Saturday, January 2, 2016

Grain-Fed Aussie Beef at Wildfire Burgers + Bar, Singapore!

It seems like it should be simple enough to make a burger. Cook a beef patty, sandwich it with some cheese and other stuff in a bun, add some sauce, done. How hard can it be, right? And yet in reality it's remarkably easy to screw up a burger. Your patty could fall apart. Too much (or too little) sauce or seasoning. Bun that's too soft. So we really like checking out restaurants or cafes - like Wildfire Burgers + Bar - that specialize in burgers, because they've probably put in a lot of effort to ensure their burgers are awesome.

Wildfire Burgers and Bar Singapore

To start off - some coffee! The lattes ($4.50) are nice and smooth to the tongue. The choice of bean is a little low on the intensity scale though.

Wildfire Burgers and Bar Singapore

We try out the Wildfire Breakfast from the breakfast menu (available until 4pm). For $19 we didn't have much to complain about, other than the scrambled eggs perhaps being a tad bit under-seasoned.

Wildfire Burgers and Bar Singapore

Also off the breakfast menu: Eggstarter, the ultimate breakfast burger ($15). This burger was a very interesting combination of kurobuta sausage patty, scrambled eggs, cheddar and sriracha mayo. Sort of like a McDonald's Sausage McMuffin with Egg, but three times more expensive and five times as delicious.

Wildfire Burgers and Bar Singapore

Moving on, then, to the burgers (available from 11am). We start off with the Triple Bacon ($19) - a 150gm patty with lettuce, streaky bacon, bacon jam, beer caramelized onions, cheddar cheese and baconnaise sauce (bacon-flavored mayo, I guess).

Wildfire Burgers and Bar Singapore

The Umami ($17) pairs the same 150gm patty with arugula, tomatoes, mushrooms, parmesan crisp, 'umami dust' and 'master sauce.' Maybe it's just the cynic in me, but wouldn't 'umami dust' fairly accurately describe ajinomoto / MSG?

Note: Wildfire Burgers has confirmed that umami dust "is our special blend of all natural umami boosters like shiitake mushroom, tomato, bonito flakes, anchovy and so on. There is no ajinomoto/MSG at all."

Wildfire Burgers and Bar Singapore

Wildfire prepares its burger patties from AACo's 1824 Australian beef - each one from a cow that was grain-fed for at least 120 days - and then grills them directly over Japanese binchotan charcoal. In theory this should be a recipe for absolute deliciousness, but in practice, we felt the patties were overcooked and a little dry. Most of the moisture came from the sauce rather than from the meat.

We also aren't fans of this height of burger. We like 'grabbable' burger sizes - the type that you can pick up and eat with your hands. These ones venture a little too far into 'fork and knife' territory.

Flavor-wise we thought the burgers were great, with just the right balance of seasoning, sauces and the various ingredients. The brioche was also really good, and sturdy enough not to disintegrate into a watery pulp like the weaksauce one at Omakase Burger.

Wildfire Burgers and Bar Singapore

The restaurant doesn't levy service charge, so the meal came up to around $21 per person (including the coffees) -- which is remarkably great value when compared to its peers. It's easiest to get here by car; Public transport is also possible, but it's a 15-20 minute walk from the nearest MRT station (Botanic Gardens). Also, most of the tables are in a non air-conditioned seating area.

Wildfire Burgers + Bar is at 26 Evans Road. Non-halal.

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