bacon

Holy Trinity

In recent years we’ve been bombarded with healthy eating messages left, right and centre. The doctor, the media, the government and even the school teachers have instructed us to eat fit food. We totally love that. Yet, one burger joint in Hamrun dares to defy the rest by inviting us to eat irresponsibly. Get your knives and forks ready. Then put them aside, as today we’re off to Hamrun to eat the Bandit way!

After much teasing in 2018, Bandit opened its doors to unsuspecting Hamrun people in the first days of January 2019. With age-old and iconic eateries like Tivoli and the town square Gabbana to measure up to, the people behind Bandit seem to have no fear. But who are these people? Clint Tabone, Gareth Bartolo and Matthew Piccinino where all raised in Hamrun, and this project seems to have been a long time coming. They went for the name Bandit because bandits don’t live by rules and love to challenge conventions, especially those of culinary nature! Last year has seen a resurgence in things burger in Hamrun, with places like Chick ‘n Bites and Journey trying to come up with something different than the standard Gabbana cheeseburger. But how will the new challenger Bandit fare? We defied thunderstorms, wind and rain to find out.

Situated right next to the majestic San Gaetano church, one of Bandit’s signature burgers is aptly called the Holy Trinity! This curious creation is a combination of three different types of meat in one bun: a 180gr beef patty, a piece of buttermilk chicken thigh and crispy bacon for that extra crunch. That seems to be what a bandit would want to eat these days. Chef Martin Debattista, an ex-teacher who spent the past 15 years working in kitchens all over UK and Malta, raises the grill temperature and gets ready to prepare this Spartan special. The patty is made from cuts of brisket & short rib to produce a pleasingly granulated burger. This is a flavourful grind with an optimal ratio of fat to lean. The Spartan beef blend tastes rich and has a good texture. As soon as you bite into it, it just melts, gifting you with an intense beefy flavour. Short rib might be short, but it’s about as marbled a cut as you can get. The muscle’s constant action makes this cut packed with flavour. The distinct flavour profile of the Brisket and percentage of fat content yields a rich patty with a humble meat-and-potatoes attitude. This robust patty blend has a ton of personality with some slight sweet undertones, which we truly loved.

Buttermilk fried chicken is the ultimate comfort food, and this burger comes with a hefty dose. The chicken thigh is marinated for 2 days in a buttermilk mix, covered in seasoned flour and then deep fried until golden and crispy. The buttermilk definitely creates a tangy tenderization here. There is a fair amount of time and labour involved here, but the Buttermilk fried chicken is one of those finger licking foods that we miss from times gone by when KFC was still top at the chicken game. Hamrun is chockful of chicken takeaways but the extra crispy breading in this thigh is definitely going to cause a town-wide craze.

We love super crispy bacon, the kind you get in English breakfasts, cooked on the stovetop and drained properly. It seems that there is some sort of secret to crispy bacon that eludes many Maltese burger joints. We pity the Millenials that only know the limp, squishy and greasy bacon from Burger King and McD. We really do. When Chef Martin promised us crispy bacon, we stood open-eyed. Indeed the bacon here is beautifully crusted, the kind that’s a joy to crunch between your teeth. These kitchen Bandits have nailed the bacon dead on!

A burger needs accompaniments, and the pickles are a God sent here as they bring the yin to the burger’s yang. The juicy snap of the pickles, salty and vinegary, mingles well with the textured meats, providing a much needed acidic boost. The pickle is a sort of palate cleanser here, allowing you to experience the sharp contrast in flavours and more fully appreciate the taste of the beef, chicken, bacon and cheese sauce. There’s also a maple mayonnaise made in-house that will make you smack your lips, as it goes especially well with the chicken.

Anyone can grill a burger, but it’s the condiments that separate the mundane from the memorable. And that one memorable condiment of the Holy Trinity is the cream cheese. Warm, oozing cheese is never a bad idea. Here Bandit have taken this concept to the unexpected limits. Their cheese sauce is so spectacularly and stupendously rich and gooey, that they slather it onto every ingredient inside the burger! No one is spared! Say goodbye to cheeseburgers as you know them, as this one is laden with spoonfuls of cream cheese sauce made from besciamella, cheddar, Edam and some sharp mature cheese for good measure. The sheer amount of luscious cheese sauce is artery-clogging, but that’s the whole concept of the Bandit. Needless to say, this purposely creates an irresponsible and messy burger, where taste takes over visuals.

In the end, we ate it all! That’s because, all the burger elements do work together in harmony, never taking away from the symphony of the beef and fried chicken. The pure, unadulterated goodness profile of this beast burger has definitely catapulted it into the top position, as far as Hamrun burgers go. In due time it will gain cult status amongst Hamrun people and beyond, like the never-forgotten Bhima burger.

A Cut above the rest

What if you were in Mosta, checking out the Rotunda, and you’re suddenly hit by an unending burger ache? There’s no NYB or Sea Salt around, so what do you do?
Mosta is not a well-known pitstop in the local burger scene, and until 2018 there was no easy fix to our burger-hunger problem. That’s until Cheese & Cuts opened its door adjacent to the B4 Group. Amongst the countless cheeses, salty salumi and sparkling bottles of Spanish wine, we can also spot a burger offering. Will it be so good, as people have been telling us, to justify our trip to the town with a church featuring one of the largest unsupported domes in the world?

The C&C burger features a patty made from 200gr of Black Angus ribeye. In the very middle, there’s 40gr of Scamorza cheese. Yes, this is one of those cheese-stuffed burgers that ooze cheesy goodness with every bite, which you may also know as Juicy Lucy. This patty is pan-seared & finished in the oven. As the patty cooks, the cheese melts, with the effect of keeping the beef near the centre of the burger very juicy. Since there’s no cheese on top of the patty, there’s also a cunning separation between beef and bun, resulting in a different texture than your usual cheeseburger. The ribeye comes from the rib section of the cow, and it’s often considered as one of the best cuts of meat. There’s an abundance of marbling, ribbons of fat that melt into the lean parts as it cooks, delivering that rich beef flavour we all love. This fat marbling does not only create the robust buttery flavour but it also enhances the beef’s tenderness. The patty is full of morsels of goodness and has a smooth, fine texture and is exceptionally beefy. It’s also seasoned adequately, with all the juiciness a good burger should have. The cheese inside the patty is there by no accident. Scamorza has excellent melting qualities, making it a much welcome choice than standard American cheese. This is a typical semi-soft white Italian cheese with a texture comparable to that of a firm, dry Mozzarella. Indeed the cheese-making process is somewhat similar to that of Mozzarella, but the different process of two-week ripening has given Scamorza its name. The texture of Scamorza is elastic with a flavour that is piquant, milky and creamy.

The beef is topped with smoked pancetta, which is gloriously crispy and has a nice salty crunch that elevates the overall burger flavours tenfold. Pancetta is the belly of the pig originating from the Northern parts of Italy. It’s similar to bacon, but is dry cured and then smoked. So how come this burger is infused with all these Italian ingredients? At C&C, the man with the pan comes from Palermo and goes by the name of Rosario. He’s been working in and out of kitchens for the past 15 years. Now that makes much sense! The scent of sizzling pancetta can be detected by us from a range that would put a bloodhound to shame! There’s a good way and a wrong way how to present bacon in a burger. We don’t want to see any of that flaccid, chewy and greasy bacon that the likes of Shoreditch are coming up with lately. We want the good bacon, that ethereally crispy porky pot of gold at the end of the bacon rainbow. And that is the level of pancetta we have here, the kind we reminisce from the last time we visited the Dorchester.

All the meat elements are enclosed in a brioche bun which works wonders with the simple flavours of this burger. The veggie element comes in the form of the classic lettuce & 3 slices of tomatoes. Lettuce acts as a good barrier between the beef and bread to prevent the toasted bun from getting soggy. But more importantly, tomatoes and lettuce are extremely high in water, leading to an overall moister bite. The burger comes with no fries, but you can opt for a side of crusted potatoes, which are boiled & oven baked.

Cheese & Cuts have come up with a very respectable Italianised twist on the Juicy Lucy. It didn’t disappoint and is a solid offering worth visiting Mosta for. We hope that C&C keeps going at it, with even more variety of burgers, to hold up the flag high for the Mosta burger scene.

Pirates go Avocado

Are pirates taking over the local burger scene? The answer would decidedly be an affirmative one if we put all our gold loot on the Pirata restaurant in St. Julian’s. 6 Months ago they opened a chic bistro on the busiest road in St. Julian’s and this summer they have almost taken over Mellieha bay. We need to investigate what burgers these pirates are brewing.

The man behind the steakhouse in St. Julian’s is Chef Roderick Vella, who’s a renown name in the local catering industry, as over the past 20 years or so, he’s had a hand or two in most of the top 5★ hotel kitchens in Malta. That’s quite a feat, so we’re expecting nothing less than an imperative outcome. At Pirata, he came up with a cannonball of a burger, jam-packed with the fattiest fruit of them all… the Avocado!

Indeed, this is one of the most loaded burgers we’ve seen so far this year. The potato roll is spread with spicy tomato ketchup and laden with 250gr of USDA chuck roll beef. A portion of herbed cream cheese goes on top, together with avocado slices and grilled zucchini. All this goodness is crowned with a helping of Pirata’s inhouse-aged cured pork neck.

From the very first glance, this burger proposes itself with a strong visual element that few of its brothers can boast of. It’s colourful and striking at first sight, and that’s always a very good start in our books. But how do all these elements work together with the beef? We need to taste!

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) meticulously grades beef at the request of meat producers, so this quality of beef is generally found in exclusive and upscale steakhouses. Anyone who has savoured USDA beef knows that it is delightfully tender and has a magnificent buttery flavour which makes it very distinctive from other meats. It’s usually derived from younger cows, so it has a good percentage of fat content as well as not too many nerves or gristle like other meats. Chef Roderick is using chuck roll to create his burger patty, which yields tender results. The thick patty is slow-cooked for 20 minutes, and a few pokes and squishes confirm its level of juiciness. Indeed it’s succulent at any temperature, full of flavour and has a rewarding fine texture. Any burger aficionado will have a happy day biting into this elegant piece of minced meat.

Sauces and condiments can make or break a burger. Here, the overall gusto is taken up a notch by the addition of spicy ketchup under the patty, which is entirely concocted in the Pirata kitchen. It kicks up the classic and is put in with a precise measure, to just add some zing without overpowering the main beefiness of the burger. Just like a well-balanced scale, there is herbed cream cheese on the other side of the patty! We love this style of cream cheese on a Wellington, as it’s refreshing and very aromatic, and brings a slight savoury French tinge, so it has an excellent home here, sandwiching the beef and contrasting the spiciness of the ketchup.

You usually find tomato and lettuce in many burgers, but if you are in California, avocados are a commonplace burger topping. These ripe slices of avocado add a layer of rich creamy taste and a definitive green kick of colour. The mild, delicate flavour of this ripe fruit – which in this case is cooked and not used raw – also keeps up with the freshness theme of this burger. An additional veggie boost comes from the grilled zucchini. If you hated zucchini as a kid, then you must taste these grilled ones, as they might well urge you to start growing them in your back garden! Zucchinis by themselves are rather bland, but here they picked up the flavours of the grill and have a slight sweet smokiness to them. They are a definitive step up from the usual lettuce and work well in the grand scope of this burger creation.

Every gourmet burger worth its name has a piece de resistance, and here it comes in the form of cured pork neck. Capocollo is made from the top part of the pig’s loin. Pirata get whole pigs, and they age and dry the meat in-house for months. They do their own mortadella, sausage and capocollo. The meat is deboned, salted and even massaged with peppercorns, and left to age for months. This produces a cut full of flavour, which is quite different from bacon. It’s sliced very thin and is a sort of cross between prosciutto and sausage, as it’s lightly spiced. It’s not overwhelmingly fatty as bacon and slightly smoky, only teasing your taste buds to good measure.

The burger comes inside a potato bun sprinkled with onions and pumpkin seeds, which Pirata bake themselves. We love the attention to detail, so top marks for that. Made with high-protein wheat flour, potato starch and vegetable oils, this bun has a supple doughiness, a light crust and is ridiculously buttery. It’s moist, yet substantial in texture. Its yellowish crispy crumb sets it apart from the fluffy sesame seed buns we see most of the time, yet it provides a sturdier bed for the patty and the many condiments of this burger. We’re seeing a rising trend in the use of potato buns in burgers, which we like a lot.

You also get sliced potato crisps and french onions as sides, which were a delicious accompaniment. This burger might induce the perception of being a classic bacon cheeseburger at first sight, but it has been bettered with the veggie power of avocados and zucchini, which do indeed add to the overall texture and creaminess. The toppings are piled high and stacked up all the way up to the bun, which makes for one visual experience, and can be continuously savoured layer upon layer. Chef Roderick has done a sterling job and created a burger unique enough to tantalise those looking for something alternative from the norm. We look forward to seeing further iterations of this burger from Pirata in the future.

Pork Trio

Many consider beef as the undisputed king in burger land. And why shouldn’t it be like that? After all, nothing beats a 100% beef burger. Except for the odd pork burger, when done right.

Truth is, we’ve searched far and wide for an incomparable burger made of pork. Throughout the years, we’ve come across enticing offerings from Shoreditch topped with pulled pork, tempting and delicious pork bellies from Fat Louie and even a Maltese ftira from The Pulled Meat Company, yet we still languished for that elusive porky burger of a regal level. Just when we were going to throw the towel and drive to Marsaskala for a fish burger, a beacon of hope glowed at the aptly-named Ras Hanzir, in Paola, in the whereabouts of the Pavilion Gastro Pub. Here we found a Pork Trio burger as part of their current lineup of specials, with not one, not two, but three layers of holy pork! We’re almost dumbfounded!

But why pork? Burger makers have been doctoring up beef patties from the outside for ages, pimping them up with thick bacon, unthinkable and exotic toppings and even injecting the insides with pockets of cheese. So why not turn the whole game upside down, and do something entirely different than beef? That’s just what Chef Daniel Callus thought of doing. Daniel is one of the veteran burger makers in Malta. He’s been working for 13 years in the local catering scene and helped set up many popular burger establishments. His ideas and touch can be spotted in many of the burgers you like eating.

The Pavilion Gastro Pub was renovated last August. It’s located on the historic grounds of the naval and military prison at Corradino Hill. The site also houses an indoor gymnasium and an underground flour mill, which was approved as a Grade 1 National Monument some years back. With such a historic setting, we’re more than aflamed to bite our way through the Pork Trio. The main patty is made from 120gr of breaded pork cheeks. Cheek meat is uniquely lean and tender. While most meat cuts can often be lean but dry or tender but fatty, these cheeks are both! Chefs at fine dining restaurants all across Europe have been steadily introducing this ingredient on their menus, and within the course of five years, pig cheeks have gone from an exotic food crave, to one that is sought after by most common folks! That could also be because the cheeks take the better qualities of the tastier cuts like shoulder, but have much flavourful marbling between the pink strands of meat. But not all is bright and rosy, as cooking cheeks requires a lot of love and thoughtfulness. Something as lean as cheek can grow tough if prepared incorrectly. That’s why Daniel cooks it slow and low, in a stew with spring onions and carrots. Once done, the cheeks are pulled and formed into a patty, breaded and deep fried lightly.

The second level of porky punch comes in the form of a 120gr chunk of pulled pork, slow cooked in jager sauce, to allow the protein to break down properly. Pork shoulder is the ideal cut for pulling purposes, as it has a favourable well-marbled content that prevents the pork from drying out while cooking and tends to create tender, melty meat. As the pork cooks, the fat melts and self-bastes during the process. The long hours invested will reward the chef and our stomach with tender, juicy shreds of piggy goodness. The zesty jager sauce is a well-kept secret of Daniel’s, but its consistency is similar to a thick bbq-like sauce, with elements of Jagermeister, cola, Worcestershire and ketchup… or something on those lines. This sauce is a bomb and provides the burger with a unique flavour, but at the same time, it does not overrule the meat. Having 1 sauce that dominates the whole taste would be a grave mistake, but luckily this is not the case here.

The third meat level surfaces as one of the most traditional and comfort use of pork… the bacon! Daniel promises crispy streaky bacon, 3 long slabs to be more precise, so we await impatiently. Every burger with bacon worth its name is judged by the level of crispiness of its bacon. Any wannabe can do soft, squishy bacon, the kind we despise more than dry meat. We know that even top chefs had to learn the basics of cooking when they first started out, but when it comes to bacon and the local burger scene, many tend to get stuck at novice level, and never step up their game to become a confident cook. Where is that dehydrated, crunchy, crusted thin slice of bacon we love? That bacon from the traditional English breakfasts of years gone by, where preparation was key, as excess fat had to be drained from the pan, and rested on a paper bag to avoid the extra-grease effect. We tend to ponder on that many times when we are regaled with a bacon burger. But not today! This bacon is firm and crispy, and you can feel the crunch effect between your teeth. The bacon is nailed dead on and has an enjoyable, porky smokiness, whilst the salty flavour intensifies the pork experience threefold. And thanks God, there’s a whole lot of it!

Just in case you thought that this burger is pork, pork, pork, there’s also a double dose of Leicester cheese! This English cheese is very similar to cheddar, although it is mild in flavour. The cheese stays melty right until the end of the burger but has the double function of enveloping and binding the pulled pork layer, both from the top and bottom. There’s nothing worse than biting on a burger and finding out that half of the pulled pork has painted a new design on your shirt. The bun is made in-house at the Eat Me I’m Famous bakery which is part of the same group of restaurants. It’s fluffy and tasty and looks very distinctive with its black seeds on top. Not all buns are up to the task, especially when it comes to hefty burgers with a lot of meat inside. This one holds really well and does not crumble all over when the time to bite comes. It shows that it has been specifically built to do the job the right way round. There’s also rucola for texture, a big slice of tomato, and more jager sauce at the base.

The Pork Trio burger excels on all counts, and despite all the pork inside, it’s very easy to bite into. Each layer of pork would make a good burger element on its own, but the 3 different textures put in one burger show an engrossing level of culinary thinking and execution, with a fruitful design and form, which unfortunately is something we don’t see every day. It’s akin the Lamborghini of Pork burgers as far as the local scene goes, and indeed we had no problem eating it all! We devoured it just like the big bad wolf always wanted to do with the 3 little piglets! We’re glad that Chef Daniel did not follow the current trend of just putting a chunk of pulled pork on a beef burger and stop there. We hope that Daniel places this one on the menu more often. If that’s the case, be sure we will be sneaking around Ras Hanzir again.

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?

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!

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!

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!

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…

BaconBurgerGate

Just Burger has been churning hit burgers, non-stop, month after month. The Greek, Asian and Wellington received an unbelievable amount of views from all of you. Right now, they also happen to have the crispiest fries we’ve tried out this year. So what can they possibly come up with next? A bacon burger!

As with some of their previous hits, this burger has many levels of ingredients. On top of the bun goes iceberg lettuce, 2 slices of tomatoes, their signature beef patty, melted cheddar cheese, 2 long strips of bacon, 3 slices of gherkins and crispy onions. All the ingredients are infused with a smoked paprika-flavoured mustard and a sundried tomato ketchup.

Over the past 5 years, we’ve had the pleasure to witness and sometimes the misfortune to taste, dozens of bacon burgers. Just like every dog has an annoying squeaky toy, every burger joint has a bacon burger. Most are built on a similar formula: grill some meat put a slice of cheese on top, slap some pieces of bacon, and call it The Bac ‘o N or a twist of whatever name Mcdonald’s has just come up with. Just like McDonald’s, it’s always the same burger from years gone by, maybe slightly smaller in portion size and more expensive than last year.

So how do Just Burger fare in all this BaconBurgerGate? They use 140g of Angus beef to create the patty. The meat is always juicy whatever cooking temperature you see fit to ask for, and that’s always a good start in our books. They also use cheddar as the cheese of choice, as it tends to have a mild and well-balanced taste, bringing an element of smooth creaminess. The pickled gherkins, one of the most traditional burger toppings, add piquancy to the taste equation. The mustard and ketchup have been imported just for this one burger, as they have their own unique flavours. This, not only shows the level of dedication that Just Burger goes into when creating a new offering but also serves as a tasty cement for those crispy and crumbling onions. We love crispy onions, but when they fly all over the place, they are more a nuisance than a blessing. This is not the case here though, and the fried onions provide crunchiness and add substantial height to the overall size of the burger.

Every Bacon Burger worth its name is ultimately judged by its bacon. Anyone can do limpy, soft and squishy bacon. Anyone can turn bacon black trying to get it right. Where is that crispy, dehydrated, crunchy, crusted thin slice of bacon everyone dreams of? That bacon from those traditional English breakfasts of years gone by, where preparation took ages, as excess fat had to be drained from the pan from time to time, and then rested on a paper bag to avoid the extra-grease effect. Well, this burger comes with hard and crispy bacon that’s a joy to crunch between your teeth. Each mouthful of this burger comes across as primarily beefy, with the smoked paprika sauce playing nicely with the gooey cheese, before the layer of bacon flavor starts to kick in slowly.

Just Burger have nailed the bacon dead on, and that’s game over for all the other mediocre and wannabe bacon burgers in town! The war for the ultimate bacon burger still roars on though, and while this is not the worldwide king of all bacon burgers, it manages to score exceedingly and soars sky-high. Which means, you still have a few more weeks left to run to Sliema and try it out, as it will be gone once the Xmas month is here.