It’s a long way from home, particularly for Snooze, but the combination of a burger rated as being good by a number of people I think are generally on the money, plus the opportunity to check out a part of town I’d never visited in all the time I’ve lived in Melbourne, finally persuaded me to take the nearly two hour trip to Laurie Dee’s.
While I’m not sure I’d make the special trip again here again, reports of good burgers were definitely true and I’d love to see them spread their wings and open up in other shopping centres closer to home (Box Hill, or Chadstone maybe?).
Located in the fancier outdoor dining section of the Epping Plaza, Laurie Dee’s serves up an American diner/fast food outlet experience with a twist. If your expectations of American hamburgers has been coloured by the McDonalds and Hungry Jacks you may be in for a surprise, as these are fresh and tasty. Great looking meat patties, pressed slightly flat and lightly charred on the outside, juicy on the inside. The melted cheddar adds a nice creaminess to the burger, and the diced pickles add just a touch of sourness to make the flavours pop and keep the burger from being meat dominated. Fresh lettuce and tomato, and after all those sweet brioche buns it’s nice to get something which tastes like a proper hamburger bun.
To complement our hamburgers Snooze ordered cheese fries. Shoestring style fries topped with cheese sauce and diced onions, the major issue was how quickly the cheese sauce went cold and ‘gluggy’. Normally I am a big fan of fries with cheese, and down towards the bottom was better where the cheese was still warm, but I’d likely give these a miss next time.
For our luncheon desserts we ordered two of the frozen custard style sundaes, the Turtle with warm chocolate and caramel fudge with toasted pecans and whipped cream and...
...the Chocolate Avalanche, with honeycomb pieces and mini m&ms. My impression was these were a little lighter than your typical diner style ice-cream sundaes, and tasted a little fresher, but the flavour of the sundae was more restrained. Of the two both of us preferred the Turtle, with the honeycomb pieces of the Avalanche tasting a bit stale.
Verdict: We liked it a lot.
Really nice burgers although the fries and sundaes weren’t quite there, our server (the Manager?) was extremely friendly and the store itself a nice place to eat. It’s a bit of a backhanded comment but both of us compared it to McDonalds – twice the price but ten times the quality.
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