As the sun broke through the clouds on another grey, overcast day recently, I wanted to get out for a burger and I wasn’t going to let the hustle and bustle of Christmas shopping folk streaming up and down the city streets stop me! This time I headed to a place called “Perk Up Café & Burger Bar” in Collins Street where I was hoping they would dish up a tasty burger treat for me to satisfy my growing hunger.
I ordered the “Perk Up Double Banger”, which comes with double pure beef patties, double bacon, double cheese, French mustard, tomato, lettuce, pickles and perk up sauce. I was lucky enough to grab a seat before my meal arrived. Now, whilst they say not to judge a book by its cover, I do think it is fair to say that you can judge a burger by it’s cheese, especially when it’s not really melted to the patty. This was not a good start! Anyway, I rolled my eyes, shook my head and pushed on.
This burger was a sloppy, uneven mess that didn’t seem to have been made with love, and to make the most of it, I had to do some rearranging when I picked it up. As I started to get into the burger, it hit me – the meat didn’t taste too good. It lacked flavour and the texture was like a dim sim – kind of bitty with little chunks of meat throughout it. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m all for a dim sim, but I don’t want my beef patty to taste like one?! The other thing about this burger was that there was way too much mustard flavoured, yellow sauce. It was smothered in it. I didn’t know whether it was the special “perk up” sauce or the actual mustard, but either way, there was way too much of it. So between the dim sim styled meat and overpowering mustard, I really didn’t pay much attention to the other ingredients.
Fries on the side were really good, and there were heaps of them, which made for good value. I also ordered a chocolate thick shake too, however it was so thick I couldn’t suck it up through the straw. I took the lid off to see what was going on, only to find it hadn’t been mixed properly. It looked just like a cup filled with vanilla ice cream with some chocolate flavoured milk around it. Terrible!
So overall, not a great experience, and it seems like it’s true – you can judge a burger by its cheese after all!!
