Feature

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…

Hank’s Full Throttle BBQ Ribs Behemoth Burger

In the past year or two, we received regular requests to cover big-eater burgers. We’ve searched all over the rock, even in nooks and corners and mostly found standard burgers, that have been multi-pattied into lengthy towers of meat, with little to no burger-design purpose, other than that of quenching never-ending appetites.

So we decided to do it the #MALTAbugers way, and create our own! We aimed to create an irresistible and scrumptiously monstrous burger, that no burger lover would shy from! If you love to play with your burger-meat and tag along with your friends for a fun night out, read on because this is something you will want to experience and re-create first-hand.

So beware, get ready to surrender your diet plans, as there’s a new breed of culinary-enhanced burgers on the rise… Welcome to “Off The Menu”

Our plan was totally flawless: We would hit an established restaurant that offered hefty burgers and had a 5-star food selection to top-off the burger and create a new Behemoth Burger, by combining the burger with other food elements. And there was only one place in town where we could do that… Henry J. Beans at the Corinthia Hotel in St. George’s Bay. Hank’s has been operating in Malta since 1995, so they know more than a thing or two when it comes to burger building. Their burgers are nicknamed as Legendary, so we expect nothing less than the name implies. Hank’s have been honing all kind of comfort food for more than 22 years. They are backed up by a 5-star hotel infrastructure, which pushes the expectations towards the cutting edge of food-o-rama. And that’s another reason why we’re starting our Behemoth Burger journey here, and not elsewhere. If an establishment should have a great burger, this should be it.

Meet the first, in a series of Behemoth Burgers: A Full Throttle bacon burger, stuffed with a dose of smoking BBQ Ribs! Can we manage to eat it all?

The Full Throttle is a flagship burger at Hank’s. It’s made from two minced beef patties. Each patty is 230gr and made from back ramp meat, which is just lightly seasoned with no additional knick-knacks. A good cut of meat should provide all the necessary flavour and the guys at Hank’s have just put that in perfect practice. Upon the first bite, the juice starts flowing like a rumbling volcano, with each bite yielding a full beef aroma. This patty boasts lavish and earthy tones that create that urging craveability from the first bite until the last. The juices stay mostly within the patty from start to finish, maintaining a respectable texture. Seasoning is on point, and the char is not only a visual consideration but a palatable bonus too. And best of all, you get two beef patties, conceiving the illusion of a never-ending munching pleasure! The Full Throttle has so far passed the meat test with flying colours.

Sauteed mushrooms and grilled back bacon go on top of the patty. We are talking hunger-quenching portions here. Chef Eric has skillfully accomplished a good crisp on the bacon, and he better do, as we’re no fans of limp, unloved, and quickly-done bacon. The mushroom and bacon hill is kept together with a thickness of Emmental cheese, that is as seductive as melted cheese could ever be on a burger. This Swiss cheese has a buttery, mildly sharp and slightly nutty taste, and is a right pair with the rest of the ingredients.

The burger comes in two halves because Hank says that due to its jumbo size, it could prove challenging to bite it off! Each portion is served on the half side of a sesame bun, that despite its looks, is able to withstand all the weight of the content without a glitch and without breaking up after 10 seconds. This is because the seed-studded bun has a good density. It’s also spread with a mustard mayonnaise.

A generous amount of salad leaves, tomatoes, yellow peppers, lettuce and carrot sticks join the party on the plate. If vegetation is your thing, then you will love these crispy and crunchilicious greens. You also get dabs of Hank’s house dressing to tang the palate up. We know that many meat-lovers tend to remove vegetables from their burgers, and this has put into motion a new trend of vegetable-less meat burgers. We won’t do that here and will put in as many vegetables as possible in our Behemoth.

There’s more on the plate. This wouldn’t be a Full Throttle without a portion of beer battered onion rings. The onion rings are thick, meaty, crunchy, and golden crisped. They hold their shape and have the proper look and feel of full-onion flavour. We will use them to crown our creation. The plate is also packed with steakhouse fries and coleslaw.

That’s the Full Throttle burger for you. But to us, this is only a starting point. Once we’ve assembled both halves of the Full Throttle, with a good amount of vegetables in the middle, and onions rings steak-knifed on the very top, we’re moving into a piquant territory and putting in a whole half portion of bbq ribs. These ribs have been smoked Chicago-style, and are smothered in Hank’s own BBQ sauce recipe. They are slow cooked for long hours in the Smokehouse, where they come out beautifully glazed and ready to be racked! They are fall-off-the-bone delicious and are covered with some of the most fully-flavoured BBQ sauce we’ve tasted on ribs. The sauce should compliment the meat, not make the meat, and that’s exactly what happens here. They are meltingly tender, and it takes no time to knife off the meat, and splice it into the burger! These ribs definitely add an element of primal experience to the Behemoth Burger.

And this is the end of our burger story… that is, we ate it all to the incredulous stares of the Chef. Whilst many burgers with ribs have come and gone, most only piqued in either the beef patty or the short rib. This one hits the jackpot from every conceivable corner and fulfills that furtive need to gormandize on heaps of quality meat at once. We’ve hit our daily consumption of protein, so Mission accomplished!

Shroomiest burger of them all

In US, National Mushroom Day is sometime in October, but that did not stop the guys at Just Burger from creating a mushroom-centric burger in February. We’ve tasted and checked out different incarnations of the mythical mushroom burger in our 5 years of existence, and what we usually get is a standard burger with 4 slices of mushrooms thrown in for good measure. And that’s it! That might be enough for any causal burger consumer, but it’s not enough for us.

So how did Just Burger solve the Mushroom-gate dilemma? They shifted directly to the fifth gear and added a double flavour of mushroom to the burger-equation!
Now, why didn’t we think of that ourselves?!

This burger starts life with a bunch of perfectly sized baby spinach on top of the bun. Baby spinach is a tender leafy green, so it is especially tasty when served raw as it provides a vibrant colour, crunchy texture and flavor. It’s a much more welcome green than the more common lettuce. The first layer of mushrooms comes in the form of portobello mushrooms. They are oven roasted with thyme, bay leaves, and basil to get a deep savory flavor. Portobello mushrooms are the mature version of cremini mushrooms. They are not as watery as cremini and have a slightly more pronounced mushroom flavor. They are the ideal choice for this burger, because of their larger size and consistency.

At the epicenter, we have a patty made from 140g of Angus Beef. Just Burger get their own fresh cuts of Angus beef and mince and create the patty in their own kitchen. It’s also a fairly lean blend of beef, and even though it has a low-fat content it’s tasty and juicy and does not feel dry, even when cooked at higher temperatures. The patty is topped with a Pecorino Pepato cheese. This is a raw sheep’s milk cheese, that originates from Sicily and is infused with black peppercorns all over. Pecorino Pepato is usually aged for 2 to 4 months during which it develops a flaky, but creamy consistency. The salty, tangy citrusy flavours complemented by the spiciness of the peppercorns make this cheese a great tasting-point in this burger. We all know and love the bacon cheeseburger, but thanks to the Pecorino Pepato, we might now have another burger category on the rise: the Mushroom Cheeseburger!

The final ingredient is the turning point in this burger creation. Just Burger have doubled the stakes and added a truffle mayo on the very top. A truffle can generally be considered a type of mushroom as it’s a spore that usually grows on the roots of trees. The truffle oil infused in the mayo creates a garlicky and deep musky flavour. It’s earthy, pungent and deliciously funky. It has a slightly thick consistency and is utterly delicious.

What do you need more in a mushroom burger? Until someone comes up with a triple dose of mushrooms, this is the most shroomy burger of them all! If you want to be creative, you might choose to double the patty… yes you can do that too and end up with a mega mushroom burger!

And as if that is not enough, Just burger have created two new sauces, a curry sauce, and a classic bbq sauce, which many use as a dip for french fries, you can also be added inside any burger to add a level of customisation. Both are labeled as Vegan, and both taste as good as any curry or bbq aficionado would expect. These guys never stop creating and inventing foodish delicacies, and that’s the way we love things!

Top 5 Veggie Burgers

When ordering a veggie burger at a restaurant, are you really making the healthier choice? Even though today’s food engineering has made stampede-sized steps since the days of soy-based burgers, ingredients can vary so widely, that it pays to take a close look at what your veggie burger is actually made of. Do veggie burgers have any health-improving advantages over the more popular beefy-originals?

And that’s where we come in. In 2017 we’ve tried, tasted and tested 19 different vegetable-based burgers, and did all the homework for you. We’ve discarded the bland ones that tasted like wet cardboard, and incinerated the cheaters made from frozen soy patties…

Which 5 have made it to the Top of our Hit List (in NO particular order)?

L-Istazzjon

We’ve seen and tasted many Quinoa burgers, but this Sweet super-grain version from L-Istazzjon is the real deal! The patty is made from quinoa, sweet potato, chickpeas, lentils, curry, herbs and coconut oil. The burger has a few extra condiments: rucola, lettuce, tomatoes, onion, and cucumbers. All are raw, as the patty itself is the hero here. Everything is housed in a brioche bun, with a gluten free option available on request.

This Sweet Quinoa burger has managed to keep its head high among its beefy peers. If you love meat burgers and want to try 1 vegetable option in your life, make sure this is it! For the rest, this is a wheat-free vegetarian dream burger that should make you run out to Mdina and go try it now before others eat them all!

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The Beer Cave

When we were told that there’s a green burger in Valletta, we assumed that the greens were inside the burger and not the colour of the burger itself! Chef Marco @ The Beer Cave has fine-tuned his own family recipe to create a green bun that has a mix of coloured seeds on top, to make it even more unique. Just like many veggie burgers we have come across, this one had no name, so we promptly re-baptising it as The Asparagus Burger!

The patty is a mash of chickpeas, marrow, carrots, spring onions, grated breadcrumbs, and asparagus. Asparagus, often considered as an aristocrat of the plant kingdom, is one of the main ingredients. On a gram per gram basis, the raw materials used here, are the most expensive we’ve seen in the local veggie burgers scene. There is no sauce in this burger, just the green bun, the asparagus patty, 2 slices of tomatoes and rucola.

We truly loved this Asparagus interpretation of the classic Veggie Burger, and so did 20,000+ of you, as this was one of the most checked-out Features in 2017.

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Novi

Our search for the tastiest vegetarian burger in town, that one burger-unicorn that can turn the most ardent beef-eating person into a lover of greens, took us to Novi on the Gzira seafront. We went there because last summer, owner Chris came up with a new burger concoction. It’s a visceral vegetable burger, made from grilled, raw vegetables, with halloumi at heart. Halloumi is a fresh, semi-firm cheese, traditionally prepared from sheep’s milk in Cyprus. Why should someone make a vegetable burger based on Halloumi? It’s because Halloumi is a soft curd-like cheese free of rennet and safe for vegetarians who do not eat rennet. On top of the two hefty blocks of grilled Halloumi cheese goes raw baby spinach, 2 slices of grilled eggplant, 2 pieces of roasted red peppers and raw onions. All is topped with morsels of walnuts and honey-mustard sauce. All the vegetables are sourced locally, making this one a made-in-Malta guaranteed burger!

We’ve rarely seen more transparency than this one, when it comes to burger-making, as you can literally see the whole lot of vegetables it’s made of. During 2017 we’ve tested a number of other Halloumi based burgers, but this one has stirred a big fire in the tastebuds of not-a-few beef-eaters, according to your feedback.

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Hugo

In its 2+ years since inception, Hugo’s Burger Bar has established itself as the new McDonald’s of Paceville. If you’re in the area and need a quick Burger fix, Hugo’s is the place to go. And that’s what we did!

Any lover of burgers and vegetables remembers how old school veggie burgers used to rely heavily on soy filling, but not this one. The patty is coated in a batter of panko breadcrumbs, which is lightly fried to make it look and taste crispy. The inside is filled with sweet potato, quinoa, black zucchini, sweet corn, carrots, spring onions, kidney beans, chick peas and coloured peppers. This seems like a whole garden full of fiber, whole grains and legumes inside! The vegetables are mashed and blended just enough to create a dough-like patty with a very uniform texture. Even though all the ingredients have been worked out in a patty, the burger still has a hint of the real vegetables inside with an appealing consistency and a hearty flavour. Both sides of the bun are covered with a Tzatziki dressing spread, made from yogurt, garlic, mint, and cucumber. We also get some raw mixed leaves and carrot strings on top.

Hugo’s made the right move when they added a veggie option to their menu, almost from the very start, as it provides a pit-stop to bean & zucchini lovers. If you’re on the go, then this burger is a sure-fire choice.

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Grassy Hopper

Way back in 2013 there was a food truck at Ta’ Xbiex, promoting clean eating. Years later it turned into a green food Mecca in the center of Gzira, that nowadays feels like the original purveyors of Veggie Burgers in Malta, even if that is not historically correct. Their popular BBB (Sweet Potato & Black Bean Burger) is a perfect showcase of how comfort food should be full of nutrients, energy and body-positive properties.

The patty ingredients have been carefully chosen to provide high quality carbs and low GMI, without refined sugars and starches: black beans, sweet potato mash, a varied mix of seasonal vegetables like carrots, rice and buckwheat. The bun is baked locally from whole grains and is topped with a variety of crunchy seeds. The burger also has lettuce and slices of tomatoes, and mustard, and all these vegetables are sourced from organic or pesticide-free farmers.

Need we add more? Yes we do! You have the option to add Vegan Cheese to this burger, and if you do not, you’re going to regret it for the rest of your life, as this might be Grassy Hopper’s best kept secret. This nut-based cheese is produced in-house and is made from cashews and a selection of spices. Add it to your burger, and suddenly the BBB gains a whole new level of WOWness! If you’re a vegetarian you already know all this, but if you’re not and love the idea of a burger that might increase your life-span, go bite one now! 

Those were the five veggie burgers made from vegetables, whole grains, legumes and all the good-for-you ingredients that provide fiber and a variety of vitamins and minerals, for increasing your life-span. And they pack less calories & fat than the meaty variants!

We will bring you more Veggie News in the weeks & months to come, as restaurants and burger joints up their game, and hopefully bring Veggie Burgers to a whole new level of tastefulness!

Chicken BBQ Bacon @ Xmas Time

Five years ago, on this very same day, we launched #MALTAburgers with the main intent of covering all the new burger options that were popping up all across Malta. The very first burger we listed at the end of 2012 was the Texas Grander from KFC. We’ve come full circle and are back at KFC, to see what Malta’s most popular chicken express-food house is up to these days.

The image on the front window at KFC Gzira shows a humongous box with a bbq burger, a piece of chicken and all the sides your stomach can dream of! We’re in!

The BBQ Box Meal is made up of a chicken fillet, 2 pieces of bacon and a golden hash brown. The usual lettuce, cheese, mayo, and bbq sauce are there too. The chicken fillet is the original recipe one, it’s moist and tasty and has a crunchy, appetizing texture. Moist is a key factor here… Give us dry chicken, and we will run away faster than Road Runner! KFC prepare these daily, and we check out the Gzira one on a monthly basis, and their track record is usually always on the upper-quality scale in the express-food scene. Colonel Sanders’ secret recipe of herbs never fails to impress. They also have a Zinger version (called the Supercharger) for those who like spicy chicken. The hash-brown adds a mushy layer to the stack, whilst the bacon brings in the smokey flavor. This is one of the very few KFC burgers with bacon inside. We wish the bacon could be a tad more crispy, as that would have catapulted this chicken burger into a higher level of awesomeness.

The mix of textures works really well and this burger seems to have everything going the right way. The BBQ flavor is quite strong and present, though the burger is neither spicy nor sweet, so it has a good balance for those hungry ones, who just want to grab a chicken and bacon burger and devour it in one go! Aesthetically, the burger looks the part. Indeed the box meal also has a chicken piece, drink, fries and a side (onion rings, salad or corn). We think this box meal is definitely a chicken-craver quencher… If you’re famished and in the Gzira area, you know what to do!

We wish that KFC would keep the ball rolling in this direction, and hit back again with bigger chicken burgers and grander boxes filled with even more awesome sides.

In the meantime, we’re out of the office, keeping up traditions, and burger hunting on Xmas eve…

Bhima Burger

#THROWBACK to 2012!

This was the notorious BHIMA Burger, created by Porky’s in Hamrun, 5 years ago. The filling itself was not a traditional patty, but it was made from pieces of chopped chicken & pork, 2 fried eggs, lots of greasy bacon, a tonne of cheese, coleslaw, and why not… extra veggies of your choice!

All was grilled right there and then and piled up in a big tower. Porky’s used to open during the wee hours of the morning, making it an obligatory stop for many, after a drinking session in Paceville!

If you take the word of TRIPadvisor you are spoiled for choice: This was either the worst Take Away burger ever, or the most delicious one!

Did you ever try the BHIMA yourself?

Will anyone bring back the concept of the BHIMA in 2018?

Halloumi – a Grate cheesy burger

Our search for the tastiest vegetarian burger in town – that one burger-unicorn that can turn the most ardent beef-eating person into a lover of greens – takes us to Gzira seafront. Novi is an unassuming bar at first glance, but first impressions can be deceiving, as this place is a hideout, ebullient with home-made food. One year ago, we already stopped at this same door, but the sign on the front read Happy Pizza. We wonder what string of events brought such a change from pizza house to a burger joint, so we delve inside.

Here we find the man of the day, always-smiling Chris Vella. Chris was born in New York, from Maltese parents. He’s an engineer by profession, but when he moved to Malta 14 years back, he has worked in a myriad of trades, from being a mobile salesman to real estate work. Having acquired a fascination for good food from his father, Chris saw it fit to open Happy Pizza! The ups and downs of running a pizza delivery service made him turn around, and 1 year ago he resurrected the place as Novi, half bar, half express-food joint. Novi actually means New, and the old Happy Pizza premises were dismantled and rebuilt from scratch and by hand, by Chris himself, with his wife doing all the interior designing and planning. The animalistic paper sculptures on the walls roar back that this is a pet-friendly bar. If you’re out for a drink with friends, why should you leave your pet at home? According to Chris, you shouldn’t!

We came here because we heard that last July, Chris came up with a new burger concoction. It’s a visceral vegetable burger, made from grilled, raw vegetables, with halloumi at heart. Halloumi is a fresh, semi-firm cheese, traditionally prepared from sheep’s milk in Cyprus. So why should someone make a vegetable burger based on Halloumi? It’s because Halloumi is a soft curd-like cheese free of rennet and safe for vegetarians who do not eat rennet. Halloumi is firm, salty and a bit rubbery, and has a smooth texture. Halloumi is not meant to be eaten raw, so in this burger iteration, it’s grilled. Once cooked, the saltiness fades into a robust, savory bite with a creamy texture that’s a bit akin to a marshmallow! Just like marshmallows, once grilled, this cheese becomes crispy and savory on the outside, and sinfully melted on the inside! It won’t melt totally, but develops a crispy crust because the protein bonds are broken before forming into curds… which is the opposite of most cheeses!

Liga from Latvia is our chef of the day, and she churns out our burger in record speed time. On top of the two hefty blocks of grilled Halloumi cheese goes raw baby spinach, 2 slices of grilled eggplant, 2 pieces of roasted red peppers and raw onions. All is topped with morsels of walnuts and honey-mustard sauce. All the vegetables are sourced locally, making this one a made-in-Malta guaranteed burger! We’ve rarely seen more transparency than this one, when it comes to burger-making, as you can literally see the whole lot of vegetables it’s made of. The combination of Halloumi, vegetables, and nuts conjures superb flavors and texture. The sauce was a good choice because it is not overly sweet or overpowering, just mellow in taste. We miss some more overall crunch in this burger, maybe adding some carrot strings would help fill that void. We’re sure that this one will stir a fire in the tastebuds of not-a-few beef-eaters, who will be more than glad to devour this burger in a matter of bites!

Any burger, whether beefy or veggie, should be accompanied by a good portion of fries, and Novi spoils you for choice. We tried out the sweet potato and seasoned chips, which are both crinkly, golden and rightly-crisped, just as any Maltaburgers-approved fries should be! The portions are big-man US-sized, so Novi have a variety of dips to go with the fries. We tried the hot one, which is a chili and vinegar sauce, and the basil sauce. Add a lemon drink made in the US, and you have one beast of a veggie meal any gorilla would climb the Empire State building for!

Chris made the right choice when he dumped pizza making and started grilling burgers! We love his attitude and ideas for express-food with a homely taste. Come on Chris, dream up a new burger or four for the year to come!

The Easter Bunny Burger

Charles Bar in Swatar is no standard Sports Bar. For the past months, they have carved a name in the local burger scene, with almost supernatural creations like The Muscle, a triple beef patty burger, with jalapeno flavour and a waffle at the base, who’s had not a few rounds with big eaters and mouthy challengers. And who can forget that burger filled with Dorito chips, or the Surf & Turf one with buttermilk chicken, prawns, jalapeno salsa & feta cheese?!

Behind all this, is a man, who is surprisingly not named Charles! Wayne Desira (whose second name is Charles) is a 27-year-old chef, who took over the old Charles Bar 2 years ago from a retiring owner… whose name was not even Charles! Wayne was handed the bar, decorated in pink, shiny tinsel and red Christmas ornaments! Even though Christmas was 2 months away, Wayne had to painstakingly tear down the whole place and rebuild it the way we see it today.

When Wayne heard the news that we were hunting for rabbit burgers, he promptly offered to create something just for MaltaBurgers, as his traditional fried rabbit is one of the bar’s trademarks. We thought that this would be a rehashed burger, with a rabbit patty instead of a beef one… but how wrong we were! The burger had no name, so we promptly christened it The Easter Bunny Burger!

The EBB has no bread bun. The bun is a golden ufo-like dome made from rabbit meat! The idea originated from the mac & cheese balls that Wayne does. Rabbit meat, fennel, curry, ginger, garlic, and chorizo (Spanish sausage) are worked in the form of a flat patty. A hard-boiled egg is placed in the middle and enveloped within the meat to form a fist-sized ball. This is covered with flour, coated in egg and dipped in breadcrumbs. It’s then deep fried in oil until it crunches into a golden colour. When it’s split in half, it’s transformed into a Bunny bun!

Lettuce, slices of tomatoes and onions go on top of the bunny bun. A generous portion of sundried tomatoes pesto amalgamates the vegetable ingredients. Wayne’s signature beef patty goes on top. It’s adorned with melted cheddar cheese and a big big wallop of mashed peas. The various elements, like the sundried tomatoes and peas, are taken from the traditional fried rabbit recipe, which is the main inspiration behind this burger. And it also tastes like the rabbit your grandmother used to do on Sunday lunches, which you adored so much.

With his out-of-the-box thinking, Wayne has created a very distinctive and one of a kind burger, the likes of which we haven’t yet come across this year. The days when formulating new burgers was a matter of slapping a couple of random ingredients on a cheeseburger and calling it Mighty Cheese, are over! We hope other burger chefs get a kick in the right direction and start innovating their burger offerings. Building this burger involves many stages and much preparation, so if you like rabbit and burgers and always strive to try something exclusive, you better book with Wayne before you show up at Charle’s Bar! And if you happen to know who the Charles on the sign is, let us know!!