When I am catching up with someone for lunch, there’s no question that my preference is to meet at a burger place. The only problem is which one? Do you go for somewhere new and take the risk on quality or do you try to impress your friends and go to a sure thing where you know it’ll be good? This time, I decided to live on the edge and visit a new place – “Metro Burgers on Degraves”. This little place is amongst the bustling food Mecca of Degraves Street. I couldn’t help but think back some 20 years when most of this street was filled with run down, empty shops and there was only one or two basic coffee shops to service the hundreds of people exiting from underneath Flinders Street station. Now, the street is filled with tables and tables of Melbourne foodies, who are spoilt for choice with all the food and coffee options that are now available there.
I sat down in the pokey little venue, right next to the coffee machine and perused the menu. Despite an “Uber Burger”, triple patty challenge being advertised on the wall with pictures of past diners who were successful, it was lunchtime and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to feel super full for the rest of the day, so I went for something a fraction smaller – the “Metro Double Banger”. This came with double pure beef patties, double bacon, double cheese, French mustard, tomato, lettuce, pickles and metro sauce.
It arrived, and first impressions were good. I waited until the temperature reached a “woofable” level before I picked it up and started my attack. The meat was pretty tasty and the crispness of the bacon was great. The lettuce and tomato were nice and fresh too. Then there was the sauce. The mustard flavoured sauce. At first I couldn’t work out if this yellow runny sauce, that drowned the burger was the ‘metro sauce’ or the French mustard?! In fact, I still don’t know. To say it was over powering was an understatement. Terrible! You know it’s not good when you’re only half way through and thinking, “the sauce is too much”. I became fixated on it and for me, it ruined the experience.
French fries on the side were okay, but nothing worth raving about.
Overall, it was disappointing because most of the ingredients were reasonably good, but there was nothing stopping the flavour of the mustard! Perhaps I should have gone the challenge after all, which had no Metro sauce or mustard on it, but as you know, hind sight is a beautiful thing!!
