THE EMPIRE
That’s right, after how many requests – we finally fuckin did it!
Right so burgerlovers. The usual,
Why here? well it actually wasn’t my idea, Had a work meeting / catch up and said catch up person always knows how to pick a big feed place so I wasn’t complaining when he suggested we go here. Parking was fine cause we got there before the rush, well I did but that’s another story. It’s rather tucked away and was a little mission to get to, its in a group of corner shops so there are maybe 6 parks outside shared with a dairy and a booze shop. Plenty of street parking tho.
Now usual disclosure BS, I paid for lunch, they had no idea it was under review so nothing anyone else shouldn’t experience yadda yadda
We decided tho, cause we knew it was under review to half each of the burgers to give them a good try, so we ordered a Big J’s Super Steak Burger and a Big J’s Chicken & Bacon Burger
Super Steak
– Garlic/ Herb Marinated Steak
– Bacon
– Saute Mushroom
– Cheddar Cheese
$10.00
Chicken and Bacon
– Marinated Chicken Breast ( we went with spicy)
– Bacon
$9.50
Plus a shared side of chips $3.00
Now one issue I was made aware of by you guys was ” prepare to wait ” so we had planned to get there just before the lunch rush which we kinda didn’t but since we were eating in the dude was super awesome and bumped us so we only had to wait 20 mins, which worked out great for Ed cause it showed up just as he finally did. There were a heap of orders stacked up ready to go out. In the time I was sitting there at least 20 people had come and gone picking up their orders some just a burger some seemingly had small armies to feed.
Firstly let me just say, we would have gone for one of the mental specials but since this was my first time and we had the purpose of reviewing it, I wanted to stick to their staple menu options so I asked what was popular and that’s what we ended up with. Actually also, One thing to consider, this isn’t a rival for someone like Burgerfuel as a business model anyway, essentially this is a fish n chip shop take away that’s become popular for making epic takeaway burgers. There are only 3 tables inside and 2 outside. Given they are a takeaway that’s not unreasonable, however if they choose to expand in the future seeing some more seating would be awesome.
So the Burgers, I started on the Chicken and Bacon, again we opted for spicy which was a fuckin great idea if I say so myself, There was quite a lot going on in this burger the spice was just right, plenty of temprature and flavour, often spicy gets over done when they are trying to show off but this was spot on. Given how much was going on in this from the condiments I was impressed that it wasn’t soggy. It certainly wasn’t dry but it wasn’t falling apart either, size wise I’d say this is between a quarter pounder from maccas and a large Burgerfuel burger? It wasn’t massive but it sure wasn’t small either. So yeah tones of flavour and wasn’t falling apart – for a sub $10 burger this is hard to fault and harder to beat
Super Steak
Lived up to its name, there was half a cow in this thing, layers upon layers of beef, plenty of bacon and cheese. and a token hat tip of green stuff buried right at the bottom. This is how burgers should be made. You can see more so in this picture how the sauces havent penetrated the bun so much to become soggy. If I had to make one criticism I’d say it could have been cooked maybe hotter to get that burnt taste a bit more, it was all very well cooked but sometimes a bit extra goes a long way for flavour. Again for $10 this is a hell of a burger, quality through out was top notch and it didn’t leave me wanting.
I think the thing to remember as I said before, this is effectively a Fish n Chip shop that’s gone out on a limb and it’s hit a heart string in thousands and become very well known for crazy burgers at a high standard. Having now experienced it first had I would say that’s entirely well deserved. It was rather impressive the quality of what was flying out the door given how much was flying out the door, the whole time we were there it was non stop madness in the kitchen, everyone going a thousand miles an hour. If you’re ever get the stars align in your favour that you’re in the area and plan to be for a while, order ahead or go well outside of peak times and treat yourself. I really hope our next meeting is there again so I can try some of their other offerings.
Until next time burger lovers! let us know where else we should go in the comments below
– Nick
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