The Thirsty Koala

There's a place in Astoria called The Thirsty Koala. How could we not go to a place with a name like The Thirsty Koala? That sounded perfect for the Australian stop on our World Cup eating challenge, and I was already wearing a koala shirt (yes, I have one). After a stop for some Chilean food, we stopped in to celebrate the Socceroos (whose name we also love) and watch some World Cup games. (This was last weekend so the Socceroos were still in it, but they sadly got eliminated today.)

Since we weren't that hungry after our Chilean stop, we decided to split a burger and a side, and order some beers. A got the Flying Dog IPA and I went with The Thirsty Koala Light Lager. I was all in on koalas for this meal.

For our side, we got the smashed mint peas ($3.50), which kind of hilariously were listed on the receipt as "mushy peas."

These were tasty, although we could probably make them at home. They taste like peas that were cooked, then mashed around in a little bit of butter, and mixed with some chopped up mint. It was nice to have some vegetables on the side of our meal and they were good, but I don't think we would order these next time after seeing how delicious the potatoes and other roasted vegetables looked.

For our main, we split the Burger with the Lot ($14.50). 

This was a 100% grass-fed beef burger with lettuce, tomato, red onion, bacon, grilled pineapple, beet slaw, caramelized onions, and a fried egg. You could also get the burger in chicken or kangaroo. Although a kangaroo burger would be very Australian, we love kangaroos and felt really bad thinking about eating one, so we stuck with beef (it's also $2 extra). The burger came with a generous portion of tasty fries (everything that came out of the kitchen was a generous portion, it seemed), and sides of ketchup and a mild sweet chili sauce.

During Week 10 of the 52 week challenge, I learned a lot about Aussie burgers, as a bunch of people chose to do that for the Australian challenge. I wasn't sure what made their burgers unique, but soon learned from the Australians there that they often put beets, eggs and pineapples on their burger. I'd never had a burger like that before, but after we tried this one, we agreed that it's a winning combination. Why don't we do that?

This was a really messy but delicious burger. Juices from the pineapple and beets combined with the egg yolk made the whole thing extremely runny, and the burger was huge and hard to eat, but it tasted so good. We weren't sure how well the beets would mix in, but after this burger we might try to put beets on every burger from now on. If you're in the mood for a burger, we'd definitely recommend this.

The Thirsty Koala had so many interesting things on the menu and everything that came out of the kitchen looked delicious. The staff was incredibly nice, friendly, and just the right amount of attentive. We would definitely go back here for our WorldEats visit!