Spiced To Meat You

We went along to the newly-opened Parla in Island Bay after bridge, to try their Burger Wellington entry. Parla is owned by the same people who do Mr. Go’s, Ombra and Kisa, at least two of which are regular faves. We’d been there before shortly after it opened and were reasonably impressed (especially as it’s next door to Empire Cinema, who’s café offerings leave a bit to be desired).

Parla serve Middle Eastern flavours, similar to Kisa, so their offering, Spiced To Meat You, sounded like a good choice. The WOAP website describes it like this: Urfa-spiced lamb patty, with nasturtium hummus, sumac onion, pickled radish, Grafters Honey toum and crispy fried chickpeas in a Dough Bakery cumin and sesame seed bun. The DVB beer match is Repeat Offender, an NZ Pilsner that’s part of their classic line-up.

It looks like this:

 We both ordered the burger, and I had the beer match. I don’t know when the burgers were cooked, as although they took the requisite time to arrive on our table, they were somewhat tepid rather than hot. I picked mine up and it held its integrity through to the end, always a good sign…although it did leak large amounts of dressing along the way. Urfa spice didn’t seem to be present, I thought there might be a hint of heat (spice, not temperature) associated with it, but this turned out not to be the case. The main flavour was garlic from the toum dressing, and a slight crunch from the fried chickpeas – a few more of which wouldn’t have gone amiss, given the absence of chips or other side with this burger. A burger that promised much, but failed to deliver on that promise. I scored it a humble 6/10.