A cold night in the hills
Tonight saw us go for a little drive into the hills, to the Stirling Hotel.
It's a cold night, so we were more than pleased to step inside to the fire-warmed bistro area. It really is a lovely warm atmosphere and let's face it - a little bit fancy.
We haven't had a lot of luck with pub burgers so far, and this one... well, this one is PRICEY. Hungry Hungry Hippo, Chipolatte and I order the Bacon Double Cheeseburger (Kanmantoo bacon, Jack cheese, ketchup, American mustard, pickle, chips) @ $24 (yes, twenty four dollars a pop), Fried Rice goes for the Stirling Angus Beef Burger (Jack cheese, pineapple, onion ring, iceburg lettuce, spicy tomato relish, chips) @ $20 and newcomer Mother of Pearl goes for the straight up Cheeseburger, which is a far more reasonable $16.
The burgers come out and the three of us who went for the double all raise our eyebrows the moment we see the things. Nobody could have put it better than Hungry Hungry Hippo, who said, and I quote, "Whoa. This is ridiculous."
Chicken (who is eating salmon tonight - she's gone off burgers lately) comments on how cute the chips look in their little paper cups, and the first thing I notice once I get over the sheer enormity of this burger is that the bacon has far too much unrendered, undercooked fat on it and I think that's disgusting. Chipolatte and Hungry Hungry Hippo like that concept, but they're boys and boys are a bit gross.
It's a cold night, so we were more than pleased to step inside to the fire-warmed bistro area. It really is a lovely warm atmosphere and let's face it - a little bit fancy.
We haven't had a lot of luck with pub burgers so far, and this one... well, this one is PRICEY. Hungry Hungry Hippo, Chipolatte and I order the Bacon Double Cheeseburger (Kanmantoo bacon, Jack cheese, ketchup, American mustard, pickle, chips) @ $24 (yes, twenty four dollars a pop), Fried Rice goes for the Stirling Angus Beef Burger (Jack cheese, pineapple, onion ring, iceburg lettuce, spicy tomato relish, chips) @ $20 and newcomer Mother of Pearl goes for the straight up Cheeseburger, which is a far more reasonable $16.
The burgers come out and the three of us who went for the double all raise our eyebrows the moment we see the things. Nobody could have put it better than Hungry Hungry Hippo, who said, and I quote, "Whoa. This is ridiculous."
Chicken (who is eating salmon tonight - she's gone off burgers lately) comments on how cute the chips look in their little paper cups, and the first thing I notice once I get over the sheer enormity of this burger is that the bacon has far too much unrendered, undercooked fat on it and I think that's disgusting. Chipolatte and Hungry Hungry Hippo like that concept, but they're boys and boys are a bit gross.
What did we think?
I'll warn you - we didn't think very highly of this one...
Bun 3/10
I thought it was too soft, it was mush and by the end it was virtually nothing.
Hungry Hungry Hippo said, "one word: soggy."
Fried Rice commented that it was not toasty at all, it couldn't hold the sauce and it slipped out of the bottom.
Mother of Pearl commented that she had to hold it upside down to keep the burger together (which, incidentally, I had to do too).
Patty 4/10
Having two patties this size is ridiculous; even Hungry Hungry Hippo (who is notoriously hungry hungry) pulled one out to eat the burger with a single patty. At first, he commented that it smelled amazing, but it was ridiculous in size, and when he'd pulled one patty out, it was inedible on its own.
I asked what sort of meat was used for the patty as it wasn't specified on the menu, and was told that it was apparently Angus beef, but I could swear that there was some lamb in the mix too, because lamb makes me gag and I won't go into detail about how sick this meat made me feel. Mother of Pearl added that she could taste lamb too (so it wasn't just me).
Hungry Hungry Hippo said that there was definitely something fishy about the patty, to which Chicken responded, "There's something sheepish about it!!"
Chipolatte said he didn't mind it so much when one of the patties was taken out, but the taste of the patty deteriorated as he went on.
Fried Rice said that his patty was pretty good - keeping in mind he did have the Angus beef. He tasted some of Chipolatte's patty to compare and said that his own was far superior.
Value 2/10
The only comment we wanted to include on this matter was what Fried Rice said: "it wasn't skimpy, I'm full at the end of it, but that was not a $20 burger."
Balance & Composition 2/10
Chipolatte said that when he took one patty out of the burger, the balance & composition score doubled for him.
Fried Rice said that on his, it was all a bit sweet. He wasn't a big fan of the pineapple and found the relish to be too sweet too, it needed more salt to balance it (could've done with some bacon or something) but Chicken said it sounded more like he was eating a fruit salad than a burger.
Hungry Hungry Hippo: "If you're telling me that that meat to everything else ratio is well balanced, you're kidding yourself!"
Chipolatte: "There's more balance on a tightrope!"
Mother of Pearl: "There's more balance in my accounting books!"
Me: "I had more balance the first time I rode a bike without training wheels!'
Let's face it, even after that ridiculous price tag, there's still more balance in my bank account than there was on that burger.
Flavour 3/10
Chicken says that a burger needs ketchup, NOT STINKIN RELISH!!
Hungry Hungry Hippo gives his a 1/10 plus 2 for the Kanmantoo bacon and plus 1 for the pickles.
Mother of Pearl commented that there were sufficient pickles and the flavours were well infused. It was juicy enough and the flavours worked fairly well.
Chipolatte liked the pickles & mustard, but the patty detracted from the flavour significantly.
Hungry Hungry Hippo enjoyed the mild, smoky undertones, but said it wasn't moreish.
Chicken: "It was lessish!!"
Fried Rice's was too sweet, needed saltiness and he expected a lot more.
Overall: 2.8/10
Mother of Pearl: "The chips don't even compare with Burgastronomy or Nordburger. They're very ordinary."
Chicken: "Yeah, they're short, they're thin... these are the kinds of chips you get at the Royal Show." (with an almost disgusted look on her face)
Fried Rice has the final say here, that the danger of eating burgers at a place with a very high price tag is that we tend to judge every aspect of the burger with that price tag in mind. He makes a fair point, but we have done this since day dot - we faced the same issue at Street ADL where the overall burger was seriously AMAZING, but because of the price tag it left a bit of a bitter taste in our mouths. Tonight was tarred with that same brush, but that yucky taste in my mouth is still hanging around, unfortunately.
The Stirling Hotel can be found at 52 Mount Barker Road, Stirling.
I'll warn you - we didn't think very highly of this one...
Bun 3/10
I thought it was too soft, it was mush and by the end it was virtually nothing.
Hungry Hungry Hippo said, "one word: soggy."
Fried Rice commented that it was not toasty at all, it couldn't hold the sauce and it slipped out of the bottom.
Mother of Pearl commented that she had to hold it upside down to keep the burger together (which, incidentally, I had to do too).
Patty 4/10
Having two patties this size is ridiculous; even Hungry Hungry Hippo (who is notoriously hungry hungry) pulled one out to eat the burger with a single patty. At first, he commented that it smelled amazing, but it was ridiculous in size, and when he'd pulled one patty out, it was inedible on its own.
I asked what sort of meat was used for the patty as it wasn't specified on the menu, and was told that it was apparently Angus beef, but I could swear that there was some lamb in the mix too, because lamb makes me gag and I won't go into detail about how sick this meat made me feel. Mother of Pearl added that she could taste lamb too (so it wasn't just me).
Hungry Hungry Hippo said that there was definitely something fishy about the patty, to which Chicken responded, "There's something sheepish about it!!"
Chipolatte said he didn't mind it so much when one of the patties was taken out, but the taste of the patty deteriorated as he went on.
Fried Rice said that his patty was pretty good - keeping in mind he did have the Angus beef. He tasted some of Chipolatte's patty to compare and said that his own was far superior.
Value 2/10
The only comment we wanted to include on this matter was what Fried Rice said: "it wasn't skimpy, I'm full at the end of it, but that was not a $20 burger."
Balance & Composition 2/10
Chipolatte said that when he took one patty out of the burger, the balance & composition score doubled for him.
Fried Rice said that on his, it was all a bit sweet. He wasn't a big fan of the pineapple and found the relish to be too sweet too, it needed more salt to balance it (could've done with some bacon or something) but Chicken said it sounded more like he was eating a fruit salad than a burger.
Hungry Hungry Hippo: "If you're telling me that that meat to everything else ratio is well balanced, you're kidding yourself!"
Chipolatte: "There's more balance on a tightrope!"
Mother of Pearl: "There's more balance in my accounting books!"
Me: "I had more balance the first time I rode a bike without training wheels!'
Let's face it, even after that ridiculous price tag, there's still more balance in my bank account than there was on that burger.
Flavour 3/10
Chicken says that a burger needs ketchup, NOT STINKIN RELISH!!
Hungry Hungry Hippo gives his a 1/10 plus 2 for the Kanmantoo bacon and plus 1 for the pickles.
Mother of Pearl commented that there were sufficient pickles and the flavours were well infused. It was juicy enough and the flavours worked fairly well.
Chipolatte liked the pickles & mustard, but the patty detracted from the flavour significantly.
Hungry Hungry Hippo enjoyed the mild, smoky undertones, but said it wasn't moreish.
Chicken: "It was lessish!!"
Fried Rice's was too sweet, needed saltiness and he expected a lot more.
Overall: 2.8/10
Mother of Pearl: "The chips don't even compare with Burgastronomy or Nordburger. They're very ordinary."
Chicken: "Yeah, they're short, they're thin... these are the kinds of chips you get at the Royal Show." (with an almost disgusted look on her face)
Fried Rice has the final say here, that the danger of eating burgers at a place with a very high price tag is that we tend to judge every aspect of the burger with that price tag in mind. He makes a fair point, but we have done this since day dot - we faced the same issue at Street ADL where the overall burger was seriously AMAZING, but because of the price tag it left a bit of a bitter taste in our mouths. Tonight was tarred with that same brush, but that yucky taste in my mouth is still hanging around, unfortunately.
The Stirling Hotel can be found at 52 Mount Barker Road, Stirling.