13 October 2009

The legends are true... The Brodburger is real...

| johnboy
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[First Filed Oct 10, 2009]

Since April RiotACT has had increasing amounts of chatter surrounding the Brodburger.

According to legend a master of Kitchen Stadium and his restaurant partners had been wiped out by investing in mortgage backed securities and forced to wander the earth making sublime burgers in a caravan, eventually coming to rest, somewhat in the manner of Brigadoon, upon the shores of Lake Burley Griffin.

Last night a crack team of drunken freak bike riders went in search of this fabulous beast.

I won’t bore you with the details of the magical sunset over the lake shore, the reflection of the floodlit Carillon, or the tastiness of the beers conveyed on Loose Brown’s tricycle.

Suffice to say that after a trek we suddenly burst into a half full car park and a large crowd of people clustered around a fairy lit red caravan.

The Brodburger crowd is an usually complete cross section of the Canberra community. Well dressed grey haired ladies, packs of Chinese students, rough looking blokes in beanies and beards.

Taking my advice from previous comments on this site I approached the window, ordered my blue cheese burger, paid $9 and received a number.

In due course my number was bellowed, the screen slid open, and my burger was exchanged for my number, the screen slid closed.

The hype surrounding these burgers is such that is not possible for them to exceed expectations. But they pretty much meet the expectations.

The ingredients are top notch, the flavours balanced supremely well.

It was so good that many of us ordered a second burger, some before finishing the first.

The Brod deluxe at $15 is possibly a bit much, it loses the superb balance of the standard burger, on the other hand if you’re hungry it will fill you up.

I also heard good things about the Chicken Burger with the camenbert sauce.

So, if you were wondering, yes, it’s real. It’s very busy, they’re basically serving a customer a minute non stop. Four burly guys crammed into one quite small caravan to meet demand.

They’re open until midnight of an evening and, I’m told, do a raging lunch time trade.

There is a website. To get there you basically turn east from Kings Avenue along Bowen Drive and pull into the first car park. Google Street view hasn’t been updated since the van went in but it’s basically next to the public convenience visible here:


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therealarigold12:15 pm 18 Oct 09

only problem i have is lack of tables and opening times, would think an actual shopfront would be much better suited for these guys as they have outgrown that little caravan

o yeah, the vegie burger has the most delicious chargrilled veg, with SO much capsicum i could barely carry it. pure awesomeness really, cant wait till brodburger mutates and spreads across the lake to the northside, massive 😉

therealarigold7:24 pm 17 Oct 09

the best bar none!

Following all the reviews I decided to call in on my way home from bootcamp yesterday evening. The beef burger was great, with the patty medium rare and the brie cheese is a nice touch. Everyone was right about it being very filling.

I sat down on a park bench near the lake shore and was entertained by the local magpie gang with their mooching and squabbling for morsels. They are so tame that I had one standing right next to me on the seat waiting to be fed.

Unfortunately the fryer isn’t working at the moment, so no chips this week.

Thanks for jumping on here and setting my mind at ease.

+1 I meant to ask about the mince last time I was there (but got too busy shoveling chips into my gob eating).

Joelle: In that case, I’ll have to come down and try one. 🙂 Thanks for jumping on here and setting my mind at ease.

Brodburger is great – definitely worth the $9 for a burger. The chips are great too. Yes, there are lines during busy periods but the service is quick and it’s worth the wait!

Yes, these burgers are worth the $9, considering they actually provide nutritional value and leave you feeling like you’ve actually eaten something. Try saying that about two $5 cheeseburger meals from the scottish-american family restaurant. And let’s not forget the lovely variety of leaves in the salad. This is no cheapy joint serving you a mound of shredded Iceberg lettuce!

Joelle, my workmates and I commute from Dickson once a week to enjoy the wonderful burgers from your little red caravan.

Forget all the disquiet about rare patties – the vegie burgers are freakin UNREAL.
Actual identifiable vegies, beautifully chargrilled, with haloumi and delicious tomato relish. None of the strange, tasteless grey-coloured discs that often lurk within vegetarian burgers. Or any burgers for that matter.

I own the caravan with my bf and can guarantee that the meat is ground daily and picked up fresh every single day from the butcher. Same with the bread (not from the butcher obviously but the bakery:). Nothing we sell has been frozen or been sitting there longer than a day. And yes we sometimes run out of things…because the caravan is small we cannot fit large amounts of stock. We always feel really bad turning away our customers but until we open up a bigger place we may sometimes run out…Our new opening hours are posted our website now:)

Woody Mann-Caruso10:06 am 13 Oct 09

If they grind it fresh then do it rare, fine – hell, I’ll take it raw if it’s seasoned properly. But having preground stuff lying about for however long before grilling – at least medium, thanks.

err cash for comment 😉

Clown Killer11:39 pm 12 Oct 09

I love a place that knows how to cook a good burger (ie. pink in the middle). From my experience in New York a few years ago, that was pretty much how a decent hamburger came – if you didn’t want it done medium-rare you had to specify when you ordered.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a good rare steak but I’m not so sure about mince.

Dante,
the rare bit was a joke, i’m pretty sure you could ask them to cook your burger however you liked it.
However in my opinion anyone who does not like their meat still mooing is a heathen and should become vegetarian.

They serve rare mince? I’ll steer clear thanks. I was keen until this useful tidbit of info.

realmadrid said :

I was so looking forward to my brodburger – friends have raved about it. Unfortunately the burger I got the patty was very red in the middle, didn’t end up eating much of it. Now I can’t go back, even though I’m sure that was a very rare exception.

very rare, thats the idea. There is nothing better than a rare cooked burger. Don’t worry about the E.Coli, its good for you.

I still don’t know if it’s quite worth the $9 but i’ll keep going back because whats an extra couple of dollars for that awesome blue cheese sauce.

When are they actually “supposed” to be open?

Holden Caulfield10:30 pm 11 Oct 09

realmadrid said :

Went to my ol’ faithful, Flatheads, today and got a special – organic wagyu beef burger for $8. Best burger I’ve had for ages.

I haven’t been to Flatheads for a loooooong time, after being a regular for a while there. Might have to try it again.

georgesgenitals8:29 pm 11 Oct 09

I tried one the other day. Yes, the burger was great – but nine bucks for a plain burger? Seems kinda expensive to me (but then I’m a cheap bugger).

Given the repeated stories around the office, and my own experience once, they’d better not slip up on burger quality, because with the price and variably availability (both opening hours and products) they could easily slip into food van oblivion…

I was so looking forward to my brodburger – friends have raved about it. Unfortunately the burger I got the patty was very red in the middle, didn’t end up eating much of it. Now I can’t go back, even though I’m sure that was a very rare exception.

Went to my ol’ faithful, Flatheads, today and got a special – organic wagyu beef burger for $8. Best burger I’ve had for ages.

Holden Caulfield5:08 pm 11 Oct 09

Oh, after attending the Brodburger at lunch time, the waiting crowd can swell to two or three times more than the other night.

Holden Caulfield5:02 pm 11 Oct 09

I thought Johnboy was one of the rat pack in attendance the other night. Perhaps I should have introduced myself.

That was my second Brod experience, and it was just as good as the first. 🙂

Brodburgers are simply amazing. However, they let themselves down repeatedly with their opening hours and their inventory.

The opening hours on the sign on their caravan are at best a broad statement of intention, and at worst, pretty much a lie. The number of times I’ve led hordes of hungry friends or workmates to the fabled red caravan, only to be disappointed when they’re unaccountably closed, is truly astonishing, and can’t be good for business in the long run.

If they’re not closed, they might be opening up for lunch at, oh, say 1:45pm. They’ll sell the first person there the only serving of chips they’ve got, then announced to all assembled that they’ve only got three beef burgers left, so you’d better like chicken.

And we keep going back, like chumps, because the burgers are really that good. The little red caravan is printing money at the moment, so they can get away with it. But I do wonder how long they can continue to take their customers for granted.

Hummina-hummina-hummina…!!!!!

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