In Search of the Better Burger: Weekend Indulgence

I’ll be honest: I spent the previous weekend making a complete and utter pig of myself. 

Blame it on the chilly weather, blame it on being tied to my work desk for the better part of the past couple weeks.  You can even blame it on the fact that I spent part of Saturday afternoon in The Cheese Room at Westgate’s Wine Depot (more about that within the week); it was so darned cold that I started to crave something nice, warm, and – ultimately – fattening.

Lucky for me, a Brothers Burger branch was a short walk away: junk food fix, here I come!

So, what does a hungry girl pick from the menu?  Not wishing to be too much of a glutton, I opted for the Baby Brothers Burger (P 58.00) and had sauteed mushrooms (+ P 25.00) and blue cheese (+ P 50.00) thrown in.  Being pretty darned sick of fried potatoes thanks to a three-week glut of potato chips at the office, I went for the onion rings (P 60.00).  To round off my little weekend binge, I eschewed my usual soda and lemonade and went the whole hog (so to speak!) with a chocolate milkshake (P 100.00).  While I was slightly disappointed by my last Brothers experience, I am pleased to say that I was not disappointed at all this time. 

The burger came to the table hot of the grill (hence the greasy appearance of the wrapper).  While the mushrooms were obviously the canned sort, their innate meatiness and succulence was a match for the juicy, beautifully charred beef patty.  The blue cheese dressing (referred to as bleu cheese in the menu) provided a pungent kick, its high, funky aroma mingling with the smokiness of the grilled beef.  The salty tang was an excellent foil to the slight sweetness of the oatmeal bun and oozed so appealingly from the sandwich that I was swiping at the dribbles with the onion rings.

Speaking of the onion rings, the batter used to coat them was not the heavy, breadcrumb-y sort used by other premium burger joints.  Rather, the batter was flour-based the whole way through and spiced in such a way that it provided peppy heat to the munchies without getting too fiery.  Indeed, these onion rings were interesting both flavor-wise and texture-wise: crisp golden batter giving way to tender, translucent onion; savory spiciness balanced by a mild sweetness.

As for the milkshake, it was a little less thick than I expected but I did have a bit of a problem sucking it through the thin straw!  Brothers Burger uses ice cream from The Big Scoop; not exactly super-premium but certainly a better brand to use for shakes instead of the common supermarket variety.  Creamy, rich, chocolate-y to the last drop: not exactly perfect but certainly close to ambrosial.

Would I spoil myself this way again?  Oh, I definitely will.  In the meantime, however, I’m off to the gym.  I think I gained a couple pounds, but let me tell you: it was worth it.  😉

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