Roo Burger

It’s pissing down. What to do on a rainy Saturday in Wellington? Why, when Wellington On A Plate is in progress, the obvious solution is to eat burgers! Well, a burger at any rate.

High on my shortlist this year is the Roo Burger offered by our friendly neighbourhood café, The Larder. It does what it says on the tin; it’s a kangaroo burger. It’s described like this on the Burger Wellington website: Grilled kangaroo with eucalyptus-smoked beetroot relish, iceberg lettuce, tomato, caramelised onion and black pepper mayonnaise in a Larder wattleseed bun.

It looked like this:

And it tasted good. Good, but not outstanding. This is a solid burger, and all the elements were there. The iceberg lettuce was, to my mind, superfluous. My views on lettuce in burgers are well-known, and this one only served to confirm my opinion. The bun held up well, the tasty relish was good (although I didn’t detect any smokiness). I felt that shoestring fries were a bit of a cop-out. The Garage Project beer match was Persephone, which is brewed with pomegranate and grapefruit. This gives it an edgy fruitiness as well as the bitterness provided by the hops.

Overall a good burger, but not brilliant. I’m being particularly harsh in this year’s scoring, and this wasn’t as good as yesterday’s burger, so I’m giving it a 7.