Beatbox Kitchen Rooftop

Burger reviewed: Grass fed beef, cos lettuce, cheese, tomato, onion and stereo sauce.

Venue: Beatbox Kitchen

Date: 24/2/2012

The fellows journeyed down Swanston Street to the Beatbox Kitchen (located at the rooftop bar of Cookie) this week. Once arriving, due to the lack of available elevators we decided to ascend up 7 flights of stairs. Given the 30+ temperature of the day, it felt like the Kokoda trail, but who doesn’t mind burning a few calories? Just ask Stuart Dew and Lance Whitnall. The venue itself could not be more spectacular. It doesn’t get much better than sitting outside on a sunny day, 7 stories high looking out towards Melbourne’s skyline, while the décor was simple but good. The beer on tap – Little Creatures Bright Ale was as smooth as Scott Pendlebury’s skills.

Don’t be fooled. This venue is not meant to be renowned for its cooking. There is small kitchen and certainly no famous chef putting his name to it (ie Rockpool). You get the feeling the chefs are actually teenage kids from a popular John Hughes 1980s movie. The speed of service may not have been as quick Black Caviar, but you can’t complain about getting a Hay List.  

Ok to the burger itself, Beatbox should really take a bow for being able to create a burger that is simple but delicious. The patty is large and complimented by a soft bun, while the meat was cooked to a nice medium. I guess the grass fed beef gave the burger an extra taste but what really distinguishes this burger from its competitors are two simple features. Firstly the burger comes with “Stereo Sauce”. While this may not be the sauce you are familiar with at Stereosonic, this mayonnaise provides a tangy kick that gives the consumers a rare delight. Secondly the cheese literally melts in your mouth. All this provides for a very juicy burger which can pose problems when trying to keep your attire clean. If trying to impress the fairer sex that night, I recommend eating with caution.

The French fries were crisp and cooked to near perfection. I will never complain about a solid serving of well cooked shoe strings next to my burger. Annie’s homemade spicy relish which accompanies, the fries once again provided a unique tangy sensation.

Looking at the value, you may not be getting a Pinker Pinker price ($20 Cox Plate winner), but you are definitely getting your money’s worth. Burger and fries for $11, add a pint of Little Creatures and you’re looking at $20. For all you growing boys the double patty burger and chips goes for $15 and should see you sufficed for the rest of the day.

Overall there is not much you can say that is wrong about this burger. The fellows were mighty impressed by it. Beatbox concentrate on doing the simple things right. They don’t try to be flashy adding unnecessary ingredients but a few tricks here and there create a unique burger experience that cannot be found readily enough.  A lot like Lenny Hayes, who may not have all the superstar skills but is still regarded as a superstar player.

In conclusion try a burger at Beatbox, NOW.

Burger Friday Rating:  42.73/50

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The Test Tube Burger - $290,000 Big Ones!

Crossing a whole heap of moral boundaries comes this news story about beef grown in a test tube. Regardless of your moral stance on whether this is right or wrong, our kudos go out to a man who is willing to spend that much time and money on developing a burger. The burger itself I am sure would lose points on our value section ($290k and no beer included), but regardless given the proposed chef being Heston Blumenthal I am sure it would score well on taste. Given that the burger has not yet been proven itself worthy and is already the most expensive burger in history we think this burger has a lot of the Tom Scully’s about it.

In case this wealthy individual funding this project sees this blog, we would like to make him an honorary Fellow of Burger Friday in the hope that he would feel the need to sponsor Burger Friday’s noble pursuit of finding the best burgers in town.

LURKING in a petri dish in a laboratory in the Netherlands is an unlikely contender for the future of food. The yellow-pink sliver is state-of-the-art in lab-grown meat and a milestone on the path to the world's first burger made from stem cells. Dr Mark Post, the head of physiology at Maastricht University, plans to unveil a complete burger - produced at a cost of more than $290,000 - this October. He hopes Heston Blumenthal, the chef and owner of the three Michelin-starred Fat Duck restaurant in Berkshire, southern England, will cook the offering for a celebrity taster.

The project, funded by a wealthy, anonymous, individual, aims to slash the number of cattle farmed for food and reduce one of the major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. ''Meat demand is going to double in the next 40 years and right now we are using 70 per cent of all our agricultural capacity to grow meat through livestock,'' Dr Post said. ''You can easily calculate that we need alternatives. If you don't do anything meat will become a luxury food and be very, very expensive.'' Livestock contribute to global warming through unchecked releases of methane, a gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

At the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Vancouver, Dr Post said the burger would be a ''proof of concept'' to demonstrate that ''with in-vitro methods, out of stem cells we can make a product that looks like and feels and hopefully tastes like meat.'' Dr Post is focusing on making beef burgers from stem cells because cows are among the least efficient animals at converting the food they eat into food for humans.

Dr Post and his team have so far grown thin sheets of cow muscle measuring 3 centimetres long, 1.5 centimetres wide and half a millimetre thick. To make a burger will take 3000 pieces of muscle and a few hundred pieces of fatty tissue, that will be minced together and pressed into a patty. Each piece of muscle is made by extracting stem cells from cow muscle tissue and growing them in containers. The cells are grown in a culture medium containing foetal calf serum, which contains scores of nutrients the cells need to grow.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/technology/sci-tech/at-290000-testtube-burger-is-a-taste-of-whats-to-come-20120220-1tjma.html#ixzz1mzTvv2IJ

The Ludlow Formation

Burger reviewed: Wagyu Burger, mahon cheese, istra bacon & Spanish mojo.

Venue: The Ludlow Formation

Date: 17 February 2012

This weeks burger adventure saw the Fellows on the pristine banks of the Yarra to sample Chef Marc Brown’s wagyu burger with mahon cheese, istra bacon and Spanish mojo.  One would have to work harder than Brad Haddin’s PR manager to find a better location for a meal.  The venue offers a mixture of seating arrangements, but this burger is best enjoyed on the terrace in full view of some of the finest eye candy running to and from ‘the tan’ - all against the backdrop of the city landscape.  This helped created an atmosphere where one would happily settle in for a few post-burger ales.

As any burger enthusiast would know, the burger experience is all about the pattie and while it was decent, it hardly set the world on fire.  In order to accommodate the afternoon rush, you got the sense that there was almost a rotisserie of burgers being processed with a focus in the kitchen of just finishing the task at hand and heading home– not at all dissimilar to the predicament that the Indian cricket team finds themselves in this summer.

As for the condiments, the Fellows were excited to sample the gastronomic experience that is ‘Spanish mojo’ and while we were disappointed the burger was not served by a Spanish Austin Powers, this spicy sauce provided an interesting kick to the burger.  This was complemented by a dollop of mayonnaise, and I mean dollop – you would have found it easier to get a bank loan in Greece than a sufficient supply of our beloved mayo.  I appreciate the societal push towards healthy eating, but seriously, do you think I really care about the notch on my belt when I sit down for a pint and burger? More mayo please!

The bun was about as seedy as Brendan Fevola after the 2009 brownlow, but this provided an interesting texture and surely enough fibre to pass the all-bran challenge.  To its credit, the bun provided some real structural integrity, a nice size and was able to withstand the journey without falling to bits.

The Ludlow Formation could do themselves a favour by heeding the famous words of Homer J Simpson – “You don’t make friends with salad”.  Based on the amount of greenery returning to the kitchen, I am not sure whether this was supposed to be salad or a garnish, but, whatever it was, the Ludlow Formation would be better off culling this unnecessary ingredient. A few polite souls were happy to shuffle the salad around their plate as if playing culinary air hockey, but all I can assume is that there is one very well fed rabbit out the back of the Ludlow Formation.

On the other side of the plate were some well-cooked and well-seasoned French fries.  There is a real lesson in that – simple but effective.  While I was disappointed there was no dipping sauce supplied at first instance, the waitress was more than accommodating to head back to the pantry to grab a side of some Heinz Big Red.

The burger itself could be likened to Andrew Krakeour, it clearly has a few issues to sought out, it had some patches of brilliance but also went missing in other areas.  Like Krakeour – a rookie listed player who played all but a handful of games in 2011 - this burger comes at the attractive price of $20 (including a pint of Carlton Draught) and, lets be honest, at that sort of price and despite the issues, you would be more than happy to take the gamble on it.

Burger Friday Rating:  30.25/50