Best Burgers in Perth? @ V burger bar

I’m always on the look out for new restaurants along Victoria Park, Albany Highway because it’s so near my house. So even before Vburgerbar was opened, I already noticed the signboards advertising their website and was intrigued. When Jason asked me to suggest a place for  dinner, I thought relatively affordable + near + something new = Vburger bar.

With the success of the now famous Jus Burgers, it isn’t surprising that gourmet burger bars have been popping up all around Perth. Having frequented Jus Burgers around three times, I have to admit that they do have pretty nice burgers even for a non-burger fan like me. I have yet to try the others like Burger Bistro, F.A.B but I’m sure I’ll get there someday :).

First complaint about V Burger Bar, the windows were wide open which might be nice on a breezy spring day, but not when it was so freaking hot in Perth summer. It kinda defeated the purpose of having an aircon in the little bar as well. We were sweating throughout our burger meal.

Richard’s burger was the Chickcorian, chicken coriander patty,gourmet salad and lime sweet chilli mayo (I can’t remember the price of the burgers, around $10 – $15 mark). I thought the coriander taste didn’t stand out at all in the chicken patty and was unremarkable, but Richard said it was pretty ok as burgers go.

Jo had one of their signature burgers and also the biggest burger on the menu, the F.B.A. (Full blooded Aussie) which came with prime beef, bacon, fried egg, cheese, sliced beetroot, gourmet salad, BBQ sauce, aioli. 2nd complaint about the burgers, it was quite impossible to eat these towering burgers in one bite, in the end, most of the guys picked it to pieces and ate it layer by layer. Otherwise, I think Jo quite enjoyed her burger.

Calv and Jaso both had the Crispy Crisp burger which was prime beef, gourmet lettuce, crispy battered onion, V relish, aioli. Jason seemed to like his burger and one of his comments was I’m too harsh in my comments and he would have given V Burger bar a 7 rating. So not bad for a compliment right?

Plus look at happy Calv who demolished his burger in record time!

This was HC’s Teriyaki burger which he had to eat with a fork and knife. He said it was quite tasty but a bit too salty for his liking.

Overall, I don’t think Jus Burger would be too worried with V burger bar. It’s a good addition to the Albany Highway restaurant strip, and everyone especially liked their soft and very edible buns, but it didn’t manage to convince a burger sceptic like me.

Daitaoha ratings:

Food: 5.5/10

Service 6/10

V Burger Bar
12/910 Albany Highway
Victoria Park
08 9355 3702

Bento Week 2 : Mission accomplished!

The bento bandit strikes again!

Bento Monday

Leftovers from Merdeka night, mostly basmati rice with chicken curry, sambal kangkong and sambal prawns.

Bento Tuesday

Sweet pork fillet, stir fried brocolli and carrots, japanese egg tofu and half boiled egg with rice. This was probably the most ‘homecooked’ and easiest bento to cook, it’s probably what I would enjoy the most too.

Bento Wednesday

Spaghetti bolognese. I used a mixture of pork and beef mince, Jamie Oliver style 🙂 But I bought the wrong spaghetti and ended up buying spaghettini which is a lot thinner and not as good with a meat sauce. Epic fail 😦

Bento Thursday

Pad Thai. One of the managers gave me a bag of limes from her backyard so I knew I had to cook a Thai dish. Pad Thai is probably one of the first dishes I learned how to cook when I started getting interested in cooking. I still like cooking it now and enjoy the crunchiness of chopped peanuts and the limey, sweet and sour flavours.

Bento Friday

Surely Friday bentos are the happiest bentos? This is comfort food for me, Japanese beef brisket curry, I like using beef brisket which I braised overnight to make sure it was tender. Only I cooked this dish in such a rush and didn’t taste it properly before boxing it, I hope it tastes alright tomorrow.

It was my mission to cook a different bento every weekday continuously for two weeks and I’m glad to say ‘mission accomplished!’ While I was happy that I didn’t run out of ideas (in fact I had trouble deciding on what to cook) I felt stressed out at times because I was cooking in a rush, wanting to run off to watch a movie, hang out with friends or go swimming. I just didn’t have time to cook a proper meal. All this rushing ended up with sub par bentos and lots of cut fingers 😦 So I guess I’m not ready to be a housewife yet, hehe.

I missed having takeout on lazy days (not that I eat much fast food nowadays). Btw, do you know McD is introducing the new Angus beef burgers?

I didn’t try this but it looked very good! What can I say, sometimes you need a burger.

Anyway, I’ve really enjoyed cooking and utilising my bento boxes this week. I also had ideas for desserts (which I didn’t take pictures of) which I tried to incorporate every now and then.  So that ends my two weeks of non-stop cooking in the kitchen, many thanks to my fellow foodies, Xinlong, Jo, HC, Bryan, Mingsian and especially Rabbit for sharing in my foodie adventure and bento journey, it was fun! I’ll do it again in a heartbeat.

Best burgers in Perth? @ Alfred’s Kitchen

Enough Grey Hoodie boy for now, I’m back with my foodie posts! When someone uses the word ‘best’ to describe a certain kind of food, I usually(a) don’t believe it and (b) want to try the said place immediately.

I did a bit of research around ‘best burgers in Perth’ and came up with a few names, Flipside, Jus Burgers, FAB burgers and mostly mentioned, Alfred’s Kitchen. I’ve tried Jus Burgers before and while the burgers are alright, there was no wow factor for me.  Recently Masterchef judge Matt Preston visited Alfred’s Kitchen during his trip to Swan Valley and had this to say about the burgers ‘… what I will tell you is that Alfred’s did not disappoint’. Sold. I rounded up friends and family one Sunday night and drove up to Guildford.

I was expecting a semi long road trip similar to driving to Mundaring for Little Caesar’s pizza but the trip to Guildford was surprisingly short. Even though it was quite early (around 7) when we reached Alfred’s, there was already a healthy crowd and queue for burgers.

Looking around for an entry to the ‘cafe’ I walked around the building and peeked into windows and doors. No sign of seating anywhere. A nice Aussie man walked up and said ‘can I help you? you look kinda lost’ ‘Err yes… where are the tables?’ He laughed and told me that this is Aussie style burgers, just order a burger from the kitchen, wait for your burger, grab it and eat it standing around or go home and have it with a beer. ‘Better than Hungry Jacks or Mcdonald’s anyday’ he grinned. ‘Oh… ok…’

So that’s how you do it at Alfred’s, order a burger from the kitchen, wait for your number to be called out, eat it while standing around, or if you’re lucky, snag a coveted seat around the open fire and munch away.

It was a cold night so one of the first things the guys did was order the renowned pea and ham soup ($3.50 small $5.00 large). Now the only other pea and ham soup I’ve ever tried are from those Continental cup-a-soup packs (not very good) so I can’t really judge whether it was good or not. The soup was warm and thick, much better than my pack soups but since I’m not a fan of peas, not really my thing.

The guys holding their order slips. I don’t know what Calv is pointing at.

Chips were $3.50 a serve, they were hot and crispy but nothing extraordinary. I wanted to try the popular sweet lamb curry but they were sold out (-____-).

Jo and HiengChiong waiting for their burgers.Ok, here’s when I confess that I failed completely as a food blogger, I went through my photos and I couldn’t tell which burger was which! All of them looked pretty similar and (actually tasted pretty similar as well). So the following burger names are probably inaccurate (-___-)”

This is Jo’s Steak Special ($10.50) which was a steak sandwich with bacon, egg, steak fillet,cheese, lettuce and tomato. Pretty much had everything that is supposed to be in a steak sandwich. She says it was yummy but messy to eat and huge.

Hehe, Jo eating her steak sandwich and wondering how she’s going to finish it. In the end she didn’t finish it and gave half to Hieng Chiong, this is the reason why couples get fat in relationships, having to finish each other’s leftovers 🙂

Hieng Chiong’s Hawaiian Special ($7.10), I’m not sure what was in it but I suspect pineapple was hiding around somewhere. He liked his burger as well.

The CRAM burger ($12.00) which was just a  burger of mammoth proportions which  just had about everything crammed inside, steak, bacon, hamburger, egg, cheese, lettuce, tomato, anything and everything. The guys who ordered this gigantic thing were struggling to finish it even though I think Calv would have had no problem since he also polished off half my burger.

This is my Hamburger Egg Cheese Bacon ($9.10), everyone seemed to be going to the steak specials or the Alfred Special, so I wanted to have a proper hamburger with the works. The burger was tasty but it didn’t blow me away. I mean, the beef pattie was tender, moist and nicely seasoned, everything else worked well and it was a good and substantial burger. Defintely better than Mcdonalds. But it was at the end, just a tasty, very big burger. And I think that’s what Alfred’s Kitchen burgers are like, fresh ingredients, generous portions, great to eat with a beer or two, but still just a burger. There was no flowers shooting out of head situation for me.

I understand why Alfred’s Kitchen is so popular, it serves unpretentious (no blue cheese, or wasabi mayo in their burgers) wholesome burgers with the usual condiments of bacon,lettuce, tomato and cheese. There are no surprises or twists, but maybe because of that, I was disappointed, I was looking for a ‘flower and star’s situation, something that would blow me away but I can’t say their burgers blew me away. But after a late night session with friends, would I go for a 20 minutes car ride, huddle around a roaring log fire and work away at a giant cheeseburger from Alfred’s Kitchen? I dare say, I might.

Daitaoha ratings:

Food: 6.5/10

Service: 6/10

Alfred’s Kitchen
Cnr Meadow and James St
Guildford
WA 6055
Sun – Thurs 5pm to 1am
Fri – Sat 5pm to 3am