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.

 

Fatuous Days And Crapulous Nights

Nicola has been playing with Sven Olsen’s Brutal Canadian Love Saga (known as “The Svens”) for a couple of years now, as part of their string section. They play live gigs every time there’s a Fringe Festival, and occasionally in between. None of them are called Sven, or Olsen, and none of them are Canadian. (A Canadian chap once turned up to one of their gigs, expecting something Canadian – Celine Dion covers, maybe?)

This gig, was, however, something a little different: the launch party for their pizza box. Say what? Yes, they have released a pizza box:

Inside there are six (count ‘em!) CDs with 63 songs in total, and a big book of lyrics so you can sing along with them! During their live shows there is a rear projection, animations and clips relating to the song, with some of the lyrics on it; but they are (a) often partly obscured by the band members and (b) aren’t always synchronised with the song (deliberately). So here are the undoubted, definitive, guaranteed words to such masterpieces as Kron Of Hastings. It comes with no page numbers or index, so finding your way around it is a haphazard journey through the minutiae of New Zealand life – much like The Svens themselves.

The launch party was in one of their usual venues, the Newtown Community Centre. Food and drink had been laid on, and t-shirts were also available for sale – Nicola and I both availed ourselves of these – as well as the pizza box itself, available for the bargain price of $50! So if you feel the need to dip your toe into the fantastic world of New Zealand’s most obscure pop orchestra, get in contact…they are a limited edition of only 250 (ours is #93), and Nigel Beckford (“Sven”) would dearly love to get them off his living-room floor.

They played a few songs, then broke for a “surprise event”. This, it turned out, was getting the entire audience up on the stage to re-enact the photograph on the cover of Wings’ Band On The Run album. I will no doubt reference this when it is published.

Afterwards we went for a “burger” at Mediterranean Foods.

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.