The Forager

I had another training session shadowing a night tour on Thursday, so decided to get a burger on my way to Zealandia. I didn’t really want to stop off in the CBD at the height of rush hour, so I decided to detour through Newtown and try the burger from Mediterarranean Food Trattoria & Deli.

I’ve not been to MFT&D for donkeys years. Last time we went, it was called Mediterranean Food Warehouse, and was largely what it said on the tin, with a small café serving pizza and cabinet food on the side. But times change, and it is now mostly a pizzeria and restaurant with a small sideline in selling Mediterranean foods. I managed to park on Constable Street close by, and went in to sample their burger. It’s called The Forager, and Burger Wellington describes it like this: Black Angus beef patty with truffled prosciutto cotto ham, Taleggio cheese, lollo lettuce, balsamic borettane pickled onion and locally foraged porcini mushrooms in an Altamura sourdough bread bun, with Van der Rose potato wedges.

It looked like this:

It’s a pretty hefty burger, but I managed to squash it together and pick it up. Fortunately there wasn’t too much slippage with all those ingredients listed, and the prosciutto and cheese gave it a sweet saltiness, with an additional tang added by the onions. The mushrooms were a bit lost at the bottom and I couldn’t really detect their flavour much. The wedges weren’t particularly crispy, which was a disappointment, but overall the burger wasn’t bad. The Garage Project beer match was an old favourite, Garagista, but as I was on my way to work I went with Adam’s Ale instead. I’m scoring this burger a 7/10.

The night tour was pretty cool – two kiwi and a ruru! Also a gecko, and a Cook Strait giant wētā. All in all a successful evening.