Once upon a time in London I ended up at a place called MEATmarket in Covent Garden up above the stalls. It was a spin-off from one of the best London burger places that had started out as a food van called MEATliquor (http://eatlikeushi.posthaven.com/meatliquor-london-03-2012). Other than burgers, they also had gourmet slick hot dogs on the menu and an exceptional chilli cheese fries that I tried to recreate from their cookbook with limited success.
If you combine Brodburger and Broddog menus and story, perhaps you have the same fairytale on the other side of the world.
Brodburger surpassed my expectations in terms of burger taste and quality. It is a different burger to those rampaging around London and MEATliquor but not necessarily inferior. Brodburger is a cleaner burger that is a great version with standard ingredients; MEATliquor is a dirty burger with grease and filth. The best hotdog I've eaten (admittedly my experience is limited to Germany, Poland, Australia, UK and Norway) was on one solitary occasion at MEATmarket which consisted a deep-fried bacon wrapped pork frank topped with mustard, onions, danish sauce and spicy relish. I wondered and prayed if Broddogs could deliver something that I could remember 2.5 years later.
The setting is cool - a bright red van serving in the same courtyard as a shakes van, a coffee van, Peruvian van and a few others (all closed on Tuesday evenings if you're planning to visit meaning you can either get a dog or a 10" pizza).
- Broddog (spicy kransky with bacon, coleslaw, pickles, ketchup, corn relish topped with sweet potato ribbons & shaved gruyere cheese) - kransky is flavoursome with a touch of chilli and the other ingredients compliment it well. It's pretty decent overall but not as exciting as in my dreams (or unreasonable expectations);
- Omi Dog (Vienna frankfurt salad with white onion, gruyere cheese & Omi's secret mayonnaise dressing) - didn't particularly like this dog for a few reasons; The frankfurt is sliced and mixed with the dressing meaning that is gets cold really fast. The frankfurt also has less intrinsic flavour than the kransky meaning you get a bit of frankfurt taste, a bit of onion texture and overall a cheese mayo flavour;
- Cheesy Chilli Chips (beef chilli, fondue cheese sauce & grated gruyere cheese) - a good interpretation with Brodburger's good quality chips with some strong beef mince and cheese. Overall the amount of chilli and cheese are too small for the amount of chips meaning most chips are eaten plain.
Next time I would order the New Yorker with Cheesy Chilli Chips or the Chilli Cheese Dog (with kransky) with plain chips. I think my favourite tastes of the meal were the kransky and the parts of the chips that had chilli on them. Overall I think the satisfaction:price ratio is much higher at Brodburger and I'd only cross town for Broddogs again if the other stalls were open so I could try a variety of things at the same time.
