Patriot Burger – Zalzett Malti [Part 2]

Do you remember the days when you could eat a beefy burger for €8, or €6, or even less? Those economical days have long gone by after burger houses like Badass took a leaf from what was brewing in Burger World and popularised the idea of the Angus gourmet burger on a local level. Prices revved a steady uphill race, and there seemed to be no turning back to the days of pocket-friendly meat in a bun. According to many Burger houses, the road to inflation is the way to go, because burger eaters want quality burgers, and there’s a hefty cost to that. This year we’ve even seen Wagyu burgers priced €90, and even €100.

So the mandatory question arises… Is it possible to lose one zero and find a burger made from quality meat for just €10?

That’s where the In House Butchers and their contemporary Bistro have come to the rescue! Who are these In House Butchers? They’ve been around for more than sixteen years, and in recent times they have been running a meat processing facility underneath the Park Towers Supermarkets in St Venera. Sounds very secretive and inaccessible, and indeed it is. What is accessible to all since last September, is their newly opened food fusion Bistro at the Park Towers megastore at Spinola Park, just a few hundred meters away from the very centre of Paceville. Could you blame us that we wanted to check them out, as soon as we heard that these butchers were doing burgers for €10 and even less?!

To our pleasant surprise, we find Patrick Mc. Bride, who’s spearheading the In House Bistro as head chef & manager. Mc. Bride is a renown stellar chef who has worked countless years (we’re not divulging his age) all around the world from America to South Africa, Ireland and all over Europe. All his immediate family have a vast background in catering and they have culinary-fingers into most of Malta’s successful kitchens, both past and present. Luckily for us, his mother is Maltese and Malta is where his heart and family is, so he’s here today to put his energy and skills into carving the perfect burger. We expect no less from someone of this calibre.

The In House Bistro have 2 flavours of their Ultimate €10 burger, an egg & bacon flavoured one, and a Maltese sausage variant which they built to challenge our taste buds. In House butchers have a flavourful history with their Maltese sausage, and we’re always game for Patriotic burgers, so that’s the one we’re going to go for today.

Inside the classical Maltese ftira, there is a salad mix, grilled peppers, sundried tomatoes, a hefty 300gr beef patty, a layer of Maltese sausage mix and a peppered cheeselet with parsley on the very top. The crunchy ftira bread is a very welcome substitute to the usual burger bun we all know and love. Apart from bringing in a more realistic Maltese look to the burger itself, it’s crust makes it sturdy enough to hold all the ingredients without breaking a sweat. We were able to eat this mammoth burger with two hands without too much trouble, and that construction feat in itself is worth 5 gold stars, and possibly more. The ftira bread is quite sizable, but there’s a lot of meat and vegetables inside, so the bread to filling ratio is well balanced. Just in case you want gluten free bread, that’s no problem, as the chef himself will run around the corner and grab one from the supermarket bakery! Opening a Bistro in the middle of a well-stocked supermarket has its perks!

There’s a mix of leafy greens at the base of the burger. They are abundant and crispingly fresh, and they are styled like a wedding dress tail, leading you from the edge of the dish into the very centre of the burger. A whole green bell pepper is grilled and charred and provides colour and a characteristically spicy and aromatic flavour. We haven’t seen many burgers this year with peppers inside, maybe it’s time to start using this vegetable more as a condiment. The sun-dried tomato mix is an all-time favourite as a bruschetta toasted bread topping. Sun-dried tomatoes are a great way to preserve our summer produce, and here they are standing in for the classic tomato slices. These colourful tomatoes have a texture similar to dried fruit and come with a very salty and somewhat herbal flavour. The dehydration process concentrates the tomato flavour a hundred-fold, so you get a more intense tomato experience per bite.

At the centre of it all, there’s a 300gr Angus beef patty made from forequarter cuts. This is extremely lean beef that is imported chilled and not frozen. It’s coarsely ground with nice meaty chunks in it, with pockets of juices that flow in your mouth as you chew. Even within the first bite, it shows that the burger is well rested, and the juices stay inside the patty and don’t spill all over the plate, or worst. The temperature and cook of the meat are consistent and precise, and in this particular case, we wouldn’t have settled for anything less. There’s definitely a pretty solid crust on this patty. The In House Butchers have created a unique piece of burger art with this immaculate piece of ground beef. Being butchers, they are able to keep the prices of quality meat cuts down, and once and for all, they are the living proof that you don’t need to spend €15 or more for an enjoyable burger of this size. Since the beef is very lean it has been coarsely minced. Very wise move here. This is not a cheap cut of fatty pub-burger meat that needs to be double minced to distribute the high level of fats as much as possible and might become soft and mushy in the wrong hands. We appreciate that not every outlet can employ experienced chefs that know how to handle a piece of minced beef, but more time than not, these part-time burger-builders we come across everywhere are not cutting it. Sometimes putting a little love and effort into every piece of beef helps, and we want to see more of that.

There’s more meat on the way, in the form of a roasted Maltese pork sausage mix, seasoned with crushed black pepper, salt, coriander, parsley and oriental bread flakes. The traditional sausage is influenced by the English one but made according to Portuguese traditions. Even though many like to eat it raw, sushi-style, here it’s roasted and makes a justified appearance next to the sun-dried tomatoes. In House Butchers obviously have their own recipe, but the taste is very strong and present, with a slightly smoky tinge. The mix is very well-balanced, as it’s neither too fatty nor greasy. It’s on the same line of thought as the lean beef. All this meat goodness is topped with shredded Gozitan peppered cheeselet… The Gbejna. It’s the classic Benna semi-hard cheeselet with pepper. It’s slightly creamy rather than totally dehydrated and holds together well when pressed in the ftira bread. We thought that half of it would fall down on the table, but that did not happen!

As if all this goodness was not Maltese enough, we get 2 sides with this burger; An Arijoli dressing made with galletti, kunserva, parsley, chilli, salt and olive oil, and a sizeable portion of oven baked potatoes flavoured with garlic and parsley. You also have the option of spicy potato wedges or straight cut fries, but why would you do that, when you can go Maltese all the way?!

We’re more than sure that we have just found a burger that will slowly build a very positive reputation for itself over the next weeks and months, not only because of the inimitable price point but also because of the quality of the ingredients used. Eating this whole load of a giant burger does not weigh you down at all. It’s mostly due to the lean meat, and the combination of condiments. And that’s why we’re overall impressed by this Maltese burger, and so will you, whether you’re a lover of Maltese cuisine, a burger fanatic that likes sizable portions or are casually passing by for a quick meal. We’re very confident that In House Bistro will soon surprise us again with another exceptional burger offering.

Deluxe time in Mo! Town

Over the past 2 years, Marsaskala has been slowly and unequivocally turning into a Burger-Wonderland. With no McD in sight, we can’t stop finding compelling burger offerings from the many restaurants and express food corners sprouting around the bay area and beyond. One place, in particular, has been offering its own twist on classic burgers since 2016. Rising on top of the ashes of the old Country Style premises that closed down in 2010, today we find a burger restaurant with two names… Mo! Burgers & Potato Head! These names not only sound funky & hip, but they build on the premise that you are onto something more distinctive than your usual burger joint.

The concept is twofold: The Mo! part delivers gourmet burgers and PotatoHead specialises in fried chips in a cardboard cone. The two go hand in hand like bread and butter, but here you have the option to just order the chips on their own or a singular burger. This concept was started one and a half years ago by owner David, who has a very intriguing history when it comes to catering.

Back to business, we are here because we heard that Mo! have a killer of a double burger. Its name is the Mo! Double Deluxe, and we want to see if it really is the hunger quencher we’ve been hearing about.

Egizia, a lovely Italian lady who has moved to Malta some time ago, fires up the grill and piles up all the ingredients that are going into this towery burger. Inside the brioche bun, we get a spread of inhouse special sauce, lettuce, 2 slices of tomatoes, collar bacon, cheddar cheese, a 180gr beef patty, more cheese and another slab of bacon… and that’s only one half of the burger concoction. Remember this was a double burger? Another 180gr beef patty, cheese, a cut of bacon and more in-house special sauce goes on top. This is the kind of stocky burger that our friend Big Bertu the Burgernator would devour to his heart’s content!

Each beef patty is made from 180gr of local beef chuck, with ketchup, herbs and spices in the mix. It’s a cunning patty mix, with a natural level of saltiness that’s alluringly delish. This burger is all about the beef, as after all, every burger should be, and here you get 2 patties. It takes a bit more than 15 minutes to grill the chunky burgers to the level of doneness of the Mo! Burgers quality control mechanism. We love it when food is prepared by loving people and not by wannabe-line cooks. The surrounding condiments are meant to play a supporting role, and here they complement the beef to make it stand out. We love pumpkin coloured cheddar cheeses as they bring a smoother & creamy flavour that is not too much pronounced or overwhelmingly sharp. There’s a boatload of collar bacon in this burger. We adore the smokey and salty taste of bacon. But give us limp, greasy bacon, and be sure we end up with a pretty sad face. This was not the case here. Egizia has diligently crisped the bacon to the level of almost-dehydrated crunch we always aspire to nibble on. The house sauce is delicate and on the sweet side. David won’t budge and divulge what it’s made of. Most of the Mo! sauces were devised in Australia, and the recipes passed on to David, who fine-tuned them into what they are today. This is where everything comes together, to make this burger live up to its name of Deluxe. For a double burger, it is a perfect size and is very manageable to eat with both hands. Did it pass the #MALTAburgers “how much % can we eat” test? Yes, it did, because we managed to eat it all, and believe us, that doesn’t happen every day… we’ve got stacks of notes relegated to dark drawers, retelling our encounters with disgustingly dry burgers!

And this is the part where we come face to face with Mr. PotatoHead. These fresh cut chips are the fruit of our local produce. If you like frozen fries, please do go somewhere else. If you want to get a taste of the labours of “my life is a potato” guy and his many potato farmer friends, this is the place to be. There’s also the option for sweet potatoes, and we’re big-time suckers for that! The fries are plentiful on the plate and they taste as potato as a Maltese potato can be. There’s 10 different dips and sauces to combine with the fries. We tried the garlic one, with cloves and cumin seeds, and the Balsamic one, made from honey and vinegar. Make sure you don’t miss out on these, as they elevate the fries to a new level of exotic taste. PotatoHead delivers big time here and does not disappoint. Are these the best fries in Marsaskala? We feel that the Top French Fries charts are trembling right now!

There’s more to it, and the name of the game is The Twister Dog. This is a wurstel sausage, with a radially-sliced whole potato wrapped on the outside. All are deep-fried to create a unique foodporn like we’re rarely seen in potatoland! It takes a certain level of skill to build the twister, and Egizia is on top of her game here. If we were #MALTApotatoes we would definitely give the Potato Oscar Award to this creation!

And when we thought we were done, two big bombs drop out of nowhere… An apple pie and a chocolate & pear cake. These are made by Egizia. The apple pie is Vegan and has no sugar, milk or eggs. Unbelievable. The crust is particularly good and it holds the apple filling without breaking a sweat. The chocolate and pear cake is sublime. The pears bring moisture and delicate sweetness and balance the rich chocolate flavour. Egizia has done a phenomenal piece of pastry work here. Dare we say these are even better than the burger?

Patriot Burger – Imqarrun [Part 1]

Hear us well… someone has just turned Malta’s most homely Sunday dish into a glorious burger! We had to refrain from releasing this feature on Easter Sunday, as most would have thought this was yet another feeble April Fool. It’s not, and it’s happening right now at Just Burger in Sliema.

Imqarrun (baked macaroni casserole) is one of Malta’s most loved traditional dishes. Just like Pastizzi, Twistees and Kinnie, it was not laboured in Malta, but it’s one of those acquired-and-rebranded foods… but don’t tell that to the Maltese! There’s one thing that Maltese love more than politics and soccer, and that’s their national food. Maltese are very passionate about their food, and Imqarrun is a Big thing; we’re dealing with a National-level Big thing here!

So, why would anyone make a burger version of Imqarrun? Because we’re too patriotic not to! Truth be said, we suspect that Just Burger wanted to infuse a burger with the classic mac & cheese flavour, and ended up creating a Patriot Burger! We’ve seen different attempts at doing a mac & cheese burger over the years; some worked to some extent, whilst others failed miserably. We still have nightmares over one burger with a mountain of macaroni and a flood of melted cheese poured all over, as if mount Etna had just erupted a magnitude of yellow pasta!

Even though there are different versions of Imqarrun, and each chef has his own secrets when baking this, this burger has most of the elements of grandma’s classic; the macaroni, bolognese sauce, meat and bacon. The macaroni is usually topped with a layer of grated cheese that when melted helps to bind everything in one block, and that is here too. Between the burger buns, there’s a layer of crunchy rucola, a chutney made from cherry tomato pulp & pancetta, a 140gr beef patty, provolone cheese, and a mac & cheese croquette. The chutney used here is a strong talking point in this burger. It’s perfectly reduced and packs a punch with its chunky pieces of tomatoes and rustic flavours. Pancetta makes a wiser substitute for bacon, as it does not have the deep smokey flavour and does not overpower the other ingredients. On the other hand, Provolone, like other pulled-curd cheeses, has a more intense flavour when melted and is often used in casseroles especially in dishes from the North of Italy. This cheese has a certain level of strength that shines through in its salt content, milkiness, and compact paste. The patty is very present as it brings in an instant hit of beef. You can always tell that this is quality beef as it has that delightful and intense flavour. It blends perfectly with the cheese, which sits on top melty and looking cheesy! The mac & cheese is presented in croquette form and is executed with a certain level of French finesse. This is where this burger becomes inimitable. It had to be the culinary team at Just Burger to come up with an exceptional solution for putting macaroni inside a burger without a cheesy mess and unnecessary spills, by encapsulating the baked pasta within a croquette which is exquisitely deep fried to a sterling level of golden crunchiness.

This burger does not only look suitably immaculate but has a meaningful taste that you don’t need to be a proud Maltese to polish it all in one go! It’s pretty safe to say that Just Burger always succeed in meeting the main objectives in comfort burger making: taste, price and originality. Even though this is a burger with mac and cheese for the rest of the world, it has a more celebrated culinary meaning in Malta. It’s one of those burgers that you might consider eating once a week during April… or even more! We’re now waiting for the Timpana and Ross il-forn burgers!

Made by MALTAburgers

Episode 2

Here’s a legendary myth. Is it a pizza? Is it a burger? It’s both! Today we give you, The Pizza Burger!

One of the questions we get asked most when we meet chefs and burger fans is the unanswerable “Which is the best Burger in Malta?”. We think that food is a very individual matter so we can’t tell you which Burger you should eat or like most! Instead, we created our own, out of our combined love for burgers and pizzas!

So what makes a Burger, a Pizza Burger? The creation must represent a classic burger in visual form and have elements or flavours of the traditional pizza. This is disrupting the American burger heritage and the Italian pizza heritage, all in one go! But we’re here to push the threshold of new flavours and food combinations. During the past years, many have promised to create a combination of pizza and burger, but most gave up, failed miserably or did not even care to try! Bossteaks have recently done a pizza with 1kg of beef patties thrown on top. This is obviously a pizza and not a Pizza Burger! No cheating, please!

One other thing… Pizza Burger is too generic of a name, so we dubbed this as the “Hamrun Hamburger”! Why? Hamrun people are relaxed, easy going and fuss-free. They don’t need Lord Nelson or Tarragon to enjoy food. Any Gabbana or express food joint goes, as long as it’s fresh and tastes good. Let’s remember that Hamrun was also home of the unforgettable Porkies, the express food place that was open around the clock, and considered by many as the hangover cure after a drunk night out! The Hamrun burger scene lay dormant for years after Porkies closed shop. This year, there’s a new surge of burger joints with The Journey and Chick’n Bites trying to finetune their game and rise towards the top of the express burger scene.

We made our pizza burger from scratch in our kitchen. We used a sourdough base for the pizza made from Caputo 00 flour, whole wheat flour, salt and water. We just put a tomato sauce and some mozzarella on top. The patties were made from a mix of ground Chuck as it has the right percentage of fat and ground Sirloin for its beefy flavour. Both parties were topped with Jack cheese, with pepperoni wedged in the middle!

If you’re a true Hamruniz, and like to indulge in calorie bombs, we’re going to give you a quick Food Hack how to make the pizza burger in less than 10 minutes, without switching on any oven! LIDL have 5″ pizzas that are perfect for the job. They run their own bakery and have all kind of fresh savoury snacks and bread. Their squarish ciabatta bread is one of the best burger buns as it holds a good amount of patties and condiments, and has a tasty olive oil flavour. Get a double beef fillet burger from Chick King, feed the bread to the hungry pigeons, and wedge the patties between the pizzas. You can get salami cuts from Alfons. Done and done!

Episode 1

Today, those nice guys at Kreatiff Media sent us off on an important mission. Our team had a fixed budget and 1 hour of time to go around the island and get all the necessary ingredients to build our own Maltese-ized Turkey burger! This is what we came up with…

Turkey, which we minced and pressed into two 150gr patties, together with soy sauce and rosemary and oven baked – Scotts Supermarket
Collar Bacon – Dmeats Butcher
Mortadella – Stuzzico B’Kara
Onions, mushrooms & spring onions stir fried in coconut oil –  Iceland Foods
Dujardin battered Onion rings – Alf Mizzi & Sons
Smokey BBQ sauce – BBQ STORE MALTA
Ftira – Maypole
Cooking utensils – World Marketing

A Little Lamb goes a Long way

Last summer we toured the whole island, searching for the lambiest burger in Malta, and ended up finding one in Marsascala. Since then, Lamb burgers have become the current trendy obsession on the local burger scene. And that’s no wonder, as this particular flavour of burger could be well seen as the Mediterranean version of the American all-time classic… the Beef burger. Lambs have long been a dietary staple in both Europe and Asia and sheep meat features prominently in several cuisines of the Mediterranean, whilst mutton is very popular in Central Asia.

Today #MALTAburgers are heading off to the distinctive Balluta Bay, where amidst a towery Church and Georgian townhouses, we find U Bistrot, a stylish restaurant tucked in a corner, that we’ve already visited last year. Here were find Chef Neil, who’s getting ready to build all the components of the lamb burger from scratch… even the bread!

The burger is made from 3 main components plus sides. There’s the patty, a mayo sauce and the bun. You can’t get more basic than that, and meat lovers who nitpick their burgers to remove the vegetable components are going to gorge on this one! The patty is made from 200gr of lamb. The meat is imported and worked out in the kitchen, with different succulent cuts of lamb making up the thick patty, which is combined with eggs, and seasoned with cumin, garlic and ginger. Thick is the keyword here, as this patty packs some good height, making the entire burger a somewhat hulking affair. If we’re shelling out €10+ for a meat burger, this is what we would expect, but sadly, many other burgers fall flat in this category. The patty is grilled to order and then oven baked, resulting in a juicy patty that pleases on all counts. Gamey is often used to describe meat with a stronger aroma than conventional beef, but the seasonings used here do a fantastic job to balance the natural flavours of lamb. They don’t mask the lamb’s taste and inherent qualities, which are still very distinguishable, resulting in a flavorful profile that every lover of meat should be fond of. These flavours have been used wisely and craftily, as they build up to an evidently Mediterranean burger. In terms of texture, the patty is well packed with a crust that is very present. The charring can be appreciated by both the eye and the taste buds. The lamb crumbles nicely due to its coarse grind, making you want to shovel it all in your mouth in one go!

How can you top such a well-made piece of lamb? You whisk up a fresh mayo, with black pepper, mint and garlic! This is a classic culinary pair as it goes particularly well with grilled meats, and it’s abundantly spread over both sides of the bun. It’s thick and pasty enough that it does not drip when you take the holy burger with both hands, tip it perpendicular and bite down on it!

The patty and sauce are held together by a special kind of bun. Since 2017 U Bistrot have been baking their own bread in-house. The 120gr brioche bun is sprinkled with thyme and pepper and brushed with a mix of oils. It’s freshly made every evening as we’ve had the pleasure to experience, and left to ferment and rest for use on the next day. The secret bread recipe has been refined since last time we visited, and the end result is a well-balanced burger bun which is neither too bready nor too weak in consistency, with a subtle floury flavour. At this point in time, we might even dare to say that this is the most rewarding burger bread we’ve tasted in the whole history of #Maltaburgers and this is no incidental occurrence, as the culinary team at U Bistrot are very adamant to improve their end product.

We also got oven baked potatoes shined with thyme and oregano, and a considerable salad of cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce and leeks, infused with in-house mustard, just in case you want to top up your burger with those. The potatoes are well roasted, with a crisp and crunchy outside and soft interior. They are well-seasoned and hold their own place next to the lamb, however, we wish that the size of the portion was bigger. U Bistrot have also managed to preserve their organic roots by also preparing fresh fruit juices. You can select different fruits from their list of ingredients, and create your own juice. We tried out the grapefruit one, the cucumber mixed with ginger and celery and our favourite, the apple and ginger, which proved to be a mouth refreshing follow-up to the burger. Last year these juices were presented in standard glasses, but we see that U Bistrot have since then picked up on our suggestion and are serving them in handled jars.

U Bistrot have managed to combine good quality ingredients to build a new classic standard when it comes to local Lamb burgers. It’s a definite crowd-pleasing piece of grilled lamb with no frills and extravagant condiments. The thrill is in the lamb itself, and that was superbly executed. A little lamb does go a long way…

Burger de Bacon au Le Bistro

Le Bistro is the main restaurant at the 5 star Radisson Blu Resort in St. Julians and is more than often associated with fine dining. Within the pages of its á la carte menu, we can spot what might initially look like an unassuming burger offering. And that’s when our burger radar turned curious and started beeping incessantly red… What is a commonplace burger doing amongst all these other gourmet food offerings?

We headed towards the quietest and most natureful part of St. Julians, where we met with Ramon, the Resort’s Culinary Director, who confessed that their burger offering is on their menu 365 days non-stop because it’s one of their most sought-after dishes. That’s sweet music to our ears! Indeed, Le Bistro came up with various iterations of their signature burger during the past years, and every 6 months or so, they fine-tune and change the formula to keep up with their patrons’ exigencies.

Still, you may ask, why are #MALTAburgers checking out a very conventional burger? Even though there’s only 1 burger option in the entire menu lineup, you can add a selection of ingredients to your burger and come up with a customised creation. We are game, and opt to add cheese and bacon, to forge a well known and loved, burger staple.

They say that the devil is in the detail, and that couldn’t be truer than today. Le Bistro design their menu around seasonal Mediterranean ingredients and the bold, dynamic flavours of the best local Maltese produce. Their farm-to-fork concept is to utilise local harvests whenever possible to both support our farmers and fishermen, and at the same time, be able to work with fresh raw materials, which always yield surpassing results. Indeed, at the heart of this burger, there is a 350gr minced beef patty, mixed with onions, ketchup, Worcester sauce and garlic. The vegetable part is composed of rucola leaves, 2 slices of tomatoes and 2 large pieces of very pickled gherkins. All is housed inside a toasted brioche bun, which is spread with a smokey brush of bbq sauce as the main dressing. That’s the standard burger offering, but you know us well by now, and we always like to jazz things up, and that’s where the extras come in: Let’s add 2 slabs of grilled back bacon and some smoked Applewood cheese in the mix.

So did our attempt to transmute Le Bistro’s burger into a Bacon Cheeseburger elevate this common staple into something more refined? The mighty 350gr of beef makes this a heavyweight contender, especially when compared to the run of the mill 120gr patties on offer in many of today’s burger joints. This is a thick and crusty patty that is mostly cooked well-done. In the wrong hands, the meat would have a predictably bad ending with much char and total dryness like we, unfortunately, experience too many a time. But luckily that’s not the case here, and this meat packs more than meets the eye. The patty has an impeccable amount of juice and moisture, yet it doesn’t gush down uncontrollably like a stream of gravy and cause a shameful mess. It’s undeniably moister in a favourable way than most of the common offerings we see day in, day out. It’s got enough juiciness that the chef should be proud of. The choice of beef, mixed with the other condiments played out well in this particular case, catapulting this burger much ahead of the curve.

A healthy dosage of cheese is unmistakably a pleasing partner for the beef. The Applewood cheddar is a fairly dense cheese, treated with smoke flavouring and coated with what tastes like paprika. There’s enough creamy cheese here without being too spicy. It does not leave a burnt aftertaste and cover any of the other flavours, which makes much common sense. The bacon slabs are very thick and quite delicious, with a nice chew, and the grilling execution is appreciated. The bacon does the job to flare up the overall zest, a notch or three. The BBQ sauce is devised in-house, with tomato ketchup, brown sauce, local honey and some other seasonings. It’s sweet yet tangy and has a good reason to be in this burger. You also get a red onion relish as a side, which you might want to add into the burger itself, even though we presume that was not the chef’s proposed use of this onion jam!

All of this adds up to a superbly big-size burger that works very well in the grand scheme of the local burger scene. It’s a burger for anyone who wants to experience a beef classic with an upgrade or two, as it’s overall pleasing and beefy. If you are a lover of bacon & cheese then there’s no single doubt that this is the burger you should try next. For the burger adventurer, who’s looking for somewhere chic and posh, this is the place to be! The environment and decor are 1 million times trendier than your everyday burger joint. And when the food is good, there’s no reason not to enjoy it in a distinguished dining place. And surprisingly enough, the price is comparable to most burger joints, but you get the 5-star sterling service and the exclusive class of a fine dining bistro.

Should you want to wind up your dinner in style, we got 2 magic words for you: Lemon layered cake and Sticky Brownie! The honey short-cake with pineapple cream curd infused with thyme is your best option if you love limoncello after dinner, but if you’re a chocoholic like we are, we have another option for you: a brownie jar filled with dark chocolate cubes, banana, toffee, salted caramel and white chocolate cream… That’s 2 more reasons to come back to Le Bistro for another round with their heavyweight 350gr burger!

Mr. Jack’s Fruit Burger

In our 5 years of existence, we’ve seen thousand-and-more incarnations of the classical burger format. We’ve thought we’ve seen them all until we heard reports that there’s a new fruit-in-a-bun in town! This is the story of a fruit that disguises itself as pork! It started life in a bun but has nowadays grown into a ciabatta. It was called burger on inception but is now sold as a sandwich. Are you baffled yet? Don’t be, because all this is happening right now at the Grassyhopper in Gzira, and we’re heading right there…

The Grassyhopper is a beacon for local vegans. It’s the place to-be if your lifestyle revolves around vegetables. Their popular BBB (Sweet Potato & Black Bean Burger) is one of our favourite non-meat burgers of all time, so it’s no wonder that it skyrocketing into the Top 5 Veggie Burgers of 2017. Not wanting to sit on their laurels and enjoy their success as Malta’s Mecca of Green, they kickstarted the year with a different creation; a burger made from Jackfruit. They did not stop at that. They have also streamlined their whole operation and relocated all their resources to the Gzira restaurant. It’s been upgraded, redecorated and polished from head to toe, and now looks more chic and grassy than ever. The one in Valletta is no more though.

If you mostly consume meat and haven’t ever heard of Mr. JackFruit, then you are excused, because most people haven’t. This jackfruit in question comes from South America, and looks big, green, with a spiky melon resemblance! Indeed, the jackfruit is a type of tree that is very well-endowed when it comes to fruit. A single jackfruit can grow up to 40kg and more, and it has plenty of uses especially in the vegan world. Its versatility is two-fold because when ripe, the yellowish jackfruit’s taste is comparable to pineapple, pear, banana, and papaya. The unripe fruit is said to taste like pulled pork or chicken. And that’s what we’re most interested in, because who doesn’t love a burger made from pulled pork?!

Jackfruits saw a rise in mainstream popularity in Europe in 2016, but vegans have been dining on it for much longer than it’s been in the news cycle. Indeed, in India, jackfruit has been around for as much as 6000 years! There’s even a good use for the seeds because when boiled and skinned they’re almost like little-roasted potatoes. We’ve also heard of vegans drying and grinding them as a gluten-free flour.

When you consider all the pros and pros of this fruit, it comes as no surprise that the next objet d’art for the green guys at Grassyhopper was to build a burger around the jackfruit. But they were not well tickled with the first version. They wanted to cram as much jackfruit as possible in one little burger, but the size of the bun was restraining the progress. This is when their signature wholemeal ciabatta, sprinkled with flax seed, sunflower seeds and oats came to the rescue. And the jackfruit burger was turned into a long sandwich, with as much as three times more meaty pulp than before.

Joshua, a cheerful chap with a funky hairstyle, is stewing the jackfruit meat in a big pot. It looks like all this jackfruit could feed an entire village, and indeed it will, because later on tonight there’s a hip Cuban Night, and the place will be filled with people eager to eat and dance the night away. There’s a concentrated smell of spices in the air, so we are off to a good start. The jackfruit meat is cooked with onions, garlic, smoked paprika, olive oil, miso paste and soy sauce. Miso paste is made from a mixture of soybeans and rice that have been fermented with salt and water. The salty paste can amp up any dish, and we believe that it was quite an ingenious move to include it in the mix. The longer you cook the jackfruit, the more the flavour will develop by way of infusion with the other spices and ingredients. Jackfruit breaks up easily in the pan, and its resemblance with shredded pork is hair-raising. There’s a variety of chunky lumps and pulled pieces in the mix. The more shredded it is, the more texture you get.

The ciabatta is filled with a mix of green salad leaves and jammed to the brim with shredded carrots, onions, cucumbers, orange zest, ginger and as many tomato slices as can fit. Joshua truly does a stellar job at feeding the patrons and keeping them coming for more, day after day. This veggie mix is so bright and colourful that you would want to eat it all, even as it is. Grassyhopper always try to source their veggies from local farms that produce organic and pesticide-free crops, and indeed they bring in an element of crunch and crispiness, that we always look for. On top of it all goes a creamy mush of vegan mayo, made with mustard, vinegar, soy milk and olive oil. Mayo lovers will rejoice to find out that there’s even more vegan mayo as a side.

Many spoonfuls of jackfruit go on top, finishing this creation. The plate is filled with spicy and roasted potatoes, which are creamy and tasty. Maltese-style roasted potatoes are one thing, but if you love your potatoes more on the creamy side, then you will find the Grassyhopper version to be on a whole other level of fineness! They are packed with potato flavor and deliciously seasoned, even though we wish they had a bit more roasted crispiness on the outside.

So how did this bizarre tropical fruit taste like in the end? Did it manage to imitate pulled pork and grade as an equally satisfying meat alternative after brewing for several hours on the hob? Truth is, raw jackfruit does not have any particular flavour! The fruit is simply a vehicle for a well-crafted sauce, so what you will experience is the delicious dressing, with the jackfruit bringing in a texture punch. The consistency is quite meat-like, and while it’s a little bit softer than actual chunks of pork, it makes little, if any difference. We’re big-time suckers for peculiar burger structures, and this time we were not disappointed at all. If you try to pull a trick on your meat-obsessed friend, by giving him this jackfruit sandwich, there’s a good chance he’ll be fooled to think it’s some kind of meat. Grassyhopper have managed to conceive a common ground for both vegan and meat lovers alike and created a winner of a sandwich that can be truthfully devoured by all. If you never had a veggie burger in your life, this is the one you should try. And if you’re vegan, you already know what we’re talking about!

Since jackfruit has a fibrous flesh that can take on almost any flavour, it would be interesting to experiment what this fruit would taste like with something like chili or curry. Maybe we can find that out next time…

St. Paddy’s Patty – The Irish Crunch Master

It’s that time of the year when Malta wears green and every food grill sells out of burgers & beer! Thanks to Just Burger, you can start enjoying the burger part of St. Patrick’s Day from today, and it already seems like it’s Patty galore on Paddy’s month!

Question is, how come all Malta suddenly becomes Irish-centric for 1 day? It mostly has to do with us succumbing to advertising and copying the rest of Europe. St. Patrick’s Day was meant as a day to eat and drink as much as you please in celebration… mostly the traditional Irish meal of bacon and cabbage. Guzzling shots of whiskey and unlimited cans of beer were not part of the original equation! A marketing campaign from Budweiser in the 80s convinced thirsty boozers that drinking beer and St. Patrick’s Day were one and the same. And eating places were quick to follow pace. No one loves a pseudo-holiday more than burger joints! So cheers to you, Irish people, for giving us a holiday where excess is not simply encouraged, but required!

Many burger joints have been turning their run of the mill burger, into a St. Patrick compatible one, year in, year out! Throwing in some Irish beef in the patty or add beer to the mix are the most common tricks of the trade we’ve documented. Some go to lengths to have their bun coloured green, whilst others have the guts to just rename their standard burger, and jump on the green bandwagon! What about the corned beef, flowing Guinness, peas, carrots, corn, stewed cabbage, potato pancakes and onions? Just Burger have stepped in, in time of need. Some of these typical Irish ingredients have found their way into their new March burger creation.

Guinness and onions are staples in Irish cuisine. Daniel from Just Burger, a humble young man who takes pride in his burger work, has assembled these two ingredients to create Guinness caramelized onions, infused with bay leaves and thyme, and cooked in butter & oil. This forms a sweet bed for the 140gr Angus beef patty that Just Burger use in all their monthly specials. The beef blend is very intriguing, robust and always expertly mastered like every fine piece of meat should be. It tastes 10001 times better than equivalently priced offerings from other express food magnates like McD or Burger King. As Daniel points out, the focus has to be on the quality of the meat. If that’s not good than your burger is no good. Throughout the time that Just Burger have been operating from Sliema, their burgers are always perfectly cooked to the requested temperature, and the seasoning is as simple as it gets, yet nothing short of flawless. This delicious patty is as juicy as it ought to be, and it’s grilled with so much love that it’s hard to come up with any level of complaints or shortcomings!

The beef is adorned with melted Irish cheddar. This is a mild cheese, which has a moderately strong flavour. It is matured for a lesser period than Vintage Irish Cheddar so it can be enjoyed even with apples and pears. It’s very laudable that Just Burger always make it a point to use different cheeses to flavour-up their burgers. This cheese was a very natural choice and really makes the whole burger stand out.

Can there ever be an Irish-themed Burger without the bacon? A scrumptious slab of smoked streaky bacon adds flavour and crunch to the equation. The bacon used is very, very smokey and we like that. When we hear the word bacon we always expect a good English breakfast style crisp. Do we always get that? Unfortunately no, but that’s not the case here. Crispy and not burned are big keywords, and Daniel does not disappoint. This bacon is crumbly and crunchy as the Lord of crunch commands! Flavour wise, it adds a rich layer of saltiness, as if a crispy bomb of saliferous flavor has just exploded inside your mouth. Just like Just Burger have set top standards when it comes to fries, they are now doing the same with bacon! Other burger joints should open their eyes and not hurry the process when it comes to bacon grilling. Today’s burger eaters don’t want soggy and limp bacon anymore.

There’s even more crunch in the form of a potato rosti. This pancake is made from shredded potato and thyme, grilled and then deep fried. For a simple food item with just one humble main ingredient, the rosti could prove to be surprisingly difficult to pin down. As much moisture as possible needs to be squeezed out from the potatoes to get a really crisp result, otherwise, the final product will be a soggy and lippy pancake… and just like bacon, no one likes that. The Rosti is a traditional Swiss fritter, so it’s a bit of a surprise that the Irish potato pancake equivalent, the Boxty, was not used here. Boxty also has flour and buttermilk as ingredients. However, this Rosti is authentically tasty, first-class crisp on the outside, and soft, meltingly and potatoish within. It’s of a level of goodness that it might seem as if this burger needs no other adornment to make it ace all scores.

But that’s not the case, as there’s one final Irish ingredient; pea shoots, which have been sourced locally. Pea shoots are the actual leaves of sugar snap peas. Peas shoots taste like fresh English peas, refreshingly crisp and a combination of sweet and grassy. These vegetables bring crunch like it wouldn’t seem possible. The Pea shoot season is frighteningly short so we’re glad that Just Burger have taken advantage of this very seasonal green and included it in their burger, instead of mushed-up peas. They are a terrific complement to what is one of the most well-rounded St. Patrick themed burgers we’ve experienced in the last 5 years.

The bun is sturdy enough to hold all these ingredients in place, without breaking a sweat. It’s a welcome game-changer from all the standard bakery buns we see most of the times. The burger itself does not have any excessive level of sogginess and that helps a lot too. The 5-star studded fries that Just Burger is synonym with, join the burger and they are superbly seasoned and crispy. We’ve tasted and tested them regularly, and they are truly worthy of this formidable burger.

With all these gratifying levels of goodness going on, have we just found out the crunchiest burger of the year? Yes, we might have! All layers have been conceived with abounding thought and much planning. This burger is just divine. Generally, it’s all about the beef, and while the beef blend is rich and heavenly, the accent of the other ingredients is almost as important for achieving such a congenial result. It took St. Patrick and a merry band of Irish people to drive someone to come up with the beefiest and most satisfying burger concoction for the greenest day of the year. There’s no questioning that.

Beware! Knowing that this Burger is only available for the month of March has one caveat. You might be returning for another one, before, during and after St. Paddy’s Day!

Dessert Burgers

Dessert Burgers are a big-time hit all over USA, Australia and most parts of Europe, yet this new foodie trend that mixes all sorts of sweets and candy into the form of the classic burger, is still on the low here in Malta.

We need sugar-coated buns stuffed with caramel, ice cream, marshmallows, chocolate, syrup, all kinds of biscuits, popping candy, Nutella, M&Ms, sprinkles and strawberries.

How about a waffle burger, filled with ice cream, Nutella, Mars bars, cookies and topped with salted caramel sauce?

Or a golden croissant burger, filled with cinnamon dusted maple bacon, fresh strawberries and a sweet vanilla bean mascarpone cream cheese, sprinkled with icing sugar and crushed nuts?

A lemon curd themed burger with fresh raspberries, vanilla bean and mascarpone cream would be a hit too.

Who’s going to build the first hit dessert burger?

The challenge is up! We’re waiting…

Malta’s All Time Top Burgers 2018

We’ve seen them being made… We’ve tasted them all… 

After 5 years of research, we’re giving you The List you’ve been asking for…

Some sleeping giants will be toppled forever.

Will the innovators rise to the very Top?