Category: Food Vs Food

No crushed kidz here, just tasty burgers at Stax On!

Today we were approaching lunch and life a bit unstructured, the only plan we had was to check-out what’s on offer within the Regents Place mall to see if anything caught our eye. We ferreted around both upper and lower levels and went down each nook and dead end, and literally at the very last dining joint before exiting at the Kent street exit, we came across Stax On Burgers!

As we approached lunch with an open mind, we hadn’t planned on having burgers today (if anything I thought we’d probably end up having something Asian), but oddly the concept of burgers piqued our interest.

Fitted out to resemble a food truck, your orders are made outside on tablets fixed to the side of ‘the truck’. What starts off as a simple perusal of their menu, quickly becomes placing items onto your virtual dining tray.

The menu was categorised into Burgers, Sides/Snacks, Drinks and Desserts. Under the parent category of burgers, were further sub-categories of Cheese burgers, Beef burgers, Chicken burgers, and Other burgers. Poking around the Cheese burger sub menu, I elected the Cheese burger with wasabi mayo ($10.00), while my wife elected The Blue Bird (chicken burger with blue cheese sauce- $14.00).

Under Drinks, we ordered a Pine Pash Soda (Pineapple and Passionfruit fizzy drink- $4.00) and under Sides, we ordered Tater Tots with Parmesan and Truffle mayo, with Ghost pepper salt ($6.50). And to complete your orders, just enter your name, elect dine in or take-away and then just tap your credit card for payment. A receipt spews out of a slot and you’re done!

We elected to dine in and we just moseyed on in, took our seats under the music speakers, and in less than 2 minutes one of the staff came out calling my wife’s name and we had our drink while we waited for the rest of our meal to arrive.

The Pineapple and Passionfruit concoction was a house blend, methinks it was tinned pineapple and perhaps a scoop of fresh passionfruit blitzed together with carbonated water? But it was nice and sweet and refreshing, with pineapple pulp to prove its authenticity (be that tinned authenticity).  

The actual inside of the shop is pretty narrow, I’ve heard of restaurateurs spending months or even years trying to find the perfect location for their concept! And for Stax On to want their shop to look and feel like a dining truck? This store was perfect for their concept (it’s the former Miss Chu’s Vietnamese restaurant). The shop was only wide enough for tables of 2, pushed up against the wall with a narrow corridor down the middle.  Larger groups will need to settle for the bench seating on the other side of the corridor towards the front face of the restaurant….I mean truck.

Then the next time my wife’s name was called out, it was the Potato totties.

It was a large serving of potato gems, fried to a crisp, smothered with a thick layer of truffle mayo, shreds of parmesan cheese, fresh parsley and a generous dusting of Ghost pepper! Mmmmmm. These mini hash browns were so crunchy, the toppings all worked perfectly together, and the ghost pepper gave it a nice kick – a bit salty at times, but nothing a sip of fizzy drink couldn’t remedy.

And the third and final time my wife’s name was called (considering it was the same staffer, I’m surprised that he didn’t just bring it directly to us) he held in each hand plastic baskets with our burgers.

When wrapped in paper, they both looked similar. But just breathing in its aroma, you can tell which the Cheese burger was. The burger bun was a milk bun (which was a bit unforgettable), but the beef patty was nice and juicy (clear that real meat had been ground up to create these patties). The cheese was all melted, there were slices of pickles, and the Wasabi mayo wasn’t as strong flavoured as I’d like it to be, but the wasabi flavour was definitely there.

My wife’s Blue Bird, was a piece of chicken crumbed and fried (like a schnitzel) although she had to wonder ‘do you think it’s faux meat?’ and the blue cheese sauce flavour wasn’t strong enough either. But when I asked her at the end of the meal for her verdict, she happily gave it a 2.5 Stars from 3 for food!

Our end verdict, it was a pleasant surprise to luck upon Stax On Burgers (afterwards we found out that they had only recently opened this city store – still no reviews on Zomato), the first and original Stax On located in Canterbury. And on the whole, we were pleased with the burgers and on the big bite test it scored full marks! Super easy to wrap your top and bottom teeth around the bun stack, and with the paper wrapped firmly around it, there were no risk of it falling apart or the sauce getting all over the hands (although I had rolled up my sleeves in anticipation for the worst). Our scores? 4.5 Stars from 5! (2.5 from 3 for Food (there were a wide variety of things to choose  from, and you could customise or even make your own bun stack using the touch screens); 0.5 from 0.5 for Service (although the process was largely self-service, but from the minimal interaction with the staffer, he was polite and efficient); 0.5 from 0.5 for Atmosphere, it felt like a food truck i.e. it was simple and functional, but they had a good playlist and sitting right under the speakers, it felt like being in my own music video); and 1 from 1 for Value for Money (these days if you can have a main, some starters and a drink for 2 for under $35? That’s pretty good in my language!)).

I’ll have to put Stax On Burgers through the Burger scorecard to see how they stack-up? But at this moment, I think they’ll do pretty well. It’ll be interesting to see how they fare against the larger branded burger joints!

Before this day, the only association I had with the term ‘Stacks on!’ Was from my schooling days. The mental image which comes to mind is some kid hits the deck (usually on grass), then one of their mates cries out ‘Stacks on!’ And then a pile-on pursues, and it usually ends in tears, the kid at the bottom of the stack crying out for air. But today, no crushed kids here, just tasty food & drink!

Stax On Burgers- Saturday 13 July (4.5 Stars)

https://www.staxonburgers.com/

Level 9, Regent Place, 501 George Street, Sydney

Mon-Sun 12 noon – 10pm

**Requires sight and fingers to operate touch screens   

No mother of Jesus here!

Taking a city stay-cation, we leisurely strolled Hyde Park, dropping in on the winter playground out front of St Mary’s cathedral.

And when our tummies started to rumble, we headed across the park over to Mary’s – home of the best burgers in Sydney?

I’d been putting off trying Mary’s burgers for as long as I could, as I’d been hyping it and myself up, stating that it’s the best Sydney can offer! So the expectation was set so high, to tell you the truth I was semi-fearful that it might not live up to expectations.

Walking down Castlereagh St, it’s nearly impossible to miss it on a Sunday, as with the pumping metal  music blazing out from their hole-in-the-wall of a store (whilst everything else was shut), you’re almost physically made to look at the source of all the noise and if you’re looking for it, look no more as you’ve found it!

It’s dark, it’s small, it has graffiti and it has a menu which oozes attitude! If words could punch you in the face? This menu surely could!

“Can you use swear words in a menu?” my wife asked. My response, “I guess so”, inclining my head over to the menu. The actual burger selections were few (Mary’s burger, Cheeseburger, Chicken burger and a Veg burger), there were fries, a hash brown, fried cauliflower and soft drinks and that was basically the extent of the menu.

With very limited seating (6 or so wooden high stools set-up against benches which lined the walls), we decided to just grab burgers to go, with a last minute addition (a hash brown). And we perched on the stools while we waited for our number to be called.

“Hey do you just want to eat here?” I shouted into my wife’s ear over the Van Halen sounding metal, but my wife responded “I can’t stand this music!” And fair enough, it was a bit unsettling, considering to this point we were having a really chilled Sunday.

So after enduring 3.5 songs, our number was called and we took our takeaway bag and headed back to Hyde Park.

Spreading out our lunch on the bag in which it was served, we only had to dissuade a ‘Bin chicken’ (ID079) from coming too near (it seems that you can just reason with them). And after taking their glamour pics (the food, not the ibises) we tucked into our long awaited Mary’s burgers.

OMG! There’s something about Mary’s…….burgers! Jake Smyth has indeed designed a killer burger! I’ve listened to an interview with Jake, where he explains why the burger is the way that it is. Jake wanted to create a burger where dudes could fist the burger in one hand, while leaving the other hand free to knock down a tinny. And although I didn’t have a tinny close to hand, but my word, the burger was so easy to smash! The bread bun was thin, but just substantial enough to hold everything in within its bun-ny embrace! The meat patty was thick (at least a centimetre thick), and so soft (almost melting in the mouth). But the cheese was actually melty, the pickles gave it the sourness to cut through the saltiness, and the application of the tomato and mustard sauces……just at the perfect amounts! This is a critical point, as my pet hate with burgers is a soggy bun due to over-saucing, and my second hate is when a burger falls apart when you bite into it due to packing in too many fillings. And on that point, biting into it, there was never any risk of the filling being pushed out the back-side. Everything just held in place (5/5 on the big bite test), and everything was just so fresh and soft, that your teeth just cut through the burger like a hot knife through butter- I can see myself eating this long into my 80s when my dentures can no longer tear through meat.

No surprise, in a matter of minutes I had inhaled my burger, and the crunchy and perfectly seasoned hash brown which we had shared before our burgers was a distant memory.

My wife was also pleased with her Mary’s burger, where I had pickles in my Cheeseburger she instead had lettuce, instead of tomato and mustard sauce she had a creamy mayo/aioli (Mary’s special sauce), and instead of double slices of cheese she had one. But she was still eyeing off my burger in envy. Haaha.

Our end verdict? 4.5 Stars from 5! (3 from 3 for Food (although we only ordered a very limited selection from the Mary’s menu, everything was PERFECT!); 0.5 from 0.5 for Service (although the interaction with staff was very limited, they were all friendly and efficient); 0.5 from 0.5 for Atmosphere (although seating was limited, and we ended up taking away, the Mary’s city hole-in-the-wall had heaps of character); and 0.5 from 1.0 for Value for Money (although the food was perfect, the only deduction from the entire experience was the cost. Although $13 isn’t all that expensive, but their burgers were pretty small….. but $1.50 Hash browns? That’s a steal!)).

In conclusion, Mary’s burgers is an example of keeping things simple, and doing all the basic things well! The Cheeseburger was literally just a simple Cheeseburger, no gimmicks, no twists, but it might just be the best darn Cheeseburger I’ve ever had! I’ll have to crunch some numbers, and I’ll have to get back to you on an updated version of my Burger Vs Burger scorecard, but at this point in time we might have just found our best burger in Sydney! We have now narrowed down Sydney’s burger joints to the top 3 (Mary’s, Bar Luca, and Ze Pickle). You know what that means! One final loop of the three best joints, back-to-back, to see who has the best burger in Sydney! I’ll have to find a panel of judges, but it will be happening real soon! They’re no saints, but they do make a flaming good burger though!

Mary’s- Sunday 30 June (4.5 Stars)

154 Castlereagh Street, Sydney

Mon-Thurs 11am – 10pm

Fri-Sat 11am – 10.30pm

Sun 11am – 9pm