Tasty Grub Burger

Tuesday night is quiz night at The Old Bailey, and we’ve returned there for our weekly quiz fix. This follows a change in our dancing arrangements from Tuesday to Thursday night, so we’ve abandoned Island Bay Brew’d for a city centre location, which helps more people to join us as an after-work activity.

Why do I mention this? Well, the Old Bailey are also participating in Burger Wellington, so as well as quizzing I was also able to sample their burger entry, the Tasty Grub Burger. It is described as: smoked beef brisket in bourbon sauce in a Zaida's Bakery bun, with baby spinach, homemade tomato jam, crispy bacon and caper bits, with chunky fries. There’s no Garage Project beer match as The Old Bailey is a Monteith’s, and therefore Black Dog, pub. I had my usual pint of Pug Life to wash it down. It looks like this:

First things to note: although not included in the description above, it is stated in the menu that it's a beetroot bun – you can see the pinkness inside. Not that you’d notice it tasting of beetroot, unless perhaps you tried it on its own, so more of an aesthetic thing, really. Secondly, the “chunky fries” were in fact their standard fries. All the other components were there, although the purpose of the “caper bits”, a few of which were randomly scattered over the top, was beyond me. The burger squished down to a manageable handful and maintained its integrity throughout: unlike a lot of burger offerings, it was not overly endowed with wet ingredients, a key cause of bun sogginess and generally messy eating. If anything, it was a little on the dry side. The brisket was well cooked – slow-cooked and tender. Once again, this was a meat sandwich rather than a burger, with the meat not formed into a patty. I’ll try and find one that has a proper burger for my next outing.

The Old Bailey is not particularly noted for its cuisine; it does good pub grub. It’s good of them to enter into the spirit of Burger Wellington, but they’re never going to win. I scored this a 6.