Portobello Peach Bun

Yesterday was a WOAP-free day. I had a work lunch to go to at a restaurant that wasn’t participating in Wellington On A Plate (yes, such restaurants do exist!), so no opportunity for a burger there; and in the evening we were pub quizzing at  a new Wednesday night venue, The Royal, which is also a non-combatant in the Burger Wellington competition.

Today, I was back at an old favourite venue, Boulcott Street Bistro. They were the winners two years ago with their T Rex burger. Having scaled and conquered the heights of the perfect meat burger, this year they’ve gone in the opposite direction and are offering the Portobello Peach Bun – a vegetarian burger consisting of portobello mushroom and preserved peach and raisin chutney, with chickpea chips. Say what?

Can you see the mushrooms?

My big bugbear this year has been "is it a burger, or an xxxx sandwich?" This, I'm afraid, is not a burger; it's a vegetable sandwich. And if you're going to call it a Portobello Peach Bun, you really need more portobello - two small mushroom caps weren't sufficient for me. The rest of the contents were tomato, lettuce, caramelised onion, and the aforementioned chutney (in which I didn't detect any raisin). I tried the "eat it with your hands" test, but it failed there. The bun had been toasted a tad too long as well - it was quite crumbly, blackened on the bottom, and quite dry in the mouth. 

The chickpea chips consisted of pureed chickpeas which had been formed into chip shape and then deep-fried. These were quite good, but I felt they needed something wet to dip them in, as they were fairly dry. A bit of chutney on the side would have done the trick.

Garage Project Angry Peaches was, as ever, faultless. However it was quite a strong flavour next to the vegetables, and possibly not the best matching beer for this particular burger sandwich.

One of the problems with Boulcott Street Bistro is that I have such very high expectations from them. On this occasion, I felt that they didn't live up to expectations, and I'm awarding them a disappointed 5/10 for this. Tomorrow, I'm back on the meat.