Beautiful Burgers

The name says it all. Beautiful Burgers. Good chips too. We had the Wagyu burger. Juicy as. And only 5 minutes walk from home.


Beautiful Burgers, 5/87-97 Regent Street, Chippendale

Cafe Sicilia in Surry Hills

A new Sicilian restaurant and cafe has opened in Surry Hills. It's only been there a couple of months. The site was formerly a Thai restaurant. It had always been a Thai restaurant till now. I lived upstairs up until 15 years ago went it was the Thai Orchid. More recently, say the last 10 years or so, it was Yai. Let's just say living over the top of a Thai restaurant has its benefits. And cockroaches. But now it looks to be a fairly decent traditional Sicilian restaurant. The panini are great and so are the brioche, doughnuts and biscotti. Can't wait to have a proper sit down meal there.


Cafe Sicilia, 628 Crown Street, Surry Hills

Lunch in Myrtleford

Pies and snot blocks vanilla slices for lunch at Heiner's Bakery in Myrtleford. Heiner's was next door to dad's Mobil Depot. Dad was the local Mobile fuel supplier when we lived in Myrtleford. Now the Mobile Depot has gone (picture of vacant block below) and Heiner's have expanded. It was hard to believe that this vacant block once had a Mobil service station and a few really large, multiple thousands of litres, storage tanks of fuel. There used to be a railway line that was next to the depot to but that is long gone too.
The pies and vanilla slices were excellent.

The burgers are NOT better at Hungry Jack's (Burger King)

You don't go to the airport for fine dining. It is true you can find a branch of Dank St. Depot at Sydney Airport and the Qantas Business Class Lounge isn't horrible but you should really lower your expectations just a tad for everything else. It is fast food after all. A number of the big franchises are represented in the food hall and includes... drum roll... Hungry Jacks.
Usually fast food from the big guys is adequate. There is a standard to which you expect and most of the time that standard is satisfied or sometimes even exceeded. And that is why I went to Hungry Jack's in the International Terminal at Sydney Airport. I ordered something simple - a cheeseburger. After waiting a few minutes I was handed a bag containing a cheeseburger wrapped in paper. As soon as I picked the cheeseburger out of the bag I knew it was cold. I had a WTF moment. The store was busy enough that there were no burgers queuing up on the counter. Apparently they were being made fresh to order. I saw my burger being handed through from the kitchen to the counter server who bagged it.
I opened the wrapping and poked the bun. Cold. I lifted the bun and felt the meat. Stone motherless cold. It even had that look that it had been cold for some time. You can tell when something has not been fresh made. As I said WTF?
I took it back to the girl who served me and I told her that the burger was cold. She took the burger back and handed it in to the kitchen. It looked like she said a few cranky words to the cook too. After a couple of minutes a bag was handed though from the kitchen to the girl that served me. She gave me the bag and apologised.
I walked away and opened the bag. The wrapping paper looked familiar. It looked in just about the same half arsed wrapped state I left it when I handed back my burger. It was the same burger I had handed back. This burger was hot though. Almost too hot to touch. All the kitchen had done was zapped the burger to within an inch of its life in a microwave. I'll be fucked if I will accept a re-heated burger.
I went back to the counter and spoke to the girl who had served me again "This burger is the same cold burger I gave you," I said. "I expected a fresh burger and not a microwaved crappy burger."
She looked at me blankly and said, "But it is hot. We heat it for you."
"Please give me a fresh burger," I said. She attempted to take back the burger I had but I said she could have that back when I got a fresh burger.
A few minutes later she returned with a new bag and I give her the old burger. I walked away again opening the bag. This burger seemed hotter than the last one. Unnaturally so. I opened the wrapping and the burger was steaming. The bun was soggy and had that freshly microwaved look and feel. Fuck this I thought.
I went back to the same girl at the counter and said, "This isn't a fresh burger either. It has been microwaved. It is crap. I wanted a fresh burger not microwaved crap."
She looked at me with a slightly surprised look and said "But this is this the way we do it. All the hamburgers are like this."
"In that case," I said, "I want my money back. I wanted a fresh burger and you are only going to give me microwaved crap so please give me my money back." All $2.70 of it. I know, I know, so much angst for so little money. It is a little embarrassing but there is a principle at stake here.
She had a quick word with one of her colleagues and then gave me my money. She still looked a little nonplussed though.
So there you have it. Apparently at the International Terminal at Sydney Airport Hungry Jack's serves microwaved, or, I should say they re-heat pre-prepared burgers. That is shit and I won't put up with it. Fuck 'em.
Oportos was the recipient of my money today. I had a Norm chicken fillet burger. And Mrs Fields for some delicious chocolate chip cookies. Hungry's can go [insert something appropriate here].
As an aside one of the better airport burgers I've ever had was a burger at Burger King at La Paz Airport in Bolivia. Then again it may have just been the altitude. La Paz Airport is at about 4100 metres. I might have been a little light headed and a turd sandwich may have tasted as good. ;-)

Last evening in Tokyo

This is our last night in Tokyo. We'd planned to to do the Michelin thing again but we're too stuffed from lunch. Even going up the Mori Tower wasn't enough exercise to bring back the appetite. Having a god damned sore throat and chest infection didn't help either. But, enough whinging, if we can't go Michelin at least we can go for toast and hot doggies at Doutor. I love Doutor. Doutor Coffee is a Japanese coffee franchise. Their toast is sweet and wonderful and the tiny hot dogs were okay too. Their coffee isn't as good as Starbucks but would do in a pinch. Michelle liked their Milano sandwiches - the A and the B. One was all meat - prosciutto, salami and ham and the other was ham and salad. We'd usually go to Doutor for breakfast but tonight it was nice and easy for a quick bite for dinner.
After Doutor we wandered up the street to our hotel.
We'll still do the Michelin thing for lunch tomorrow before we fly out.

Grand Final Wagyu burger

The Grand Final has come and gone with the Cats falling over the line to upset the Sainters in a classic granny. Poor ol' St Kilda. So now it will be at least another year before they get another shot. 1966 must seem like a long time ago for the poor ol' buggers that have been following these perennial losers. On the bright side they haven't had to wait 70 odd years like the Swans did.
Anyway, congrats to Geelong. Realfooty match report here and here.

Geelong 12.8.80 def St Kilda 9.14.68

But on to other things. As soon as the siren sounded on went the burgers. Mmm, delicious Wagyu burgers. As good as, if not better, than last time. We threw them together the same as the first time. Click here to see how we did it (last time).

Dessert time - musk sticks and a Kit Kat

Cats still in front.

Pizza in front of the box. The footy is on

Cats v Magpies. Cats on top so far.

Wagyu Burger

Home made. I was going give a big "fuck you Neil Perry ours is better than yours" but his Wagyu Burger at Rockpool Bar and Grill is still one of the best burgers I've ever had. This one from Michelle is superb though.

• Topside Wagyu steak (8 score) - a lot cheaper cut than your average Wagyu but still melt in your mouth deliciousness.
• Provolone cheese.
• Eshallots - that's French for onions.
• Santa Rosa tomatoes.
• Hank's Jam Tomato Chutney.
• Red Oak and Baby Cos lettuce.
• Bread rolls from Coles. Yeah, all my usual Vietnamese bakers were closed but the fresh Coles stuff is still better than Baker's Delight.
• The pièce de résistance though is Michelle's home made mayonnaise.

Now there's a piece of cumquat tart to come with my name on it... after I take Copernicus for a walk.

Rockpool Bar & Grill

For takeaway Wagyu burger and fries. Neil Perry is in the kitchen too. No wonder he didn't cook for us at Rockpool last week.
The bottom line? David Blackmore’s Full Blood Wagyu Hamburger
with Bacon, Gruyere Cheese and Zuni Pickle ($22) is awesome. Yeah I'd pay 22 bucks for that... I did in fact. I also had the Hand Cut Chips for $12 and while very good they're just chips and not worth 12 bucks to take away. I'd have them in again though because they really are good chips. Anyway the burger is big and beefy and juicy and the wagyu flavour is the star. It isn't overwhelmed by the Gruyere or the pickle. I'd go as far to say it is better than the wagyu burger from Plan B even though the Plan B wagyu burger is half the price of Rockpool's.

Rockpool Bar and Grill is at 66 Hunter Street Sydney.

The working lunch

Goulburn Maccas

We're going down to Victoria for the Queen's Birthday Long Weekend. Heading to the old stomping grounds in Myrtleford in the beautiful North East of Victoria. Myrtleford is a little town of around 3000 people nestled in the Victorian Alps. I grew up there. We moved away to NSW South Coast on my 17th birthday.

Popcorn

The Surry Hills Festival - Prince Alfred Park

25km in an hour

We need a break.
Horrendous traffic. We were on our way to Mollymook, down the South Coast, for Ben and Sonja's wedding reception thingy. A trip that should've take 3 hours ended up being well over 4 hours.