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.