Lord of the Fries at Inferno Grill

We saw a promotion on Ompty and decided to give this place a try for a change.

The burgers look quite appetising. This burger was a top notch presentation of dripping sauces and melted cheese.

However, after biting into these things, we concluded that they were all looks, no substance. This burger was all about the presentation. They lacked the heartiness we crave for. the whole experience was like biting into chunky gravy between a milk bun. The extra sauces just contributed to this being a sloppy mess, rather than the concreteness that need to sink our teeth into.

Sorry Inferno, we won't be back.

Too much Piggy on the Peppa Pig, Bar Luca

With the newly opened Wynard walk, we made our way from Barangaroo to our good old faithful, Bar Luca. Our radars were tuned in on some good burger goodness.

When we arrived, the specials board greeted us like a new friend, waiting for us to get acquainted.

The Peppa Pig reeled us in. I mean, who can resist Dr. Pepper braised pork? And having watched the cartoons of Peppa Pig with the little people in our lives, we were sordidly wanting to devour this cartoon character that occupied so much of our time.

Gosh these burgers looked great!!! 10 out of 10 for presentation.

Wait a minute.... what's that sticking out on the side of this burger???

Upon closer inspection....

Is that a pig's hair I see??

It certainly was. We seemed to have glossed to part on the board about 'crispy pig ears'. The pig ear cartilage and the pig hairs put us off this burger pig time. Biting into this burger and experiencing the pig ear crunchiness was a little bit too close to biting into something you'd buy for your dog from Pet Barn.

Too much piggy. The whole experience has put us off this burger and also Bar Luca for the time being. 

Could this be Sydney's best burger? Vic's Meat Market

We had heard good things about Vic's Meat Market. We decided it was high time we trotted our burger hungry stomachs over to this place to see what all the fuss was about.

We were greeted with an enthusiastic server, who told us that things were busy today and some items on the menu had sold out. Anxiety kicked in as we questioned whether the beef burger was still available. A sigh of relief spread across our faces when we were told that there were still some patties for us. We ordered the smoked wagyu double cheese burger.

These patties are cooked in a huge smoker, taking 15 minutes to prepare. We were impressed with the set up- smoked patties are the bomb!

As an entree, we decided upon some brisket. This meat was soft and tender, lightly rubbed in spices, flavoursome and good quality. A great start to a burger experience.

The burgers came presented in thin paper.

The first thing you notice about these burgers are the soft milky buns. The sticky melted cheese messily smeared all over the paper told us that we were in for a treat.

We couldn't help but sample some of the sauces that were dripping from this burger before taking our first bite. The sweet tomato chutney oozed from this burger combined with the meaty juices from the patty were just so delish!

Upon closer inspection, we noted the thick patties. This is how a burger should be done folks!

The first thing you notice when you take a bite is the cheeseburger flavours. For us a burger is all about the meat. The meat was high quality and cooked to perfection. The strong meaty flavour of the patty is probably the highlight of this burger. Freshly ground, soft and juicy, subtle smoke flavours and intense beef flavours, this is probably Sydney's best burger patty. Again, it's all about the meat!

On top of that, the buns were soft and held this burger together well. As we continued to bite, we were able to experience the crunch of the pickles and the bite of the maccas-style diced raw onion. And the American cheese! Mhm!

This burger has no salad. The tomato chutney is a nice substitute. Keeping this burger plain and simple has allowed the meat to be the star attraction in this burger.

All of this goes down so well with a thick smooth drink of Young Henry's Natural Lager. We came away filled up but not bloated.

This burger probably saved us $2000 in airfares to travel to NYC. We'll be regulars here for sure. This burger will be hard to beat.

Best on the North Shore- Five Points

Lunch was on, so we decided to head down to Five Points Burgers.

The Manhattan burger presents well. The yellow tinge of melted American cheese, colourful iceburg lettuce, with pickles stashed away inside was enough to make our mouths water.

Definitely a highlight of this burger was the bun. A beautifully soft brioche bun nicely sandwiched these patties and held the whole thing together.

The meat was good quality and tasty, the cheese melted to perfection. We'd love these patties to be thicker, and there to be a lot more pickles. A little raw onion wouldn't go astray either.

We decided we have become salted caramel addicts. This milkshake went down really well and filled all the spaces in our stomach that was not already taken up by the burger. We went home in a food coma.

Burger Challenge at Bare Grill

We discovered today that Bare Grill out at La Parouse have issued a new burger challenge.

Our mouths watered as we watched the customers of Bare Grill attempting to eat this (thanks for sharing Hannah!)

Buy this burger for $45 and eat it within 30 mins and it's free.

Let the training begin.

Of ourselves this post wouldn't be complete without documenting our own culinary treat for the day...

Hamburguesa, Barrio Cellar

Right in the heart of Sydney, in Martin place, is a little bar called Barrio Cellar. One of the burgers here is called the Hamburguesa.

The menu boasts this burger as

barrio house beef patty, pickled jalapeño, chimmchurri Mayo, chipotle mustard, cheese , red onion.

The first thing you notice about this burger are the sauces. The chimmchurri Mayo and chipotle mustard held the burger flavours together well. The meat patty was so juicy and not overdone. The flavour was awesome. There was just the right amount of red onion to give this burger a little twang. We were pleasantly surprised by the jalepinos. They weren't too dominant, so a few bites in it was a nice surprise to experience their heat, and then to have a few bites without them. The buns were milky soft and sweet, and held the whole thing together. We were mopping up the juices from our shirt and face for a longtime afterwards. We loved the flavour of this burger.

The fries were string fries with smoked paprika. Very crispy and a great compliment to this burger. 

The only criticism we have is that it was too small. Next time we will definitely order the double patty.

The photos don't really do this burger justice...

We'll be back.

Sacrilegious Burger, Milk Bar

A Thursday afternoon burger sounded like the way to go. So we decided to give The Milk Bar another go. (The first time we stopped by there, they had run out of burgers).

Because we wanted to get into the spirit of Easter, we ordered the Sacrilegious Burger. This burger consists of 3 meat patties, cheese on each patty, roast beef, crumbled sausage and home made ketchup, onion relish, all served between a milk bun.

The patties were so dry that the cheese had actually disappeared into them, along with the sauce. Everything was soaked into the patty such that there was no juice dripping from my burger. Even our very life source was being vortexed into these patties. It was truly evil. 

On top of that, the burgers were over charred. The burnt taste of the patties was the dominant feature of this burger experience. This burnt taste was the thing that remained with us long after eating those burgers. Imagine having the taste of burnt toast lingering in your mouth. This was our experience.  

If that wasn't enough, the roast beef was truly foul. We wondered if we were being served the leftovers from last year's Easter roast. It had a pungent taste, truly unpleasant.

The home made ketchup may as well as not existed. Or come from a woollies name brand jar. It just wasn't present. And the onion relish serving was also very stingee.

The juiciest thing in this burger was the dry crumbed sausage. It was not enough to redeem the burger from hell.

We had hoped that the chips would in same way make up for the burger experience. But unfortunately not. The chips were too soggy, under cooked, and no crisp whatsoever. We wondered why these were offered to us as a reward for being fatty members.

We were quite surprised by this experience, given the popularity of the Milk Bar over at the Facebook group called Fatties Burger Appreciate Society. With each bite, we were praying that the burger would improve. Unfortunately the wretched reality set in. This burger was simply done very badly.

We feel as though we will need to exorcise this burger experience from our body by visiting Lashings in Brighton Le Sands very soon to participate in the 10-patty burger challenge.

Bacon Bad

Lashings Training for the Burger Challenge

Because we needed a little more training....

Burgers by Josh Upper Deck

Most of our training for the Lashings challenge involves eating burgers. So that's what we decided to do tonight for the second night in a row. As we've mentioned before, Josh of Burgers by Josh fame has become a bit of a burger legend around Sydney. His massive Double Deluxe has made burger lovers salivate at the very sight of it. And since we loved Josh's so much on Sayurday, we thought we'd venture out to The Upper Deck at Greenwood Plaza for Burgers by Josh round 2.

The burgers come with the following ingredients-

THE DOUBLE DELUXE

Double Premium Wagyu
Double American cheese
Twice fried Hash brown
Westmont pickles
Spanish onions
Milk sesame seed buns
Mustard
Ketchup

We were happy to see Josh working hard in the kitchen to make our dinner. These burgers looked SO good upon arrival. We were happy to see pickles and onions peaking out of our burgers. We thought we'd receive our free bacon for fatties but alas, it was no where to be seen.

Biting into these burgers was very satisfying. The buns were great, the American cheese was melted just right, and the double patty very satisfying.

There were a few salient points however that need to be made. The hash brown, whilst filling, didn't add anything to this burger. It didn't contribute to the taste, but made the burger more clumsy to hold. The patties were also not as juicy as we would have liked. Josh's burgers on Saturday smashed it with the taste and juiciness factor. Saturday’s pop up was dripping with flavour and fat, but these burgers just didn't have the same standard that Josh is capable of. We also want to say- a little more onion and pickles please!

Don’t get us wrong- we loved Saturday’s pop up with the char grilled flavours and juiciness, but last night’s didn’t smash it.

We are in fine form for the burger challenge... We nailed these burgers in under 5 minutes. We left satisfied, but improvements are needed in this Sydney burger war we are in.

Lashings Gourmet Takeaway

Today we had a hunger to try something different. Yes of course it's another burger. After all, this is what brings you, the burger lover back to this burger blog for more right? Well, this time we were so hungry we decided to have a look into Lashings burger challenge. So out to Brighton Le Sands we did venture.

You won't find the Lashings burger challenge on the menu. But if you mention the words 'burger challenge' to the friendly staff, and tap your index finger to the side of your nose as you nod, they will know what you mean.

Simply put, the challenge is to consume the Double Whiplash burger with 12 patties in 30 minutes and the burger is free. Otherwise it will set you back a stunning $54.

We decided that before we should accept this challenge, we would at least sample these burgers and decide if we wanted to consume 12 of these patties. No point in eating so much if the burgers are rubbish, right?

So we ordered the normal Whiplash burger as well as a Double Cheeseburger. Notice that the Whiplash comes with American cheese.

The Double Cheeseburger came with your standard Australian Tasty Cheese.

The first thing to say about this burger is the size. We. Love. It. The size is what growing boys like us need. The buns were soft but also lightly toasted, giving them a soft crunch upon taking that first bite. The burgers were juicy and cheesey. The Whiplash had a kick to it (jalapeños will do that, as well as the special sauce). The Double Cheeseburger came with plentiful onion which made us happy.

Now we have begun our training by eating these burgers. It took us 5 minutes to devour these beauties. We have now devised a strategy for eating the 12 patty whiplash burger. We might need to train a little bit more before we take the plunge, so it looks like we'll be back to Lashings. Stay tuned for more burger fun.

Burgers By Josh X Young Henrys

'Burgers by Josh' has become a bit of a thing of adoration for Sydney burger lovers. When we heard that Josh was doing a pop up in Newtown, we jumped at the chance.

The venue was a hidden hole in the wall micro brewery in the heart of Newtown called Young Henrys. The place was bustling when we arrived. Young Henrys make great beers, so it makes sense to combine winning beers with great burgers.

When we arrived to place our order, the crew were busy churning out burgers for the hungry masses. Apparently they had run out of bacon (free bacon for FBAS members)

The cooking equipment was simply a BBQ. The boys would cook the burgers to caramelise and add that lovely char grilled look, flip, add American cheese until it melted, and then place on the grill above the hot plate. This way the meat continues to cook from the heat on the hot plate, but the end product is a juicier, more tender meat patty.

Here is the rock star of Sydney burgers himself- Josh! He patiently cooked the patties and then when ready, would hand test them to see if they were cooked right.

The end produce was superb. A double patty with dripping cheese, and special sauce.

We couldn't stop eating the fries- covered in smoked paprika and special sauce that had a chilli kick to it, and other special spices. We couldn't resist the crunchiness of these fries and their fluffiness inside.

Next we tackled the burgers. The first thing we did upon receiving our burgers was to press our hand upon the bun. These buns were glorious- soft, fluffy and yet firm.  And then the first bite...

These burgers were delicious. The patty was juicy and moist. We marvelled at how our patties were cooked differently- one was cooked more than the other, but neither of them were dry. The American cheese is a winner in this burger, but the real hero in this burger was the meat patty. Not only was the meat tasty, but Josh has the meat to fat ratio down-pat. Our burgers dripped oil, which we promptly used to dip our chips in. The spanish onions added to the experience. Josh's special sauce not only pleasingly oozed out of the burger, but added a depth of flavour to this wonder.

The burger was simple, and yet it was done to perfection. Even though we noticed that it lacked bacon and pickles, the burger was so perfect that it shows that even a simple burger, when done right, will make you come back for more.

Burgers by Josh was so popular that it was closed by 4pm. That's a sell out within 4 hours. We were glad that we just made it! A few hungry people arrived after 4 and left with rumbling tummies. This usually happens to us, but not this time!

Burgers by Josh- we will hunt you down again when you are in North Sydney. Simple yet perfect.