The Hackney Hotel
Our third adventure takes us to the Hackney Hotel. This place had not been on our initial oh-you-simply-MUST-try-their-burgers list, however, in the past week I've had a few people approach me and notify me that the Hackney Hotel had won the SA Pub Burger Challenge in South Australia's chapter of the Australian Hotel Association's annual award in 2013.
So, of course, we decided that we simply MUST try this award-winning burger.
The Hackney Hotel is a pretty classy looking place. The ambience is lovely, the music is at just the right volume to hold a conversation and the menu seemed to have a lot to offer. Of course, the four of us (we had Hungry Hungry Hippo's brother join us) only had eyes for Burgerland - possibly the most excitingly titled mini sub-menu I've ever seen! A WHOLE LAND OF BURGERS!!!!!
We didn't even really look at the list. Well, Chicken (hereinafter referred to as 'Spicy Chicken' for this night only, thanks to being in a rather spicy mood) did take a gander at a few of the others on the list, but in the end we all opted for the "The Award Goes To..."It is stated as having two 100g wagyu beef patties, pickles, double cheddar, mixed leaves, tomato, mustard, tomato relish, aioli.
To be certain, I ordered mine without onion, but when doing so was advised that the patty itself has onion. This made me stop and think for a moment, which ultimately led to Hungry Hungry Hippo's and my first argument. I will get to this in due course. Spicy Chicken had the foresight to think this was going to be a big burger and ordered hers with a single patty.
First impressions... The burger is pretty. It's nice to look at. To be honest, it's probably the prettiest burger we've come across so far. It's tall and full and the bun has a nice gloss, but it's crusty (you can tell when you touch it) and toasty warm. My favourite thing on first glance? SESAME SEEDS!!!! Oh those little speckles how I've missed their shining presence these past few weeks!!
The first bite is yum! It's tasty and flavoursome and best of all, the whole burger stays together! There's a pickle (to keep me happy) and the burger is a decent double handful. At this point I'm getting really excited that this burger might just be the one.
This is where my excitement stops. Two more bites in and I've lost the pickle flavour, the meat has become very dry and yet again the flavour of the mustard took over EVERYTHING ELSE. Spicy Chicken turned to me and stated, quite succinctly, "mustard is a hot dog condiment. There is no place for mustard on a burger."
So from now on, no more mustard on my burgers. At this point I'm also starting to think that we were too harsh in judging Street ADL, because that burger runs RINGS around these others we've tasted. It soon becomes clear that the way I feel about this burger is the way I've felt about many of the men in my life recently. It was exciting and yummy to begin with, but I lost interest long before I ought to have been finished with it.
So, of course, we decided that we simply MUST try this award-winning burger.
The Hackney Hotel is a pretty classy looking place. The ambience is lovely, the music is at just the right volume to hold a conversation and the menu seemed to have a lot to offer. Of course, the four of us (we had Hungry Hungry Hippo's brother join us) only had eyes for Burgerland - possibly the most excitingly titled mini sub-menu I've ever seen! A WHOLE LAND OF BURGERS!!!!!
We didn't even really look at the list. Well, Chicken (hereinafter referred to as 'Spicy Chicken' for this night only, thanks to being in a rather spicy mood) did take a gander at a few of the others on the list, but in the end we all opted for the "The Award Goes To..."It is stated as having two 100g wagyu beef patties, pickles, double cheddar, mixed leaves, tomato, mustard, tomato relish, aioli.
To be certain, I ordered mine without onion, but when doing so was advised that the patty itself has onion. This made me stop and think for a moment, which ultimately led to Hungry Hungry Hippo's and my first argument. I will get to this in due course. Spicy Chicken had the foresight to think this was going to be a big burger and ordered hers with a single patty.
First impressions... The burger is pretty. It's nice to look at. To be honest, it's probably the prettiest burger we've come across so far. It's tall and full and the bun has a nice gloss, but it's crusty (you can tell when you touch it) and toasty warm. My favourite thing on first glance? SESAME SEEDS!!!! Oh those little speckles how I've missed their shining presence these past few weeks!!
The first bite is yum! It's tasty and flavoursome and best of all, the whole burger stays together! There's a pickle (to keep me happy) and the burger is a decent double handful. At this point I'm getting really excited that this burger might just be the one.
This is where my excitement stops. Two more bites in and I've lost the pickle flavour, the meat has become very dry and yet again the flavour of the mustard took over EVERYTHING ELSE. Spicy Chicken turned to me and stated, quite succinctly, "mustard is a hot dog condiment. There is no place for mustard on a burger."
So from now on, no more mustard on my burgers. At this point I'm also starting to think that we were too harsh in judging Street ADL, because that burger runs RINGS around these others we've tasted. It soon becomes clear that the way I feel about this burger is the way I've felt about many of the men in my life recently. It was exciting and yummy to begin with, but I lost interest long before I ought to have been finished with it.
Here is the source of contention within our little group this evening. I had a problem with the fact that it is supposed to be a wagyu patty, which should in and of itself be of a high quality with a decent fat content to keep the meat juicy, and in my opinion a good quality patty should be made up of only beef with a little seasoning. Hungry Hungry Hippo vehemently disagreed with me on this, stating that he believed a good patty benefits from having added herbs, spices, or in this case, onion, to increase the flavour.
I may well be particularly biased against the addition of onion due to my body not dealing with it so well, but here I am, three hours after finishing the burger and I can still taste the onion (which was not properly cooked through despite the patty itself being overcooked and dry), my stomach is bloated and hurting, and tomorrow morning I'm likely to have a headache, possibly a migraine. This did not happen on the other two occasions when the burger was purely steak. I really don't think a burger patty ought to have onion or anything major added to it. **I** think the quality of a burger patty should come from the quality of the steak it's ground from, and for a WAGYU patty, I just didn't think it should need anything added to it, and for the fact that Hungry Hungry Hippo thought that the onion added to the meat, it can't have been that high a quality patty to begin with.
Stern words were exchanged. Don't worry, you can breathe a sigh of relief - we did make up afterwards and there will be an episode 4, but I felt it necessary to share that we DO have differing opinions, and also to point out that our rating system is actually based on an average of our individual scores, so as to make a less biased judgement on all the burgers and to give an objective opinion, rather than that of just one person.
ANYWAY!! Enough of that. To the rating...
Bun 5/10
Spicy Chicken notes that it's "just a bun."
I think it's more of a bread roll.
It's average.
It's a little dry.
Hungry Hungry Hippo gives it a bonus point for sesame seeds.
Patty 5/10
All three of us, despite our little spat, rated this one evenly at 5/10. It was overcooked, too skinny (again, I like my burgers like I like my men ;) - a little on the juicier side) and Spicy Chicken made the comment that it should have been one bigger, juicy patty, rather than two little skinny ones. The burger didn't need to be a double decker, and I personally think that if the meat was treated with a bit more care and made to be the highlight, it would've been a far superior burger.
Value for Money 7/10
This one got bonus points for coming with fries. The fries were gooooooooooood too. The size of the burger was enough to fill all of us up including Spicy Chicken who only had a single patty, AND Hungry Hungry Hippo, who was, well, hungry! For the first time on Burger Quest 2014 he was actually FULL at the end. Spicy Chicken liked the fact that it was not just a burger, but rather that it was a whole meal (which is a fancy way of saying it comes with chips) and I thought that even though it was the most expensive of the lot, we were offered the most on our plates and really, it was mostly worth it.
Balance and Composition 7/10
All of our plates were relatively clean at the end. The burgers didn't drip and the fillings, despite being plentiful, didn't fall out the back. Hungry Hungry Hippo made a lovely little summation, "aside from the patty, the burger didn't seem dry, and yet there was not a drop on the plate. That's an art!"
Spicy Chicken liked the chunky slices of tomato and the pickle sliced lengthways, but she was not so much into the mixed leaves, claiming, "it's just a mesclun mix from Coles!!" (she was in a spicy mood tonight for sure). She did say that the cheese added very little (we all agreed) and that when you add cheese to a burger, it instantly becomes a cheeseburger, so should really be about the cheese too! This one missed out, but it didn't necessarily detract from it, but you wouldn't have known it had double cheddar.
I found the burger to be a little dry, mostly because of the overcooked patty. I also could not taste the aioli at all, despite even adding more to it (thanks to Hungry Hungry Hippo ordering some extra aioli for our chips) and the tomato relish just seemed more like a fancy word for ketchup in this instance.
Yeah, OK so my comments may be harsh, but I'm a little dirty over the undercooked onion OK?!
Flavour 6/10
I thought it was initially good, but I had lost interest by halfway through. After a couple of bites I opened the burger to inspect the insides, and I was pretty disappointed by the two TINY slices of pickle (see photo below) but even so the pickles were the spiced kind, rather than the really pickly kind. Call me fussy, but the last two places had the right idea with their pickling of their pickles. Hungry Hungry Hippo loved the flavour of his burger and gave it his highest rating yet, and Spicy Chicken thought it was alright, but it needed more pickles.
Overall 6/10
Maybe I'm just cynical in my old age, but I stand by my previous assertion that a good quality burger should speak for itself and not need a gazillion other ingredients (or onion. at all.) to make it tasty. Hungry Hungry Hippo said he'd recommend coming here for a burger, but he wouldn't point out that it was award winning. Spicy Chicken retorted (in a rather loud, out-of-character voice, I might add {told you she was in a spicy mood}), "award winning MY BUTT!!" and yet she said she'd recommend coming to the Hackney Hotel, but not for a burger. I'm not certain I'd recommend the burger, but I'm starting to think that I've got REALLY HIGH STANDARDS (sorry not sorry).
The Hackney Hotel is located at 95 Hackney Road, Hackney
I may well be particularly biased against the addition of onion due to my body not dealing with it so well, but here I am, three hours after finishing the burger and I can still taste the onion (which was not properly cooked through despite the patty itself being overcooked and dry), my stomach is bloated and hurting, and tomorrow morning I'm likely to have a headache, possibly a migraine. This did not happen on the other two occasions when the burger was purely steak. I really don't think a burger patty ought to have onion or anything major added to it. **I** think the quality of a burger patty should come from the quality of the steak it's ground from, and for a WAGYU patty, I just didn't think it should need anything added to it, and for the fact that Hungry Hungry Hippo thought that the onion added to the meat, it can't have been that high a quality patty to begin with.
Stern words were exchanged. Don't worry, you can breathe a sigh of relief - we did make up afterwards and there will be an episode 4, but I felt it necessary to share that we DO have differing opinions, and also to point out that our rating system is actually based on an average of our individual scores, so as to make a less biased judgement on all the burgers and to give an objective opinion, rather than that of just one person.
ANYWAY!! Enough of that. To the rating...
Bun 5/10
Spicy Chicken notes that it's "just a bun."
I think it's more of a bread roll.
It's average.
It's a little dry.
Hungry Hungry Hippo gives it a bonus point for sesame seeds.
Patty 5/10
All three of us, despite our little spat, rated this one evenly at 5/10. It was overcooked, too skinny (again, I like my burgers like I like my men ;) - a little on the juicier side) and Spicy Chicken made the comment that it should have been one bigger, juicy patty, rather than two little skinny ones. The burger didn't need to be a double decker, and I personally think that if the meat was treated with a bit more care and made to be the highlight, it would've been a far superior burger.
Value for Money 7/10
This one got bonus points for coming with fries. The fries were gooooooooooood too. The size of the burger was enough to fill all of us up including Spicy Chicken who only had a single patty, AND Hungry Hungry Hippo, who was, well, hungry! For the first time on Burger Quest 2014 he was actually FULL at the end. Spicy Chicken liked the fact that it was not just a burger, but rather that it was a whole meal (which is a fancy way of saying it comes with chips) and I thought that even though it was the most expensive of the lot, we were offered the most on our plates and really, it was mostly worth it.
Balance and Composition 7/10
All of our plates were relatively clean at the end. The burgers didn't drip and the fillings, despite being plentiful, didn't fall out the back. Hungry Hungry Hippo made a lovely little summation, "aside from the patty, the burger didn't seem dry, and yet there was not a drop on the plate. That's an art!"
Spicy Chicken liked the chunky slices of tomato and the pickle sliced lengthways, but she was not so much into the mixed leaves, claiming, "it's just a mesclun mix from Coles!!" (she was in a spicy mood tonight for sure). She did say that the cheese added very little (we all agreed) and that when you add cheese to a burger, it instantly becomes a cheeseburger, so should really be about the cheese too! This one missed out, but it didn't necessarily detract from it, but you wouldn't have known it had double cheddar.
I found the burger to be a little dry, mostly because of the overcooked patty. I also could not taste the aioli at all, despite even adding more to it (thanks to Hungry Hungry Hippo ordering some extra aioli for our chips) and the tomato relish just seemed more like a fancy word for ketchup in this instance.
Yeah, OK so my comments may be harsh, but I'm a little dirty over the undercooked onion OK?!
Flavour 6/10
I thought it was initially good, but I had lost interest by halfway through. After a couple of bites I opened the burger to inspect the insides, and I was pretty disappointed by the two TINY slices of pickle (see photo below) but even so the pickles were the spiced kind, rather than the really pickly kind. Call me fussy, but the last two places had the right idea with their pickling of their pickles. Hungry Hungry Hippo loved the flavour of his burger and gave it his highest rating yet, and Spicy Chicken thought it was alright, but it needed more pickles.
Overall 6/10
Maybe I'm just cynical in my old age, but I stand by my previous assertion that a good quality burger should speak for itself and not need a gazillion other ingredients (or onion. at all.) to make it tasty. Hungry Hungry Hippo said he'd recommend coming here for a burger, but he wouldn't point out that it was award winning. Spicy Chicken retorted (in a rather loud, out-of-character voice, I might add {told you she was in a spicy mood}), "award winning MY BUTT!!" and yet she said she'd recommend coming to the Hackney Hotel, but not for a burger. I'm not certain I'd recommend the burger, but I'm starting to think that I've got REALLY HIGH STANDARDS (sorry not sorry).
The Hackney Hotel is located at 95 Hackney Road, Hackney