Working My Way Through The Works: (Ten Burgers in) SK8R Boy

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.

May 12, 2020
Burger Description: "Peanut butter, jack cheese & bacon"
($18.28)

The original plan for this review was supposed to be completely different. I was going to celebrate hitting a double-digit number of these entries by eating at a different Works than the two locations I normally go to, but COVID-19 changed that for the foreseeable future. I couldn't eat the burger I wanted to review as the "Living on the Vedge" has been removed from the menu. So I'm going with a burger I've eaten back in the days before I blogged about food while seeing what all the fuss food delivery services are about after being a longtime holdout.  I had planned to do a pick up at the Orleans location, but The Works' website doesn't offer that service to its Ottawa area locations. Skip The Dishes, Don Draper's favourite service when he pretends to be Canadian is the default delivery option for all the local Works restaurants, but depending on the location, DoorDash and UberEats are also available.  Downloading the app to my phone was easy, and placing the order was straightforward. The app said my food would arrive ASAP, and 31 minutes later, the doorbell rang, and my food was there on the doorstep as I had instructed them to do. What arrived was the Avril Lavigne themed SK8R Boy - remember when people pretended to be appalled that she didn't know who David Bowie was back when she was the next big thing? My hamburger came with a healthy amount of peanut butter, so much I couldn't taste the jack cheese. Not tasting the cheese defeats the purpose of ordering a cheeseburger. The ghetto peanut sauce worked well with the bacon, and it gave the burger the expected nutty flavour, but it needed the kick that makes peanut sauce what it is. The peanut butter stuck to the roof of my mouth, which was a feeling I don't normally associate with hamburgers. Maybe that was why it was as filling and oddly addictive as it was. The onion rings were crunchy, flavourful, and in my opinion, very underrated as a side order. This is a burger that you need to be in the mood. It was interesting to eat, but I wouldn't order one again. To paraphrase the song it's named after, I say see you later boy, this burger wasn't good enough for me.

2.5 out of 5 stars - You'll get a well-cooked burger, but your enjoyment depends on your love of nut butter.