Three stupendously awesome burgers

I would make a terrible food blogger. Here’s a post about three phenomenal burgers, and I have no pictures of any of them to share with you.

This was probably a testament to the incredible nature of these beasts – there was simply no time for pause and reflection. It was just eat or.. well. Actually, that was just it. Eat. Instead of photos I’ve used my best Paint skills in order to recreate these burgers for you.

You’ll probably notice I’m not very good at Paint.

Without further ado let me introduce my three favourite burgers from my time in Australia and New Zealand. Other countries will probably follow, once they’ve caught up to the burger making technology that our antipodean cousins have already mastered. In ascending order of greatness, I’ll start with number three… the

Vegetarian burger of Tasmania

Sweet mother of god you are probably thinking, (or sweet mother of Dawkins, if you’re of the atheist bent) the man is a fool. He’s starting off a post about burgers with a vegetarian option. Is there nothing sacred left in the world? Apparently not.

Way down in the town of Launceston on the island of Tasmania, there is a cafe. Which only serves vegetarian food. A meat based option was never going to be on the cards here. So I ordered the lentil burger, which came with a satay sauce, and was served on a bed of something leafy.

This, when it arrived, was a testament to what great vegetarian food is supposed to be. Incredible flavours, unexpectedly blended together to form a taste sensation like no other. A must. If every cow died tomorrow, I’d be safe knowing that this burger is out there as a standby until science figures out how to grow cow meat in vats. Enough now of the non meat options. Let’s move on to:

The burger with the lot

Australia was the first place in the world where I learnt that beetroot is a viable burger topping. Previous to my adventures down under, I had had no idea that such a thing was feasible, let alone edible.

In Australia, when you order a burger with “the lot”, you quite literally get a burger with pretty much everything you can imagine stuffed on top of it. Including a slice of beetroot.

My first memorable experience of such a feast was in the Western Australian town of Kununurra, (try spelling that after a couple of whiskies).

In Kununurra, having just come from a few weeks living off tinned food in the bush, it seemed only fair to try out the local delicacy. Which in this case was a burger served with the aforementioned lot.

It would be unfair to describe this burger as the largest I’ve ever had, as that honour goes to the next burger in my list. But certainly up to that point in my life, this was up there with the greats.

A mound of burger sat atop a mighty bun, sagging with the weight of accompaniments which included pickle, beetroot, fried egg, shaved carrot (they really are a bit odd in the outback), artery clogging amounts of cheese, pineapple, onion, bacon… yes. This was the sort of food that probably killed Elvis.

So how do I go about beating that? Well, only with the most amazing burger I’ve ever eaten. I introduce the, spoken of only in hushed whispers…

Fergburger

If you’ve had the pleasure of visiting Queenstown on the southern island of New Zealand, you will probably be aware of the local legend that is Fergburger.

Word of this establishment reached me during my time on the North island, some 1000km away, when I was manning a hostel reception. Travellers would ask me to recommend a local burger establishment. Usually, I’d recommend a venue, which in my mind served admirable meaty feasts, only to be asked, in soft tones, if I’d ever had a Fergburger. I would reply no. They would peer at me mournfully.

Because it turns out, no burger joint in the world, or at least, Rotorua, that I could recommend, would be able to serve up anything comparable to the Fergburger, A fact I learnt for myself when I eventually made it to the establishment in question.

There was no doubt in my mind, upon arriving at this burger joint, that I was about to experience a once in a lifetime burger. And since this was likely to be a once in a lifetime experience, I immediately ordered the largest burger available on the menu – the “Big Al”.

This thing, when it arrived, put previous burgers in my life to shame. It was home, for example, to two fried eggs. Somewhere. Competing for space in the bun with two massive slabs of burger. And bacon. And of course cheese. And onion. And Aioli. And, because New Zealand is practically Australia, beetroot. And more things. The whole thing was at least the size of my head, and jaw dislocation was looking to be a serious problem.

I did order fries to go with it. These weren’t really necessary, and I had them cold for dinner instead.

The experience was incredible. Even if I then did need a little lie down.

Those were three of my most favourite burgers from two years of careful burger sampling around NZ and Australia. Do you have a burger that you think could top these? Share away in the comments below!