Since on I'm on a burger tip at the moment, I can't recommend Big J's in Mt Wellington enough. It's really nothing to look at premises wise and it's in an odd location but if 'bang for buck' is what you're after than he's very very difficult to beat. I heard a rumour he was the chef at the Union Post in Ellerslie for a time but left to start his own thing and as he's a start up I guess cheap premises was top of the list. His popularity is really growing and lunchtime he's slammed now so I imagine he'll be looking to move to a better location sometime soon.
He does a burger of the week, which I will probably throw up a review for when i go (perhaps not the best phrase to use there but anyway) from time to time as it's close to where I work.
Anyway, if for some reason you're over or near Sylvia Park or even going to Mt Smart Stadium, it's sort of in between the two and well worth a visit....share a lemon pepper fries aswell, there's tons of them. I've heard that the Kumara Fries are pretty special too if that's your thing.
Description - the Jim Beam Bourbon Burger. Featuring a charbroiled beef patty topped with crispy bacon, onion straws, cheese, fresh lettuce and tomato — slathered in a rich and tangy sauce flavoured with Jim Beam bourbon.
Location: Carl's Jr (G.I. Auckland)
As is becoming the norm, this review is based on a few key factors that I chose specific to this burger using the Thickburger version for the purposes of review. The opinions are of course my own and therefore subjective.
Jim Beaminess 6/10 – Nice sauce, arguably too sweet but they got the quantity about right so the balance works....a lil' difficult to detect any actual Jim Beam in there so I marked it down but hey I'll take their word for it as there's a lot going on in there. Onion Strings 9/10 – Nice addition as per the Memphis BBQ Burger, but this time I actually noticed they were there...nice and crispy too nice bit of texture for the texture fans out there??? My mate...I mean err co-reviewer didn't rate them and would have preferred just onions which could have worked just aswell just maybe not as original. Bacon – 9/10 – Loses a mark because they went for long pieces of streaky Bacon and for me undercooked it so Bacon chin incident is almost certain because this occurred to the reviewer. You wouldn't want it clashing with the Onions in the crispy department but there's lots of middle ground between rubbery un-rendered fatty bacon and crispy. Burger (meat) – 10/10 – still loving Thickburger, really nice and as it overstepped the shit out of the bun and brought the cheese with it there was a nice meaty approach before you got into the guts of it. Awesome. Messiness – 8/10 – Didn't collapse but came close as it wasn't as neatly wrapped as usual. In view of the fact it isn't caked in sauce like it's "home of Elvis" predecessor scores pretty high. It's no Guacamole Bacon Burger in terms of messiness which isn't a bad thing. I've written off a few decent T-Shirts on GBB's over time. Salad 9/10 – Lettuce and a decent slab of tomato in there, not a big thick piece that gets dragged out as you try to eat it, but it's good that it's there...no raw Onion this time either which personally I'm glad about. Buns 8/10 – Unfortunately not as quality as Heidi's but still pretty good, they kill McD's, KFC and BK (and even Auckland's Big J's) all day long though. Cheese 8/10 - Enough of it to notice it was there, same as Guacamole Bacon burger, it's a shame the US doesn't know how to make/use decent unprocessed Cheese from what I've seen.
Overall 8.5/10
So in summary a pretty decent burger you won't regret buying if 'Tangy Sauce' is your thing. It's still got it's work cut out to overtake the Guacamole Bacon (or a go on Heidi Klum) for me (actually no Burger is ever going to beat a go on Heidi Klum if I'm honest) but I was pleasantly surprised with it as I wasn't expecting great things and it just sounded like the Memphis Burger with some salad, almost like they read my review of that, scraped out the sauce, added Salad just to shut me up.......which is still a possibility but the result is positive. Actually, It's been an hour or so since I had it and I'm not having the usual "Guacamole Rumbles" that usually occur post Carl's sesh, not sure why...but that's cool with me.
Anyway, I hope these are useful to the Burger Connoisseurs among us GetSome'ers...I quite enjoy "eating one for the team" ...hmm that sounds dodgy, but you know what I mean...I hope...
On a side note I recently went to the Queen's St. Carl's and unlike McDonald's in that they are almost identically average there's a noticeable downgrade in quality at Queen's St. In a nutshell it's a filthy smelly fucking shithole of a disgrace compared to G.I and Lincoln Road. So, go to G.I. or L.R. if that's remotely realistic.....or Queen's St, bail and sit in Aotea Sq or even the Cinema.
So, big announcement then. Chelsea to screen on Sommet Sports channel plus Sky retaining the rights to City, Arsenal and Spurs games.
English Premier League games will be played on Sky Television afterall.
After losing the full rights to newcomer Coliseum Sports, Sky have signed a deal with four clubs to show delayed coverage of home and away Premier League games.
The teams are Arsenal, Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur and another side to be announced.
The rights deal includes games shown on Premier League Club channels including matches from the Barclays Premier League, UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, FA Cup and Capital One Cup that Manchester City, Arsenal or Tottenham play in.
Coverage will be delayed, for example games played in the U.K. on Saturdays will be available on Sky from 1.00pm on Sunday afternoon.
Depending on how far each team progresses in the Cup competition it is expected that each club will deliver as many as 60 match packages across the season - somewhere in the region of 240 matches.
In June it was announced that Coliseum Sports Media outbid Sky for the Premier League rights with the games to be played via an online platform called premierleaguepass.com.
A season pass will cost $149.90, with a day pass available for $24.90.
TVNZ will also run a match of the week game every Sunday on TV One from the start of the season. The channel will also broadcast an hour-long highlights show on Monday nights.
"When we were outbid for the live EPL rights we received letters and phone calls from customers who told us they either didn't want to pay more to watch the Premier League or for internet data," Sky's Director of Sport Richard Last said.
"Some said they didn't want to watch it on a computer but really wanted it on their flat screen TV in the lounge. While we'd love the live Premier League rights as well, in New Zealand many EPL games come in the middle of our night and, with MySky, we've found the majority of viewing is delayed."
Premier League rules mean that Sky can seek rights for up to four Premier League teams.
"Last season the top five teams were Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham. Chelsea games will be shown on free to air television in New Zealand anyway, so we've sought rights for the other top teams," Last said.
Original recipe Chicken breast, crispy fried Onion, Coleslaw, Bacon, Cheese and Bourbon BBQ Sauce
Location: Panmure (Mt Wellington, Auckland)
This review is based on 7 key factors that I chose specific to this burger. The opinions are of course my own and therefore subjective.
BBQness 4/10 – Too much BBQ sauce/flavour and not enough Bourbon......just regular old BBQ Sauce. Crispy Fried Onion 2/10 – crispy my arse. virtually non existent in my sample (but not in my stool sample later), and surprise surfuckingprise, nothing like the pic. Chicken – 5/10 – I like original recipe but really only in it's raw form. This "burger" was dry as fuck and it may aswell have been a beer coaster or a piece of marine plywood. Messiness – 2/10 – messy for all the wrong reasons, to describe - if I had rested it on it's side it would have resembled a 'back door' view to the main "leisure area" of an aging, bent over female Porn-star who really should have packed it in years ago (see Ginger Lynn Allen). Coleslaw Salad 1/10 – Just shit, the only reason for it's inclusion was probably to recycle the unsold or leftovers that people leave on the table when it's tacked onto a different meal. No one likes it just FK OFF. Bun 1/10 – Like 2 part foam or the green stuff you put fake flowers in to stand them up, and it was probably older than the aforementioned Porn-star. Bacon 3/10 - How do you fk up Bacon? Well, you let KFC handle it is how.
Recommended side – Left, Turn left 180 degrees, face the door and walk out shouting where the fks Carl's Jnr? really nothing to see here.
Overall 0/10 – Just don't, I knew this was going to be shit, and it was.....a squashed mess lacking any class . With so many quality burgers doing the rounds at the moment this is just a desperate attempt to claw back some business from the already enlightened. Incase you're wondering why I bothered, well 2 reasons, 1, someone else paid for it and 2, because I've got your back GetSome'ers.
If there is to be any salvation for this it could either be that Panmure is the most awful KFC around (it's pretty grim and the staff look like they missed an evolutionary step along the way) or it was just made very very badly (I'm being generous there though I reckon), but I'd be interested to hear anyone else's experience...
Well it's only cheap if it doesn't suck. There shouldn't be much contention if you see Sky's viewing figures for EPL, be interesting to see if Coliseum get their minimum 4000 subs though. At least when the test feed is up we should have some indication of the quality, they claim there's no expense spared (but like Lead says you're still at the mercy of good old NZ shitehouse broadband, regardless of how good the CDN is). Personally, I'm disappointed that the on demand service will only be available for a week (contractual) and even more disappointed that it won't even be available until after the game has finished, so now I'll have to get up for kick off if I want to see the game before going to work. I'll be pleased if they get the Samsung or the PS3 App up quick though. I guess they will wait to see the uptake before splashing on such luxuries.
St Johns (G.I) and Takanini are not owned by Restaurant Brands, they are still owned by Michael Jones, not sure if that makes a difference but it might. Service is as good as it need be, never waiting long and the food spot on.
and this
Quote from: Hmmmgood;1523200
How the fuck does shit hole tornado bait palmy get a carls before the glorious north shore gets one,huh?
@Retardobot: Amen brother, yea I do like Chilli Cheese Fries, I know I shouldn't go there (high on the guilt factor) but I still do.... I felt in this case that they wouldn't make me impartial enough so went with crisscut. I think I will revisit it with the double burger, because it does feel the right thing to do. I shall update with my findings next week. The sauce isn't by any means unpleasant and I don't regret it. It's still a decent burger that would give anything that McD's et al would cough up a run for it's money.
Pulled Pork with a Charbroiled Beef Patty, Crispy Onion Strings, Melting Cheese and BBQ sauce on a Seeded bun.
Location: Carl's Jnr (G.I. Auckland)
This review is based on 7 key factors that I chose specific to this burger using the Thickburger version for the purposes of review. The opinions are of course my own and therefore subjective.
BBQness 7/10 – Too much BBQ sauce/flavour, the pork is marinated in an almost identical sauce that sits on the burger bun so it overpowers the whole show for my money. Onion Strings 8/10 – nice addition, not enough of them though IMO (nothing like the pic). Pulled Pork – 8/10 – had they backed off the sauce elsewhere in the burger this really would have really stood out. Spare Rib-esque in flavour but a noticeable bacon quality about them without any risk having an embarrassing Bacon chin accident. Burger (meat) – 9/10 – love the thickburger, it loses 1 mark because it seemed to be not as thick as last visit which was disappointing. This smacks of a change that has been introduced as a cash saver by the franchisee, so a possible re-visit Double burger maybe in order. A worrying discovery. Messiness – 6/10 – held together almost too well and that’s usually a clear sign of being light on content. Extra Onion Strings (as mentioned above) and maybe salad with mayo would fix that. Salad 6/10 – Onion double up (apparent in the BBQ relish), not that a ‘no salad’ burger is necessarily an unforgivably bad thing, it just scores low because salad always helps achieve higher messiness score. Schoolboy error really, a decent tomato relish would have calmed the almost extreme BBQness. Bun 8/10 – Still the best buns in the game, much like Kate Beckinsale in that respect..
Recommended side – Crisscut Fries as they could be efficiently used to scrape out excess BBQ sauce from bun prior to consumption.
Overall 7.5/10 – A fine addition to the Carl’s Jnr menu that narrowly beats the Western Bacon BBQ (narrowly because the western does have proper Bacon) but it just doesn’t do enough to top the Guacamole Bacon for me.
Despite the fact this is just my opinion some people feel that too much BBQ sauce is kinda like access to too much porn or being given too much free beer. So let me back that up by saying that for me it’s about balance, “with much porn comes great responsibility” a wise man with one massive tattooed wrist once said.
With both the porn and beer scenarios provided you would still retain control of the quantity in which you chose to consume them, you wouldn’t drink 5 bottles of beer at once if you had a 100 crates sitting there nor would you have 8 twat mags open and 5 browsers open on porntube at once (oh except maybe birthdays). So to try and liken those with this scenario it would then be that the burger had no sauce and I had been supplied with a veritable vat of BBQ sauce to which I could choose to either slap it all on the burger with reckless abandon or go simply add with smaller amounts to reach my acceptable, optimum level. I was not given such an option and therefore I feel that the statement holds up.
To those that have had a chance to sample this limited time special feel free to vote in the poll.
I see Arsenal still haven't done what any self respecting club would do and adjust it's ticket price to suit the standard of football on display. Fingers crossed for sanity to make an appearance.
