Do you remember the days when you could eat a beefy burger for €8, or €6, or even less? Those economical days have long gone by after burger houses like Badass took a leaf from what was brewing in Burger World and popularised the idea of the Angus gourmet burger on a local level. Prices revved a steady uphill race, and there seemed to be no turning back to the days of pocket-friendly meat in a bun. According to many Burger houses, the road to inflation is the way to go, because burger eaters want quality burgers, and there’s a hefty cost to that. This year we’ve even seen Wagyu burgers priced €90, and even €100.
So the mandatory question arises… Is it possible to lose one zero and find a burger made from quality meat for just €10?
That’s where the In House Butchers and their contemporary Bistro have come to the rescue! Who are these In House Butchers? They’ve been around for more than sixteen years, and in recent times they have been running a meat processing facility underneath the Park Towers Supermarkets in St Venera. Sounds very secretive and inaccessible, and indeed it is. What is accessible to all since last September, is their newly opened food fusion Bistro at the Park Towers megastore at Spinola Park, just a few hundred meters away from the very centre of Paceville. Could you blame us that we wanted to check them out, as soon as we heard that these butchers were doing burgers for €10 and even less?!
To our pleasant surprise, we find Patrick Mc. Bride, who’s spearheading the In House Bistro as head chef & manager. Mc. Bride is a renown stellar chef who has worked countless years (we’re not divulging his age) all around the world from America to South Africa, Ireland and all over Europe. All his immediate family have a vast background in catering and they have culinary-fingers into most of Malta’s successful kitchens, both past and present. Luckily for us, his mother is Maltese and Malta is where his heart and family is, so he’s here today to put his energy and skills into carving the perfect burger. We expect no less from someone of this calibre.
The In House Bistro have 2 flavours of their Ultimate €10 burger, an egg & bacon flavoured one, and a Maltese sausage variant which they built to challenge our taste buds. In House butchers have a flavourful history with their Maltese sausage, and we’re always game for Patriotic burgers, so that’s the one we’re going to go for today.
Inside the classical Maltese ftira, there is a salad mix, grilled peppers, sundried tomatoes, a hefty 300gr beef patty, a layer of Maltese sausage mix and a peppered cheeselet with parsley on the very top. The crunchy ftira bread is a very welcome substitute to the usual burger bun we all know and love. Apart from bringing in a more realistic Maltese look to the burger itself, it’s crust makes it sturdy enough to hold all the ingredients without breaking a sweat. We were able to eat this mammoth burger with two hands without too much trouble, and that construction feat in itself is worth 5 gold stars, and possibly more. The ftira bread is quite sizable, but there’s a lot of meat and vegetables inside, so the bread to filling ratio is well balanced. Just in case you want gluten free bread, that’s no problem, as the chef himself will run around the corner and grab one from the supermarket bakery! Opening a Bistro in the middle of a well-stocked supermarket has its perks!
There’s a mix of leafy greens at the base of the burger. They are abundant and crispingly fresh, and they are styled like a wedding dress tail, leading you from the edge of the dish into the very centre of the burger. A whole green bell pepper is grilled and charred and provides colour and a characteristically spicy and aromatic flavour. We haven’t seen many burgers this year with peppers inside, maybe it’s time to start using this vegetable more as a condiment. The sun-dried tomato mix is an all-time favourite as a bruschetta toasted bread topping. Sun-dried tomatoes are a great way to preserve our summer produce, and here they are standing in for the classic tomato slices. These colourful tomatoes have a texture similar to dried fruit and come with a very salty and somewhat herbal flavour. The dehydration process concentrates the tomato flavour a hundred-fold, so you get a more intense tomato experience per bite.
At the centre of it all, there’s a 300gr Angus beef patty made from forequarter cuts. This is extremely lean beef that is imported chilled and not frozen. It’s coarsely ground with nice meaty chunks in it, with pockets of juices that flow in your mouth as you chew. Even within the first bite, it shows that the burger is well rested, and the juices stay inside the patty and don’t spill all over the plate, or worst. The temperature and cook of the meat are consistent and precise, and in this particular case, we wouldn’t have settled for anything less. There’s definitely a pretty solid crust on this patty. The In House Butchers have created a unique piece of burger art with this immaculate piece of ground beef. Being butchers, they are able to keep the prices of quality meat cuts down, and once and for all, they are the living proof that you don’t need to spend €15 or more for an enjoyable burger of this size. Since the beef is very lean it has been coarsely minced. Very wise move here. This is not a cheap cut of fatty pub-burger meat that needs to be double minced to distribute the high level of fats as much as possible and might become soft and mushy in the wrong hands. We appreciate that not every outlet can employ experienced chefs that know how to handle a piece of minced beef, but more time than not, these part-time burger-builders we come across everywhere are not cutting it. Sometimes putting a little love and effort into every piece of beef helps, and we want to see more of that.
There’s more meat on the way, in the form of a roasted Maltese pork sausage mix, seasoned with crushed black pepper, salt, coriander, parsley and oriental bread flakes. The traditional sausage is influenced by the English one but made according to Portuguese traditions. Even though many like to eat it raw, sushi-style, here it’s roasted and makes a justified appearance next to the sun-dried tomatoes. In House Butchers obviously have their own recipe, but the taste is very strong and present, with a slightly smoky tinge. The mix is very well-balanced, as it’s neither too fatty nor greasy. It’s on the same line of thought as the lean beef. All this meat goodness is topped with shredded Gozitan peppered cheeselet… The Gbejna. It’s the classic Benna semi-hard cheeselet with pepper. It’s slightly creamy rather than totally dehydrated and holds together well when pressed in the ftira bread. We thought that half of it would fall down on the table, but that did not happen!
As if all this goodness was not Maltese enough, we get 2 sides with this burger; An Arijoli dressing made with galletti, kunserva, parsley, chilli, salt and olive oil, and a sizeable portion of oven baked potatoes flavoured with garlic and parsley. You also have the option of spicy potato wedges or straight cut fries, but why would you do that, when you can go Maltese all the way?!
We’re more than sure that we have just found a burger that will slowly build a very positive reputation for itself over the next weeks and months, not only because of the inimitable price point but also because of the quality of the ingredients used. Eating this whole load of a giant burger does not weigh you down at all. It’s mostly due to the lean meat, and the combination of condiments. And that’s why we’re overall impressed by this Maltese burger, and so will you, whether you’re a lover of Maltese cuisine, a burger fanatic that likes sizable portions or are casually passing by for a quick meal. We’re very confident that In House Bistro will soon surprise us again with another exceptional burger offering.
