Reviewing Institutions

It is always tough to review places that are already famous, especially if they have managed to attain semi-legendary status. It is not peer pressure you deal with here, nor a hot food critic's latest column. You are dealing with history, reputation, legions of fans and troupes of regulars. You are there not to test the kitchen and the service, but to verify what hundreds and thousands before you have already praised. Criticise in public at your own peril. After all, think of the pressure and stress that those people behind the kitchen doors must be experiencing while trying to make sure the reputation is upheld.

On top of all that, you have to manage your own expectations, trying hard not to be unrealistic or dream of your chickens before the eggs hatch. Just because the chicken is a prized show-winning fowl (breed of poultry in the context of this blog) does not mean that all its chicks are going to come out champions. Those kitchen doors do keep flapping open and shut, staff do come and go, and menus do change. Sources of ingredients get updated and swapped, and preparation methods change. Insides get renovated, customer tastes shift, trends influence and shape.

At the end of the day, as we all love saying thanks to the Masterchef judges, the taste of what is before you is all that matters.

All that went through my mind as I sunk my teeth into a classic Andrew's Hamburger with the lot. The sun was out, the grass on the park was green, I was surrounded by friends, and we were all clutching tightly onto our burgers. We had just gone to the farmers' market, played with pugs & bulldogs & little children, bought heaps of freshly baked bread, eaten croissants & Happy Fruit, sipped on iced chocolate chai and taken heaps of photographs.

We licked the melted cheese off the hamburger wrappers, and we made sure the fresh tomato juices did not drip onto us. The bread was soft and white, the burger meat well seasoned though without apparent spice or herb and cooked to be soft not firm, the fried egg blending with the lettuce and bacon so as to be almost indistinguishable and inseparable from the rest of the burger.

Was it a good hamburger? Yes it was. Was it a remarkable burger? Unfortunately not to FH or me. Yet I can appreciate why it is to the hundreds and thousands before me. Even as I was chewing and talking, trying hard not to accidentally spit any food morsels onto those around me, my mind went back into my childhood, when there was only one fast food joint in town and my grandfather needed to get meat into my system that was not a fried chicken drumstick. This was the kind of hamburger the place made then. The kind that made you drag your grandfather's hand as you skipped on the sky bridge to the place, forget to take off your little fisherman's hat as you released your grandfather's hand and ran for the counter without any money or ability to articulate what you wanted to order, make your little seven-year-old eyes go as big as saucers (even if you already had it several times before then) and your mouth as round as a capital O. The kind of hamburger that you knew was good but never sure why.

Nostalgia. Tradition. Memories. These are what some of us end up paying for when you have an Andrew's Hamburger. You cannot put any stars or objectively review that sort of food. You can only sit back, chew & bite & swallow, and savour the sunshine that streams ever so brightly from above the trees as you listen to the birds sing and your friends laugh.

How blue the sky is today...##