Vaibhav Vishen, who runs the popular Indian street food outlet, Chaat Street, on Victoria St has been anointed the burger king of Wellington by the organisers of the VISA Wellington On a Plate (WOAP) Festival 2022, an annual culinary arts festival held in August.
The theme for this year was A State of Flux.
Vishen emerged the winner out of a field of about 250 contestants in the Best Burger category. His entry was a classy vegetarian burger that beguiled the tongue with its bouquet of exotic Indian flavours that left the public in no doubt about who deserved to ascend the culinary throne of Wellington.
Chaat Street’s entry was described as a “crispy Dabeli spiced potato patty with Fix & Fogg Smoke and Fire peanut butter, coriander, onions, crispy chickpea noodles and tamarind chutney in a masala butter brioche bun, with kala masala chips.”
Vishen has taken part in the festival for the past nine years.
Wellington on a Plate is not your typical venue-based event where participants converge and compete.
Vishen explained how Wellington on a Plate differed from other festivals: “Restaurants are the participants in this festival. The event happens [on the premises] of the restaurants.”
There were three categories: Dine, Cocktail and Burger Wellington 2022.
“The public tries the burger and, if they like it, they go online and vote for that burger,” Vishen pointed out.
The board of Wellington on a Plate appointed judges drawn from the hospitality industry who then visited the restaurants that were among the top five finalists to try the burgers for themselves.
Their judgement was based on the criteria of creativity, innovation and theme.
Vishen’s vegetarian burger outperformed the meat-based burgers at the festival. It also scored over rival “vegan meat” burgers that used artificial meats.
Artificial meats are defined as plant-based meat products that use reconstructed vegetables and Soy leghaemoglobin (short for legume haemoglobin, a protein found in the root of the soybean plant) to mimic the texture and colour of raw meat.
“We created a vegetarian burger which had a vegetable in it,” Vishen said.
So, how did he manage to beat the standard meat-based burger?
“When we were creating the burger, we were very particular about the taste. Post-Covid, I wanted to take things easy. I did not want to make anything that put pressure in the kitchen around service.
“My burger may be prep [preparation] heavy, but I wanted to make it service-easy.”
Vishen said the meat patty took a long time to cook. Being a small restaurant, that meant slower tables and higher losses.
That was one reason that dictated the choice to go for a vegetarian burger.
The other was a book he read while in school. Called The Physiology of Taste by Jean Anthelme Brillat- Savarin, the book talked about the sensations of crunch (texture), sour and sweet, which released mood elevators in the body.
Vishen zeroed in on the humble potato to provide the crunch. Potatoes reached the stage of Maillard (the process by which sugar turned to caramel) very quickly. Potatoes caramelised quicker than meats, he said.
But Vishen, a product of the Le Cordon Bleu culinary school in Wellington, wanted to stay true to the identity of the cuisine he was promoting, which was Indian street food. So he researched the Indian burger and quickly identified his burger of choice: Dabeli, which originated in Kutch in the Indian state of Gujarat.
Traditionally, Dabeli was primarily made from jaggery, mashed potatoes and spices that were macerated into a thick paste and smeared over a buttered bun heated on a large grill. Pomegranates and chickpea noodles were then added to the mix.
Vishen created a contemporary, urbanised version of the traditional Indian Dabeli burger.
Indian street food went back to the out-of-work Mughal-era chefs who took to the streets during the British Raj, according to Vishen. Much of the shapes, colours and smells from the royal kitchens spilled into the streets of Delhi and became the convenience food of the common man. The flavours, symmetry and aesthetic appeal of the food served on the Mughal emperor’s plate became part of the common palate.
Through the period of the competition held in August, around 3,112 burgers created by Vishen were sold, consumed, contested and voted upon by the public.
The number of burgers sold averaged 150 a day.
Did Vishen ever consider narrowing the focus of his business to just doing the popular veggie burger?
Vishen recoiled at the question. “No, never. I would never do that.
“One of the reasons why I became a chef was that I hated a mundane lifestyle. I wanted freshness, change and instant gratification. That is what food gave me. If I had to do the same thing again and again, I would rather have started a MacDonald-type business.”
Currently, the vegetable burger is the fastest moving item on Chaat Street’s menu.
But true to Vishen’s philosophy of life, the winning burger will be pulled from his menu by the end of the month.
But why?
Vishen cited internationally renowned Korean master chef David Chang, who said when a dish became too popular, it’s time to take it off the menu.