All About The Heat

Our final foray into Burger Wellington was to local brewery and bar, Double Vision Brewery. We went there last year and had a very nice coffee-infused burger, and this is, regrettably, the first time we’ve been back since. We really must go there more often! It’s a great little bar, and the beer is first-rate.

We went on a busy Sunday lunch but managed to find a table, and ordered two of their All About The Heat burgers. It’s described on the WOAP website like this:

Bacon and cheese stuffed wagyu beef patty with bacon jam, smoked cheese, pickles, lettuce and a housemade BBQ sauce (with your choice of spiciness) in a Shelly Bay Baker bun, with chips and housemade tomato sauce

It looks like this:

The Garage Project beer match is Tiny XPA, a non-alcoholic beer. Sod that for a game of soldiers, thought I, and went for one of DVB’s brews, the Big Hop Redemption.

The deal with this burger is that you can select the heat of the house-made barbecue sauce in the burger, and we both selected medium. In retrospect, we should probably have gone for hot, as I didn’t detect any spiciness. That aside, this is a tasty burger, as it should be with wagyu beef. The patty was generous, as was the slice of cheese, nice bacon jam; and it was pickupable, so I ate it in the traditional way. The chips were crispy and tasty, as was the house-made tomato sauce. This is one of the best burgers I’ve had in the competition, only beaten by Café Polo’s effort which was done with just a little more presentation. But I’m going to rate it the same, 9/10. Why not a 10? I’ve only given out 10s to absolutely remarkable burgers over the past years, and the gold standard is one I ate at Boulcott Street Bistro way back in 2012.

That wraps up our official burger shenanigans for this year. I say official, as some venues will continue to serve their burgers after the close of the competition, and of course the ultimate winner does so as well, so I may get the opportunity to try one or two more.  

Fromage & Fortune

We were at Mr. Go’s before going to see Lizzie, and I decided to try their burger. Mr. Go’s have won the Burger Wellington competition in the past so I thought they would have an interesting burger.

Their entry is called Fromage & Fortune, and is described on the WOAP website like this:

Xi'an style braised pork belly, pickled green chilli, peanuts and Kingsmeade Ngawi brie in a Cube Bakery rou jia mo bun

It looks like this: 

The Garage Project beer match is Red Dog, which is specifically brewed as a burger accompaniment, and is a tasty drop.

How was it? The pork was spicy and very tender, and atop the pork was the brie, which had been squashed and cooked. The bun was a bit different as well, the rou jia mo being a Chinese hamburger bun that’s crispy on the outside but soft in the middle. It wasn’t very big and there were no fries or other accompaniments. I wasn’t wholly convinced by this burger. It was OK, there was nothing wrong with it, but nothing really stood out. I gave it a rating of 6/10.

Lizzie The Musical

Lizzie Borden took an axe

and gave her mother forty whacks.

When she saw what she had done,

she gave her father forty-one.

The infamous case of Lizzie Borden, who was tried and acquitted of the murder of her father and stepmother in 1893, is one that continues to intrigue. Whilst she was acquitted, no other killer was tried for the murders, and she was shunned for the rest of her life in the Massachusetts town of Fall River. An obvious topic for a musical!

 Nicola was on ushering duty at Circa Theatre, and with a 6:30 showtime we needed to get an early dinner. Once again, Mr. Go’s is the go-to place (do you see what I did there?) and they are also participating in Burger Wellington, so I had their Fromage & Fortune burger.

The show started slightly late as they had a technical hitch with the lighting, so 10 minutes after the advertised start we were ready to go. Lizzie is a rock opera musical, with four characters who are the (surviving) female characters in or adjacent to the Borden household. They’re supported by a five-piece band – drums, guitar, bass, keyboard and obligatory cello. They start by reciting the verse above, then each of the characters introduces herself. The show progresses – mostly musically, but with some spoken parts – as they describe the living conditions in the Borden household, with their father and stepmother. Andrew Borden was a noted miser, and, after remarrying following the death of his first wife, tensions arose in the family. Lizzie and her older sister still lived in the family home, and there are indications of abuse, possible incest, in one of the songs. The first half leads up to the bloody axe murder of Andrew and Mrs. Borden.

The second half focuses on the reactions of all the characters to the murders. It seems clear that Lizzie did do the murdering, but that the evidence is not necessarily pointing at her, particularly after the dress she was wearing is burnt. There’s a memorable song which must have been a delight to perform, called “What The Fuck Now, Lizzie?” sung by her sister. The trial follows, and possibly the only mis-step of the entire production: the band leader, keyboardist Hayden Taylor, has one line, and he fluffed it! He’s supposed to call out “Not Guilty!” as the verdict at the end of the trial, but came in too early, not waiting for the band’s music to completely fade. So what we heard was “<muffled> Guilty!” Bugger.

Anyway, true to life, Lizzie Borden was acquitted of the murders, and the whole thing finishes with a flourish. They did an encore number of the forty whacks routine whilst taking their bows, to riotous applause.

 

 

Chickens Are Seoul Food

Burger Wellington is drawing to a close, and our opportunities for burgerisation are becoming fewer. I wanted to sample another local eatery, so, instead of making the burger-eating part of a wider outing, we made a special trip to our local beachfront café, Scorch-O-Rama in Scorching Bay.

Scorch-O-Rama does have the benefit of being open seven days a week – unlike many of the cafés  around Wellington, which have reduced hours, particularly in winter. We went on a Tuesday. Their burger is called Chickens Are Seoul Food, which pretty well flags what it’s going to be like: a Korean-flavoured chicken burger. It’s described on the WOAP website like this:

Korean buttermilk chicken with kimchi slaw, caramelised pineapple, and sticky honey spicy sauce in a Brezelmania charcoal bun, with squid chips.

It looks like this: 

There’s no Garage Project beer match, so I opted for local brewer Parrotdog’s Birdseye Hazy IPA instead.

As you can see, it’s in a charcoal bun. This only affects the colour, not the flavour, and it is quite a light, fluffy bun. Inside, the chicken thigh is covered in caramelised pineapple, and the kimchi slaw is underneath. This is again one to tackle with cutlery, not hands. I dug in. The generous portion of chicken is well spiced, and the kimchi gives a nice tang to counter the sweetness of the sticky sauce and the pineapple. There’s quite a chilli kick to the sauce as well. Instead of chips, it's served with polenta-crusted squid “chips”, which had been deep-fried. These are crunchy, perfectly-cooked sections of squid, which I really liked. This is a really well-put-together burger, and is one of my favourites of the competition so far. I scored it 8/10.

 

Cormac

OK, I’ve had it with burgers that don’t live up to expectations. Today we went to local joint Café Polo for their Burger Wellington offering, Cormac.

It’s described on the WOAP website like this:

Wagyu beef patty with smoked cheese, red onion, lettuce, jalapeño and pickle comeback sauce, and spiced carrot jam in a housemade 'carrot top' bun, with curly fries and sweet 'n' sour sauce

It looked like this: 

The Garage Project beer match was Red Dog, a red IPA with Japanese flavours designed to go well with a burger. It’s a tasty brew with a good, strong flavour. 

And yes, it delivered! The patty: big, filling the bun, juicy, cooked medium rare. The sauce and red onions were generously applied – so much so that the burger was a bit slippery, and I decided to go in with knife and fork rather than risk squirty burger syndrome – you know, when you bite into the burger and everything flies out the opposite side. There was a healthy portion of curly fries with accompanying sweet & sour sauce. Overall, a good combo, with a bit of heat coming from the jalapeno. Definitely a recommendation, and I’m scoring this one 9/10. Why not 10? The superfluous  lettuce and the unpickupability of the burger, otherwise this would be perfect.

OK, where to next? Who can challenge this hunk of beefy goodness?

The Lucky Dip

I’d spent the morning at Zealandia, helping train the new cohort of Visitor Experience volunteers, so by lunchtime I’d worked up an appetite. As is my custom, I went into town to hunt down a burger for lunch.

The Lucky Dip is Burger Liquor’s entry into the Burger Wellington competition. I’m an habitué of the establishment so I thought I’d give their effort a go. On the WOAP website it’s described like this:

Smashed beef patty with melted cheddar, pulled beef birria, onion, sambal pickles, and red pepper umami mayonnaise in a Brezelmania French bun, with a 'lucky dip' of either birria beef broth, queso or beef gravy.

Jump on the special Burger Liquor WOAP website and spin the virtual wheel to see which of the dips you'll get to enjoy with your burger. Every burger goes into the 'lucky dip' for burgers for a year at Burger Liquor

It looks like this: 

In order to do the ‘lucky dip’ to see which sauce you’re getting, and presumably also to enter the draw, you had to scan a QR code. I tried. I tried the one on the menu, and also the one on the table. Neither worked, so I guess I’m not in the draw. Null points. I made a manual selection of sauce by telling the waiter I’d have beef gravy.

I had the Garage Project beer match, which was Golden Path, first brewed as a burger accompaniment in 2019.  

This burger is a remarkable achievement…but sadly, not in a good way. Somehow, they’ve managed to suck the life out of a burger. The patty was flavourless and unseasoned; the beef birria was chewy. The pickles were the only thing in the bun that had any flavour. Chips aren’t included, so I ordered some to dip in the gravy, which was insipid. This burger is not as good as their regular burger, the Smokey, so you’d be better off ordering that instead. I scored it a dismal 4/10.

 

Sophisti-Cajun

We went to our usual Tuesday night quiz night at The Old Bailey. They’re participating in Burger Wellington as well, and their offering is called Sophisti-Cajun. I thought I’d give it a go.

It’s described on the Burger Wellington website as follows:

Beef patty with Swiss cheese, pickles, avocado, crispy Cajun onions, ketchup, mustard, and coriander sauce in a Brezelmania milk bun, with skin on Cajun fries

The Garage Project beer match is Good Shout, but I’d already ordered my usual Panhead Supercharger by that point, and the GP beer wasn’t offered by the staff.

It looked like this:

What can I say about it? There’s a bit too much going on. They’ve thrown the kitchen sink at this one, and it’s a mish-mash of flavours. To be honest, Cajun isn’t known for being a sophisticated cuisine, it’s more rustic in nature, so this burger was a bit of an oxymoron. There were too many flavours fighting each other. The only discernible heat, which I associate with Cajun, actually came from the chilli-dusted fries. Overall I thought this was an average burger, so I give it an average score: 5/10. 

On the plus side, we won the quiz.