Street ADL
Hungry Hungry Hippo and I had both heard a lot about this place and we were pretty freaking excited to check it out. With the former head chef of Magill Estate, Jock Zonfrillo at the helm of this funky new eatery in Adelaide's East End, it's no surprise that our expectations were up there!
First impression on entering is that this place is cute. Chicken describes it as 'funky' and she's right. It is funky, with its industrial interior and lighting, concrete ceilings and black and white artwork painted straight on the walls. Hungry Hungry Hippo ordered our cheeseburgers off the retro backlit menu board and got some water for the table, and he made sure to order a few sides of chips and we were ready to roll!
The burger comes out and my oh my, what a first impression! It is presented in a little cardboard box, ready to take away if you don't have the time to sit and eat. The pickle and onion are respectfully served on the side for those who may prefer to omit them. Personally, I cannot imagine a great burger without a pickle, but as I can't eat onion I left mine out altogether.
Picking up the burger, it is nice and weighty for its size, indicating a decent quantity of filling. The bread is cold though, which is a little disappointing. However, upon first bite this is almost forgotten. Almost.
The meat is meaty, and cooked to a perfect, even medium. It's not like eating a gristly ground mince patty; the quality is apparent. It is obvious that the patty is made from steak. Nothing quite beats a decent hunk of meat. ;)
The sauce is tasty and smoky, but lacking in quantity. It's a shame, because I would have liked more. There wasn't quite enough mayonnaise either, but having said that, what little of it there was, was sensational.
The cheese? I felt it brought very little to the burger. Considering this was a cheeseburger this was a bit disappointing.
My second favourite part of this burger, however, was that playful little pickle. Actually, who am I kidding? It wasn't little - it was a very reasonable size! A whole pickle, sliced lengthways, meaning it was able to be evenly spread inside the burger. This pickle was crunchy. It was tart. It added the perfect textural contrast to the soft bun and chewy patty. I'd gladly munch on those pickles for days. Without the pickle, this burger would not have hit the mark.
The fries? At the price tag of $6.90 for a very small serving with an additional $2.90 for each tiny tub of sauce, they were definitely not worth spending the extra money on. They were perfectly crunchy fries, but too expensive to be worth it.
So, to the rating...
Bun 5/10
The bun was lovely and soft, not too sweet and it had a light, appealing glaze, but Chicken and I both felt it needed to be lightly toasted, or at the very least warmed through (although Hungry Hungry Hippo did not agree on this point) and I also felt it would have benefited from a light sprinkling of sesame seeds. Unfortunately, the bun had disintegrated by the time we got to the end of the burger.
Patty 9/10
Delicious, thick, substantial and with that real steak taste. The quality here was obvious and it is going to be hard to top this patty. Chicken comments that it was the perfect size for the bun, and I couldn't agree more. It was cooked evenly medium throughout; it was pink and juicy and close enough to perfect as I think we'll find.
Value for Money 5/10
The size was definitely just enough to fill me up, but there wasn't a lot more to it. It was not huge, and for $14.90 I would probably expect a little bit more. Hungry Hungry Hippo could have eaten more, and he suggested that for that price tag he'd have expected that fries should have been included on the side.
Balance & Composition 7/10
Perfect meat-to-bun ratio. There was definitely not enough sauce, the bacon was kind of missing and for a cheeseburger it wasn't cheesy at all, but the pickle tied it together in a way that nothing else would have the ability to do. Hungry Hungry Hippo wanted to add that the onion was a nice addition also.
Taste 8/10
Everything we tasted was excellent. I could not complain about the flavour of this burger. It was delicious. The sauces were lacking only because there was not enough of them, and I'd have liked a bit more of a cheesy punch. The bacon may as well have been left out as it added very little. Overall though a VERY tasty burger.
Overall 6.8/10
I would definitely recommend coming here for a burger, but bring some spare change.
Street ADL is located at 285 Rundle Street, Adelaide