Kieran Plasto regales his venture to find the perfect Down Under burger, in a shopping center food court.
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Everything starts somewhere and every quest has a first step, so what better place to start recording this journey than here and now: Emirates Business Class, Brisbane to Dubai, 32,000 feet above Mount Isa, refusing to pay $7.50 for Wi-Fi Internet usage, and sipping a Johnny Walker Black.
My personal quest has rules that I have developed over 46 years, and they generally stand me in pretty good stead. They are, in no particular order:
1. Never eat sushi from a service station. Never.
2. Never drink coffee from a chain store.
3. Most truck stops west of the Great Dividing Range do a killer mixed grill. (Chips and a fried egg count as vegetables.)
4. Never eat seafood more than 200 kilometres from the coast.
5. The Dingo Roadhouse in Central Queensland serves a hot boxed lunch that should the Eighth Wonder of the World.
6. Despite what the National Heart Foundation says, “All you can eat” is, in fact, a challenge.
7. Silver service means small meals, large prices and stop for a hamburger on the way home.
8. Finally, never eat at shopping centre food courts.
On a Sunday, December the 8th, 2013, while enjoying some solitary time, I accidentally ended up at the Carindale Shopping Centre where I broke Rule 8. So, I started a quest for the best hamburger I could find.
I set myself a number of parameters around hamburgers. These are personal and by no means universal rules.
1. I always order a hamburger with the lot (HWTL). Even if I choose to remove the pineapple and beetroot. [Editor: HWTL stand for, as best as I can tell, “Ha-way the lads!” – essentially, put everything you’ve got on the burger, please and thank you.]
2. I will never pay more than $10.00. That upper limit pretty much excludes the gourmet types.
3. It’s always a minced patty, not a steak burger or chicken breast.
4. Must be topped with BBQ sauce, and I’d prefer to not be given the option.
When it comes down to it, I’m searching for an honest, no frills “Jack Thompson in an Akubra and Jackie Howe Singlet at the Boxing Day Test having just had a swim at Bondi after shearing 300 sheep,” straight up-and-down, Australian hamburger. [Editor: I spent two hours trying to translate this one sentence into American. I recommend you click the links and get the imagery in your head. Best of luck.]
As I circled the food court like a Great White on a wounded seal pup, I came across the My Carvery food outlet. Staffed by friendly ladies serving potato gems, wedges, toasted ham and cheese sandwiches, roast meat sandwiches and finally, the clincher: cups of deep-fried and extra salted pork cracklings. All of the major food groups covered.
I should have known things weren’t going well when I ordered the My Carvery special – HWTL, of course – and after a short wait it was handed to me with a plastic knife and fork wrapped in more plastic. Concerned, yet not alarmed, I took a nearby table amongst the pre-Christmas hordes and began my inspection.
On the positive side: It was a good height, and needed the tooth pick to keep the tower effect. Good diameter, too. The bun was warm and it contained all the necessities of a good HWTL, including BBQ sauce even though I wasn’t given the option. I removed all tropical fruit, evil vegetable cousins, and re-evaluated.
Order of filling was okay, but unusual: onions and sauce on the bottom – a little strange but not a game breaker – lettuce, tomato, patty, cheese, then bacon and egg on top. I have a preferred order in which I like my ingredients stacked, but I’m open to the individual nuances that each HTWL experience brings.
It was at this point when I commenced eating that I realized why the potential need for the plastic eating irons. The bun was warm, which is a concept I overall support but on this occasion had led to it becoming moist and demonstrating a propensity to fall apart. In the hands of a rookie this could have ended in tears, but a hamburger-quaffing triple-Dan black belt burger sensei like myself held it together.
It was however, Strike One.
As I twirled the burger, around biting in no particular order, it become very apparent that the patty was way smaller than the bun. Ultimately, this probably became the game breaker. While the flavour was there, the bun size had over-promised and the size of the patty had under-delivered.
Strike Two.
Ultimately, but only through the kind of eating experience that enables your weight to reach 125 kg [Editor: 276 pounds, for us Americans. Big dude.] did I maintain the burger’s integrity until the last mouthful. Finished, yet unsatisfied, I reflected.
There is something about watching someone create your HWTL while having a chat with them, as beads of sweat drop and sizzle on the grill, and they wipe their hands on the washed once-a-year apron, that adds to the experience. I was denied this at My Carvery, as everything is cooked and assembled out the back. Maybe that was the cause of my dissatisfaction.
Generally, the bun was warm and fresh except too moist and prone to disintegration. The patty was tasty but small, but taken together with the non-existent ambience of a shopping centre food court and the lack of interaction with my cook, I’d had to give it a 5 out of 10, overall.
But, the quest has started. Where to next? What are your rules? What are your random culinary adventures?
Photo via Marshall Astor/flickr, modified per Creative Commons
A very enjoyable read Kieren. I’m a huge hamburger fan, and after eating at a multitude of ‘fine dining’ restaurants (you know, the ones with degustation menus that are on the best restaurants lists), I’ve come to the conclusion that none of them can come close to a really well made cheeseburger.
That was a fun little look into Australian culture..
I have to ask though.. this is something I noticed in the UK and Japan also.. why do so many people outside of the US put a fried egg on their hamburger? I mean yes, I get it, it’s delicious, but it’s something that most people in these other places are confused about when I tell them it’s very rare to find them served that way in the US, and was practically unheard of until just very recently.