Pho-Chick Sakes

What’s this? Another burger post? But Burger Wellington finished on Sunday! How can this be?

Well, some establishments are continuing to offer their burger to the end of August, or until stocks run out. Also, the five finalists in the competition are continuing with their burgers, before the final reckoning of best burger on…wait…today!

Before I get into that, however, a round-up of some misses. On Sunday, the last official day of the competition, I wanted to go to One80 to try Porteña!. No joy, however, because I couldn’t find a park on Oriental Parade, and I was under a little bit of time pressure. Ah well.

On the WOAP site page there’s a handy list of places still doing burgers, so I checked that, and today we went to Lazy Juan’s to try Marites; but Juan was feeling too lazy to cook. Possibly because he’s a finalist and is busy at the cook-off, but it wasn’t available. Nul points. We went down Dixon Street to try another well-favoured burger at The Old Quarter – Squeal The Deal – but there was a fifteen minute wait for a table…clearly it’s still very popular! Over the road, Pho Viet was enticingly half-empty, so we crossed and sat ourselves down there. I ordered the Pho-Chick Sakes burger, while Nicola had a duck pancake of monstrous proportions.

It's described on the Burger Wellington website like this: Buttermilk fried chicken thigh, with American cheese, South Asian pickled vegetables, Manuka honey-glazed bacon, iceberg lettuce, and smoked sesame yum yum sauce in a Volco coconut-infused milk brioche bun, with Thai fry seasoned chips and phở broth.

It looks like this: 

There’s no DVB beer match so I ordered a Tuatara Hazy Pale Ale to accompany it.

Straight away you can see you’re not eating this with your hands. Before I tucked in with the cutlery, I had a taste of the broth, which is a good, flavoursome accompaniment. The fries were well-cooked and well-seasoned. The burger was impressive! Lots of flavour, good crunch on the chicken, I didn’t mind the lettuce so much as I was pulling the burger apart anyway. The sauce had quite a kick to it – sweet and spicy. I didn’t notice any coconut in the bun, largely because I wasn’t looking for it, and the slice of cheese was only a few molecules thick, and could have been more generous. But all that aside, this was a tasty burger, and a good way to finish (? Who knows?) the competition. I’m scoring it 8/10, even though voting has closed and it won’t count for anything.

 

Dublin Drip

We’re coming in to the final stretch of Burger Wellington, and I have two opportunities to try burgers in the final weekend. I asked the WOAP Burger Wellington group over on Facebook – where I’ve also posted my reviews (in cut-down form – they don’t like blog posts so I’ve sent a shortened version) – for their advice. I specified what I wanted and narrowed it down to two burgers: Dublin Drip from The Green Man, and Mixed Messages from The Malthouse. These are two of Wellington’s oldest and finest pubs.

I went to The Green Man today, finding parking on Featherston Street and walking from there. First thing to note: The Green Man has the stickiest floor and carpet the world has ever known. Walking up to the bar made a noise as I unstuck each footstep, and when I tried to move the chair back from the table, it only came away with the most grudging of slurping sounds.

Their burger is called Dublin Drip, and is described thusly: Beef patty, with bacon, aged cheddar, stout-braised onion, wholegrain mustard, and whiskey peppercorn sauce in a Pōneke Bakery milk bun, with beef tallow roasted potatoes.

It looks like this:

There's no DVB beer match, so I chose a Tuatara Interstellar IPA to accompany. 

It looks like the picture on the website, although the bacon was a bit underdone. The sauce was in a small pot rather than a jug. I used it to dip the potatoes in. The burger itself was pick-upable, and was quite dry – no squirt of juices or sauce as is usual with many burgers. The onions were generous, but the cheese less so. The patty was quite thick, but not wide – it didn’t occupy the burger real estate to the full extent. This leaves bready edges with no burger meat, which is less than ideal. Make the patty a bit bigger, and maybe a bit thinner, to fit the burger to the available area (I don’t mind if you err on the generous side and overflow the bun, but being too small is a burger crime). The potatoes were…ordinary. Yes, they may have been beef tallow roasted, but not to any great effect. Some seasoning may have helped. The sauce itself was very forward on the whiskey flavour, but the peppercorns had done a vanishing act; there wasn’t even a hint of pepperiness.

Overall, not a flavour bomb, but a fairly standard burger. I can only score this 6/10.

 

Bird Is The Word

We’d finished bridge and decided we’d sample another local café, as we’ve covered most of the acceptable eateries on the peninsula. But we haven’t been to Scorch-O-Rama! Actually, we haven’t been there in yonks, but they know us anyway. Their Burger Wellington offering, The Bird Is The Word, is a chicken burger (did the name give it away?). It’s described on the WOAP website like this: Bourbon hot honey buttermilk fried chicken, with Fernglen Farm halloumi, Double Vision Brewing beer-caramelised onion, pickled red cabbage, chilli and apple coleslaw, and lemon and herb buttermilk drizzle in a milk bun, with duck fat roast potatoes and black garlic aioli.

It looks like this: 

The DVB beer match isn’t mentioned on the website, but they do have DVB’s Chillax. Except they’d run out…so I ended up with a Panhead Supercharger instead.

Now then people, pay attention: this is how you burger! I had to turn my phone to portrait orientation to photograph it because it was so tall! None of your false advertising here!

And the taste! This is how you burger! The crunch-encrusted chicken was sweet, juicy, flavourful…delicious! Sorry, I’m using so many exclamation marks because I just can’t help it! The slaw was crunchy and tasty. The caramelised onions – sweet, soft (looks ups synonyms for delicious), scrumptious! The sauce was good, and there was a generous part-melted slab of halloumi atop the chicken. The duck-fat-roasted chips (cos that’s what they were) were generous, sprinkled with crunchy bits and with a decent smear of black garlic aioli to dip into. And to top it off, literally, sticking out the top is a…yes, delicious!...spike of pork crackling.

There’s a lot going on in this burger, but the flavours all mix in without fighting each other. The portion is generous to a fault. Speaking of faults, I can’t really find any. Ladies and gentlemen, I think we have a 10 on our hands here!

That’s how you burger! 10/10!

 

Cray Cray

Another day with errands to run in the CBD, so I dropped in to The Dumpling Company for lunch, and to try their Burger Wellington offering, Cray Cray. As you might imagine, The Dumpling Company aren’t the sort of place that normally does burgers, but the description was intriguing: Wagyu beef and crawfish patty, with Kāpiti cheddar, mozzarella, cucumber, lettuce, nori, and garlic crawfish sauce in a brioche bun, with handcut fries and spicy langya dipping sauce.

It looks like this: 

There’s no DVB beer match, so I went for a Garage Project Beer instead.

First thing to note: yes, that’s a real crayfish on top. Secondly, that brioche bun had collapsed somewhat when I picked it up; although it did maintain integrity through until the end. The patty is beef, and the crayfish are surrounding it, rather than being a wagyu-and-crayfish patty which I’d been expecting. In retrospect, probably a better idea anyway, so this became your classic surf’n’turf burger. The sauce was there, but not particularly flavourful, and neither were the other accompaniments, so there wasn’t a strong Asian flavour to this burger, which I’d been expecting. The cucumber had been replaced by daikon, I think. The fries were thick and chunky, and the mayo had a hint of sichuan pepper to give that numby tingling sensation...not particularly strongly, which again was probably just as well. I tackled the crayfish at the end, to no great reward, possibly due to my lack of patience.

I felt that this burger over-promised and under-delivered. The core concept was good, but it needed a bit more spice, a bit more energy, to really pull it off. I’m scoring it 6/10.

 

Seaside Sichuan Deluxe

It’s the weekend! Which means Little Sprig in Seatoun is open at lunchtime. We go there regularly anyway, so I thought we’d give their burger a try today. It's called Seaside Sichuan Deluxe, and the Burger Wellington website describes it like this: Double beef patties, with gruyère, Sichuan sauce, rocket, carrot, red cabbage, red pepper, coriander, and spring onion in a Cottage Lane brioche bun, with straight-cut fries.

It looks like this: 

This is the picture from the website, as I forgot to take one of my own! Unlike some previous offenders, however, this is a fair representation of what we actually got.

There’s no DVB beer match as Little Sprig is part of the Sprig & Fern group, which brews their own beer. I ordered a Nectaron instead – a citrussy IPA which I thought would complement the burger.

How was it? It’s a double patty burger with additional fillings which could have made the burger structurally unstable. I picked it up and it held together – the additional ingredients were finely shredded so didn’t cause slipperiness, and the burger maintained its integrity until the end. The Sichuan sauce was plentiful and gave that characteristic numbness that you get from Sichuan peppers. The patties had been well grilled, and the vegetables gave a bit of crunch and counterpoint to the burger and Sichuan sauce. The fries were served with Sichuan mayo. Overall, this is a very good burger, and I’m inclined to call it my best of the competition so far. My only teeny quibble is with the fries, which were OK, but not outstanding. That’s the only reason that this doesn’t get a 10. I’m scoring it 9/10.

 

Chilli-Butter-Beef

I’d finished training for the day, so headed home via the CBD. I’m a fan of Pickle & Pie normally, and I’d checked out their burger previously on the Burger Wellington website. I managed to park, if not Hollywood-style, a short two-minute walk from the venue. Let’s give it a try, I thought.

It was getting towards the end of the lunch shift, so less busy than usual. When I go there for tours it’s usually bustling, but that’s because it’s (a) mid-morning, and (b) mid-summer. No problem with being seated today! Their burger is called Chilli-Butter-Beef, and described simply: Conscious Valley smashed beef patty, with Mangaroa Farms butter crunch lettuce, Pickle & Pie dill pickles*, and chilli butter in a Dough Bakery brioche bun.

It looks like this:

There’s no DVB beer match, so I chose a Brew Moon Waipara New England IPA from their list.

It looks fine like that…until you pick it up, and realise that this is not a big burger – almost a slider, in fact. That said, all the ingredients were present, including the pointless lettuce (I had to tear a lot of it off to make it burger-shaped), and the chilli butter was definitely there, to give the burger a bit of a kick. Given its size, it was easily pick-upable – indeed, I felt like I was in one of those adverts for Carl’s Jr where the burger is dwarfed by the size of the hand. Crinkle-cut chips were crispy, and the dipping sauce on the side was presented in a lettuce leaf. This is a good, standard burger, so I’m awarding it a standard 5/10.

* Because, duh!

Porko Rokko

We’d been to Nicola’s band’s launch of their pizza box, and afterwards decided to go to Mediterranean Foods to sample their Burger Wellington offering. After the disappointment of The Portlander earlier in the day I needed something a bit better. Two burgers in one day? The sacrifices I make for this blog!

Their burger is called Porko Rokko, and is described on the Burger Wellington site like this: Porchetta, with apple sauce, salsa verde, and fennel coleslaw in a Shelly Bay Baker potato brioche bun.

It looks like this: 

There’s no DVB beer match, so I had a Parrotdog Bitterbitch instead.

Where does the name come from? Well, there was a folded-over leaflet on the table explaining: 

First off, it is immediately apparent that this is not a burger, it’s a meat sandwich. Can you bite through it? With the thickness of the slice of porchetta and the crackling surround I wasn’t even going to try – straight in with the cutlery for this one.

I’d ordered a side of chips but these turned out to be superfluous – the size and the richness of the burger meant that I left half of them. Because this turned out to be more than just a meat sandwich – this was a Sunday dinner in a bun. The pork was cooked and roasted to a soft texture, there was ample salsa verde, the slaw underneath gave a nice bit of crunch and acid to cut through the richness of the meat, and the crackling crackled. It was really quite good. I’m scoring this 7/10.

 

After Service

Portlander Restaurant is in Rydges Hotel Wellington, and is mainly a steak restaurant. They should be able to cook a burger, yes? I know I’ve had decent burgers from them in the past, so…

Their burger this year is called After Service, and it’s apparently what the chefs make for themselves after they’ve finished their shift. It’s described like this: Beef patty, with gouda, Swiss, provolone, smoked garlic butter, onion lace, pickled cucumber, iceberg lettuce, and truffle and black garlic mayonnaise in an Arobake milk bun, with potato gems and chicken gravy.

It looks like this: 

The DVB beer match is Loud And Clear.

Just for contrast, here’s the picture they put on the Burger Wellington website: 

This is a bit of a McDonaldsisation, if you ask me…quite a contrast between the picture and the delivered result! But the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so how was it?

Bland.

Were there different cheeses in there? I couldn’t tell. There were some onions, and the pickled(?) cucumber, and even some sauce. It was pick-upable, so I duly ate it with my hands. The potato gems with gravy were crispy and golden, and were probably the best bit of the burger. The rest of it, though, felt like they’d phoned it in. And at $48 for the burger and beer combo, at the top end of pricing, my expectations were much higher. Not impressed by this one, I score it a lowly 4/10.

 

Onion Breath

Nicola was on ushering duty again at Circa Theatre, so we thought we’d go along and try their Burger Wellington offering before the show. When they first  opened I didn’t have a very high opinion of ChouChou, but they’ve improved somewhat in the intervening months, so I felt they should be able to do a good burger.

It’s called Onion Breath, and it’s described on the WOAP site like this: Beef patty, with sweet and spicy pickles, provolone, onion dip, and tobacco onion crisps in a Pōneke Bakery potato bun.

It looks like this: 

The DVB beer match is Chin-Wag, which I’ve tried before. It’s a fruity IPA flavoured with passionfruit and mango, and a good accompaniment to a rich burger.

How was it? It was served with a scattering of fries (not mentioned) which had been dusted with…something. The burger was their standard burger, and the melted provolone was present in abundance. The onions were…oniony. If you weren’t searching for it, you’d never have guessed the “tobacco” part, it was there as an extremely subtle background.

Pretty much an average burger with fried onions. I’m scoring this an average 5/10.

 

The Rice Age 2

Following on from Umami Sunrise, which was last year’s entry onto the Burger Wellington scene by local eatery, The Bento Bar. Not normally noted for burger-style food, this Japanese take-away has been around just over a year – presumably another of the many burgeoning hospo businesses catering to the ever-growing army of film- and game-related workers in this hi-tech hub. 

After bridge on Wednesday we eschewed our usual trip to Seatoun and decided to give this a try. Options for burgers on the peninsula are actually quite limited – The Larder aren’t doing one, Arcimboldi are just putting one of their schnitzels in a bun, and we’ve already tried Café Polo and DVB. However, this looks like an interesting choice.

The Rice Age 2 is described on Burger Wellington like this: Woody's Free Range Farm pork belly, with purple cabbage coleslaw, lettuce, soy-marinated egg, and red pickled ginger in a toasted sticky rice bun. They also say “Last year's rice burger generated real buzz with queues, an RNZ feature, and customers spreading the word. The Rice Age 2 is a playful sequel brought back because people kept asking.”

It looks like this:

It’s a takeaway bar, but they do have a couple of seats inside. Unfortunately we were unable to snaffle those, so we brought the burgers home instead. They’re unlicensed, so no DVB beer match with this one.

The bun is actually toasted sticky rice, and is quite dense. The pulled pork filling was tasty, and the slaw, pickled ginger and soy egg good accompaniments. With the rice there’s no need for chips or any additional carb, so I didn’t feel the lack of chips. My main gripe is with the ratio of filling to rice: there’s rather too much rice. In the attempt to make it more bun-like, the rice “buns” are actually quite thick; maybe making them thinner would have been the way to go? But then there wouldn’t have been much to these burgers, as they’re quite small to begin with. A conundrum to be faced next year, perhaps.

Anyway, it was a pleasant variation on the usual, but not one that I think will take off. I’m scoring it a worthy 6/10.

 

Rumour Has It

Another day with some errands to run in the CBD allowed us to partake of another burger from outside our usual milieu. After completing said errands we repaired to Kākāriki Coffee, which is on the site of the long-gone Trade Kitchen on Customhouse Quay. I’ve not been there because I’m no longer a denizen of this part of town.

Their burger is called Rumour Has It, and it’s described on the Burger Wellington site thus: Percik chicken, with toasted coconut ulam, Mightygreen microherbs, Lot Eight chilli olive oil, Apostle Saint Phillip Hot Sauce, and percik sauce in a curry laksa bun, with fries. The blurb also says “Chef Bobby spent two months in Malaysia tracing the best percik recipe, eating his way as far north as Kelantan, learning from local aunties by watching and talking. The burger is also designed to look like a mouth.”

It looks like this:

with prawn crackers...

or with chips

On the description it says “with fries” but they offered us the option of “with prawn crackers”, so we had one of each. There is no DVB beer match as they don't have a licence.

What is percik? It means “splashing” in Malaysian, and ayam percik is chicken that is basted in the sauce as it cooks. The sauce seems to consist of your generalised East Asian flavourings – ginger, garlic, onions, lemon grass, tamarind, coconut, turmeric, etc. All the recipes I looked at also included chili, but read on…

Firstly, the “burger”: this is a meat sandwich, not a burger. The curry laksa bun is folded over, rather than being in two separate pieces, and had a characteristic curry laksa flavour; it was a bit doughy, I found, but at least it was pick-upable and held its integrity until the end. The chicken inside was well cooked with a spicy crust. The ratio of chicken to bun was about right. The toasted coconut was very much in evidence. There was a salad, some say slaw, which presumably also included the advertised microgreens. The prawn crackers were, I suspect, not cooked in the kitchen, and the fries were pretty standard café fries – although both had what appeared to be a green curry sauce to dip in which wasn’t mentioned on the description.

What was missing, and what I really wanted, was some heat! If they’d used chilli oil and hot sauce it must’ve been in minute quantities. There was no chili in the laksa bun either…so whilst the other spicy flavours were there in abundance, I feel it needed at least a little kick of chilli to really make it zing. This is a burger that had great potential, and with just a couple of tweaks could have been something amazing. As it is, I’m scoring it a competent 6/10.

Edit: I've been corrected on Facebook, they do make their own prawn crackers daily. 

Viva Voce

This morning I took the first Forest Secrets tour at Zealandia. This is a new tour that concentrates on the plant life of Zealandia, its history and unusual features, particularly as they relate to New Zealand. Not my first tour, but the first! Hopefully there will be more to come.

Afterwards I took myself into town for some great reward. I’d been researching on the Burger Wellington site, mainly using as my search criteria “open on Sunday Lunchtime” and “DVB beer match” to find something tasty. I’d narrowed the search down to several in the Cuba Street vicinity, in case my first choice was too busy or said something daft like “we’re not doing that today”.

But they didn’t. I strode into Cuba Street Tavern, demanded a table, and ordered their burger and beer. It’s called Viva Voce – Latin for “by word of mouth”. The burger uses beef tongue and pork cheek - literally from the mouths of the animals. It’s described like this: Crispy pork cheek, with beef tongue bacon, gem lettuce, Thai basil, smoked cheese, kawakawa BBQ sauce, and sriracha in a housemade brioche bun, with Sichuan seasoned shoestring fries.

It looks like this: 

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “eeurgh! Pork cheeks!” and “eeurgh! Beef tongue!” Well, put those preconceptions aside, because this is bloody delicious! The pork is soft and falls apart beautifully – far more so than the pulled pork of other, lesser, pork-based burgers. If they didn’t tell you the bacon was made from beef tongue you wouldn’t know, but you would know that it’s delicious. The barbecue sauce is tasty. The heat comes from the sriracha, which somewhat  overshadowed the kawakawa flavouring. The Thai basil offered a different, distinctive note as well. The whole makes a tasty burger.

Was there any downside? Well, as usual, the inclusion of lettuce left me cold. It lacked pick-upability, so I dived straight in with the cutlery. Personally, I’d’ve left out the sriracha and let the kawakawa and Thai basil do the heavy lifting flavour-wise. The fries were standard shoestring, and had no discernible Sichuan seasoning that I could detect. But these are minor quibbles for what was otherwise an unexpected flavour bomb, and probably the best I’ve had so far. I’m scoring this 9/10.

Bite And Tell

This is a visit to the source…not of burgers, but of the beers that accompany the burgers for Burger Wellington. Yes, they’re all brewed locally (to me) right here in Miramar, and their bar is one of our regular haunts anyway, so off we popped to try their burger.

It’s called Bite And Tell, and it’s described on the WOAP website as such:

Beef patty, with pickled daikon, carrot and sesame coleslaw, cheddar, fresh chilli, fried shallots, and Sichuan sauce in a Shelly Bay Baker brioche bun.

It looks like this: 

And yes, there’s a beer match! It’s Loud And Clear IPA, which I’ve already tried...but as we’re actually in their bar I can get a pint of it, rather than a can, which is what other venues offer. Result!

How was it? Well, they already do a tasty burger, so this is just a variation on their usual patty. But it was a good one: there was the characteristic numbing sensation from the Sichuan sauce, some nice crunchiness from the slaw, a bite from the pickle, and the heat from the chili. The flavours combined rather than fought each other. Other points to note: a pick-upable burger (although the sauce did run all over my fingers), and also the chips at DVB are always quality – crunchy, chunky and golden. Overall I’d eat this burger any time, and I rate this a strong 9/10.

 

Green Eggs And Hamburger

It’s Day Four in the big burger house…

I’d been at Zealandia in the morning doing some training, so headed into town to one of my usual haunts, Burger Liquor, to try their Burger Wellington offering. Burgers are their business, so at least the burger should be good, yes?

Ha! Jokes! Of course the burger was good! Their burger is called Green Eggs And Hamburger, a reference to the book by Dr. Seuss. It’s described on the WOAP website like this: Conscious Valley smashed beef patty, with Supreme Coffee and Woody's Free Range Farm 'red-eye' ham jam, bread and butter pickles, and green peppercorn béarnaise in a Brezelmania potato bun.

It looks like this: 

The DVB beer match was Loud And Clear (DDH Bright IPA) – another WOAP Special. For those of you not up on the lingo, “bright” means “not hazy” (which so many beers, particularly IPAs, are these days), i.e. you can see through it to the other side.

There’s no fries served with this, so I ordered a portion of fat fries to accompany it.

First off, you can always pick a BL burger up, so it passes the first test. The burger is their standard beef burger, with which I am well familiar: nicely smashed, crispy round the edges, fuller in the middle. The green bit is what makes it different, though. I’m afraid the ham jam got somewhat lost in the overall flavour, but the green béarnaise, when it wasn’t dripping down my chin, was delicious – a nice bite of peppercorns to add flavour to the meat. Beef and pepper, of course, is a classic matchup, and yes, it works again here.

The beer is tasty, and can be tasted over and above the burger and sauce. A good combo here. Overall, I’m pretty satisfied with this burger. I’m not going to score it mega-highly, though, as it is just a variation on their standard, with nothing really new or different about it. 7/10.

Buck Yeah, Clive!

We’d been playing our usual bridge game on Wednesday but, instead of repairing to our regular post-bridge haunt, Arcimboldi, we decided to head to Café Polo instead. Arcimboldi are doing a burger, much to my surprise, but it turns out it’s just their usual beef schnitzel in a bun, with potato salad instead of fries.

Café Polo are usually pretty reliable. This year’s burger is called Buck Yeah, Clive! Who is Clive? I dunno. It’s a venison patty with beetroot relish, so Nicola asked for one without the relish, if the chef could do this without being driven to suicide by the philistinism of his diners. It’s described on the Burger Wellington website like this:

Venison patty, with beetroot relish, smoked cheese, pickles, and red onion ketchup in a housemade sesame seed milk bun, with skin-on chunky chips.

It looks like this: 

There’s a DVB beer match: Schandalous (Shandy). Shandy? Who drinks that these days? But this is a fairly grown-up one, coming in at 4.4%, with a slight lemonade-y sweetness to it. More a lager top, I’d say. Again, this is one brewed specifically for Burger Wellington, 

Venison can be dry, but they’d avoided that here, and the burger was nice and moist. My main gripe is with the beetroot relish: it totally overpowered everything else in the burger. There was cheese; couldn’t taste it. There were onions; couldn’t taste 'em. There were pickles; yes, I could taste them. So this was a pickle-y, beetrooty flavoured sandwich with some protein added. Could’ve been anything, really. Less is more, people! Less is more!

The fries were café standard, nothing to write home about there. I didn't spot any with the skin still on. This was a pick-up-and-eat burger, and structural integrity held out until the end. The beer match was a waste of time – I might as well have been drinking soda water for all the flavour I could taste after that beetroot. So, my advice is: order it without the beetroot relish…Nicola definitely got the better deal here. You can thank me later. With these failings, I score this a 5/10.

Stout And About

I must be a sucker for punishment. Despite all I’ve said about the Old Bailey’s burgers in the past, here and here, I still decided to try this year’s offering at pub quiz.

Firstly, it isn’t a burger, it’s a meat sandwich…something about which I have railed in the past. Putting a piece of meat between two parts of a bun (phrasing!) doesn’t necessarily make it a burger, OK? On the Burger Wellington website it’s described like this: Stout-braised beef cheek, with Kāpiti aged cheddar, caramelised onion jam, pickles, lettuce, and horseradish cream in a Pōneke Bakery brioche bun, with stout gravy dip and fries.

It looks like this: 

There’s a DVB beer match – Chin-Wag (Fruited Hazy), created specifically for WOAP, so no details available on their website at time of writing. I decided to give it a try. As it says on the tin, it’s hazy, with mango and passionfruit flavours. It actually worked quite well with the richness of the beef.

In the past I’ve complained about them throwing the kitchen sink at their burgers. This year they’ve toned it down – there were only a couple of pickles, and the onion jam was a thin smear inside the top bun. The horseradish sauce had also been diluted so the flavour was recognisable, but not overpowering. The cheese? I didn’t really notice any cheese. The meat was slow-cooked and fell apart easily, and had a good flavour as you’d expect from beef cheeks. The chips were the usual OB chips, and the gravy provided some relief to the dryness (their chips can be a bit dry sometimes).

It's not a pick-upable burger, so had to be tackled with knife and fork. Anything that has a skewer to hold it together generally falls into this category.

Overall, a better effort than in previous years. I’m scoring this 6/10, due to the meat-sandwichness, average chips, lettuce, and unpick-upability.

Bovine Meets Coastline

And they’re off! Yes, once again Burger Wellington, the burger competition of Wellington On A Plate, has kicked off; this year for a three-week celebration of every way to put one food item in between two bits of bread…or something else, if the fancy takes you.

Over the past few years my forays into Burger Wellington have been fewer as I’ve tended to restrict myself to those available in the local vicinity. However, chance would have it that I have some errands to run in town on the very first day, so I thought I’d take myself to Pravda Café & Grill and avail myself of their offering, called Bovine Meets Coastline.

It’s described on the WOAP website thus:

Beef patty and prawn cutlets, with gruyère, cos lettuce, pickles, thermidor sauce, and Dijon aioli in an Arobake potato bap bun, with steak-cut fries and chipotle mayonnaise.

And it looks like this: 

There’s a Double Vision Brewing beer match as well, which happens to be one of my old favourites, so I had myself a glass of Chillax XPA to wash it down.

So, how was it? As usual the lettuce was surplus to requirements, I’d’ve preferred them to leave it out completely. The two sauces combined with the lettuce meant that this was a burger for eating with a knife and fork – the slipperiness factor was just too much for hands. The three prawns were on a skewer, so had to be removed from that before starting. Otherwise, this was a pretty well-made surf-n-turf burger.

The chips, though...I’d go to Pravda just for the chips. Crispy, crunchy, golden, delicious! With the chipotle (? I couldn’t detect any) mayo, they were fantastic. The beer is a good drop – DVB being our local brewery, I’m familiar with their range. I’ll have to look out to see if there are any special ones just for the festival.

Overall, a strong start, setting the standard for the rest. I’m scoring this 8/10.

 

Rueben’s Hot Sister

I haven’t been to Choice Bros in, like, ages. Why not? It’s centrally located on Ghuznee Street, brews their own beers, and is open during the week. Years ago, it was a regular stop for me for a burger and beer when I was taking tours. But then, something changed…they decided, without consulting me, to change to an all-chicken menu. Yes, the only burger available was a chicken burger. Now, I don’t mind the occasional chicken burger, but when I want a beef burger, that’s what I want…so I stopped going.

Earlier this week, whilst reading reviews of Burgers Wellington, I came across their offering, and observed that it was, in fact, made with…beef. Well, blow me down! A quick investigation revealed that they’ve abandoned their whites-only policy, and are now back in the business of offering proper burgers. Again, they did not consult me on this decision, so I don’t know how long they’ve been missing out on my custom.

 After my work on Saturday I decided to drop by and sample their effort.

Rueben’s (sic) Hot Sister is described on the Burger Wellington website like this: Smashed beef patty with hot honey–cured beef short rib, smoked provolone, spiced pickled cabbage, pickled onions and spicy Russian dressing in a Cottage Lane brioche bun, with housemade kettle chips and Kāpiti brie bacon cheese dip.

It looks like this: 

There is no DVB beer match as, again, I’m in a brew pub so I’ll have whatever they recommend – in this case, Choice Bros Perfect Day low carb lager.

There was a bit of a wait for the burger as it was a popular choice and the bar was, if not full, at least reasonably patronised for a Saturday lunchtime. When it came though, it was good. This is a proper burger made by people who make proper burgers. All the necessary ingredients were there, and there was none of that extraneous “salad” that some insist on including in the burger. The pickled cabbage and onions provided some necessary crunch and flavour, and the cheese was tasty. The housemade (apparently; they tasted like they were out of a packet) kettle chips had, hover, gone a bit soft. Nevertheless they fulfilled their function of scooping up the brie and bacon dip. I felt, however, that just sticking to chips might have been a better option in this case. I scored it 7/10, because although it’s a good burger, it’s not an exceptional burger. I’m really looking for that one that blows your socks off to score higher.

 

Bosh

OK, now for something a bit different. After bridge we went out to lunch at Café Polo, one of our local eateries which could soon become the best café in the area. Why do I say that? Well, the best café in the area always used to be The Larder, but a short while ago Jacob & Sarah sold up, and it is now under new management. So far, nothing has changed, but we’ll have to keep a weather eye on it.

Café Polo’s offering is called Bosh, and is something a bit different to your usual burger: It’s a pork and prawn patty. Say what? Yes, you read that right. It’s described on the Burger Wellington site like this: Harringtons pork and prawn nugget with sweet and sour sauce, pineapple, pickled capsicum and onion, coriander, spring onion salad and crispy chilli mayo in Cafe Polo’s housemade sesame seed milk bun, with salt and pepper chips. The DVB beer match is The Classic lager.

It looks like this: 

How did it taste? As you can see, there’s a lot going on here, so much so that it’s held together with a stick...this is a burger for tackling with a knife and fork. According to the chalkboard description, the patty is 80% pork. The sweet and sour, and the pineapple combine well together, and the whole thing just zinged off the tastebuds. Unlike some burgers that have had the kitchen sink thrown at them, this is one that’s well thought out, with sweetness, sourness, spice, crunch and flavour. The chips were crunchy and generously seasoned, too. This is the best burger I’ve had so far this year, and I’m scoring it a 8/10. It’s not quite a perfect burger - pickupability, flavour and patty composition all play a part; as has been mentioned, I’m a hard man to please!

The Coastal Rogue

Another local excursion for a burger at the weekend, and this time we picked perennial favourites Little Sprig, a branch of the Sprig & Fern chain of pubs. Their offering is called The Coastal Rogue, described on the Burger Wellington site thus: Grass-fed beef blend patty with liquid cheese, crispy onions, bacon-jalapeño jam and Sprig sauce in a housemade brioche bun, with shoestring fries.

It looks like this:

Yes, I borrowed this pic from the website, as I forgot to take my own pic. 

There is no DVB beer match, because Sprig & Fern are a brewery and don’t sell other people’s beers.

There’s not much different to this burger, except the liquid cheese – effectively a cheese sauce rather than a slab of cheese on top. The crispy onions were a nice touch, and the fries were different to their usual, which are normally handmade and can veer to the soggy side on occasion. But not this one! They were crispy and well-seasoned.

This is as good a burger as the Burger Liquor one, so I’m giving it a score of 7/10.