Nest at Carts By The Park

2 bad things to say first: 1. I asked for GF bun on the Nest Burger, but they didnt tell me the 'tobacco onions' were breaded with gluten. 2. The half pound wagu beef patty was way overcooked--no juice, dry, hard to eat. Good things: good toppings and sauces on burger; fries were decent and served warm; excellent smoked carrots, slaw, and aoli. This place is almost great. I will go back. Will try their BBQ next time.

When I found out Sugar's Barbecue had left, I was disappointed: they weren't amazing but it was solid food plus the only close place for barbecue. My wife, friend, and I were headed to the corner store to refill the booze fridge when we noticed someone had moved into their old area. We checked out the menu and it looked VERY promising, but we did our best to temper our expectations. We've been burned before - when the menu looks amazing and the prices are about right, then the food is on par with Banquet frozen pot pies. Not so here. Holy hell, were we pleasantly surprised. The food is even BETTER than you might expect. We had one each of the three hamburgers, a slice of cheesecake, plus the proprietor sold me on the smoked carrots - yes, you read that right. Smoked carrots. All of it was excellent. The hamburger patties were indeed the right size for a half pound burger and were cooked about medium rare to medium. No chewy, overcooked meat pucks. I can't eat wheat or things get ugly, so I got a gluten free bun. I'm so used to them being mealy and tasteless, like a couple of kitchen sponges, but this was actually good. The only "issue" I had with my burger is it was so big I had trouble biting into it, so I ended up using a knife and fork. Winners' problems. The smoked carrots were great. We didn't know what to expect. I imagined some sort of carrot salad with liquid smoke. These were big slices of legitimately smoked carrot served with a dipping sauce. The carrots perfectly straddled that line been too soft and too hard, with a pleasing smoky kick. So I did it: I ate my vegetables! We have yet to eat the cheesecake because we were so full from dinner. I did try a bit of the included fig rosemary jam sauce and it's delicious, having a sweet, herbal, fruity, and almost tea-like flavor. They have a lot more options we still want to trry. One of the very aspects of Nest is that I won't have to drive to Vancouver for fairly mediocre Killer Burger the next time someone is in the mood for burgers.