Keeping cool inside Boissevain’s Busy B

Over the next eight weeks, the Sun will be visiting small locally owned restaurants and food trucks in Westman, tasting what our great corner of the province has to offer.

BOISSEVAIN — With hundreds of people gathered for Canada Day festivities in town, Busy B Drive In in Boissevain was also a busy place on Tuesday.

Amid the scorching, humid heat, water, ice cream and fans were the main ways people cooled down.

Other people settled into the nice air-conditioned diner on the corner of Crocus and Mill roads, and devoured burgers, chicken fingers and fries on their day off.

I walked into the busy establishment after taking the last parking spot available. The inside of the restaurant was nice and clean with dozens upon dozens of menu items to choose from. Plenty of people around me were keen on cooling down with vanilla or chocolate soft-serve ice cream, with some going fancy with the store’s array of hard ice-cream flavours.

For food, the Busy B Drive In offers a variety of burgers, along with fries, poutine, nachos, chicken fingers and a selection of salads. But for many of the dozens of people going in and out of the busy establishment, the ice cream was the main feature. A selection of vanilla and chocolate soft serve and hard serve of nearly a dozen flavours dominated the entrance when people walk in.

As I stepped into the lively eatery, staff were very friendly and got through the long line of customers in front of me in quick fashion, allowing smiling customers to walk away cone in hand, and me to order a Deluxe Burger and small fries.

A few minutes later, a big portion of fries and a burger came out of the kitchen in a plastic wire basket, freshly made and perfectly hot.

I’ll start with the best parts of the meal.

The fries were cooked to perfection, with the heat radiating off of them, which lasted my entire meal.

Most of the fries were crispy and crunchy, with a perfect flavour and salted to perfection. Mixed in were a few fries that were limp with slightly too much oil, which made for a perfect assortment and variety of texture and flavour.

The fries also paired well with the ketchup that was handed to me in a bottle at the start of my meal.

The peel stays on the fries at this establishment, something I wish more places did. The peel is the healthiest part of the potato (although fries aren’t the healthiest thing to eat) and it gives them a nice look.

For the burger, the presentation was wonderful, with melted cheese over top of a patty and onions that had a perfect crunch. Slices of lettuce and tomato also filled the sandwich.

Ketchup and mustard interspersed with the pieces of onion under the patty oozed out of the sides of the burger with every bite, making for a messy meal. Thankfully, every table came with napkins for such an occasion.

The first few bites were delicious with the sauces and onion bursting out as the main flavours. But, as I kept eating while alternating between burger and fries, something was missing.

Tomatoes are probably my favourite food of all time, but the thick, faded-red slice of tomato in this burger didn’t have much flavour. The rest of the burger also could have used a little bit more seasoning.

The loud crunch of the lettuce and the texture of the tomato were a great cap and the abundance of fries were also helping the meal a lot.

Next time I get a bite to eat in Boissevain, I’ll make sure to try the place again, and I’ll grab an ice cream cone on the way out, as dozens of people did during my half hour there.

Overall rating: 3 out of 5 stars.

» alambert@brandonsun.com