The Meat & Wine Co

The Meat and Wine Co - Darling Harbour

31 Wheat Road,Darling Harbour
(02) 9211 9888

themeatandwineco.com

Our visit:18 October 2012

Gourmet Beef Burger ($25 with chips)

"225g selected primal beef burger patty, grilled, basted and served on a warm bun with baby cos lettuce, tomatoes, onion rings, gherkins, pink sauce and BBQ sauce."

 

Paul says...

With every second burger of late being a disappointment, I started to wonder what you had to do in Sydney to get a good burger.  Is it the theory that you get what you pay for? At an average of over $10, shouldn't all burgers at this price be good?

At $25, the Gourmet Beef Burger at The Meat & Wine Co is the most expensive burger we have had. The wait for the burger was long, but good company and a free bottle of wine (thanks to Citibank dining program) made it bearable.

When the burger arrived it looked impressive. After the first bite I had flash backs to the over char grilled burger from Ribs & Burgers, but that was short lived. The combined flavour of the char grilled patty, pink sauce, BBQ sauce, gherkin and crispy fried onion rings was  perfect. It's so good that each bite feels like it is in slow motion as the sauce hits your palate, followed by the texture of the crispy onion rings and the generous slab of char grilled beef.

It's taken a while, but finally we have found a burger that gets top marks.

Paul's score: 5/5 


Pete says...

This week we went to the Meat and Wine Co Darling Harbour for burgers and everyone had the ‘Gourmet Beef Burger’ which did an amazing job in filling the hole after a long wait though which was a bit disappointing.

This would have to be one of my best burgers to date with it’s good size burger patty not over cooked but still slightly pink (the way I like it), served on a bun with sliced tomatoes, cos lettuce, gherkins, fried onion rings, bbq and pink sauce. I think the fried onion rings and the pink sauce definitely made the whole burger come to life and gave it that WOW factor and to top it off it comes on a warm hot plate so that your meals don’t go cold.

The gourmet beef burger comes with chunky chips and you can expect to pay $25, which in the scheme of things is reasonable considering we got table service with nice decor and ambience.

Thanks to Paul’s Citibank card we also received a free bottle of Cabernet Merlot which was a nice drop.

Pete's Score 4.5 (it would of been slightly higher and making it my highest burger rating, if it wasn’t for the long wait).

Hard Rock Cafe Sydney

Hard Rock Cafe Sydney

Level 2, Harbourside Centre, Darling Harbour

www.hardrock.com/Sydney

Our visit:12 October 2012

Paul had...

Legendary Aussie Burger (6oz) ($16.00 with chips)

Angus beef, cheddar cheese, caramelised onions, crisp seasoned bacon, beetroot, fried egg, lettuce, tomato and pickle

 

After a very average burger at the Hard Rock Fiji last year, my expectations were low. 

The Legendary Aussie Burger comes with a 6 or 10 oz burger patty.The 6 oz. patty was  the perfect size for me. The patty was cooked medium well, just the way I like it. Unlike most burgers we have experienced  there was no special sauce whipped up by the chef.Tomato sauce and mustard was the choice. Being a Legendary Aussie Burger, it had to be tomato sauce.

Everything on this burger was perfectly cooked. While a little messy, the egg yolk found its way through the burger covering the melted cheese, crispy bacon and beef patty. It was a good traditional style burger, I really enjoyed it.

Paul's score: 4/5 


Marina had...

Classic Bacon Cheeseburger $19

I used to be a regular at the Hard Rock Cafe when it was in Crown Street, Darlinghurst. I would order the Classic Bacon Cheeseburger all the time and request thousand island dressing on the side. BTW I should add that I was devastated when the Cafe closed its doors and had not, up until today, visited the new site in Darling Harbour.

Much to my surprise the Cafe was busier than I expected for a weekday and the food was quite good.

The burger had not really changed and came with your choice of American, Cheddar or Swiss cheese, garnished with lettuce, tomato, red onion, pickles and served with fries. The beef patty was succulent and the bun fresh so everything was perfect until they told me they no longer had 'thousand island' dressing on offer. The waitress then started to run through what seemed to be a list of every other sauce on the planet (none of which I was interested in hearing about).

I am here to tell you the Hard Rock Cafe's thousand island dressing was amazing, I want to know who made the executive decision to take it off the menu.....not happy Jan....it will be sorely missed by this patron...it just wasn't the same without it...nor was the new location as cool as Darlinghurst. 

No sauce for you

Marina's score: 3.5/5

P.S. Kim & Marina found it hard being famous bloggers in a restaurant popular with tourist.  

The Mean Fiddler

The Mean Fiddler

Cnr Windsor & Commercial Road
Rouse Hills

www.meanfiddler.com.au

Our visit:2 September 2012

Paul had...

Beefburger ($17.00 with chips)

Angus beef, tasty cheese, bacon and homemade tomato relish

 

This is a great little pub. The lighting is dim, so apologies for the poor quality pic. There was no apology forthcoming for this burger.

The bun was rock hard and the bacon was overcooked to the point it was like eating beef jerky. The beef was cooked well and the flavour was ok, but overall it was a bad burger.

Paul's score: 1/5

Three Swallows Hotel

Three Swallows Hotel

342 Hume Highway Bankstown

threeswallowshotel.com.au

Our visit:5 October 2012

Paul had...

Hamburger ($12.00 with chips)

Lettuce, tomato, cheese and beetroot

 

Looks good doesn't it? I'm not sure if the patty was dripping with water or fat, but it wasn't appetising. This burger reminded me of the  Boss Hog Burger from Hog's Breath. The patty was like a bad rissole. Perhaps the name Three Swallows refers to the number of bites you can stomach. It's a poor quality burger, and at $12 it's poor value.  

Paul's score: 1/5

Ribs & Burgers - take 2

Ribs & Burgers

The Star Cafe Court

80 Pyrmont St, Pyrmont

02 9518 8825

ribsandburgers.com.au/

Our visit:14 September 2012

Paul had...

Original Burger - Cheese (vintage) & Bacon ($14.00)

160g beef patty, char-grilled and basted, iceberg lettuce, tomato, red onion, dill pickles, and pink & BBQ sauce

 

Our first experience at Ribs & Burgers wasn't ideal as our burgers were cooked inconsistently. We put this down to a busy first week of trade, so we went back and gave it another shot.

I can say that the burgers were still cooked inconsistently. Members of our group that ordered Butchers Choice burgers received burgers cooked from rare to well. On this occasion I went with the Original Burger which is char-grilled.

The short of it - char-grilled is not for me, well not this burger. The taste was a little overwhelming. I was reminded of one of those unfortunate BBQ experiences when you turn a quality piece of meat into a piece of charcoal. 

While I've had a good burger at this place, it's too inconsistent for me. Grill'd is only a few minutes down the road and it's always consistently good.   

Paul's score: 2/5

Kim had...

Dagwood

Well we went back to The Star (Ribs & Burgers) for our burger today – I tried the Dagwood burger – basically the same contents as the original burger with bacon, swiss cheese, egg & beetroot.

The wait for my burger this time was definitely less than last week, so I thought (hoped) that my beef patty would be well cooked…but I’m going to have to say that I didn’t enjoy my burger so much today. My bacon was burnt and patty wasn’t cooked properly - still too pink for my liking, also, due to extra juices from beef patty my bun ended up being soaked a little bit around the edges which made it hard to eat – I noticed that this time around there wasn’t much sauce in my burger which was a disappointment as I really liked the sauce. But I guess it just shows that it really was the sauce that made the burger good.

Next time I will decline coming here for burgers … probably stick to Grill’d if we are eating local…

Kim's Score:  2 out of 5

Until next time!

Kimzy


Marina had...

Original Burger with a Tropical Twist $14

The tropical twist came in the form of swiss cheese and pineapple which accompanied the beef patty, iceberg lettuce, red onion, dill pickles on a sesame seed bun.

This burger was huge and I did like it but the Original Burger with blue cheese from Ribs & Burgers was better.

Blue cheese please

Marina's score: 3.5/5