Goneburger, St Kilda

So according to the sign in Goneburger’s new pop-up retail store, when something is ‘Goneburger’, it means a good thing has slipped between your fingers, you’ve lost something before you really knew what you had.

I wonder if they were talking about the quality of their burgers?

If I can be frank, a 100% Urbanspoon rating (which Goneburger had at the time Snowcrabnebula dined there), based on a not insignificant number of votes, is generally enough for most blogs to abrogate their judgment to the people and commence fawning. I think Goneburger was hoping for exactly this.

I have heard very good things about the burgers that the Goneburger food truck serves up. However at the pop-up restraint the speed, taste and quality that the brand is known for is unfortunately Goneburger.

I went for dinner with two friends, and between us we ordered two Beef and Bacon Burgers (Organic beef patty, American cheese, lettuce, tomato, Spanish onion, pickle, crispy bacon, caramalised onion,  tomato sauce and mustard based ‘special sauce’ all on a Brioche bun), a Beef Burger (as above, just without the crispy bacon and caramalised onion) and two bowls of their ‘famous’ crispy chips.

Starting with the positives:

- The service was friendly, even though they seemed to be quite overstretched.
- The chips were super duper crispy and really nicely spiced.
- The place was located in the lobby of a 4 star hotel in St Kilda, so the bathrooms were nice, and they were offering a tray of free breakfast pastries for some unknown reason (this reviewer did not partake). 

Moving on to the negatives (or rather, the rest of the review):

Something was clearly going awry in the House of Goneburger. The place wasn’t busy (it can really only seat perhaps 25 people spread between inside and outside) and there would have been a maximum of 15 guests when I was there. However, it took more than 10 minutes of waiting at the counter for my order to be taken (albeit with repeated apologies) and a further 35 minutes for the burgers to arrive. Now I get that things go wrong in food service, and when I have a table of people to talk to, a bit over half an hour for food isn’t unforgiveable. But when it arrives after a long wait, I need the food to be good.

Unfortunately, the burgers were not particularly nice. I had the Beef and Bacon, and here is my report:

The brioche bun (when will burger joints stop offering freaking brioche buns) was exceedingly dry and particularly unappetizing. It was soaked in the ‘special’ mustard sauce top and bottom and I can say without hesitation that was the only thing that made it edible.

The bacon was OK. I guess it is hard to screw up bacon. It was sufficiently crispy. Bully Goneburger.

The caramalised onions were alright – a bit sweet, but apropos of nothing. They didn’t really suit the burger, especially given it already had raw Spanish onion. The burger certainly wouldn’t have suffered from their omission and it didn’t gain anything from having them there.

The patty was very disappointing. It just tasted of nothing and was quite dry. It was still pinkish right towards the centre, but the cook was a bit uneven. It had a nice melt of American cheese on top, but that was all I could really taste. Given the beef that Goneburger use is meant to be premium it was sad not to be able to taste the quality and their grillwork is clearly doing quite a disservice to the meat.

The salad was fresh enough and the pickles were nice. But that wasn’t going to redeem the burger.

My dining companion with the other Beef and Bacon reported similar things, although the recipient of the Beef Burger was more complimentary – particularly regarding the cook and taste of his patty. He had just returned from a burger odyssey in the States so his judgment was not to be discounted. However, at best that means the pop-up Goneburger produces an inconsistently good product, as opposed to a bad one.

So there you have it, 100% Urbanspoon ratings are not always indicative of a 100% experience. Caveat emptor. Your burger mileage may vary.