Aporkalypse Now

Lunchtime today, and I felt the need for a really good beef burger. Also, due to a reason, it needed to be somewhere quite close to the office. I used my handy burg-a-matic spreadsheet to select beef, and CBD as location, and hit upon Thunderbird Café as a good source of meaty loveliness. “Island Bay beef”, they said. “bacon and Swiss cheese”, they said.

I walked down Featherston Street to Thunderbird, to find all the tables taken and a queue inside the door. This is all going to take too long, so I quickly went to Plan B. I reached for my handy printout of the burg-a-matic in my suit pocket, only to remember that it was in another suit jacket. I’ll have to do this by memory alone. So I walked down Willis Street to Ti Kouka, who I remember were doing a pulled pork burger. They too were full, but would be able to accommodate me after 1:30pm…but they fully expected all the burgers to have gone by then. What a quandary! Fortunately one of the staff then piped up “if you can be out by 1:30, you can have that table over by the window – they’re not coming in ’til then.” Challenge accepted! It was now 10 to 1…40 minutes is plenty of time to demolish a burger. With chips. And beer.

The order was immediately dispatched to the kitchen, and I took my seat. The beer arrived shortly after – it was Garage Project’s Death From Above – a strong, spicy red ale.

The Aporkalyse Now burger is another “meat sandwich” burger. Wellington on A Plate describes it:

Slow roasted bourbon glazed Longbush Pork shoulder with ginger ale bacon, apple and smoked BBQ mayonnaise in a Leeds Street Bakery grilled bun, with hot sauce, crackling and pickles.

And here it is:

Wait, where’s the chips? Oh yeah, they’re over here:

That’s how you chips!

Meat sandwich notwithstanding, this is a tasty burger. The pork has been slow-cooked and has a delicious glaze. Inside the sourdough bun is bacon, lettuce, spring onion, and a zingy mayonnaise. Outside the bun is chilli oil for dipping (and it was a bit more than “kiwi hot”), and some spicy gherkin slices, together with a really crunchy piece of crackling. The chips were big, crispy, and delicious. If this was the Chips Wellington competition, they’d score a 10!

What stops this from getting a 10? Well, it’s not a burger patty, and it’s not easily pick-up-able. So I’ll score it an 8. No, a 9. No, an 8. Dammit, I can’t decide!

I’ll try to get to Thunderbird next week.