On Wednesday I was resolved to have something nice for lunch. Given that I had some errands to run in the city, I found this the logical place for my lunch. I considered my options and decided upon O'Malley's as my destination as they offered a very appealing looking hamburger. The first thing I'll say about O'Malley's is that it is a very nice pub in terms of decor and atmosphere. It looks likes an idealised traditional Irish pub, and I really like the mood lighting. Anyway, when I got there, the place was very crowded; more crowded than what one would expect for Wednesday lunch. As I waited in line to place my order, I noticed that they had a number of specials on offer, one of which was a hamburger and drink deal for $12.90. I was tempted by this, but decided that this burger would not be as good as their $19.90 burger, so I ordered the latter... or so I thought. After I placed my order, I was only charged the $12.90 and thought to myself that I was lucky that the very meal I had been craving all morning was discounted and included a free drink. Fortunately, this free drink was a Heineken which is certainly a decent beer, and in fact I would have been happy enough with a pot of XXXX. Now the burger I thought that I would be getting contained according to the menu contained a home made beef patty, bacon, cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, and mayonnaise/chipotle dressing. Naturally, I ordered it without the tomato or onion. This was not the burger that I got. First of all, there was no bacon and I could not detect any chipotle. This lead me to conclude that instead of getting the set menu bacon and cheese burger that I thought I ordered, I got the inferior lunch special instead. At least I hope this is the case because there is no way that O'Malley's could justify the usual $19.90 price-tag for the burger I had that day. I'll start with the positives before I move on to my criticisms. The beef patty itself was of reasonable quality, I'd have liked it to be rarer, but was not necessarily expecting the patty to be that way. Lots of places that offer burgers bulk out their beef patties with filler ingredients, which I do not appreciate. The only thing other than beef that appeared to be in this patty was some herbs, which was fine by me. The bun was also reasonable; soft, large enough to accommodate the fillings, and covered in sesame seeds. I wouldn't be surprised if O'Malley's got them in bulk from Woolworth's or somewhere similar however. As mentioned before, there was no bacon and no discernible traces of chipotle. There was a very small and completely inadequate amount of cheese. Mayonnaise was the only condiment and again there was not enough of it. Lack of condiments in burgers seems to be a recurring theme in this blog, and I would have to say that this burger had the least amount of dressing of all the burgers reviewed in this blog thus far. Furthermore, the mayonnaise did not even compliment the other flavours of the burger, but at least it didn't ruin the taste all together. The lettuce was of the variety that I do not usually associate with burgers, but that fact is really neither here nor there. The chips were underwhelming. Based on their prices, one would think that O'Malley's chips would be of a reasonably high standard, but they were simply average. I'm not fussy when it comes to chips. I'll happily eat underdone McCain's oven chips, but I really do appreciate good quality chips, so I was a little disappointed. Vinegar did help a little though. So, for a $12.90 burger with a free drink thrown in, this burger was a little disappointing. If however, the burger I got on that day normally goes for $19.90, with drinks costing extra, Mick O'Malley is, in the words of Michael Caton in The Castle, "dreaming".
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