Fat Les's onion rings are worth a visit

• Address: 3779 Strandherd Dr, Nepean and other locations

• Prices: $3.64 to $16.89

• Diet: Gluten-free and vegetarian

• Accessibility: Wheelchair accessible

• Website

After a recommendation from a reader I drove out to Fat Les’s in Barrhaven. Fat Les’s as it turns out, is a chain of eight food truck locations so it’s a fairly large operation. Little wonder therefore that they procure their beef from the Canadian commercial producer Cardinal, whose frozen products are also available at Costco.

I was impressed with their following as one vehicle after another pulled up in the Home Depot parking lot to order some of their finest grilled and fried foods. I opted for their Wham burger with a side of onion rings and was assured that everything is made in-house.

It was a fairly cool and overcast afternoon so sitting at the picnic tables provided would be ideal.

Within minutes my order was ready and I took my seat. Everything looked great and the food was piping hot. Straight away I dug into the onion rings and was pleased that they were as good as my server suggested: crisp, not doughy and the onions were sweet and creamy. I always enjoy these with a side of something that has an acidic component so it was ketchup for me.

I picked up the burger, enjoying the heft of it but soon realized that perhaps there were just too many moist toppings as the bread started to give way and no longer held the various elements. I took a first bite and then a second and while the bun was soft it was also dry as dust and crumbly leaving a bit of a mess in my hands. 

I looked for the charred burger taste but found the beef had little to no crust and tasted steamed rather than seared. There was also the matter of the “Wham” sauce which was spicy and not described as such. It would have been good to know.

I look forward to the day when everyone who gets into the “burger business” realizes that after top-quality beef, the most important thing is the bun. Yet this is precisely what almost every burger place gets wrong. While everything else in the sandwich may be just fine, bad bread, in the end, takes down the whole experience. My advice to burger maestros: pay more for your bread and just charge us for it. I promise that the general public will thank you.