The Case For: A Smash Burger Kit That Takes 5 Minutes of Your Time

One of the things that became evident during the research for our Burger Draft earlier this year was how much more undeniably tasty it is when burger purveyors grind their own meat in-house. In Canada, you’re only technically allowed to serve burgers that reach 71 degrees Celsius in temperature.

A self-professed burger lover, Bodhi Valentine knows this very well. When the restaurant veteran was laid off from his tech job due to COVID, he decided to launch Burgerland Smash Up last week to give people at home an easy-to-make burger kit that costs about $9 per portion.

With three different types of burger on offer—the California Up-N-Down, Classic American Cheese and Oklahoma Fried Onion & Cheese—Valentine’s pickup window at 1380 Napier Street in Strathcona has been busy.

So I decided to try out the Classic American Cheese for myself. Luckily, Valentine includes a QR code in every kit that you can access to see how he expertly crafts his smash burgers. The kits also come complete with buns, mustard, four patties that were ground the same day you receive them and a stack of Kailyn & Hobbs pickles.

Following his instructions was incredibly easy and took about five minutes. It also resulted in some really great burgers. (I toasted one of the buns and let the other one roll au natural, as recommended. Surprisingly to me, the latter was actually better.) I also didn’t use the mustard because uh, I don’t like it… please don’t hate me. 

So yeah, if you’re not into DoorDashing a burger to your house or picking one up that gets progressively colder and less tasty on the drive home, and you don’t feel like raiding Safeway for subpar burger ingredients, this is the burger kit for you.

Burgerland also uses all compostable biodegradable packaging, and donates $1 from every box sold to TreeEra to aid in global reforestation. 

Hey, COVID does actually have some silver linings after all, I guess.