2015
A quest for a properly thick thickshake by N landed me at Burger Project, making it also a good time to try their burgers. The space at Burger Project is quite casual, much like a fancier version of McDonald’s – your food still comes on a tray and in disposable containers. We come in around 12pm to lots of empty tables, and by 12:30pm the place is bursting with people on their lunch break – navigating to and from your table in the cramped space.
On D’s recommendation (his has a knack of choosing the tasty options on food menus!), I order the Cheese and Bacon Burger ($10.90). It’s filled with 36 month grass fed beef, bacon, cheese, pickles, tomato, lettuce and ‘secret’ sauce. Minus the raw onion that I forgot to leave out of my order, this is one tasty burger. The beef patty is the definite star, being juicy and fall-apart tender. The bacon was deliciously fatty! The lettuce was crisp and fresh (and not shredded so as to fall everywhere upon eating). I even enjoyed the pickles, which I never do – they were like lightly sour cucumber.
I briefly contemplated ordering my burger in a bowl, thinking the bun would be too much. The bun to innards ratio, however, was just right: just enough to soak up the juices and hold everything together without being bready.
As for my drink, this is the Passion Pop Soda ($4.50). It tastes just like a fizzy Frosty Fruit! So, tropical and delicious. My one complaint? Their straws! They’re made of cardboard and just feel wrong in the mouth.
While burgers are an occasional food for N and me, we’d likely come back just for thickshakes and chips.
2017
It’s always a good time for a burger for T. Or a steak, for that matter. So on a wet – but super welcome after a heatstroke-inducing 2 days of – summer’s day, we take T to Burger Project.
Not much has changed since N and my first visit, other than the addition of chicken katsu burgers. Why mix things up when you’ve got a menu that works, right?
We start with Large Chips ($5.50) with chipotle chilli salt. The chips were crispy on the outside with fluffy innards. The salt has a respectable heat and flavour to it.
Wanting to try something different from the Cheese & Bacon, I load up on my favourite meat – pork – with The Bacon Project ($13.90).
It has innards of ‘grass fed beef, loads of bacon, cheese, pickles, onions and secret sauce’.
This is definitely a bacon burger with rashers of smoked bacon, juicy yet crispy on the edges. The beef patty takes a back seat in this burger, although its juicy tenderness came through in the texture. I’m still fond of the pickles at Burger Project as they bring a much-needed freshness to the burger, while the milk bun was soft, and the cheese brought all the flavours together well.
N and T try the Deluxe ($13.90) with innards of grass fed beef, crumbed confit mushroom, cheese, onions, pickles, tomato, lettuce and secret sauce.
It has every non-meat option in it and negates N’s comment to T prior to visiting that he’d probably be disappointed by the size of the burgers at Burger Project based on our earlier experience. They both enjoyed the burger and we were all surprised that the mushroom component was a whole portobello mushroom, not cubes of cut up mushrooms. The only room for improvement was the size of the bun – a bigger bun would’ve carried the generous innards better without being squashed paper thin and falling apart.
Unfortunately, it seems that the oversized mushroom was an anomaly that day as subsequent visits by N to the branch in the City and by myself to the branch in Macquarie Park saw a much smaller mushroom.
And finally, D tries the Fried Chicken & Bacon Katsu ($13.90) with free range chicken, smoked bacon, coleslaw, pickles, lettuce & katsu sauce.
The overall flavour of the burger is Japanese, mainly as a result of the chicken katsu and the sauce. The chicken is deliciously juicy and tender with the bacon adding a moreish smoky flavour and the greens adding freshness. This is a winner.
As for drinks, I try their Strawberry House Soda ($4.50). It tastes much like a strawberry sauce/jam with soda water right down to the strawberry seeds and pulpy bits. This method of making the drink was a good thing – you also make yuzu tea with marmalade – and I quite enjoy its refreshing sweetness.
Burger Project is at World Square Centre, Level 1, Shop 11.06, 644 George St, Sydney NSW 2000 and Shop 4404A, Macquarie Shopping Centre, Cnr of Herring Rd & Waterloo Rd, Macquarie Park NSW 2113.