The Big Mack Daddy Burger

I rang Little Beer Quarter in the morning to see if they had a table for lunch; the call went to a recording which advised me that if I was making a Wellington On A Plate booking to contact them via email, so I did. By 12:20 I hadn’t had a reply, so I wandered down there on the off-chance that they had a space. Not a great start, but they had a table free, which I sat at for 10 minutes before anyone arrived to take my order.

The premise of LBQ's entry in the Burger Wellington competition, The Big Mack Daddy Burger is to make a Big Mac, but better. It arrived looking like this:

Which I guess is how a Big Mac looks when it’s served (I haven’t set foot inside a McDonald’s for many a decade, but I’ve seen the adverts). Inside, it looked like this:

Again, so far, so similar. Now for the differences: firstly, it’s morally superior. Not hard, as McDonald’s is, well, McDonald’s. Secondly, the beef was recognisably meaty, had a flavour, and hadn’t been overcooked. (I realise again that I’m somewhat out of date here…do McDonald’s taste of anything these days? I neither know nor care.) The fries were cut rather oddly: advertised as “hoppy shoestring fries”, they were thin in one dimension, but thick in the other. They were crispy and tasty, though. On the downside, one of the things you expect from a Big Mac is two patties which are even in thickness and diameter, and fit the circumference of the bun – making for an easy, if disgusting, eating experience. This was manifestly not the case here, with two uneven patties distributed oddly inside the three-layered bun, which immediately began to show signs of bun fatigue. The middle section eventually disintegrated and fell out. I would have given in at this point and resorted to a knife and fork, but these were not supplied. The “special sauce” in the bun was quite acidic, and I’m willing to believe a fair facsimile of the real thing. The final note of authenticity was supplied by shredded iceberg lettuce, which tastes of nothing.

Garage Project beer match was Pils’n’Thrills, which was, as ever, a tasty beer. Also a good match, as anything with a stronger flavour would have overwhelmed the burger. Overall, I scored this 6/10 – it was an OK burger, and it achieved what it set out to do, I guess…but that doesn’t automatically make the finished product very good. Coming in at $30 for the burger and beer combo, it's not very good value either - I've paid less for better elsewhere. The moral of this story seems to be that you should go to Little Beer Quarter for the beer, which they’re really good at.