Burger vs. Wings + Bar, Orchard Central

I had only heard about his place (#11-03/04, Orchard Central, 181 Orchard Road, tel : +65 6634 0423) a couple of months back so I decided to check them out. To my surprised this place (run by the Kitchen Language group by the way) had taken over the unit that was previously occupied by Ochre (also by the same group).

It was a little sad to see Ochre go. I had the opportunity to eat over there four or five times and even held a very important event over at their premise. Sadly I never got the chance to talk about their food. This was back in the times when it was run by the Japanese chef Kentaro Torii who did a pretty good job keeping the food straight forward and well done. Even the weekend pizza and pasta buffet was no slouch when it came to simple homespun styled Italian food. Service was attentive and unintrusive.

That was then. I've never got the chance to re-visit after the departure of chef Kentaro. Prices went up noticeably and I guess they had just fallen along into the wayside of inviablity in this cold and unforgiving city that doesn't not hand out award for efforts.

But I digress. 

Burger vs. Wings + Bar sounds just weird for a name and while the menu looked interesting............the people in the kitchen didn't quite look like accomplished cooks. They look like they were just paid to work there.

Here's their Tyson Peanut Butter Burger which was apparently a signature of theirs. Pretty decent except for the beef patty which ruined it. These guys who ran the restaurant knew nothing about burgers. The fat to meat ratio was not thought out for flavour and the beef was marinated to death. I mean, it tasted like a beef kebab. Not a proper beef burger patty. Who gives a flying fuck if it's Angus beef? Nothing that Angus beef is known for was present in that patty which was suppose to be medium done and ended up more like medium well. I could go on.

The peanut butter spread was nice. Liked that it was filled with bits of crunchy peanut. However, there was much too much going on as well. Let's see....there's lettuce, tomato, a fried egg, some sauce, cheese and even bacon. The fuck would I know if that was a sun dried tomato brioche they had used if I hadn't read it on menu. You see what I meant about these guys knowing nothing about building actual burgers? They do know a little about building sandwich monstrosities. 

I'd take Mean Packing District over this any time, but unfortunately they're closed for good.

This was a pork cheek burger of sorts. The pork cheeks were a little tough, but it was okay if unremarkable.

There was also wings with strawberry habanero sauce. The sauce was pretty damned good actually. It had the prerequisite strawberry flavours that actually worked with the tangy heat. Great with fries too. But I didn't like the wings. The battered wings are really boring. As much as I liked their strawberry habanero, that barely saved the wings. These things should do away with batter.

I'll stop short of lambasting how cheap those things that were passed off as cheese fries looked.

I got through this with a 30% discount from Hungrygowhere which applies till the end of the month. Even with that discount, I didn't think it was worth the money.