The sign outside Royal Meats Barbeque.
If you’re in Accordion City and out Etobicoke way and looking for a good burger/ice cream combo, I recommend visiting Royal Meats Barbeque for the burger and Tom’s Dairy Freeze for dessert.
Royal Meats Barbeque
The folks at Royal Meats have added their own Serbian twists to the traditional burger joint:
- They’re a meat company that happens to operate a restaurant. The owners are a family who’ve had a butcher shop in Mississauga — Royal Meat Products at Cawthra and Burnhamthorpe — for decades. This background is evident when you walk in, because you place your order at a glass butcher shop counter where you can see the fresh meat that will eventually go into your sandwich. You’re not going to be eating something that’s been frozen and then thawed.
- Their burger mix is closer to a European meatball than your standard North American burger. Their signature burger is a mix of pork and veal. It’s an interesting change from straight beef, and it’s juicy and tastes great.
- Instead of the traditional burger bun, they use lepinja. Lepinja is Serbian flatbread that’s kind of like a slightly more substantial pita without a pocket. It’s freshly baked, and when toasted, it gets crispy around the edges, which is a nice touch. On its own, lepinja is delicious; in a burger, it’s outstanding.
- Good toppings. In addition to some fresh-looking standards like lettuce, onions, tomatoes and pickles, they offer some interesting sauces: Royal Sauce, which is a mix of feta, red peppers and onion, and kaymak, a rich cream sauce that does a great job of replacing cheese (they don’t do cheeseburgers). I generally like my burger with both sauces.
- Great fries! I’ve been to many burger places that make a great burger but completely fall down with their fries. Not Royal: their fries are made with potatoes with the skin still on, and are crispy outside and fluffy inside (which suggests that they’ve been boiled first, then fried). These are fries worthy of the burger they accompany.
- Generous portions. The sandwiches come in two sizes: the half-pound, which should satisfy most people, and the full pound, for when you’re really hungry. They always offer to cut your sandwich into two, so you can always share with a friend. The serving of fries is also generous.
- No heat lamps! Burgers are cooked as you order them. It means that you’ll wait a few minutes for your order (they’ll give you one of those restaurant pagers), but you’re going to get a burger fresh from the grill.
- They put a lot of work into the place. The restaurant itself is a step up from a typical burger joint. With its granite flooring and walls, halogen lights, custom signs, tables and chairs, and bathrooms that would be at home at the Drake Hotel lounge, it could easily pass for a cappuccino bar if it weren’t for the open kitchen featuring a giant grill. They also work hard at keeping the place clean.
Their location isn’t exactly convenient unless you’re travelling by car (they’re at 710 Kipling, just north of the Queensway), but if you were planning to do a run to the nearby Costco, IKEA or Sherway Gardens, it’s a worthwhile detour. I can’t recommend this burger joint highly enough, and the foodies over at Chowhound agree with me.
I’ve included a screenshot of their menu below — it comes from their website:
Click the menu above to visit Royal Meats Barbeque’s site.
Tom’s Dairy Freeze
Tom’s Dairy Freeze, as it appeared last night.
After a burger and fries at Royal Meats, a five-minute drive will take you to Tom’s Dairy Freeze, located at 630 The Queensway. It’s an old-school independent soft-serve ice cream shop that’s been there forever. Their soft serve tastes creamier than either Dairy Queen’s or that goo that comes from the ice cream trucks, and the whole “retro”/small town feel of the place is a ice bonus. I’m fond of the large hot fudge sundae, which is an impressive tower of soft serve.
My large hot fudge sundae at Tom’s.
If you’re in the west end of town this summer, make sure you give this combo a try!
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I've never been to Tom's, but I recently tried Royal Meats BBQ for the first time, and it truly is outstanding. Way better than any fast food chain, and not really much more expensive (assuming you order the smaller size, anyway, and I find the bigger size too big).
What is this, Joey, Larry King?
And I just can't be comfortable eating something called "soft serve."
I'm not a regular watcher of Larry King, so I'm not quite sure what in particular you're alluding to.
I like both places, so I wrote about them. End of story. Neither has asked or paid me for an endorsement; I;m sure that nobody at either place has even heard of me.
Read your blog Monday at lunchtime, and drove over to check it out.
I got the #1 item, the 1/2 lb "chevaps", which as far as I can tell is the same pork/veal mix as the burger, just rolled up like sausages (sans casings).
Really, really good. I will probably get the 1/2 lb burger next time, since the "chevaps" tend to fall out of the bun. I got the Royal Sauce - very good. The fries were excellent, too.
They have the raw burgers, etc, behind a glass butchers case - the 1 lb burger are insanely big!
Good call!
@Brian: Since the family who own Royal Meats are Serbian and chevaps are Serbian, I think that their burger is actually a big flat chevap, packaged in a form that those of us who aren't familiar with Serbian cuisine will recognize. That's cool by me.
So far, I've had the chevaps and the burger and yes, I'd opt for the burger if only for the ease of eating.
I'm glad you liked the place and found my review helpful!