Record entries for Burger Wellington

It’s not impossible but the public will be hard-pressed to eat its way through all the burgers on offer during the upcoming Visa Wellington On a Plate.

Festival director Sarah Meikle says there are a record 179 burgers on the menu in the Burger Wellington competition this year.

‘‘It means you would need to eat more than 10 a day every day throughout the festival to try them all,’’ says Sarah.

Last year alone a phenomenal 112,000 burgers and about 67,000 matching Garage Project beers were devoured as part of VWOAP.

That’s a 36 per cent increase from the previous year, in what has become one of the most popular elements of the programme, says Sarah.

Burger Liquor co-owner Dan Haycock can’t wait to present his offering, called ‘‘Party Popper’’, to festival goers.

He’s been part of VWOAP since it began 10 years ago, the last four through his specialty burger joint on Willis Street.

‘‘Being a burger restaurant it is a little harder to take a burger to that next level, as we consider ourselves making good burgers every day. But we have a concept we think people will get excited about, it’s a little different and a bit of fun.’’

Based on this year’s ‘‘party’’ theme, Dan and his team have created a burger he describes as ‘‘an ode to a 10-year-old’s birthday party’’.

‘‘Party Popper’’ features a beef patty with candied bacon, cheese, salt ‘n’ vinegar crisps, Fanta-BBQ sauce, and housemade hundred and Thousand Island mayo in an Arobake ‘‘lucky dip’’ fun bun.

‘‘We’ve got buns in five different colours, we’ve made rainbow slaw to add some colour, we’ve got the candied bacon, we’ve coloured sesame seeds for the hundreds and thousands on top of the bun, we’ve added the crisps, because everybody loves them at parties, and we’ve created a Fanta/BBQ sauce, because that’s a favourite at parties too.’’

The idea to combine the likes of Fanta and crisps into a burger came about relatively quickly, says Dan, and the concept came to fruition within a matter of weeks. It gave us a good opportunity to have a bit of fun with VWOAP being 10 and the theme being party.’’

Each burger comes complete with an actual party popper and take-home party bag of goodies.

Wellington boutique gelato company Carrello del Gelato has taken ‘‘sweet’’ to the next level with its burger offering.

Called the ‘‘Sweet As Kiwi Burger’’, it features a puffed rice and chocolate gelato patty, gelato egg, sorbet tomato, plum beetroot, candy floss lettuce, white chocolate cheese and raspberry ketchup on a doughnut bun.

There are even chips to go with it, Italian pastry chips with icing sugar salt. As one of only two sweet burgers on the Burger Wellington menu, Carrello’s Nathan Meyer says it’s never an easy task.

‘‘It’s easy enough to make it all look like a burger, however it’s a little harder to ensure all the elements taste good together!’’

The Kiwi burger concept meant creating ingredients like eggs, beetroot and tomato out of something else.

‘‘The beetroot was the hardest to do – we tried to dehydrate beetroot that we had treated in various ways, however it just would not work.

‘‘Eventually we landed on the dehydrated plum that looks exactly like beetroot and it had a good flavour and texture that works well in the burger.’’

Carrello has entered a sweet burger for the last three years now, and Nathan expects ‘‘Sweet As Kiwi Burger’’ will also go down a treat.

The public is encouraged to rate every burger they try throughout the festival to help determine the five Burger Wellington finalists and eventual winner.

It’s an easy process, simply visit VisaWOAP.com and score the burger out of 10 by August 26.

The following day finalists will be announced and they will plate off one last time at the Festival Awards night on September 3.