The Handburger, Raffles City

This was a relatively new burger joint (252 North Bridge Road, #B1-77/78 Raffles City Shopping Centre, tel : +65 6334 4577) that's opened in town. Apparently they are by the management that runs Soup Spoon just next door. I recalled seeing the unit boarded up for renovation previously and made a mental note to watch out for the opening even though I hadn't any idea then what they were about. There were some things that that I liked and didn't about them but the impression that was left was positive.

What they called The Works was pretty much.....well, the works. Onion jam, sunny side up, cheese, mushrooms with pesto, lettuce and bacon. The issue I have with stacked burgers like these are that they are next to impossible to eat with your hands unless you start taking out some of the extras that are piled on top of the patty. Eating them with a fork and knife just felt different. Apart from that, they had a reasonably well made patty which had a nice char on the exterior, juicy on the insides and beefy enough for me. The bacon was unfortunately dry-ish and a little hard.

The blue cheese burger had potential to be good if not for the fact that the amount of blue cheese was underwhelming. In some of the bites, I could barely taste the cheese. It was the singular disappointment for this one. Not likely to order this again even though I really like those generous slices of poached pears they had. Interestingly, the chilled tomato stuffed with coleslaw on the side could have been pretty good if not for the carrot and sesame dressing which I thought ruined it. I guess burgers in this country have a lot of catching up to do if that's the standards we're getting out of a new, dare I say, specialist. Personal peeves aside, I wouldn't mind coming back to try something else from the menu. These guys did a decent peanut butter and banana shake with some barely toasted marshmallow. Again, portions have room for improvement.