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Meaty Goodness!

Burger Review #9 – Double Royal

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Nothing like an upscale Burger Bar.  You know the type, they are going to give you a hefty feed but it’s not going to be made out of ingredients that they nipped out and bought from the discount isle at the supermarket, then stuck in the deep freeze until needed.

Such a Burger Bar is The Oxford in Bathurst, which we headed to after watching my kids go hard in their Brazillian Jujitsu tournament.  Being a Tarantino fan I immediately noticed they had a burger named Royale with Cheese.  But then I noticed something bigger – the Double Royal.

Burger Name: Double Royal (with fries)

Price: $28.50

Description: 2 x100% Wagyu Beef Patties, Pickles, Onions, Mustard, Double the Cheese, BTS Sauce, Cos Lettuce, Tomato & Texas BBQ Sauce.

Burger Review #6: The E-I-E-I-O Burger

Whilst not the biggest burger ever made, nor the most flavourful ever made, this burger is a far step above what you will get at any fast food restaurant.  The quality of the ingredients, the way the different flavours complimented each other – even the size itself – should make a Big Mac’s buns turn red with embarrassment for daring to also call itself a burger.

Not to say this was the greatest burger I’ve ever had, but it was a damn solid feed and tasted mighty fine!  The only downside was that with three condiments – the mustard, BTS Sauce and Texas BBQ Sauce, the burger only lasted so long before the buns became too saturated to hold it together. The melted cheese added to this problem too, rather than acting as a dairy-based adhesive.

Making the transition from Burger to Sloppy Joe – don’t judge it’s lifestyle choices

Also, given it was $28.50, a bigger serving of chips I feel was warranted.

Fill the tray mate!

But overall this was a very good burger and I would recommend it if visiting The Oxford in Bathurst.  I look forward to returning there in the future as their menu had many options containing huge sums of meat so, much like Bootleggers in Katoomba, seems to be very Big Angry Trev oriented.

Burger Review #4: Pulled BBQ Wagyu

Meaty Goodness!

Meat Review – Naked Lady Vineyard

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Living in a tiny town like Rylstone it is very much the case that there is only a finite amount of places to go out to eat.  For great Mexican there is always Pepino’s and for a decent burger there is The Globe.  However there are not many other venues, let alone secluded little café’s the romance the object of your affections.

This Valentines Day I did something that I don’t usually do.  Being a relatively blokey Hobby Farmer I tend to stick to only 3 drinks in my life: coffee, water and beer.  Wine does not come up on my radar except for something I sometimes I have to drink a glass of at weddings.  There is red that gives me a headache, and white that I find bearable.  There is the extend of my grand knowledge of crushed grapes.  So I don’t generally do Wineries.

So this Valentines’ Day I stepped out of my comfort zone and took my wife to one of the few other places to eat around here – Naked Lady Vineyard.

First off, – misleading name for the place.  Upon arrival, unlike Confest, there were no naked ladies.  Not a one!  No nubile wenches bereft of clothing lying around on a chaise’lounge or splashing about in fountains.  It was in fact a lovely little winery a few minutes outside of Rylstone with a big barnlike structure in the center.  So whilst there were no naked women, at least it meant I could look about in a relaxed fashion without my wife saying ‘Are you staring at that woman’s breasts?!’

Wine tasting was $5.  For that you get to taste 5 or so different wines on the menu, and if you buy a bottle that $5 is taken off the price.  My wife quite enjoyed doing this and I did try a glass myself, even if only I could go for the cheap laugh of sniffing it, swilling it around in my mouth and then looking for a bucket to spit it into.

My wife ended up purchasing two wines.  I tried the white which was very nice.  The red (according to her) was nice too.  And… um… it was wine?  Phew!  Pushed my wine knowledge to the hilt with that one!

What goes well with wine?  Cheese apparently.  What goes well with cheese?  MEAT!  Though to be fair meat goes well with everything (I always thought Vegans might be happier if they wrapped their soy burgers in a bit of bacon).  And much like Bootleggers, you could order a platter for two that had multiple cheeses and at least four kind of meat.

Classed as an Antipasto Platter (I’ve always been pro-pasto but that’s just me) this platter came with spicy chorizo, huge slices of cured ham, prosciutto and salami slices.  It came with a variety of cheeses with varying bite, as well as pickles, chutneys, olives, strawberries, crackers and freshly baked bread goods.

Despite having swapped to beer at this point (they had 3 standard varieties) all of this did go very well hand in hand with the wines on offer.  Indeed my wife and I quite happily grazed on the platter for nearly an hour as we chatted, drank, enjoyed the peaceful surrounds and the rare treat of each other’s company without our kids in tow.

 

So if you are a meat enthusiast, cheese enthusiast, wine enthusiast or even just want to have somewhere different to go to your usual pub or restaurant, I highly recommend Naked Lady Vineyard.  And who knows, buy your partner enough bottles of vino and you might get to see a naked lady after all 😉

 

Related Articles:

Meat Review: Bootleggers Platter for Two

Meat Review: Pepino’s Mexican Restaurant

Meat Review: Southern Style Chicken Burger

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meaty Goodness!

Meat Review – The Bootlegger Bar

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As I mentioned when reviewing the E-I-E-I-O burger, I love a meal where there is more than one meat contained within the dish. And on a recent visit to Katoomba NSW I discovered a restaurant-slash-bar that had on its menu a dish that contained not two meats or three but indeed four!

So lets have a gander at the Bootleggers Meat Share Plate.

A meal made in Trev-heaven!

So the description of the meal is a Share Plate and it is indeed intended for two people. Given it was our anniversary I relented and shared this plate with my wife, but being the kind woman she is she let me devour the lions portion of it.

The meal comes with four meats from two different animals. Beef brisket and links (sausages) and chicken wings as well as fried chicken. Personally I would have preferred the links be made out of pork but you can’t have everything.

Along with the above came enough non-meat foods to ensure that you would have some chance of being able to pass your next bowel movement. Slaw, Corn, Pickles, Potato Salad and Chips. Good to see that at least 40% of the sides were spud based – potatoes being that good that they should almost be considered an honorary meat!

Unto the breach!

The meats were all very tender. The fried chicken was done very well, not remotely oily or greasy like that one would get from a fast food restaurant. The chicken wings were lightly spiced so not as hot as buffalo wings but at least had a bit of bite to them. The brisket was very tender as brisket should be. The only meat that didn’t impress me was the links. They weren’t bad in any way, but just your average beef sausages so were somewhat overshadowed by the rest.

The non-meat stuff was good too. I think. I dunno, I wasn’t really paying attention.

 

Exploding Hot Sauce!

Sauce made by chef Wile. E. Coyote

The waitress brought out two types of hot sauce, espousing their virtues about how they were made on site, not simply store bought. As readers of my blog would know I love hot sauces so was eager to try them out. The red hot sauce was indeed very hot, not as hot as the likes of Mad Dog 357, but still had a helluva kick. The green sauce? Well I went to open it…

…and it exploded!

Perhaps exploded is not the right term. The heat had built up in the bottle so as soon as the top was twisted it made a sound like shook up cola can and the sauce blew forth! It covered my shirt, splattered my face and even left a sorta Trev-shaped splatter pattern on the window behind me.

The poor young waitress was very apologetic. After ascertaining that it had not gone in my eyes she brought multiple wet paper towels for me to clean myself, then later appeared with a shirt from the restaurants merchandise stash for me to wear home. So sadly, unless I had chosen to lick my clothing I never got to sample what the green hot sauce tasted like.

The shirt I wear when doing my radio show, though my music isn’t bootlegged – the CD’s are just really worn

 

Overall

This meal is nearly $80 but its certainly enough for two people (as long as one isn’t me) and its very good tasting. Besides the volatile hot sauces the only other accompaniment was a small bowl of BBQ sauce – personally I would have preferred to get a hearty gravy but perhaps that would push the meal into the realms of making a coronary a certainty. The bar had a different selection of wheat beers on tap which were quite nice, but if you’d take my recommendation skip the ginger based beer, it was pretty average.   So yeah, do yourself a favour and if in Katoomba drop past Bootleggers – you will get a decent feed and maybe a free shirt!

 

Related Articles:

Meat Review: Pepino’s Mexican Restaurant

Meat Review: The Kings Hotel

Meat Review: Cactus Jam