After Brass & Knuckle closed down their burger shop (not missed at all) at Carob Tree, someone had to step in to provide a burger offering at the popular food court. That someone happened to be TukTuk with a lineup of curiously Indian-inspired burgers. Meat, take a back seat! Today is the day to make some room for a new plant-based burger, Indian style! We never say no to veggie burgers, especially when they are vegan, as some of our team embrace this lifestyle to the full. So with great pleasure, our burger bite off of the day is with the curiously named “TOO MUCH GOOD VEGAN BURGER”. Mind you, this is the burger name on the menu, not our final opinion!
The burger itself is a two-storey game. The first is expectedly the patty. It’s freshly made in the TukTuk kitchen and it shows. It’s packed with lots of vegetables like potatoes, carrots, peas, beans, sweet corn and fennel seeds for good measure. There’s a gardenfull of fibre and legumes inside! The vegetables are mashed and blended just enough to create a dough-like patty which is on the mashy side and disintegrates very easily, but this is expected from handmade patties with no crunchy shell to bind. The patty is very moist and not dried out. Most importantly, the Indian taste is undoubtedly there. And it’s Vegan!
The second storey is more unique and comes in the form of a chana vada fritter. This is a popular South Indian tea time snack in itself but has been wisely infiltrated here. The base of the fritter is a “dhal” made from a deeply spiced stew of native chickpeas or yellow lentils. This dhal is more of a blank canvas for the aromatics. Here it is lime pickle and green chillies. Chana Dhal is actually the less spiced version in Indian cuisine, but HOT it is! It’s actually marked as HOT on both the menu and visually with a grilled chilli atop the burger itself! The fritter is very crisp in contrast with the mashy patty and adds a much needed dimensional layer of texture. TukTuk should think of doing a Chana Dhal inspired burger. They would have a winner there.
The burger is served in a soft bun, which was the perfect size for the veggie patty. There’s a chutney paste at the base that stands as the only “sauce” in this burger. With so many nut-based vegan cheeses on the market these days, we missed the cheese in this burger. Yes, cheese is not included and it’s a pity.
A worthy mention are the Indianized version of French Fries that accompany the burger. They engulf the plate en masse. There’s enough to feed 3 people, and best of all, they are GOOD! They are the freeze bag variety, but more of the premium brand kind. They are fried crisp as it should be, which always gets TOP marks from us. The fries are sprinkled with a spice mix, which tasted mostly of curry, chilli and cumin. A sweet chilli sauce serves as a ketchup stand-in.
TukTuk made the right move when they added a vegan burger option to their 2020 menu. If you love well-spiced food, this one should be on your burger bucket list. We don’t know if this burger is going to convert any beef fans, but you never know, it might just do the trick!
