Alright, so I'm officially bad at taking notes on Battery Park. Granted, in the past we've either…read moregone with friends or been pretty busy, but taking four trips to actually get my first set of notes is a bit embarrassing.
It's wild to think that Battery Park has been open for nearly a decade, but the years go by quickly! I'd only been there once before we left NS for several years, and once we returned and got a place in Dartmouth, I knew we'd be here frequently. Burgers and beer - what's not to like?!
This first documented visit saw me diving into the Ace Burger part of the menu. I've loved Ace's burgers since their start in the kitchen at Gus' Pub, and I'm glad that they survived the ebb and flow of food trends, un like several other gourmet burger joints.
I opted for the Dartmouth-Style Jughead, which is a sort of fancied-up version of In-N-Out's cult favourite, the Animal-Style burger, which involves cooking the patty in mustard on the flat top, and topping it with a messy burger sauce.
Battery Park's iteration didn't evoke my vague memories of In-N-Out quite the same way that Stillwell's similarly-themed Burger Week offering did, but it was undeniably an excellent burger.
Two, smashed patties with wonderfully crisp edges were lovingly topped with gooey slices of cheese, "Dartmouth sauce" and caramelized onions. This wasn't a pure umami bomb though, as classic accoutrements of lettuce, tomato and a pickle helped brighten up and balance out the burger.
The fries were also top notch; the skin-on, hand-cut fries were nice and crispy, and addictively salty.
My wife stuck with her long-running favourite, the Pig Mac, which unsurprisingly has pork subbing in for beef in another homage to a famous burger. The flavour is spot-on, and much, much better than its namesake, as in addition to the superior ingredients and execution, it doesn't come with that weird McDonald's aftertaste and regret.
As we often do to get the best of both worlds, my wife had gotten a salad so that we could share our different sides. Battery Park's Caesar salad stuck close to the classic recipe, but stood out from the forgettable masses of this ubiquitous side thanks to their deeply rich and flavourful, house-made dressing, fried capers and real bacon.
On my next time there, summer was now in full swing, and we snagged a table on the back patio. It was my first time out there, and I was impressed by the space. Patios in very urban settings often have limited real estate, but Battery Park's was a very good size, and had a chill vibe, like it was somebody's (large and busy) back deck.
I wasn't feeling particularly burger-y with the heat, so I chose the mushroom dumplings and miso salad, while my other half went with the pork belly and pineapple burger. It was a little bit of a wait with a full house inside and out, but a cold beer and great company made it pass quickly.
The dumplings were deep fried to a deep brown, but didn't taste at all burnt, with the spectacularly crisp wrapper encasing the rich mix of chopped mushrooms inside. A dipping sauce of perhaps soy and chili sauce brought added layers of flavour, and a little salad of radish and green onions added a splash of colour and freshness.
My miso and ginger salad was very good, with plentiful fresh veg, apple and crisp slices of fried tofu that were beautifully encrusted with white and black sesame seeds, although the overall flavour profile wasn't as Asian as I expected. The namesake ingredients of the creamy dressing didn't really stand out, but it was a tasty salad nonetheless.
My wife's burger was an impressive sight, with glistening, glazed slices of pork belly and a grilled section of pineapple on top of one of Ace's always-fantastic patties. The combination of sweet and savoury was a winning one, and it made me think of one of the first "gourmet" burgers I ever had, the Ultimate Burger at The Henry House, which also comes with pineapple. As expected, the top-notch fries were good to the last fry, and I should know, as I finished off what my wife didn't have room for!
I suppose the idiom that "a lot of ink has been spilled" doesn't apply in this digital age, but fixtures like Battery Park still deserve attention for the great job that they're still doing after all these years.
