Oh La De Da Tartare

Yesterday’s burger was cooked nice and rare in the middle. How rare do you like your burger? Let’s take it to extremes, and try the Oh La De Da Tartare burger from today’s venue from the Wellington On A Plate Burger Wellington competition.

Vivo Enoteca Cucina (usually known as Vivo’s) is a wine bar which isn’t open at lunchtime any more, by the looks of things (I seem to recall trying their burger at lunchtime two years ago, and the place was eerily deserted). In any case, they’re not offering their burger at lunchtime – this was one of the venues that I referred to yesterday. Tuesday night is our new dancing night, so I decided to book for an early dinner before we headed out to Tawa.

As the name suggests, the Oh La De Da Tartare is made from raw beef, combined with traditional tartare ingredients such as cornichons, shallots, mayonnaise (made from quails' eggs, apparently), and Dijon mustard. It was served on a ciabatta roll, with Vivo's trademark chips - coated in polenta, this makes them extra crispy. As expected, this wasn't an "eat with your hands" burger - the contents would have just squirted out of the sides. I washed it down with a glass of Schubert pinot noir from Martinborough - a good wine, I think I have some lurking in my cellar. Vivo is a wine bar so wasn't doing beer matching with this burger. It was very well done, and an interesting and different take on the regular burger. There could have been a bit more of it for a full meal - but actually, as I was going dancing, it was OK on this particular occasion. I'm scoring it 8/10.