Quest For Crapulence The Burger’s Priest’s Tower Of Babel

crap·u·lence, n.
1. Sickness caused by excessive eating or drinking.
2. Excessive indulgence; intemperance.

The Culprit: It should be known that I am a Burger’s Priest obsessive. After my first time trying a “High Priest Vatican Style with Smoke” from the restaurant’s secret menu—a double burger behemoth with panko-fried jalapeños and grilled-cheese sandwich buns—the biblical brand of gluttonous cow-meat creations had seeped deeply into my blood stream. I’ve literally dreamed about that burger before.

This time I was sent to Burger’s Priest on a professional mission to take down the “Tower Of Babel,” the most intense burger on the Priest’s secret menu. Like the “High Priest Vatican Style,” it’s a double burger inside of grilled-cheese buns. Except the restaurant has given this thing tower-status by shoving its vegetarian “Option”—two Portobello mushroom caps, deep-fried in cheese—in the middle as well. After having only soup for lunch, I was so delightedly prepared to destroy the meaty tower, while hopefully wiping out a dialect or two.

Initial Impressions: Burger’s Priest is a narrow restaurant (mainly for takeout), with four stools set up for eat-in patrons who aren’t claustrophobic. The joint lies on the lovely East End corner of Queen and Coxwell, near an OTB complex, an abandoned Coffee Time, and one of the city’s better-stocked LCBOs. The religious motif isn’t a gimmick, either. The restaurant stays closed on Sundays, and its website has a whole “Gospel” section with links to a local church and to Christian lectures. But the burgers are so good that the whole God Squad connection may be a valid argument for deism.

Consumption: I was eager and starving, so the destruction of the cheesy-bread-and-mushroom meat tower proved to be quite simple. I powered through the meal while enjoying every excessive bite of the velvet-smooth heaven bomb of deliciousness. This type of heaviness certainly isn’t for everyone. But I didn’t view this meal as any act of daredevilry; this mission was completed out of pure love for all things burger-formed.

In the midst of my final act, a hip couple came in to order. Shortly after paying, the dumb boyfriend decided to crack open a beer can he brought into the tiny, unlicensed establishment. This resulted in a very loud and very funny tirade from the Burger’s Priest himself, who ceremoniously banned the couple for one year in the theatrical style of Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi. The girl even tried to sell the guy out and defer 100 percent of the blame (“It was his beer, not mine!”), but her timid and pointless defense was no match for the constant yelling (“Am I speaking Japanese?! Get out!”) of the Burger’s Priest. After introducing myself to the Burger’s Priest and concurring that the confused drunk dude was an asshole, the Priest (still simmering from his rage blackout) sternly agreed. “Does he think we’re in fucking Holland?” Then he gave our group a cookie on the house.

Digestion: I’m a stranger to heartburn. That said, the combination of ingredients and the speed with which I put down the “Tower Of Babel” kicked up a fierce burning sensation in my chest. I may have been confusing heartburn for a blessed Pentecostal tongue of fire flickering around inside me, though. After a glass of cheap whiskey and a very serious lying down session while watching that New York Times documentary, I was back to normal: ready to return alcohol-free to Toronto’s best burger spot anytime someone has a car, because holy shit that is a long streetcar ride from the West End.