Battle of the Burgers

I hope you’ve got your Quick-Eze at the ready, because Visa Wellington on a Plate is almost upon us! For a fortnight from this Saturday (August 14^th), we can avail ourselves of more than 80 gastronomical events and 88 restaurants participating in ‘Dine Wellington’ – super lunch and dinnertime menus from $15 to $35. But wait, there’s more… 33 restaurants are going to wheel out their best burgers in a battle that’ll pitch patty against patty, and see a lot of surprising ingredients sandwiched in a bun. Most will cost around $20 and be eaten with a knife and fork.

Burger Fuel is not a participating Dine Wellington restaurant. However, this 15-year-old homegrown burger chain seemed like a good place to establish my own personal judging criteria for the forthcoming burger-off, especially as they claim to produce ‘probably the best burger in the world’. While I’m not going to debate the veracity of that claim, I will say that they set a very high burger benchmark.

Allow me to deconstruct, for a moment, starting with the patties. The ‘Bio Fuel’  – Burger Fuel’s entry-level burger – has 1/3-pound (150 grams) of lean, juicy beef. It’s simple and honest, and lets the meat do the talking. The lettuce is as it should be: crispy iceberg. Beetroot belongs in a burger, so I was delighted to discover a couple of slices, along with ripe tomato, a shapely fried egg, creamy aioli and tomato relish. It was altogether an exemplary burger, and a big one for $8.90.

The Burger Wellington participants, however, are going to be cooking up in gourmet territory, so I thought it prudent to try Burger Fuel’s fancy-pants ‘Wagyu’. A Japanese, pure-breed cow, wagyu is famed for its tenderness, flavour, low cholesterol – and the fact that it’s traditionally fed on beer and stroked a lot. Its meat, as you would hope for $14.90, was discernibly tastier and texturally superior. Eschewing the old-school egg and beetroot, this burger featured melted cheddar and caramelised onion, along with lettuce, relish and aioli. Both burgers came in the Burger Fuel bun: oversize, fresh, with plenty of chew – not at all pappy. We noted the generous sprinkle of sesame seeds on top. Such attention to detail. Will any Burger Wellington chef heed the seed?

Just a little aside about the drink match: while I have no doubt the odd glass of syrah might get washed down with my gastro-burgers during WOAP, at Burger Fuel I downed a chocolate malt milkshake. It left me nearly bursting at the seams and humming the theme from Happy Days, but it felt so very, very right. If you still think Fidel’s is making the best shake in town, you might want to think again…

So, soon we’ll see how the Burger Wellington burgers stack up. Voting is by text, and you can win a fab prize if you do.