100 things to like about Canberra reviews: Brodburger and Koko Black

Brodburger
Brodburger is well very known around Canberra, inevitably you will try this place within a month of living here. In fact it made the '100 things to like about Canberra' list. If you want a chuckle, check out list. It's pretty hilarious especially when one of the 100 things is 'closeness to Sydney'—you know a city is great when one of its 100 greatest things is its proximity to another city. Anyway I've been to burger few times now and have also tried Broddogs.

I've always found Brod's burgers really good and evidently, the rest of Canberra does too judging but the list and the fact that the line is always huge. Pro tip: phone order you meal in advance to skip the queues. Anyway the most recent time I went I was actually a little disappointed. It had been a good while since I'd had one, maybe 6 months or so and it definitely wasn't as good as I remember it.

I usually get the bacon and egg Brodburger. While the pattie used to be charry but still juicy, this time the patty was sort of wet and undercooked. Unless the beef used for a minced patty is truly amazing, I actually don't like my burgers done medium or medium rare. It was also pretty damn flavourless. This might have been partly because we picked up our burgers a little late and most of the aoli had slipped out of the burger and accumulated at the bottom of the bag, but I remember the patty itself being better flavoured than this. The rest of the burger was ok—the bread is always soft and perfect for a burger and the salad wilted but that was our fault for picking it up late; I would have preferred the bacon more crispy but it was really the patty that was the main bummer.



Koko Black
KB is another one on the Canberra 100 list; while again this is a little sad, this place is actually pretty good. The decor is suprisingly luxe for a place like this—lots of wood and upholstered leather—it reminded me of a library in an old house. The service was very pleasant and welcoming and the prices are definitely not exorbitant. The menu is pretty extensive and of course it's dominated by chocolate. I laughed a bit at the one savoury item on the menu—a sandwich—and joked to my friend that they would probably freak out if anyone ever ordered it. While I was tempted—it was a pastrami sandwich and I LOVE pastrami—I ended up going with the iced salted caramel ($8) instead. This was huge and very tasty—rich but smooth and very nicely flavoured. The size, though, meant I only managed to finish about half of it.

-R