The Classic

It’s raining in Wellington. Surely I need to go to a restaurant that’s nearby for today’s burger? Undeterred by a mere bit of precipitation (hardy soul that I am), I’m off to the WBC restaurant for today’s Burger Wellington offering. The time has come to tackle Bambi.

WBC’s offering is simply titled The Classic, and it certainly sounds like they haven’t messed around with the basic concept much. Presumably, all the enjoyment is in the execution. That’s a lot to live up to. They describe it like this:

Ground local venison, house smoked and aged cheddar, pickled Spanish onions, in a Pandoro burger bun, with WBC chipped potatoes.

“Chipped potatoes”? Really? No-one says that, unless they want to be laughed at.

The Garage Project beer match is, once again, Nerissimo – a tasty porter brewed with mushrooms.  

It looked like this:

OK, what can we see here? For a start, it’s a well-constructed burger – the lettuce isn’t trying to escape, and it’s not falling over with the weight of ingredients. The Pandoro burger bun – a wholemeal bun, rather than the traditional white – held together well, and the first bite revealed that some people, at least, have heard of medium rare. The cheese was definitely present without being overpowering. The tomato sauce was clearly made in the kitchen. In fact, there’s little to pick a fault with in this burger…but you just know I’m going to anyway! The patty was a little on the small side – it was absent from a section of the bun. The chips were also fairly run-of-the-mill – OK, a chip’s a chip, but some places really know how to do chips!

The beer match was also a good choice – a strong meat like venison needs a beer with a good flavour to balance it (I’ve noticed that other venison burgers on the list have also paired with Nerissimo).

Despite my gripes, I’m scoring this 9. It’s definitely the best burger I’ve had so far this year, and will need something pretty spectacular to top it.