Cray Cray

Another day with errands to run in the CBD, so I dropped in to The Dumpling Company for lunch, and to try their Burger Wellington offering, Cray Cray. As you might imagine, The Dumpling Company aren’t the sort of place that normally does burgers, but the description was intriguing: Wagyu beef and crawfish patty, with Kāpiti cheddar, mozzarella, cucumber, lettuce, nori, and garlic crawfish sauce in a brioche bun, with handcut fries and spicy langya dipping sauce.

It looks like this: 

There’s no DVB beer match, so I went for a Garage Project Beer instead.

First thing to note: yes, that’s a real crayfish on top. Secondly, that brioche bun had collapsed somewhat when I picked it up; although it did maintain integrity through until the end. The patty is beef, and the crayfish are surrounding it, rather than being a wagyu-and-crayfish patty which I’d been expecting. In retrospect, probably a better idea anyway, so this became your classic surf’n’turf burger. The sauce was there, but not particularly flavourful, and neither were the other accompaniments, so there wasn’t a strong Asian flavour to this burger, which I’d been expecting. The cucumber had been replaced by daikon, I think. The fries were thick and chunky, and the mayo had a hint of sichuan pepper to give that numby tingling sensation...not particularly strongly, which again was probably just as well. I tackled the crayfish at the end, to no great reward, possibly due to my lack of patience.

I felt that this burger over-promised and under-delivered. The core concept was good, but it needed a bit more spice, a bit more energy, to really pull it off. I’m scoring it 6/10.