A husband-wife run operation that gives a down-home feel to grab a quick meal.
Clean is the word that first enters your mind on entering Burger Shack- a tiny one shutter diner styled burger place just round the Jawlakhel roundabout. Bright red chairs add a spot of colour and cheer in a largely white décor and go a long way in creating a place that is basic, fuss-free and completely lacking in pretensions. Just like the food and the service- matter of fact yet gratifying.
Burger Shack specialises in burgers. They have over nine types on offer and a variety of add-ons so the options are limitless and even the most fussy of eaters can create a burger that suits their demands. Then there are the mandatory extras that best complement this amalgamation of bread and meat patty- French fries, onion rings and cheese fries.
We had the double buff burger (Rs 200) and the bacon chicken one (Rs 250). The latter comes in a spicy version -the spicy patty works very well with the barbeque sauce and is duly satisfying. The true winner of the burger though is the bread that encases the meat. A burger is only as good as the bun that it is made with and sadly most burger places in Kathmandu totally ignore this, serving extremely expensive burgers in bread that is stale, crumbly or just bad-tasting. At Burger Shack, the bread is soft and tasty and doesn’t fall apart at each and every bite.
The cheese fries (Rs 180) is a plateful of greasy gooey mess that is truly unhealthy but delicious nonetheless. The onion rings (Rs 120) were nicely browned but had more batter than vegetable, because the onion had been sliced so thin. I like my onion rings to have a bite and a crunch to them that was lacking in the plate set in front of us.
The chicken salad (Rs 190) is a surprise and a good one at that. It’s a bowl of goodness- fresh green lettuce, tomatoes and strips of breaded fried chicken served with either a Caesar or an Italian dressing.
PICS: RUBY TUESDAY
We washed all of this down with their Refresher (Rs 100), which is an icy cold sweet mint lemonade and one of the best I’ve had this side of the bridge. The chocolate premium shake (Rs 185) (other flavours on offer are strawberry and vanilla) was thick and milky and had a generous swirl of whipped cream- only gripe with it being that it would have been that much more satisfying if they hadn’t been so stingy with the chocolate. Same complaint with the cold coffee (Rs 170) - not enough coffee in it!
I really liked this husband-wife run operation. It has a down-home feel to it and is a nice place to go grab a quick meal, though they don’t mind if you choose to sit and linger either. And while our meal can definitely not be categorised as being healthy, they do have salads and veggie delights on offer to suit those striving to achieve a healthier palate.
How to get there: From the Jawlakhel roundabout, take the road that leads to Kumaripati and look to your right, a few shops before Standard Chartered Bank and opposite to The Bakery Café.