Burger It – BBQ Beef It Burger

Burger It – O’Connell Street, North Adelaide

Having shared a few post work beverages with my burger reviewing colleagues, I had developed quite the appetite and was on the hunt for a beefy treat for my taste-buds.  As is becoming a theme with these reviews, we had planned to survey a different outlet, but on learning there would be over an hour wait, decided to scope out some other nearby offerings.  Enter: ‘Burger It’ – O’Connell Street, North Adelaide

The Venue, Staff & Service

As one does, my colleague and I executed the inter-web based recon on the menu.  Thorough perusal of the same left us somewhat scratching our heads saying, “Where’s all the bacon?… And why does that burger have sliced pear in it?”

The menu itself is vast and unusual and orange.  Another emerging trend that I’m noticing too; is that these places are really struggling with finding good names for their various menu items.  Burgers like “Its beef Satayday” and “Pump and Grind it” left me feeling quite pensive about the whole thing.

Anyway, I digress.  Burger It is a little shop nestled in O’Connell Street North Adelaide.  It was a nice little shop front with a bar setup on the side if you were eating in, some footpath real estate and some tables and chairs about the place.  After much deliberation over the outrageous and diverse menu, dodging random ingredients like plum sauce and fresh coriander, we placed our orders and sat outside.  For myself, I chose the “BBQ Beef It” – which to me seemed like a fairly good looking place to start. The burgers arrived at the table after probably what was a little longer that I would have liked to wait.

The Burger

 Meat Patty

Just getting back to the menu- each and every single beef burger is apparently garnished with 150g of ground beef; an amount, in my opinion that is not quite enough.  The patty itself was a good shape and lean in terms of fat content.  It was probably ever so slightly overdone in the grilling department but worked in a perfectly acceptable fashion with the rest of the burger in the way that it was so acceptably average.  I did note I really had to chew a bit extra on a few occasions and unfortunately that really never impresses me.  In terms of seasoning, probably not enough – although now I think about it more – it seemed like a pretty full on 150g patty. As in, not much filler stuff like breadcrumbs or the like.  Either way, it didn’t make much difference.

Fillings

The BBQ Beef It burger is completed with a BBQ sauce that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.  It didn’t seem like a shelf item, nor it did it have a particularly home-made feel about it.  I can tell you however that it was a little overly-sweet and that there was just the right amount of it.  The cheese was cheddar and it was thrown in there on top of the patty straight out of the fridge.  On top of that, there was the tomato, iceberg lettuce and a morsel of red onion.  I also discovered some mayo in there somewhere too which was pretty cool.  One thing that struck me was how fresh the lettuce and tomato where. A beautiful clean, crisp, crunch packed with flavour.  Very redeeming features.

Roll

The bun was pretty good but didn’t blow me away. It was a normal burger item, untoasted/warmed, dusted with flour and was nice and fresh.  It did however overall seem a little dry, but I could be blamed for being too picky on that point.

Sides

Some nicely seasoned chips were presented to us in a well sized bowl.  Cooked pretty well perfectly, they were hard to fault and the bowl was emptied very quickly.  These came at a cost of $3, which we think is fair. $1 for dipping sauces.

Value

This was somewhat of a sticking point for Nick and I.  Ill point out at this juncture that I generally carry with me a big appetite.  While I felt satisfied after the burger and half a bowl of chips I don’t think the price of $10.40 for the burger alone is justified.  I definitely would have remained hungry and I am aware of places where I can get a FAR superior burger for the same coin.

Overall/Summary

I’m just having a further look at the menu as a write this, finding myself so overly confused by the pricing structure.  There are burgers with more exotic ingredients like avocado and beetroot that cost less than my very plain-Jane burger, for what it seems had me paying nearly $3 extra for the benefit alone of having BBQ sauce.

I am conflicted about Burger It.  Overall my experience was not anything to write home about, especially given the value score.  If I had paid between $6 and $8 for what I got, things may have very well been looking up, but the bottom line is that the burger doesn’t really reflect the restaurant tag line of ‘Seriously Good Burgers’.

I am going to say though that I will go back to burger it and try some of their other more weird looking combinations as they have certainly intrigued me.  I’ll report back in the future.

Score: 4.2