Stout And About

I must be a sucker for punishment. Despite all I’ve said about the Old Bailey’s burgers in the past, here and here, I still decided to try this year’s offering at pub quiz.

Firstly, it isn’t a burger, it’s a meat sandwich…something about which I have railed in the past. Putting a piece of meat between two parts of a bun (phrasing!) doesn’t necessarily make it a burger, OK? On the Burger Wellington website it’s described like this: Stout-braised beef cheek, with Kāpiti aged cheddar, caramelised onion jam, pickles, lettuce, and horseradish cream in a Pōneke Bakery brioche bun, with stout gravy dip and fries.

It looks like this: 

There’s a DVB beer match – Chin-Wag (Fruited Hazy), created specifically for WOAP, so no details available on their website at time of writing. I decided to give it a try. As it says on the tin, it’s hazy, with mango and passionfruit flavours. It actually worked quite well with the richness of the beef.

In the past I’ve complained about them throwing the kitchen sink at their burgers. This year they’ve toned it down – there were only a couple of pickles, and the onion jam was a thin smear inside the top bun. The horseradish sauce had also been diluted so the flavour was recognisable, but not overpowering. The cheese? I didn’t really notice any cheese. The meat was slow-cooked and fell apart easily, and had a good flavour as you’d expect from beef cheeks. The chips were the usual OB chips, and the gravy provided some relief to the dryness (their chips can be a bit dry sometimes).

It's not a pick-upable burger, so had to be tackled with knife and fork. Anything that has a skewer to hold it together generally falls into this category.

Overall, a better effort than in previous years. I’m scoring this 6/10, due to the meat-sandwichness, average chips, lettuce, and unpick-upability.