Pizza Pieman — 3000 Tillicum Road — Victoria — 250-382-9909

Pizza Burger (standard toppings) $9

Pizza Pieman is a small Victoria chain (I went to the Tillicum location, which is somewhat near the mall) that's doing something a little different. Basically it's a Pizza Burger. You've got a wonderful bun that tastes exactly like how a pizza place smells, and topping options are virtually unlimited because you're at a pizza place (although I went with classic burger toppings). Ok, so those are the positives.

The negatives are partly to do with service, and partly to do with pizza place dynamics. I got my burger to go because there's almost no seating at the Pieman. You don't pay for your food until after you receive it, which means I almost ran out without paying because I was so hungry. It didn't help that the woman behind the counter had such a minimal level of english that she didn't know how to yell at my dine-and-dash ass in an effective manner.

Ultimately, however, taste is what I look for, not service, and this is where pizza dynamics come into play. Pizza places don't have grills — they have ovens. This mean your meat patty is heated up in a pizza oven and gets excrutiatingly dry. Dryer than an englishman's wit. It's unfortunate because otherwise this would be a neat addition to the Victoria burger landscape.

I went to Pieman way back in September and I haven't been back since. The bun is good, but not good enough to make up for that nasty, dry meat.

Mrs. Riches — 199 Fraser Street — Nanaimo — (250) 753-8311

Mrs. Riches is home to the infamous "Mountain Burger". It's half a head of lettuce, a whole tomato, whole onion, bacon, ham, fried egg, pound of beef, and enough bun to kill all the ducks in Beacon Hill Park.

I was pretty disappointed to find out the patty was only one pound, yet the cost of the burger was $26. I mean really — how much does it cost to make your "signature big bun", or whatever you call this completely unneccesary crap. A burger with only a pound of beef can barely be called "big". To put it in perspective, a similarly priced burger at Two Parrots in Vancouver has two pounds of beef.

Nevertheless, I was pretty excited when I started eating this thing. Eating a bun the size of the famous Duncan hockey stick may not be a fun challenge, but it's still a challenge. I mowed the first half pretty quickly and never considered using a knife and fork.

However... after halfway I was feeling pretty exhausted. I wasn't so much full as I was disgusted. Mrs. Riches loads on the horrible, rancid mayo to the point where it soaks through the middle bun and makes it pretty unbearable. This is to say nothing of the fact that the patty is squished pretty damn thin to fit into that massive bun. The thin patty is somewhat dry to begin with, and like a field of cotton after an hour.



I just couldn't finish this thing. I didn't want to. This is not a particularly tastey burger, and eating a loaf of bread for dinner isn't too appealing. The meat was dry (medium-well), swimming in mayo jizzum, and dwarfed by a bun the size of my head.

Ultimately underwhelming, and not worth the trip. Sometime in the future I'll be heading out to the Prairie Inn (which has a THICK one and a half pound burger). If you want a big burger, avoid Mrs. Riches... looks can be deceiving.

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This will soon become a burger blog, reporting on burgers from Victoria, BC and the area.