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?
