Liselott and her international team of burger mongers are unstoppable. They keep churning new burgers every month, and August is no exception. This time around they have come up with something that might sound odd at first glance: An Asian Burger?! Maltese are big-time lovers of Asian cuisine, and most if not all Maltese love burgers in one form or another. But what happens when you mash and combine the two? Have Just Burger started a new local burger craze or is this a big miss?
To find out, we need to head to the infamous Plaza Shopping Center, in the heart of Sliema. Once there, a poster on one of the wall reads “You don’t need a silver fork to eat good food”, and so we set forth to bite our burger with bare hands, no cutlery necessary!
This burger tastes Asian from the very base, which is made from bok choy, which is a deep green leafy vegetable that resembles Romaine lettuce on top and celery on the bottom! Bok choy is very related to cabbage. Here, it’s boiled and then grilled. It’s packed with vitamins but tastes slightly bitter, like mustard greens. This is why we have a red & white cabbage slaw on top. The cabbage mix is marinated in Asian spices. We could taste honey, ginger and soy sauce, and the slaw not only tastes delicious but creates a very colourful layer in the burger. It adds great texture, crunch and an unmistakable flavour to the burger as a whole.
At the heart of every Just Burger, there’s a patty made from 140g of Angus Beef. The hand-formed patty has a thick crust marked with crunchy spots of char. The beef is always juicy and lands a beefy punch to the rest of the vegetable ingredients. The beef was a bit on the pink side for our personal tastes, but we know that many burger lovers like it like that.
Every burger does well with some bacon, as this one is no exception! The Asian Burger is topped with a mix of bacon crumble and chopped spring onions. We love crunchy bacon, and Just Burger have managed to get a delicious crisp in their bacon bits. We hope that they will be using these bacon bits more in their other burgers, as they seem to have got the crunchiness level more than right.
The bun is made from a Swedish recipe and produced by a local bakery. They have a gluten-free bread option too, which is very welcome by many. The bun is spread with lime and chilli mayo. And this is what drives the whole burger over the top! The combination of sweet chilli sauce with mayo and lime creates the best added Asian condiment anyone could wish for. All of these Asian flavours come together so well that propel the burger into overdrive mode, bringing you one unforgettable bite. There was enough spread on the top to permeate every bite and unite all the burger’s components. After you taste this, you will never want to go back to standard bacon burgers again!
Every burger has one Achilles’ heel, and this one is its longevity: it will only be available during August! We hope that Just burger will consider adding this one to their menu. Otherwise, we will have to drive to Sliema every single day for the next 30 days! A tender, juicy burger infused with Asian spices is no easy feat, and Just Burger have excelled themselves and come up with their BEST burger to date! It encapsulates the four essential Asian flavours in the mix: spicy, sweet and salty, with a well-balanced tang.
We hope that Just Burger will keep on experimenting with new burger concoctions and come up with something even greater. In the meantime, we’re off to Sliema again, as there’s an Asian burger waiting for us!
