AppleMac

As part of my Toastmastering duties, I had been co-opted onto a judging panel for the Table Topics contest at another club on Thursday lunchtime. This would drastically reduce my burgering opportunities, as I wouldn’t have time to travel out to a far-flung destination like Cuba Street. I had been intending to try Five & Dime’s tartare offering, Baby I  Like It Raw, but in Dixon Street it was too far away. (Although there probably wouldn’t have been much of a wait for it…no cooking!)

As it was, I settled for old favourite Trade Kitchen, being en route from the contest venue. They can usually be relied on to produce a decent burger. They were being relatively unadventurous with a beef burger called AppleMac, described like this on the Burger Wellington website:

AppleMac PrimeStar beef patty with applewood smoked bacon, Waimea Dairy cheese, chopped cherry peppers and barbeque sauce in a housemade brioche bun. The Garage Project beer match was Orange Summer, which I’ve had at one place before. It’s a tasty citrus-flavoured wheat beer.

It looked like this:

First off, you’ll have noticed the foliage. This was quite a wet burger, with lettuce, tomato, peppers and barbecue sauce inside, so after an initial valiant effort at hand-holding, I gave up and attacked it with cutlery. The burger was cooked through inside, which was a shame, but the sauce and peppers were nice and spicy, and added a bit of bite to the burger. The chips were unadventurous, and served with a dish containing both tomato sauce and aioli, which I felt was a bit non-committal on their part. If you’re doing a burger in a competition, make up your mind what the accompaniments are, and have the confidence to offer them.

Not a bad burger, but there’s a reason it didn’t make my original short list. However, needs must and all that. I scored this a 7.