Maha Restaurant

Burger Reviewed: The Gus

Venue: Maha

Date: 6/6/2013

Today the Burger Friday fellows ventured on a #spicejourney to once again visit Shane Delia’s Maha Restaurant in Bond St, Melbourne.

After wowing the Burger Friday fellows on our previous journey to Maha with an amazing lamb burger (complete with an olive tapenade, prosciutto, freshly grated cheese and a beer included!) we were very excited to be visiting the mysteriously dark middle eastern basement once again.

After dreaming about the lamb burger for weeks on end and knowing it was only a short term special, there was some minor trepidation that perhaps we had seen a deal that was too good to be true and would fall into our distant memories aka John Georgiades. Georgiades, after kicking eight on debut and seven the following week, disappeared into obscurity, playing only a dozen more games for the Bulldogs, leaving AFL fans scratching their heads forever more about what they had witnessed.

But it was with very great pleasure when we discovered that the burger special was back and there was not a chance that Shane Delia was going to be serving up anything less than spectacular and most certainly not Georgiades style one hit wonder.

This time the burger special was with the Gus, a deliciously tasty angus beef burger with some of the most innovative and interesting flavors the fellows have ever tasted on a burger.

Coming on a buttered, toasted and seeded brioche style bun, the Gus burger is a substantial and glorious angus beef pattie, topped with pickled lettuce, onion, coriander and the piece de résistance, smoked bacon mayonnaise. Far from the traditional, beef, cheese, bacon burgers we often see, this deliberate selection of flavours fused seamlessly to create burger synergy.

The beef pattie was beautifully cooked to a juicy medium rare, and just had a melt in the mouth/butter type consistency. As the key ingredient in a burger, the quality of the meat was outstanding and consistent with the attention to detail expected of a hatted restaurant. The accomplishment of being able to cook a pattie as thick as a clenched fist so well should also be applauded.

The pickled lettuce and onion provided both bite and tang, and special mention needs to be made to the smoked bacon mayonnaise. This gave an oozing richness to the burger and provided a salty offset to the savory of the meat pattie.

The Gus burger comes ably accompanied by a 961 Lager, which is European pale lager originating from Lebanon, and was a perfect partner to round out our #spicejourney. And all for only $18, this felt like we got away with stealing game one of an NBA Finals playoff series away from your home court as the massive underdog.

The bold flavours, the quality of the ingredients, the exceptional price tag all combine to make Gus one hell of a great burger.

In honour of the most famous Gus to make his name in the Australian sporting public, I am going to dub this burger the Guus Hiddink. After being appointed the manager of the Australian Socceroos in 2005, Guus took the Australian public on an epic journey, leading through to the World Cup finals. While Guus was a little bit different, not unlike this Gus, he was a winner and the public loved him, even creating slogans such as "No Guus, No Glory", and "Guus for P.M".

In light of that, we highly recommend you get to Maha and experience this burger now, because all the Burger Friday fellows can say is “In Gus We Trust”.

Burger Friday rating: 42.75/50