The cooking, eating and travel blog of a hungry blogger from Sydney, Australia featuring original recipes, interviews and articles on all things food @ Not Quite Nigella

Category Archives: Hamburgers

Killa Burger, Carramar & The 30cm Burger Challenge!

killa burger challenge

Picture this: a full moon night. The three of us have driven a distance and frost blankets the car. Shivering as we alight the car we pull our coats tightly around us. Dave whispers “I’m a bit scared and a bit excited.”

killa burger challenge

We walk through the doors and see the “cage” to our right. Blood drips down from each post suggesting that many have been impaled in their efforts to meet the killer. And what is the killer? Well it’s not your ordinary monster, but a 30 cm or 12 inch diameter burger. How do you slay it? Well the challenge is to eat this 30cm burger along with a box of chips with gravy, a 1.25 litre bottle of drink and a large tub of soft serve. Of course this is after signing a release form essentially saying that its your own damn fault if you feel sick or have health problems afterwards.

killa burger challenge

Over 4,000 people have tried to slay the Killa challenge and of that number only a mere 22 have succeeded. There is no prize but instead there is your name up in lights along with the time taken to consume the beast. Perusing the chart we see one brave soul has taken as little as an incredible 23 minutes to finish their burger challenge although many take almost the whole hour at 58 minutes. And they’re all boys, no girls have done this. They tell us that about a dozen people a day try the challenge and we watch two very young boys with Justin Bieber like builds try to conquer it (sadly to no avail).

killa burger challenge

Dave was inspired by Takeru Kobayashi, the world eating champion who recently downed 69 hot dogs with buns on the rooftop of a Manhattan bar. From what we had seen, Kobayashi’s technique is to not only eat quickly of course but also dunk the food in water to help force it down. We assess the challenge. Each burger is 1.6 kilos with 800grams of meat and you can choose any burger you want. Swallowing gamely Mr NQN and Dave decide to give it a go. Mr NQN goes for the chicken while Dave goes for the “Smack burger”. I go for a more modest but still slightly alarming meal-the booty burger which has a beef patty, coleslaw and chips already on it-this presumably helps one put on a booty worthy of a Kardashian.

killa burger challenge

Note faux blood drippings!

The sauce selection has a few more offerings than most. I like having my fries with gravy and on the drive here we were waxing lyrical about pepper sauce and mushroom gravy on fries. I choose the Killa special sauce, Mr NQN the pepper sauce and Dave the mushroom sauce. The price for the challenge meal is $29 while mine is a more modest and less dangerous $7.20.

killa burger challenge

The Smack burger challenge $29

killa burger challenge

Proportion check! Click here to read the full story

69 comments | July 25th, 2011 by Not Quite Nigella

Charlie & Co. Burgers, Sydney

charlie and co

The calm after the storm…

Never underestimate the popularity of a burger.

And when I arrive at Charlie & Co in the brand new Westfield in the Sydney CBD for lunch with Nic and Amy, I certainly should not have when I see the queues. It seems I am here along with many of the CBD population and as I am waiting in the queue chef and owner Justin North stops by to say hello. “We planned for 200 people a day and last night we served almost 700!” Justin says. He is about to get into the kitchen to start slicing into the hamburger buns that have just been baked. In one week they go through one tonne of meat and one tonne of chips.There are currently ten chefs and order takers in the kitchen area being watched through the glass panels by hungry hordes of diners who are standing in line for their takeaway burgers.

A 6 foot high stack with trays of golden burnished buns is wheeled past and Justin says that they were only just baked around the corner. In April 2011 they will open up their bakery shop when Phase two of the Westfield development has been complete and for now the bakery is in operation to bake the hamburger buns. Although some stores like Gucci, Sass & Bide and Little Joe are open in the complex, many of the ones on the upper level are yet to open.

charlie and co

The Charlie of the Charlie & Co is an American man Charlie Nargreen who was nicknamed Hamburger Charlie. In 1885 when he was a mere 15 years old Charlie was selling meatballs at a fair in Wisconsin using ground hamburg steak. As sales were sluggish he smashed a meatball and some onions between two slices of bread so that people could walk and eat at the same time and thus became a hamburger pioneer and Charlie & Co is a tribute to him. The “& Co”. is a tribute to the local food producers that create the ingredients for these burgers.

charlie and co

There are two lines here at Charlie & Co. One and I am in the one where you can sit in their own enclosed area and have table service. You can also get takeaway and stake a claim on any of the nearby food court tables. Like all of North’s restaurants and eateries, service is very friendly but due to the crowds they won’t seat you until most of your party has arrived as the space is quite small and there is a fairly fast turnover with a typical wait being 20 minutes in the queue. There is a staff member handing out menus to the people in the queue and I pore over the menu while waiting for Nic and Amy to arrive (and this post is a combination of two visits, one with Mr NQN too). There is a range of burger from your traditional beef, a chilli crab burger, a Mexican burger, a hot dog, toasted sandwiches, a couple of salads and some of the best fries you will ever taste.

charlie and co

The whole Charlie & Co chain was started on the legend of the Plan B wagyu burger. For me, no burger has bettered it. They have a version of it here but this one has a slightly different topping with a beetroot relish instead of pickled beetroot. At the eat in area you can order wine and beer and there are also bottled Phoenix organic and Charlie’s drinks. We chuckle at the tomato sauce bottle labels which are already showing signs of wear in this very new eatery that only opened on the 28th of October.

Wagyu & Co burger $18 eat in ($16 takeaway)

Oh wagyu burger, how much do I love thee? This burger is slightly different to the one at Plan B so I am curious to try it. I wondered if they could improve on it and I think they might just have. And how? By adding pickled gherkins and aged cheddar which I absolutely love in burgers. And instead of having the slice of pickled beetroot like they do at Plan B, they have a beetroot relish (which promptly finds its way onto my dress). And the bun, well it’s that fabulous buttery brioche bun which I wish all burgers were served on. It’s heavenly, soft and rich.

The Federation Burger $16 eat in ($14 takeaway)

Click here to read the full story

85 comments | November 15th, 2010 by Not Quite Nigella

Grill’d Burgers, Darlinghurst

grilld burgers

“I think a lot of people come here after the gym” Dillon says and we look around. Well, if I were to sweat it off at the gym I might reward myself with a burger. Mr NQN, my buddy Christie and her husband Dillon and I are at the Grill’d in Darlinghurst. Mr NQN has had a hard day at work and all he wants is a juicy burger. This branch of Grill’d is so new that there’s a “You can’t touch this” sign over the beers in the fridge as they await their liquor license (slightly torturing the boys I can imagine). There is a Learners sign asking diners to be patient as the staff are new.

grilld burgers

We’re sitting at the large communal table at the front and looking at the menu. Burger fillings are divided into beef, chicken, lamb, veggie and steak sandwiches with most of the burger options being for the beef burgers. I have a hard time choosing as I usually like veggie burgers but they aren’t jumping out at me. Another unusual thing is the lack of side orders. It’s chips with a dipping sauce and that is it. No other types of fries, desserts or drinks aside from pre packaged soft drinks. Even if you wanted to buy more, you couldn’t. There are two sample rolls on the counter, a large flour dusted soft white panini or a wholemeal roll. There is a gluten free option but oddly it does say “Gluten free rolls may contain traces of gluten” which I suspect would not please a celiac’s disease. Perhaps they’re being overly cautious as they may be processed on the same equipment as other buns.

grilld burgers

The Almighty $12.50

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51 comments | October 17th, 2010 by Not Quite Nigella

Paul’s Famous Hamburgers, Sylvania

I recently asked a question of my readers that read “have you ever toyed with or have become a vegetarian or vegan?” and I was amused to read that a couple of readers had but that a cheeseburger was the item that they clearly remembered had broken their resolve. It’s understandable really – a good burger is hard to resist and I rarely do. This afternoon we were in need of a burger and I had heard that there was a Hamburger place that had been churning out delicious old skool burgers since 1957.

I admit I don’t visit the Shire very often. So much so that I tweeted “Going to the shire…I don’t venture there often!” and people tweeted back things such as “Good luck with that!” ( @fionalaughton) and “Make sure you get your vaccinations first!”(@TudorGrrrl) and “got your passport?” (@vitav). Then there were people that grew up there like @OohLookBel and @pathologic_kt.

Paul’s Famous Hamburgers is located on the Princes Highway in Sylvania and if you’re coming by car, it’s slightly tricky to get to in that there’s only a short merging space so if you miss the merge, you can turn left at a later stage and loop back around. Inside, it’s pure retro with the painted text menu with a list of variations but essentially it’s what you add what you want to the beef burger i.e. egg, bacon, cheese and pineapple. All burgers comes with tomato, lettuce, sauce and onion. As for the thoroughly Australian addition of sliced beetroot? You have to specifically ask for that.

They’re all made and assembled fresh to order and there’s also traditional milk bar milkshakes as well as their equally as famous Pineapple Crush drink. On a wall and outside there are plenty of framed newspaper clippings acclaiming these as the best burgers in Sydney. We decide to split some burgers and grab a 2 litre bottle of the Pineapple Crush ($6.50) from the small fridge on the counter. They give us 4 cups for the drinks even though we’ve only ordered 2 burgers to split among us which is nice and the servings are enormous. If you put the burger next to those incredible shrinking burgers of the well known burger chains, it would dwarf them.

Hamburger with The Works $7.20

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66 comments | October 1st, 2009 by Not Quite Nigella

The Counter Burger, Crows Nest (and the 450g burger)

**Counter Burger is now closed**

If you’re in any doubt that the American chain The Counter burger has come to town, take a peek at the menu. For the first thing that my eyes rest upon is a Peanut Butter Shake. If that isn’t American I don’t know what is. Today we’re having lunch at The Counter burger, where you can get a fully customised burger that your heart or tastebud desires. I was first tipped off about The Counter by an NQN reader-got to love tips!

It’s table service here and when you sit down, you get a clipboard with a 5 part checklist of items that you can choose from starting from the patty (Beef, Turkey, Chicken or Vegetarian), then a cheese (from a list of 10 including horseradish cheddar, Gruyere and Danish blue), then some extra toppings (from a list of 18 regular toppings and a list of 10 premium toppings) and then a sauce (from a list of 17) and then a bun (hamburger bun, English muffin or wholemeal). This gives us a potential for 312,120 plus burgers! For low carb eaters, there is also the breadless option where instead of having it in a bun, you’re given the patty and toppings on top of salad leaves. We are literally staring at the menu, pencil paused in our hand, for about 10 minutes. For the terminally indecisive there are burger combinations already laid out.

Surfboard decorations

We are not sure what size patty we’d like so we look at the table next to us. Theirs looks like a fat juicy burger patty and they tell us it’s a 150g one and very filling (in fact they leave some of it behind). My husband rises to the challenge and chooses a 300g burger, despite being egged on to try the 450gram burger by the other customer who wants to see how big it would be. I am relieved to see that the item that I saw on the website, the Maryland Crab Cake burger is indeed the burger of the month here as I had presumed that it was a US only burger but everything there seemed to marry up exactly with the other locations.

Oooh Angus beef!

We ask the waitress about the shakes, apparently the peanut butter one is rather large and rich and she suggests sharing it and she also suggests combining a peanut butter and chocolate shake with malt which delights me as I am a big Reese’s peanut butter cup fan. We also share an order of 50 50 fries with half onion strings and half sweet potato chips.