After Service

Portlander Restaurant is in Rydges Hotel Wellington, and is mainly a steak restaurant. They should be able to cook a burger, yes? I know I’ve had decent burgers from them in the past, so…

Their burger this year is called After Service, and it’s apparently what the chefs make for themselves after they’ve finished their shift. It’s described like this: Beef patty, with gouda, Swiss, provolone, smoked garlic butter, onion lace, pickled cucumber, iceberg lettuce, and truffle and black garlic mayonnaise in an Arobake milk bun, with potato gems and chicken gravy.

It looks like this: 

The DVB beer match is Loud And Clear.

Just for contrast, here’s the picture they put on the Burger Wellington website: 

This is a bit of a McDonaldsisation, if you ask me…quite a contrast between the picture and the delivered result! But the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so how was it?

Bland.

Were there different cheeses in there? I couldn’t tell. There were some onions, and the pickled(?) cucumber, and even some sauce. It was pick-upable, so I duly ate it with my hands. The potato gems with gravy were crispy and golden, and were probably the best bit of the burger. The rest of it, though, felt like they’d phoned it in. And at $48 for the burger and beer combo, at the top end of pricing, my expectations were much higher. Not impressed by this one, I score it a lowly 4/10.