Working My Way Through The Works: Dead Ringer

A popular gimmick for food blogs is to eat and review every item on a restaurant's menu. This blog is no exception. These are the observations I've had while eating my way through the burger menu of The Works, a Canadian burger restaurant with locations across Ottawa and Ontario.

The WORKS Glebe (580 Bank St.)
Burger Description: "Smoked beef brisket, smokey BBQ sauce, jack cheese & an O-ring"
($11.97)

April 18, 2019
Like my last visit to this location, it wasn't very busy when I arrived on the Thursday before the Easter weekend. Considering how late it was when I arrived, this wasn't a bad thing. I immediately ordered from the lunch specials menu. My lunch came promptly, and I admired its lunchpail elegance while listening to CCR sing about a bathroom on the right. I got another sense of deja vu after my first bite, as it reminded of another hamburger I've ordered here, but with a spicier (and IMHO, better) BBQ sauce, and an onion ring instead of caramelized onions. Other than those changes, it was a dead ringer for a burger the Barking Cow; I see what you did there, well played. I raved about the Barking Cow, so I'm not going to say anything bad about the Dead Ringer. It was a particularly juicy burger, so I was gratefully when my server promptly appeared with extra napkins. I did a doubletake when I realized it was the same server as last time because I remembered his name is the same as my son's.  An appropriate way to end this satisfying out of burger experience.

5 out of 5 stars - A great burger that won't bust a hole in your pocket.

An Amuse-bouche of My Own

Back during the poker boom of the 2000s, At a weekend poker get-together at a friend's house, I went to the kitchen during a lull in the game to get something to eat. There was the usual spread of snack food available, but the star of the show was a CrockPot filled with cocktail meatballs bubbling in grape jelly. I wanted to sample some but I didn't want to get the cards sticky, and I couldn't see any toothpicks to bring them to my mouth. I did notice some Scoops^® brand tortilla chips in a bag on the snack table, so I poured some of them on a paper plate and used the serving spoon to drop a meatball in each crunchy little bowl. When I returned to the table, a player noticed my plate and called attention to it with an amused outburst. I know I wasn't the first person to ever put finger food in bowl-shaped food, but I was the first person to do so that night, and soon, everyone at the table was eating their meatballs that way, and my impromptu hors d'oeuvre was referred to as "the Franklin" for the rest of the evening. To recreate my accidental snack, I used a recipe based on the one used at the New York meatball chain The Meatball Shop. Because only the best deserve to have my name on it...

Ingredients:

910 g ground beef (80 percent lean)
2 large eggs
30 mL olive oil
25 g ricotta cheese
25 g breadcrumbs
10 g salt
7 g chopped parsley
4 g chopped fresh oregano or 1 g. dried oregano
2 pinches ground fennel
1 pinch red pepper flakes
1 jar of your favourite grape jelly
1 bottle your favourite barbecue sauce

1. Preheat the oven to 232 °C. Drizzle the olive oil onto a 33 x 23 cm baking dish and use your hand to evenly coat the entire surface. Set the pan aside.
2. Combine the ground beef, ricotta, eggs, breadcrumbs, parsley, oregano, salt, red pepper flakes, and fennel in a large mixing bowl and mix by hand until thoroughly incorporated. Roll the mixture into small meatballs (about half the size of your thumb), making sure to pack the meat firmly. Place the balls in the prepared baking dish, being careful to line them up snugly and in even rows vertically and horizontally to form a grid. The meatballs should be touching one another.
3. Roast the meatballs for 20 minutes, or until they are firm and cooked through - you're looking for 74 °C using a meat thermometer inserted into the center of a meatball.
4. While the meatballs are firm and fully cooked, remove them from the oven and drain the excess grease from the pan. In a separate saucepan, combine the grape jelly with the barbecue sauce, and heat over medium-low heat, stirring constantly.
5. Once the sauce has been well combined and heated through, put the meatballs in either a warm CrockPot or a large saucepan on low heat and pour the sauce on top of them. When you're ready to serve, put a meatball in a Scoops^® brand tortilla chip (or on a toothpick if you're a traditionalist).