Arizona, Wellington - Beef Burger, 7/10

a nice looking package - held together with a bamboo twizzle stick

After a good night out at the basketball, where the Palmy Jets schooled the Wellington Saints, a mate and I had a bit of a hunger on.  The Arizona Bar and Grill on the corner of Featherston and Grey Street was an obvious choice as it was in a direct line between the stadium and the car.

No, I did have prior intel as I had enjoyed their stellar entry in the 2011 Burger Wellington, which I scored a 9/10.

So it was with anticipation and a sense of familiarity that I steered us towards Arizona.  We entered the establishment and after deliberating for all of 10 seconds, we ordered two beef burgers.

The Arizona beef burger is advertised as a “200 gram grilled beef patty with bacon, cheese, mesclun, tomato, gherkins, barbeque chipotle sauce and roasted garlic mayo in a bun, served with chunky fries”. - $19.50

bacon and cheese placement was a bit rough
- is that the barbeque chipotle sauce ?

The burgers definitely looked good when they arrived.  A nicely packaged burger, in a bun that I would suggest was a bap.  The condiments were all as described, and the pattie was definitely in the 200 gram range.  The cheese and bacon were thrown in and looked a bit messy, but overall, it was well put together.  Extremely juicy, I decided it was best to halve the burger rather than try to pick it up whole.

Now, overall, the burger tasted good.  It had the right level of juiciness, although this was largely provided by the fillings rather than the pattie.  The pattie, while seasoned well (with a slight Mexican flavour), was dense and dry.  This was the only disappointment as the rest of it worked.  It had the right amount of lettuce, sauce, tomato and, thankfully, gherkin.  I’m not too sure whether there was a barbeque chipotle sauce or whether it was just mayo (didn’t notice roasted garlic in there either).  However, this didn’t really matter as I don’t think either of those would have been a gamechanger.

a solid pattie.  A bit dense and dry...

Cleaned up the burger, left most of the chips (which were run of the mill frozen chunky fries) and then consulted with my mate.  We decided it was definitely better than average, but not spectacular to any degree.  Considering the lady at the next table had left half her pattie on the plate, we decided we couldn’t score it any higher than a seven out of ten – and so that’s what it scored – 7/10.

endnote - Arizona charges an extra 1.5 percent if paying by credit card.  What is up with that?