Smoked Warehou Sambal

The rain has stopped, and the sun has come out, so I decided to take a nice walk this lunchtime for my burger. Part of my mission on this year’s Burger Wellington has been to try and visit some places I’ve not been to before. So far the only new place I’ve been to is Egmont Street Eatery, and that’s largely because it wasn’t here last year. Today I’m visiting The Lido, a café on Victoria Street that I’ve never been to. Apparently it’s been here since 2011. Their burger is the smoked warehou sambal, and it sounds like this:

Pulled smoked warehou, with shredded fennel and carrot, lime sambal and tomato-cardamom relish in a housemade kumara bun.

I fancied a bit of a change from the beef, lamb and venison burgers which have been my staple so far, and also I’m going out tonight for a dégustation at The Larder, so didn’t want anything too substantial for lunch.

The Garage Project beer is White Mischief – another of the specially-brewed beer for the Wellington On A Plate competition, and one which I haven’t tried so far.

It looked like this:

  

Substantially larger than I was expecting! Fortunately, it squashed down and was easily pick-up-able. Unfortunately, as soon as I did pick it up, a generous helping of curry juice squirted out – fortunately not over my shirt, as it appeared that turmeric was a key ingredient of the sambal. Rather gingerly, then, I tucked in. The curry flavour was the main taste sensation that I got from eating this. Now, smoked warehou is quite a strong flavour in itself, but it was completely overwhelmed by the curry. Like a masterchef contestant who fails to make the top ten, there was a lack of balance, with one flavour dominating. There were the makings of a good burger here, but they failed to live up to their billing. At the end, the bun disintegrated somewhat due to the wetness of the sambal sauce. I mopped up the remaining curry with the chips, which reminded me of being in Liverpool.

The White Mischief beer was also new to me. A 2.9% brew, this is a light beer from Garage Project, and is a salty, peachy-flavoured light beer. Interesting, but Nerissimo remains my favourite of the new brews this year.

I was disappointed that this burger failed to live up to my expectation, and I scored it a humble 6.