Wallburger

On Sunday I completed another Zealandia By Day tour at 1000. The lucky punters on this particular trip got the bonus tour, and I didn’t finish until 1245.  Overrunning on a tour is fine so long as you check with your group beforehand that they’re not under any time pressure, and are happy to go longer…unlike the cruise ship tours I was doing last summer, where the golden rule is to be back at the Visitor Centre in time for their bus.

As it was, we’d had a great tour with lots of good sightings, but I was hungry! I checked the Burger Wellington app for venues in the CBD to get my burger fix, and decided on Coco’s Bar & Grill. Open for lunch and dinner, it said, so I parked up, and headed to Willeston Street, to find out that it is open for lunch and dinner, except Sundays. “Bah! No matter, I’ll go to Concrete instead” I said to myself. I got to their door (they’re up Cable Car Lane, and upstairs) and it didn’t look particularly open, but I pushed against the door and it opened, so I went upstairs. The next door was locked, however, and I’ve a feeling the one downstairs should have been too, as I had to search around and find the door release to let myself out. Two down, I checked the app again, and looked up Rosie’s Red-Hot Cantina & Taco Joint. This was in Queen’s Wharf, on the dockside, so I figured there was a pretty good chance of them being open. And lo and behold, they were!

If you’ve not heard of Rosie’s, and you live in Wellington, this is probably because they’ve only just opened – on the site previously occupied by Munchen, and before that Chicago Sports Bar. They’re so new, in fact, that when I scanned the QR code for the Covid tracer app, the name still came up as Munchen. 

Their Burger Wellington offering is the Wallburger, and it’s described like this: Smoked and smashed brisket patty with pepper jack cheese, dill pickles, chipotle mayo and curtido cabbage relish in a Brezelmanina potato bun with chilli con queso fries and birria dip. The Garage Project beer match was once again Garagista, so I again had that.

It looks like this: 

That is a substantial burger! The fries were smothered in aioli and chilli, so were more suitable for eating with a fork, but the burger was pick-up-able. Unfortunately the bun wasn’t of the most robust construction, and as I was eating it, it stared to drift apart like a plate tectonic. This wasn’t helped by the burger – I don’t think the brisket had been cooked long enough to get to that fall-apart consistency which is usually the aim, and it was still a bit chewy. The cheese, relish and pickles, however, were good. I feel that this burger was let down in the delivery, and the cooking of the brisket – the elements were all here to make this a great burger. The fries in themselves would probably make a good meal – I couldn’t finish them. I’m scoring it a disappointing 6/10.

Pao Bao

On Friday I had a Zealandia By Day tour booked. We’re coming in to the long weekend for Labour Day in New Zealand, so the Tours Team had opened up some of the ZBD tours to paid guides in order to meet the expected demand. I booked myself in to take the 1000 tours for Friday, Sunday and Monday.

After the tour was over, I drove into town in search of burgers. Mr Go’s is an Asian street-food type place on Taranaki Street, and the food there has always been tasty. I thought I’d give their burger a go (ha-ha, do you see what I did there? 😉 ).

Burger Wellington describe the Pao Bao like this: Kung Pao chicken with Shoots NZ microgreen slaw, pink pickled onion, red pepper and Sichuan mayonnaise in a housemade steamed bao with skin-on shoestring fries. The Garage Project beer match is Noon Juice, one of the new brews specially created for Burger Wellington this year; and one I’ve had before, and found to be thoroughly acceptable, so I opted for it again.

It looks like this:

As you can see, a bit unwieldy. Also, being a bao bun, I find that these can be a bit doughy, so I decided to remove the lid and use cutlery to tackle this burger instead. The Kung Pau chicken was sweet, spicy and tasty, and the fries crisp. As I expected, it was a little bit bready and I didn’t finish the bun. I did finish the fries though, because they were good. Overall, another good burger, and I’m scoring it 8/10.

 

The Forager

I had another training session shadowing a night tour on Thursday, so decided to get a burger on my way to Zealandia. I didn’t really want to stop off in the CBD at the height of rush hour, so I decided to detour through Newtown and try the burger from Mediterarranean Food Trattoria & Deli.

I’ve not been to MFT&D for donkeys years. Last time we went, it was called Mediterranean Food Warehouse, and was largely what it said on the tin, with a small café serving pizza and cabinet food on the side. But times change, and it is now mostly a pizzeria and restaurant with a small sideline in selling Mediterranean foods. I managed to park on Constable Street close by, and went in to sample their burger. It’s called The Forager, and Burger Wellington describes it like this: Black Angus beef patty with truffled prosciutto cotto ham, Taleggio cheese, lollo lettuce, balsamic borettane pickled onion and locally foraged porcini mushrooms in an Altamura sourdough bread bun, with Van der Rose potato wedges.

It looked like this:

It’s a pretty hefty burger, but I managed to squash it together and pick it up. Fortunately there wasn’t too much slippage with all those ingredients listed, and the prosciutto and cheese gave it a sweet saltiness, with an additional tang added by the onions. The mushrooms were a bit lost at the bottom and I couldn’t really detect their flavour much. The wedges weren’t particularly crispy, which was a disappointment, but overall the burger wasn’t bad. The Garage Project beer match was an old favourite, Garagista, but as I was on my way to work I went with Adam’s Ale instead. I’m scoring this burger a 7/10.

The night tour was pretty cool – two kiwi and a ruru! Also a gecko, and a Cook Strait giant wētā. All in all a successful evening.

The Tongue Twister

We were in town today so decided to try a burger from Olive on Cuba Street. They’re a reliable café-style eatery, with a menu that is usually quite vegetarian-heavy, but they’ve decided to go big on the meat burger this year with The Tongue Twister.

It’s described on the Burger Wellington page like this: Beef patty with tongue bacon, battered pickle, green peppercorn BBQ sauce, smoked cheddar, lettuce and mayonnaise in an Arobake horopito brioche bun, with prawn and soy crackers and seaweed salt. The Garage Project beer match is Pickle beer. This has the misfortune to be a sour beer, a style I’m not keen on, so I picked a Parrotdog Pandemonium instead. Also, as there are no chips with this burger, I ordered some.

It looks like this:

The first thing that happened was the lid and burger slid off the base as the waiter put it on the table. Clearly unstable, I thought, as I reassembled the burger, and proceeded to attack it with knife and fork instead.

The key feature of this burger is the tongue bacon, and there were two generous slices of this topping the patty. Other than that, the other elements of the burger were all present. Personally I’d have left out the lettuce, or at least shredded it to make it a bit more manageable, but that’s just my preference. The bread-to-burger ratio was more to the bread side, and I left half of the top uneaten. The prawn crackers seemed to be a bit of an afterthought, and didn’t really complement the burger in any way, so I’m not sure why they were there. Just serve your burgers with chips, people! (Unless you’re deliberately doing an Asian-style bao burger or something.) The patty itself was flavourful and well cooked, and overall I thought this was a good burger. I scored it an 8/10.

Gochu

Another day, another burger dictated by timing and accessibility. I was due to do another night tour shadowing at Zealandia as part of my training, so decided to get an early burger in Miramar before heading to Karori. The venue I selected was Gasworks, as they are (a) open in the evening, and (b) on the way. Nicola came with me and walked back home afterwards.

Gasworks’ burger is called Gochu, and is described like this: Beef patty with gochujang sauce, pickles, cheddar, Swiss, jalapeño cheese, Woody's Free Range Farm pastrami, caramelised onions and ketchup in a Brezelmania potato bun, with fried daikon pickles.

It looked like this:

So what did I think of it? Well, there was a nice spiciness about the gochujang sauce, and it was easily manhandled without falling apart. And whilst all the trimmings were there (fried pickles is a theme that seems to be running this year), the central element was a let-down: the patty itself was flavourless. I don’t know what beef they were using, but they need to find something better. Overall, a disappointing effort. I scored it 5/10.

Opa!

My best-laid plans have been ganging aglay like nobody’s business recently! Burger opportunities are being thwarted at every turn.

On Saturday, I was shadowing a Zealandia Twilight Tour. It ended later than I anticipated, so my plan to pick up a burger at Kelburn Village Pub was denied, as their kitchen shuts at 9pm, and we didn’t get out until quarter past. Oh, well, no problem, I’ll get one tomorrow…

On Sunday, KIWIZ, the quiz team I have been participating in the World Cup with, were due to play a team from California, Cogito Ergo Mum. Due to time differences and people needing to get to work, the time we agreed was 2:00 am UK time (all timings are run from the UK, as the organisers are UK-based) i.e. 2:00 pm Sunday afternoon for us, and 7:00 pm Saturday for our opposition. So far, so good…but when the notifications came through, however, they all said 1:00 am UK time. “Oh, that’s because they’re changing to Summer Time” someone said – but that doesn’t happen until this weekend. At this point I said I wouldn’t be able to make it, as I had a morning shift at Zealandia.

That’s when the trouble really started. As I was coming off shift, I checked my phone. The time had now been switched back to 2:00 pm, but one of our team members couldn’t make it, so I said I could step in and rushed back home, burgerless. My plan had been to stop in town and pick one up along the way. As it was, I had no time.

I got home, checked in again, and found that they were back up to four people, so didn’t need me after all! So I had no quiz, no burger, and was generally discombobulated. Harrumph!

On Monday night, I was due back at Zealandia for After Hours Valley Emergency training. This started at 6:30 pm, so this time I was finally able to stop at Kelburn Village pub and try their burger. It’s called Opa! and sounds like this: Moroccan-spiced chicken with slaw and Elysian tzatziki in an Arobake beetroot bun, with beer-battered onion rings and polenta fries.

And here’s how it looked: 

Now I’m not normally a big fan of polenta (who is?), but the deep-fried “chips” weren’t bad. The burger was OK, a little on the small side, and the chicken agreeably spicy. Bun integrity was good, and overall the whole meal was…unexceptional. It did the job, and what it said on the tin, but no-one’s going to be writing home about what a great culinary experience they’ve just had. It is, after all, pub grub. As I was going straight on to work I went without the Garage Project beer match, which would have been Noon Juice. Instead, I had cranberry juice. I scored the burger 6/10.

Over the coming week I’ve got more training to do, so my burger choices might be dictated by convenience and speed rather than what looks the best. Hopefully some of them will be good.

 

 

 

Night Stalker

This summer there’s unlikely to be quite the same demand for guided tours at Zealandia. Last year, we had a bumper crop of cruise ships into Wellington before the covids abruptly cut off that business, and I for one am not expecting it to resume in the 20/21 summer season. Maybe next year? Maybe no go.

Anyway, rather than recruit and train a new batch of guides, they have decided to train up some of the existing day guides to be able to take night tours. This involves an additional layer of training and responsibility – because the visitor centre is closed at night. This means that the night guide is the only person available to deal with any situation that may arise – you can’t just get on the radio to call up Duty Ops or other assistance as you can in the daytime. Also, a first aid certificate is required. 

Why am I telling you this? You’ve guessed it – I’m one of those guides who got the call. Starting on Saturday, I’ll be shadowing a number of different night guides over the coming weeks to pick up their techniques and learn all the procedures for night guiding. At some indeterminate future date I’ll also receive first aid training.

On Saturday evening I turned up at Zealandia, to join the Twilight Tour. It was led by Jac, one of the guides with whom I trained last year for cruise ship duties. She’s been doing twilight and night tours from the outset, and also has some work with the education team. Our night guide assistant was late, so we actually had to do a lot of the set-up that they would normally do, which was helpful as I didn’t know what all that was – checking torches, headsets, arranging the tea etc.

The first part of the tour is pretty much the same as for a Zealandia By Day tour, which I’ve been doing for the last year. The only difference is I have to check people in myself using the Visitor Centre systems, so I’m going to need to learn all about these. Otherwise it’s a welcome, introductions, short history of New Zealand, show the film, and out into the valley. This is where it gets different: for the Twilight Tour – you’ve guessed it! – it’s going to get dark. This is why we supply all visitors with red light torches (the red light doesn’t interfere with most animals’ vision). Also, as we’re looking for some quite shy creatures in the quiet of the night, we use a headset and earpieces so the guide doesn’t have to make their voice carry. But it doesn’t get dark straight away, so we spend some time doing the normal day guide stuff – looking for birds, other animals, plants, and telling the same stories. The hardest part for me was keeping quiet! I’m used to leading tours, not shadowing them, so had to keep shtum whilst Jac did her spiel. Towards the end of the tour as night fell we started looking for kiwi in earnest, and although Jac saw two briefly, I never caught a glimpse. We heard them calling, though, as well as kākā and ruru. We also stopped for a cup of kawakawa tea towards the end of the tour.

At the end of the tour, there’s also more procedures to go through as the Visitor Centre has to be secured, the events of the tour recorded on the system, and possibly take any sales of merchandise from the shop. Also, all the equipment needs to be stowed away after use. Finally, we have to leave the building securely.

That was my first tour shadowing. I’ll be doing a couple more next week, and also have to do After Hours Valley Emergency training, and do a training tour. This will all happen over the next few weeks. Watch this space!