O’Neill’s Review

O’Neills
1374 BARTON ST E,
HAMILTON, ON
L8H 2W3
Phone: 905-549-7066
* No current website*

O’Neill’s seems to have almost legendary status in east end. Ask anyone about it pretty much and always seems to be same thing. Always mentioned is the massive Pugger Burger and a close second is damn good milk shakes. Now years ago I had tried O’Neill’s for delivery, actually a few times but to this day I have never stopped in. Never really has occured to me to do so.

So needing a change on a rare Friday night we were both off, and facing abysmal rainy weather, Melissa and I debated what to do for dinner, of course was the old standbys, but we wanted something more. O’Neill’s came to mind. Now one major issue, is a lack of website and/or an online menu. This is 2011 people, and both or one or the other would no doubt increase sales. I found the menu for the Mountain location online, which is apparently under different ownership now, so I used it as a guideline.

Calling O’Neill’s on a Friday night was a chore of sorts, they are definitely doing fair business, it took 5 calls to get thru, all other calls prior were greeted with a voicemail asking to callback, which can be off putting and may even cause some people to go elsewhere, but I endured. I over ordered as I always seem to, and it turns out the Barton location prices are lower than the mountain, which was a pleasant surprise.

We both ordered a pugger burger, a 1 pound burger that comes with onion rings, I of course went with my usual, mustard, mayo and pickles, the burger already had bacon and cheese included. These were decent value at $7.49 each, one of the cheapest in town even. I also ordered a combo platter that had 3 pizza fingers and 3 chicken strips with fries $8.95, and a deluxe garlic bread $6.95 and of course 2 chocolate shakes. Delivery was shockingly cheap at $2.50, there are places on this block that are almost double that, and O’Neills is a good 10 minutes away from here.

Food arrived very fast considering how busy they were, maybe took a bit over 30 minutes. My burger was well cooked and well seasoned, was a little sparse on the condiments I ordered but was pretty good otherwise. It had a nice garlic taste to it and the bacon was cooked perfectly. The cheese was kind of overwhelmed by the beef, maybe ordering an extra slice could fix this. The deluxe garlic bread, a previous favorite of mine, was a letdown, on 2 reasons, First was my own fault, I had forgotten to specify I wanted hot peppers, you have to ask, and secondly and a major issue at that, it was placed in one of those styrofoam to go containers, so was a soggy soaking wet mess. I am sure last time they sent it in a foil wrap, which prevented this, it was definitely a miss for sure. The onion rings with the burger were very good, crispy and well cooked, were a perfect side. The combo platter, which we had bought for the Pizza fingers, we had loved them before, was not so good either. There was a good amount of fries, which were not in greatest form from the styrofoam container, but they were still ok, the chicken strips were a little smaller than most places, but were pretty good, the plum sauce it came with was excellent but was not enough in the container. But the main attraction, the pizza fingers were just plain awful. Way over fried and I came to realize they are the $10 a bag variety from Food Basics, which I on occasion buy and fry up myself, much better than these were. Safe to say this old favorite item has passed on for us.

My biggest surprise was the chocolate shakes, $3.95, for a really good size. I am not one for ice cream, shakes or anything the like. As well, I am not a chocolate person, but I have to say these shakes were excellent, very thick and had a very good chocolately flavor. I would definitely get them again.

O’Neill’s has definitely a sort of cult following and I can see why, The prices are very fair, food for the most part is very good and portions are huge. This isn’t gourmet or healthy but it’s plain and simple comfort food, great for a rainy day in. A website is so needed tho c’mon please??

Rating: 8.25 out of Ten

upcoming

IN next few days will be a new review ..O’neills on Barton, which seems to be a favorite in town. Check back and thanks again

Union Burger – Round 2

In interest of fairness, as I did go in on the 2nd day of operation and do fully understand that it often takes awhile to get things into order, I returned, as I had promised at the end of my previous review to Union Burger, with an open mind, 3 weeks ago Friday.

This time I went with a great canadian burger combo – was around $10 and a Bourbon Street burger $6.99.

What a mistake. The great canadian burger was lousy, somehow they made peamal bacon- a personal favorite meat – bland. The burger again seemed to be either frozen- which they deny- or low grade beef. It was just not good on any level. Fries again were a hit, but are overpriced. Definitely some of the better fries around.

Now the Bourbon burger?? Definitely a canidate for worst burger I have ever eaten, not as bad as Greek Palace mind you, but in the running nonetheless. The bourbon sauce is way too runny, it’s almost like they added a crap bbq sauce to 3 shots of straight cheap bourbon, it had a water like consistancy and was just wrong. The carmelized onions overpowered the rest of the items, hell this could have been a carmelized onion and bourbon sandwich, with a few drops of bbq sauce. Sure tasted like it. The bacon, cheddar and patty were completely overwhelmed by them. Another note again is the odd plastic texture that the buns have. It just feels wrong.

On a good note, well for them, Union Burger seems to be relatively busy on a regular basis, likely the new factor. But frankly for the cost and subpar quality, I can guarantee I will never be back. A side note, oddly is that 5 Guys, is only $2-$4 more and is more food and appears to be lightyears ahead. I’ll check them out very soon.

Union burger, it’s over for me.

Rating 2.5 out of Ten

Maybe a cheaper, large sized order of fries and I would be back.

If anyone wants a free, buy 6 get 1 free Union Burger Card, with two stamps already, leave me a message and i’ll send mine to you.

Two Favorites Gone

So Harvest Burger is gone for good, which I was heartbroken over but today I noticed another Favorite, Miri Cafe, has been closed and in it’s place is a Roti/Jerk place now. So hopefully some new favorites will emerge and wish the best to both the owners of Miri and Harvest Burger. Thanks for some great meals