Go Native Lamb Burger

Another day, another meat sandwich masquerading as a burger. Le sigh.

It was a lovely winter’s day, so we decided to go for a walk in Zealandia and see if we could photograph the elusive saddlebacks. As we made our way inside the sanctuary, we heard the distinctive call, and sure enough, there was one feeding in a tree. Would it come out from behind the branches to have its picture taken? It would not.

We soldiered on, and later, up in the Discovery Area, we came across two more saddlebacks disporting themselves on the ground and in the trees. This time I got a decent shot (there’s more on facebook):

We also saw kakariki, hihi, bellbirds, a robin or two, and some kereru, as well as the inevitable tuis and shags. We also saw some grey warblers but they were being shy so I didn’t get any pics of them.

We then headed to the Rata café, there to lunch upon the Go Native Lamb Burger. It sounded good:

Horopito-infused roast lamb with Zany Zeus halloumi and homegrown pikopiko pesto on a Pandoro bun, with handcut kinaki spiced kumara chips and piripiri mayo. Garage Project beer match: Angry Peaches

And it looked like this:

When it arrived, it was immediately apparent that it fell into the "meat sandwich" category - and of overcooked roast lamb. The first attempt to eat it like a burger failed, as the bun was too crumbly. The promised Zany Zeus halloumi was there, but only in a small measure, and hadn’t been well cooked. Accompanied by soggy kumara “chips” that had the hallmarks of having been around all day, and a piripiri mayonnaise that wouldn’t register on the Scoville scale, the whole sorry mess was a disappointment. I scored it 4/10.

Tomorrow, I'm going to eat a PROPER burger.