Cafe Bar Hotel

Burger reviewed: The HOTEL Burger

Venue: Cafe Bar Hotel

Date: 17/8/2012

Today the burger Fridays fellows ventured down to the cafe at the bottom of the Pitcher Partners building. Given the locale at the bottom of an office building, expectations are quite rightly set low. The place is essentially a glorified food court venue, but if you worked in that building you wouldn't mind the quick service at bargain basement prices that it lends itself to. Beers on tap and some Irish hospitality from the birds behind the counter make the experience an enjoyable one.

The immediate thought that pops into your head when you look at the photo above is that the burger looks dry. This was due to a number of factors.

Firstly, the patty was slightly more towards well done that the ideal juicy medium that the Fellows have come to love. The patty itself was actually quite tasty due to the herbs thrown into the patty mixture. However, the grill plate temperature was set too low and the burger cooked through - resulting in the juices from the meat being cooked out.

Secondly, the buns seemed to be a tad on the older side (or what supermarket special boards would refer to as "crusty bread ideal for croutons"). We do not mind crustier bread as long the burger makes up for the lack of moisture in other ways. The crusty bread coupled with the over cooked patty resulted in the need for a mid-mouthful swig of beer. Every cloud has a silver lining I suppose.

Thirdly, the burger lacked the salads which can normally be relied upon to refresh the palette. A small handful of lettuce and a cheeky slice of tomato and/or beetroot would have been serviceable. The Fellows are not ones to harp on about the need for salad on a burger but when you don't get enough of it, you really notice it. I am sure Turtle from Entourage has been preaching this phenomenon for quite a while. 

Finally, the sauce combination was quite good (being of tomato chutney and American style mustard) but was in limited supply. A drier bun can be saved due to a plentiful supply of sauce moistening it. However, this was not the case. Although, props must be given for a sauce combination for with the desired level of tang which gave the burger a balanced taste.

Unfortunately, the burger itself fits the character of something befitting a food court location. However, the ripper value at $11 with chips and beer is probably the most note worthy aspects of the burger. I suppose that is kinda like the most note worthy thing about Liz Cambage is that she is big, i.e. pretty obvious from the outset and after seeing her play, there is not much else worth mentioning.

If you worked in the area it's worth giving a crack but I wouldn't venture too far out of your way to get there. But at the end of the day, I have never met a bad burger - only better ones. And even though this burger is at the bottom end of our scale, it is still satisfying enough to warrant the $11.

Burger Friday rating: 27/50

 

New York Burger

Burger reviewed: The Manhattan Burger

Venue: New York Burger

Date: 6/7/2012

The Collins Street store of New York Burger Co (NYBC) was the venue of today’s Burger Friday meeting. And to give you the result straight up, I was left slightly underwhelmed.

NYBC is a relatively new entrant to the market of franchised burger venues and its signature burger, the Manhattan, was the burger dejour. Proclaiming to be from the land of the bigger, stronger, fatter I expected this thing to be f’ing huge. I am talking burger the size of Brett Ebert’s head, enough chips to stop Adam Richman in his tracks and coupled with a xxxl size refillable cup of soda. 

And to be honest, I  don’t think this is unreasonable when you think of the largesse that New York has provided the world. The Big Apple, the home of the Big Bambino, the Donald, the Yankees, the Knicks. A place that Frank Sinatra loved so much he repeated its name twice!

But unfortunately my gluttonous dreams were deflated when it came out. It was just kinda normal. Real normal. Just your real run of the mill, smack bang in the middle, average burger. Kinda like every player on the Melbourne football club list type of normal.  

The patty was the highlight of the burger but still had its flaws (it is kind of like being labelled as the smartest contestant on the TV show "The Hills"). It was well cooked but clearly was not handmade. A handmade burger is so much more of an asset to a burger maker in that firstly, the meat is generally of higher quality but also, spices and herbs can be tossed into the patty mixture allowing you to personalise your patty. Not to mention allowing you to finagle the mixture into whatever size and shape you want. My number one tip for NYBC would be to upgrade to a handmade patty and experiment with the patty mixture to give a truer New York experience. Nostalgia is gold.   

The bun did its job in that it kept the burger together. That is about all we can say for it. Much like the maligned Australian-born English wicket keeper Geraint Jones - he stopped the ball from going to the boundary when the batsmen left it - that is all.  

The chips were akin to the style and serving size you get from McD’s for $1 on the dollar change menu and were quite well done. A good shoestring fry with some nice sauce is always going to please the Fellows. Unfortunately, the sauce was lacking.  

Everything is better with bacon and the same holds true for the burger at NYBC. However, the bacon lacked the ideal crunch that would make this burger better tuxturally.  

All in all, the burger had flavours similar to that of your local fish and chip shop, but without the ooze of cheese and egg. Due to the fact that this burger seemed to lack effort and the ability to live up to its name, we are likening this burger to Nathan Ablett. But hey, he won a premiership - that makes him a better footballer than Nathan Buckley in my book.

The price was reasonable at around $13 for the meal combo which is good for a venue in amongst the rat race that is Collins Street. If you are in the area, it is probably worth trying. 

Burger Friday Rating: 30/50

The Merrywell

Burger Reviewed: The Merrywell

Venue: The Merrywell

Date: 8/6/2012

This Friday’s burger adventure brought the fellows to Merrywell in Southbank to sample the originally named Merrywell burger.

On a day that saw LeBron James put up 45 points, 15 boards and 5 dimes against the Celtics, the Merrywell burger was never going to be the best performer of the day. However, it did put up a Paul Pierce esc effort – meaty, hard-hitting and full of class. Ironically, the table number we were given was number 34 – a number made famous by Paul Pierce himself and another unhinged superstar in Hakeem “the Dream”, but also a number that has been brought down by certain muppets such as Alan Toovey and the chemical element Selenium (a key ingredient in anti-dandruff shampoos). Anyways, why am I talking about this?

In order to understand the burger on the whole, we must first break it down into its parts – and to do so, I will be making reference to not one, not two, but three 1960’s Clint Eastwood Country and Western epics:

The Good:

The patty was really tasty and well cooked. The Chef/s at Merrywell have hit what is called “the grilling sweetspot” which steak cookers have been searching for for years. First discovered by Sir Barnabus T Grillplate, for which the cooking apparatus is named, “the grilling sweetspot” is that temperature of the grill that allows you to char the outside of the patty just enough to impose that slightly bitter charcoal flavour whilst keeping the inner patty to a perfect medium-rare. Full marks for the beef injection!

The Merrywell had what every good burger has, and every average burger lacks – and that is a bit of zip and zing in each bite – Zsa Zsa Zu for the female readers (the missus made me watch all six seasons). This represents a great lesson to be learned by all burger makers – a truly great burger has some kick in it - it may come in the form of pickles, mustard, charred bacon or a spicy relish. But it is an absolute must!

The Bad:   

The burger had some structural integrity issues mainly caused by a bun that was slightly too small to be serviceable (ah hem Jake King!!). However, it must be noted that the bun was only slightly off – another 1 – 2 cm’s extra in diameter would have been ideal.

Now I am not one for blaspheming but the bacon was virtually unnoticeable. I know, “thou shalt not take the bacon’s name in vain” but I just feel I have a responsibility to bring it to your attention. If the bacon was slightly crispier or slightly more charred it would have been a lot better.

The Ugly:

The burger was as wet and sloppy as something very wet and sloppy. I am going to leave the metaphor to you to think of. But it got to the stage where the bun went mushy – much the same way the tomato sangas your old girl made for you in primary school would have.

A Fist full of Dollars:

The Merrywell burger comes in at $20 even with a healthy serving of seriously good chips and a couple of sauce bottles by your side. If you don’t like Heinz Big Red (ridiculous thought I know but there are some backwards people who prefer a nice whole-egg mayonnaise or maybe even vinegar with their chips) you could just use the chips to soak up the litre of meat juice pooling at the bottom of the plate. Seriously, it was like the burger was Nick Reiwoldt’s head and it was watching the 2009 Grand Final medal presentations (also known as one of the happiest moments of my life – not a Geelong supporter in case you were wondering).

Hang ‘em high:

On the whole, the burger is an absolute ripper! All the toppings are fresh, the bun is light and easy to mung through, and the overall flavour is quite memorable.

The analogy I will use to describe this burger (as well as comparing it to Paul Pierce) is that of a Johnny Cash song. If you “Walk the line” to Merrywell, you will not “Cry, Cry, Cry” or end up with the “Folsom Prison Blues”. Instead “I promise you”, you will enjoy a cracking burger, and one that is should be served “When the man comes around”.

Burger Friday Rating: 42.15/50

Strange Wolf

Burger reviewed: Strange Wolf Beef Burger

Venue: Strange Wolf

Date: 27/4/2012

This week's burger adventure saw the Fellow's strut up to the Strange Wolf bar on Strachan Lane. A tucked away bar which specialises in making one thing - burgers!

We walked down the stairs and were greeted by a place more congested than St. Kilda's backline - probably with the footballing talent to match. Zac Dawson = a poor man's Jason Saddington! But that is off topic.

What then commenced is the most intense game of musical chairs that the world has ever seen - and not fun a game of musical chairs where everybody wins (like the one in that episode of the Simpsons where Bart gets placed in the remedial class in Cypress Creek) but one where every person that leaves the place has a swarm of people dive on their chair like Joel Selwood dives on the footy (except they are looking for a chair rather than a cheap free kick). My recommendation for people going to this place is to fight dirty!

I will just come out and say it.. the service was poor! I think this was the first time that the Fellow's handed out a Krispy Kreme donut for speed of service. This place made Arjuna Ranatunga look like Dwyane Leverock (minus the greatest catch in cricket history - youtube it if you haven't seen it).

The chips were as lifeless as a Mumbai cricket pitch, even more unfortunate is that lacked they heat of Mumbai (a place that brought you such cricketing royalty as Ajit Agarkar - the only test cricketer to score seven ducks in a row). The analogy that I would use to describe the chips would be that of Simon Wiggins - a bloke that Carlton continuously forgot to delist because he was so forgettable. Even worse was that the sauce came in the bottom half of a shot glass - although I have seriously thought about sipping smokey BBQ on the rocks - this was not ideal.

The burger itself was really good. The patty was spilling out over the edge of the bun (picture the gut hanging out of Derek Kickett's shorts), was cooked well, well seasoned and had a rustic texture (even though one of the fellow's doesn't actually know what texture means). One positive is that they didn't waste time with greenery - a few julienne's of iceberg was about it. My favourite part of the burger was the mustard - the kind of mustard you spread on your Christmas ham on toast. All up, the burger worked as a whole despite being disadvantaged by the side dishes around it and the overall set up (Gary Ablett much?).  

Following the usual lively Political discussion that has become expected of the sacred gatherings of the Fellows, we began to talk about which sports person this burger reminded us of. One person that came to mind was Brent Stanton as he delivers when there aren't any people around him, but he is no good in traffic (this is reference to the poor speed of service during congested times). However, as this is an Olympic year - a year in which the best athletes in the world come together to see who can get their hands on the world's least detectable forms of performance enhancing substances - I thought an Australian Olympian would be more fitting. Therefore, I have chosen Australia's number 3 man, Daniel Kowalski. Much like the perennial bridesmaid's bridesmaid, Strange Wolf were technically very good, but just slower than their main rivals.  

In conclusion, I would go back for the burger, but not for anything else.

Which brings me to this week's burger Friday life lesson - God is just Dog backwards, so have a laugh instead!

Peace out!

Burger Friday Rating: 32.67/50