When you go out for a bite to eat, and there’s a burger on the menu, sometimes its hard to go past it – even if you’re not at a straight up, traditional burger joint! So when I went to The Club Hotel in Ferntree Gully recently, rather than go for the usual Parma or steak and chips, I decided to give their burger a shot at the title, so to speak.
I ordered the “Club Burger” which comes with beef patty, bacon, pineapple, egg, cheese, tomato, lettuce, pickles and tomato mustard sauce on a toasted brioche bun. I had no idea what I was in for and given my track record with burgers at a pub, was hopeful this would at least be half decent.
The burger arrived, and I know you shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover, but you can definitely judge a burger by it’s cheese, especially when it’s not melted!! In fact, it wasn’t even on the meat!! I still fail to understand why the cheese can’t be melted to the patty?! Cheeses!! Is it THAT hard?? Ugh!! Anyway, I picked it up and started to get into it. The meat was actually ok, and the bacon and egg were spot on!! However, the weedy, grass like excuse for lettuce was terrible, and amazingly that wasn’t the worst part either. The bun, *ahem* sorry, the “brioche” bun was awful! Lightly toasted and smothered in butter, but was still as dry as the Sahara! If that was a brioche bun, then I look more like Brad Pitt than I thought!! It was like the bun had been bought a week earlier or something. Suffice to say it tore to pieces and fell apart as I ate through the burger.
Chips on the side were typical pub styled chips, and the best part of the entire thing was the pint of Furphy, which is a really good drop!
Overall, a disappointing experience, and I could have kicked myself for ordering it and thinking it may have been any good. The thing is, its probably only a few changes away from being reasonable, ie melt the cheese, improve the lettuce and freshen up the bun. If nothing else, it would at least start to justify the $19 price tag!!
