well w/​the honey mustard.
Service: The deli is operated more like a fast food resto than a sit down deli resto. You order at the register, then sit down instead of having a waitress take your order. Although the place was about half full, service was a little slow and your food comes wrapped instead of served on plates. Unlike the delis hanging on the wall, there’s no free bowl of pickles or slaw placed in front of you when you sit down.
tl;dr: machine sliced instead of hand sliced, more fast food than sit down, still better than Druxys tiny ass servings, won’t live up to your memories of Katz’s, Carnegie, 2^nd Ave. or any of the other delis hanging on the wall.

Original Motorcycle Burgers fullfilled the 2 elements in hamburgers that I love:
— Beef makes with AAA Steak grinded on premise. no shtitty frozen patties and it is of high quality (The beef is nice and juicy, cooked with a little hint of pink inside, the way I love it!) +0.5 star
— Real Charcoalled marks on the Beef! Love that smokey flavour… +0.5 star
The Poutine ($ 3.95) we ordered though is meh… I have to say the gravy and the cheese were good tasting. But the French Fries were just so soggy. I think I will skep the Poutine. –0.5 star
Kudo, to the cook that cut our burger in half without asking! Can I say that he is just a tough and rough biker outside but a sweet, sensitive and observant sweetie inside! +0.5 star
PS Now OMB has their liquior licence so beers are served! Yes burgers does goes well with iced cold beers.
They accepts Visa and Mastercard.

Coming out of one of the many Financial buildings on this block we arrived to OMB feeling of Business Formal one second to Roadkill the next. The décor while stylish has an abundance of Biker theme. We sit as we felt that Biker style attitude non-​facial expression from the waitress/​cashier. I gave that to her right back as to feel compatible and adaptable with the culture.
Banquet Steak Burger ($ 9.75/6oz) we had it as it states without additional toppings. It already came with Cheddar, Sugar-​Cured Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato, Grilled Onions. The Burger Patty on it’s own was charred nicely with that charbroil flavour and was seasoned well enough. The JUICES ran down after my initial bite which is hard to say for other places. The Burger was CUT in half for us without request which was awesome, as the cook must have known we were sharing one. 3.5 *Star*
As far as Burgers are concerned, this one is one of my personal favourites so far but that’s coming from a person with limited Burger consumption experience. So I suggest you try and determine it for yourself if it’s to your liking. In the back of my mind, I withdrew $ 11.02 for a Burger so I was hesitant but at the same time I’m known as cheap anyways.

Looking for an independent burger shop near Queen/​Yonge, this was nicely tucked away on Temperance St. The atmosphere is clean and of course, very loaded with the art you would expect from a joint with a name like this.
I ordered the Philly Burger and the girlfriend ordered the Pizza Burger. We also got fries, and split a Root Beer.
The burgers were good, not great. The meat was nice but portions of it felt a bit too dry, almost like the chef was squeezing the burger on the pan just to be done with it. Toppings felt fresh, but the bun was flaky and didn’t give justice to the higher quality meat.
The fries were freakin’ amazing, I ate mine, then about half my girlfriends. So good! I can’t remember the name of the root beer but was your typical indie brand that used Cane Sugar. Very good root beer.
In total our meal came to $ 29 after tax which fed us nicely, but I’d probably get one less set of fries next time (they give you plenty)
Finally, their poutines look delicious and large for a fair price, I will be sure to try that out next time.

My friend and I sat down at OMB yesterday to enjoy the gorgeous weather and delicious burger. When we got there, we ordered and found a table outside. We sat and chit chatted and in too shakes of a cow’s tail, we had our food. I opened the container for my poutine and was so sad. It already didn’t look like a good poutine. Instead of using cheese curds, it looked like cheese slices. I started to eat it but didn’t finish.
I moved on to the burger and OMB redeemed itself. It was a good burger with delicious toppings. I did find that near the end, the burger completely fell apart.
Overall, it was a good experience. They get points for the outside patio and their quick, efficient service. It’s not the best I’ve had but it was good.

Eating at Original Motorcycle Burgers is probably as close as I’ll ever get to being a biker chick. I can honestly say I don’t know very much about this place but it was on Kat Von K.‘s list for the Decemburger event so I added it to my burger quest. Today I was downtown buying tickets for Ross Petty’s holiday production of Robin Hood and as I was walking by Temperance St. I thought to myself «hmmm…Temperance St… why do I know that street name?’ And at that moment it twigged in… burgers. So I hauled ass, dragged my friend Robert with me, informing him that he was in on a burger review.
Ok, so here’s the sweet and low. First off, let me say that of all the places I’ve been chasing my burger quest by far and away the Original Motorcycle Burger has the best fries I’ve eaten to date. No bullshit. They were just downright good, honest, crispy, real french fries. To be honest, I could have just forgone the whole burger thing and ordered an extra large box of these spud-​nuggets of deliciousness.
My friend and I both ordered combos. I ordered by the Banquet Burger (bacon, cheese, fried onions) plus anything off the list of toppings. My friend ordered the Philly Burger which had mushrooms & onions plus his choice of toppings. Instead of regular fries Robert ordered up the sweet potato fries. Ok, gotta say, damn fine sweet potato fries!!!
OMB’s claim to fame is that they grind all the meat they use in their burgers right on the premises. So they are fresh and are basically all meat with no fillers. There were no orange burgers being served up on Temperance Street. The burger was actually quite delicious, moist and not overcooked. OMB is a big step up from Hero, Acme etc. but not quite like the Burger Bar.
The OMB is basically your daytime burger joint. It isn’t licensed and it’s small (seats for about 24). It’s a take out burger place catering to the downtown business crowd. As soon as you go in the door you place your order and sit down and a gal brings out your tray. The bill for our total order (two combo’s) was around $ 22 bucks.
Upside, there were no fuck ups in the order. They sell Boylen’s soft drinks (as does Craft Burgs.) Downside, the bacon they used on my burger looked like that funny precooked fake bacon that you’d find in your kid’s Playskool kitchen. You know what I mean… the plastic eggs and the plastic strips of bacon. It just didn’t do the burger justice in the slightest.
All in all, I can honestly say, I liked this burger haunt. It sure beats the hell out of the food court in the Eaton Centre. So if you find yourself with the geese flying over your head and your looking for a bite to eat… go south a few blocks. It’s worth the walk.
Pics are now up!

Oh OMB… you serve delicious burgers.
I noticed OMB for the first time wandering around aimlessly in the downtown core. By pure happen-​stance I took a random right onto Temperance St. and I am glad I did. I’m pretty sure I made a fool of myself staring into the establishment from the sidewalk for what was probably at least a minute before walking in, curiosity piqued. I didn’t order anything exactly then since I had just eaten lunch, but the two fellows who were manning the grill and cash register were not at all upset that I had entered just to do some recon. The menu looked damn good and I made a point of returning later in the day with a friend to grab a bite. I was not disappointed. The service was excellent and the burger+fries+drink were awesome.
HIGHLY recommend. Don’t be afraid to order excessive amounts of toppings for your burger, I made the mistake of holding back and sort of regret it now, thinking back. Will be sure to remedy this next time.
Enjoy.