Ze Pickle - Fortitude Valley

With the recent opening of Ze Pickle at Fortitude Valley, Burger Connoisseur and I grabbed two friends and went to try it out last Saturday. Being a highly popular burger joint in the Gold Coast, we were keen to try out whether it was as good as the reviews said it was, especially after our most recent burger binges at The Bleachers and Gettaburger. It is situated on Hynes Street, which is significantly far from Chinatown. It is situated near Oriental Yum Cha and Ribs and Rumps.

We found the store to be quite dark, and the music to be very loud. Neon signs were placed around the store, and I can imagine it would be quite a nice late at night, but with the midday glare from outside, it was a bit uncomfortable for us.

The menu consisted of some selections of drinks, shared snacks and burgers.

Between the four of us, we shared a Ze Chips. It was quite a generous serving, topped with cheese sauce, maple smoked bacon, shallots and ze pickle sauce. The chips were beer battered, and very crunchy and fresh. We found the slight sweetness of the maple to be quite intriguing and definitely unique in comparison to the other chips I've had in other establishments. We particularly liked how the cheese and sauce was consistently found throughout the chips, rather than just on top. 

As for the burgers, we had a good mix of both chicken and beef burgers. The burger on the left hand side is the Southern Hick, which contains fried chicken, maple bacon, jack cheese, lettuce and tomato, whilst the right hand side one was the KF Ze, which contained fried chicken, coleslaw, jalapenos and beer cheese sauce. Both of my companions commented on how the fried chicken tasted very much like the chicken in KFC, and how full of flavour the burger was. On the flip side though, as the breast fillet was so big, they did find it to be a little dry on the inside.

Burger Connoisseur had the Chee Ze, which contained a wagyu patty, lettuce, tomato, pickle mayo and jack cheese. He really enjoyed it, especially the fluffy traditional sesame bun, the wagyu was very well cooked, had a decent amount of sauce, and he gave particular mention to the added onions in the burger, and said they added a really nice crunch to it. He liked it so much he said that it was almost on par with his favourite local burger joint, Miel. 

I had the double double, which contained two wagyu patties, jack cheese, maple smoked bacon and zp sauce. As you can see, the burger was quite big, although not the size of GettaBurger, it proved difficult to eat by hand, and I had to resort to grabbing cutlery to cut it into more manageable portions. Whilst I'm not one to enjoy sesame buns, I did find it to be very light, fluffy, and toasted just right. The wagyu patties were thick and delicious, the melted cheese and bacon really added a lot of flavour to the burger, which I also really enjoyed. The only thing I would suggest is that with the addition of a second patty, a bit more cheese and sauce would have better glued the whole burger together. Aside from that, I really enjoyed my meal and would definitely go back to try the 3AM for the cheese sticks.

Price Range: $20 - $25 per person

Taste: 8.5/10

Value: 7/10
Service: 7/10
Environment: 5/10