Queenstown - In Ferg We Trust

When I ordered my burger, the cashier was asked for my name. I was dumbfounded. Why would you need to tell your name when you purchase any food?

“Huh, why you need my name?,” I asked the cashier.

She was even more taken aback than me.

“Au Yong. A-U- Y-O-N-G,” I replied after being given the nudge from Han Ching signaling me to just do what she asked.

(Few hours before that)

“F**k burger, what is that?,” I asked Han Ching when she pointed to me the restaurant at Shotover Street.

“Fergburger la. It’s very famous in Queenstown,” she tried to clarify.

“Famous for being expensive?,” I asked cheekily.

To me burger is burger. Beef burger is just like Big Mac. How could it be so famous? When I finally got my seats after ordering my F**k Fergburger and yeah, also given my name to the cashier, I saw a framed up letter hung on the wall. The letter was from a doctor at the Medical Center NZ Ltd written to the Fergburger restaurant. It says:

To the Fergburger team,

I wish to confirm that during the winter of 2006, while working as a ski doctor I treated an overseas visitor to Queenstown who required his jaw relocated.

He presented to me with his jaw dislocated holding a Fergburger with one bite taken out of it. He claimed his injury was “BIG AL’s fault”

Dr. Glenn McKay
Queenstown

New Zealand is of no difference with other Europe country in terms of their diet. Sandwiches and burger make part of their life. When it comes to beef burger, nobody can argue that the best meat and steak comes mostly from New Zealand. Being the world largest dairy product producer, you can see cows grazing the grass in New Zealand almost everywhere along the highway. You just can’t give it a miss trying this beef burger in Queenstown.

People were seen thronging in and out of this small restaurant ever since we were sitting there for 30 minutes. Some were waiting for their orders; others were just trying to decide on the menu of what type of burger to choose. Burgers here in Fergburger restaurant generally are not as much variety as those you got in Malaysia with Ramly’s burgers. I’m sure we are the only people in the world that wrap our meat with egg aka “Burger Special”.

Last week, I drove Han Ching to meet her ex-colleague. After saying goodbye, I decided to order one Ramly’s burger from a stall. While waiting for our order, we watched the ‘chef’ skillfully strutting his stuff with one hand on a scrapper and another hand on a thing I called “presser”. He spread 2 eggs on the flat pan and stacked two piece of beef meat on top. Prior to that, he had sliced the beef meat into half horizontally and fried the inner and outer part while trying to maintain the shape. Some sliced onion and cabbages topped with mayonnaise and ketchup, the burger stood a proud 3.5 inches tall.

I was thinking, soon this stall owner will brandish a framed up newspaper article saying a patient has been reported dislocated his jaw while trying to eat a burger at a stall in Shah Alam. Ok, back to this Fergburger experience. I saw the ‘cook’ packed up two burgers and holding our order paper. I’m sure that’s my order as I’ve observed the cashier lady pasted my order on the rack. That guy has been shouting out the customers’ names; so that they will come forward and claim their orders. He was astonished when he looked at my order. His tongue somehow got twisted for a moment. I could see that he was trying hard to get the spelling and pronunciation right. In the end...

“Yo!!!” he shouted and looked at the crowd.

Ferg!