Being a food blogger and not being huge is a conceptually challenging concept for me. Especially as I haven't figured out what kind of foodie I wanna be when I grow up. Will I do reviews? Recipes? Food challenges? Travel foodie stuff? Gluttonous? Healthy? All of the above? All this overthinking things has resulted in extended breaks from blogging whilst trying to figure out how on earth to eat all the things I want to eat, at all the places I want to eat them, without going completely broke and wearing muu-muus exclusively! Life is hard.
Anyway, I got over it last week and finally went to Ben's Burgers. The D Man is a burger fiend, and I'm a huge fan ever since I started eating bread again. Paleo was the worst!
Two months ago we had some rather disappointing and small burgers from South Side Diner, who had halved their menu and their burgers, by the looks of things. They were fine, pretty tasty, but overpriced and the chips were cold. Booo! I didn't even blog about it. There are so many burger joints in Brisbane I am yet to eat at, I'm beginning to panic. So sad to waste time on an average one.
D and I were in need of burger redemption. It was about 38 degrees celsius last Tuesday (1000 fahrenheit for those of you reading from the States) and although it was probably more iceberg lettuce and soda water weather, we met up at Winn Lane in the Valley and skipped to it. We were thinking Chur, but I heard they didn't do much salad on their classic burgers, so we opted to start our burger offensive at Ben's.
The decor is cute and minimalist - astro turf, some high tables and bar stools inside, some lower tables outside in the lane. If you haven't been to Winn Lane recently - you gotta check it out! It's all tiny hair salons and boutique shops for cool people.
Ben's Burgers is one of those hip places with an attitude that says 'we got it right, so we're not gonna let you mess with it'. I.e, no changes to burgers. Which means no subtractions. But you can add stuff! Helloooooo bacon. Jalepenos. Etc.
With only 3 burgers on the menu: a classic, a classic that's sorta pimped and a vego featuring mushroom...it doesn't take long to sort your order. I went for a classic and the D man went for a classic with jalepenos. Side of chilli fries for the boy (ambition) and standard for me.
Brioche Bun? Check. (A sorta sweeter, sexier white bun. Usually has eggs and butter in the dough). Thick beef pattie with flayyyyyyva-flave? CHECK. Jack cheese, tomato, lettuce, pickles, mayo? Wooooot-Wooooooot!! This was a pretty sexy burger. Chips were decent, thick cut and salted. I swooshed a nauseating amount of French's mustard and Heinz ketchup on my plate and GOT.AMONGST.IT. Satisfying. Not to big, not too small. Initially I thought the chips serve was small, but the cup was deceiving! In future, D and I might just share a serve.
I had a homemade ginger beer too. Loved the concept, and it was refreshing, but really inconsistent as some sips were mild and more soda water than anything else, and other times I sucked up chunks of fresh ginger and lemon. Confronting, yet overall quite refreshing. Certainly I couldn't argue against the 'homemade' aspect.
D was excited about his chilli fries, because he didn't even know it was a thing!
A meal in itself, the chili had a nice flavour and I look forward to hitting it up on a cooler day. D said his burger was awesome (as was mine), and he really enjoyed the kick from the jalepenos. I'll be adding those next time. He treated himself to a beer in a college cup - the bitter I think it was. (My Wife's Bitter - Haha!) Unfortunately the nice chick at the counter was too enthusiastic with the head; the beer was foamy and a little flat. Disappointing.
Overall, we loved our lunchtime rendezvous at Ben's Burgers. It totally redeemed our last burger experience at Southside and we look forward to trawling through the rest of Brissie's burgeoning burger scene! (Mouthful!)
xo,
AB