In a bid to remain semi-healthy in my eating-out diet, once in a while I suggest to RM that we should go eat a vegetarian restaurant. It’s become a running joke that he always counters with ‘well if you’re going to have vegetarian food, I’m going to the Napier to have a Bogan Burger.’
I’ve been threatened with this Bogan Burger for many years now but it was only with the advent of long sunny summer evenings that I had a chance to visit the Napier Hotel.
The Napier Hotel is a smallish pub sitting on a quiet roundabout in the back streets of Fitzroy. The wooden indoor part of the pub (decked out in Fitzroy Football Club memorabilia) hides a really pleasant decked outdoor area. As you can imagine, it’s super-popular over summer but we were lucky to find a spot for a late-ish dinner on a weeknight.
The menu is heavy with protein and fried food pub standards with a few more palate-stretching dishes in the form of a Moroccan tagine ($17) and house smoked roo salad ($18).
The two girls had the relatively light ‘Suburban steak sandwich’ with thick sliced white bread sandwiching a normal-sized-single-portion 200g Black Angus rump piled with smoked bacon, grilled onions, cheddar, tomato chutney, rocket, roast garlic aioli with fries and salad ($17). One of the guys had the ridiculously large 500g aged Black Angus porterhouse steak with a choice of sauce which came with fries and a garden salad ($20).
RM tackled the infamous Bogan Burger. Read this and tell me it doesn’t make you break out in a fat sweat: steak, chicken schnitzel, caramelised onions, cheese, pineapple, beetroot, egg, potato cake, bacon, lettuce, tomato with wedges and salad. All that protein and fat held together by a jaunty cocktail umbrella and for the bargain price of $17.50.
As you can see from the pictures, each of the servings was huge. In fact, I would have been quite happy to share the steak sandwich instead of having one to myself. The steak was a little chewy for my liking but the cushion of salad ingredients, cheese and bacon made this a caveman (or cavewoman) satisfying meal. B said that his porterhouse was cooked just right at medium rare.
As for the Bogan Burger, I’m not sure that RM enjoyed it as I suspect he ordered it just so I could take a picture! He gave up about halfway through and looking again at the photo I find it hard to believe that anyone would want to eat that much meat in one sitting. I have a huge appetite but even I think I’d need to bring a personal defibrillator to jolt my heart back into action after this meat-shock. In fact, between us we only knew one person to ever finish the burger – RM’s brother who is uber-fit and pays hockey for the national team.
For a person who doesn’t enjoy eating large piles of meat, the Napier Hotel‘s menu is definitely ‘sometimes food’. But if you’re after a hearty huge dishes at a bargain price, then this relaxed neighbourhood pub is the place to go.
Napier Hotel 210 Napier Street, Fitzroy +
Know ye well of my monstrous capacity for ingestion… the bogan burger will be conquered. Oh yes, it will.
Good luck Billy! It’s a gross but worthy goal.
Jetsetting Joyce
oh gawd… a place to take my mother, then.
Hi Kat
Haha my mum would faint if I took her to the Napier!
Jetsetting Joyce
I know two people who have ever tackled the Bogan Burger (one, on repeat occasions) and are both very fit people. One is *gasp* a personal trainer and the other plays basketball. A lot.
Their specials menu is usually amazing and the last time I was there I shared a great pork belly dish.
Hi Jess
I reckon you’d have to be really fit to eat it – because your heart starts beating very fast as soon as you take a bite. Plus only really fit people would have the energy to burn off all those calories. I’m interested to hear how you go with your Bogan Burger encounter on Friday
Jetsetting Joyce
That burger should come with a health insurance policy! I have seen it in the flesh and it is one big daddy
Hi Nicole
Yeah, way too big for me. In fact, I felt a little ill when I was writing the post just looking at the picture. I think that chicken schnitzel is just OTT
Jetsetting Joyce