Beatbox Kitchen, Melbourne’s very own burger truck

There’s been a lot of buzz in the United States about food trucks and so forth but I never considered it to be something I should be concerned with. Although there are many kebab trucks around but I was never all that interested in the concept. Until that is, when I found out about Beatbox Kitchen. Beatbox Kitchen is a mobile food truck that serves delicious burgers and only burgers.

Like any food truck, they drive around to different locations everyday for lunch and dinner but it’s usually in the Inner North such as Carlton, Fitzroy, Brunswick and Northcote. The location will be tweeted and posted on their Facebook page everyday without fail.

You might snicker at the menu on offer (just 2 types of burgers, one beef and one mushroom along with fries) or even at the mere concept of a food truck, but you won’t be snickering (rather you’d be salivating and craving) once you tried them for yourself. I too have joined the bandwagon that’s looking out for their next location at every possible opportunity.

The beef burger is officially called the Raph Burger ($11) which was named after the owner of the truck. It’s a very juicy, flavourful and absolutely delicious burger, albeit being a little on the small side. The ingredients consisted of “grass fed beef, cos lettuce, cheese, tomato, onion and stereo sauce” although I wasn’t too sure what stereo sauce was. The secret of the burger lies in the great beef patty and the classic, no fuss ingredients which everyone loves. It’s just a good old burger that you will want to go back for time and time again.

Yuye had wanted the Raph Burger which I knew he would so while he ordered that I decided to order a Shroom Burger ($10) like a good foodie would. There was only 2 burgers on the menu so of course I had to. I was a little apprehensive in the beginning because I’ve never had a burger with no meat inside but it turned out to be quite delicious. The large portabello mushrooms were fragrant and well cooked, I don’t think I’d mind being vegetarian if I got to eat food like this every day. Although with that said, I still preferred the Raph Burger just because it’s quite irresistible.

We both ordered $5 fries and my it was a lot of fries. I think the wiser option would have been to order 1 portion of fries and throw in another burger as well, half of each burger (especially the beef) was just not enough to satisfy my taste buds and belly! Lesson learnt for next time.

There were also a few homemade sauces you could purchase for the chips including mayo, tomato relish, stereo sauce & spicy tomato relish. We got a mayo and tomato relish while I also tried my friend’s spicy tomato relish. They were all fantastic but my favourite is still the mayo.

The owner Raph Rashid also owns another mobile truck called Taco Truck, although I haven’t yet had the chance to visit. Hunting them down is all part of the fun!

One thing I did gather from the experience though is that food trucks will make your food go cold very quickly in winter, so I’m sure there’d be a lot more people lining up during the warmer months. It can also get quite messy as there are no tables, many of our chips ended up feeding whatever animals scoured the floor once the truck left.

Question time: Do you like the idea of eating from food trucks or do you prefer to sit down and eat?

Beatbox Kitchen
Phone: (03) 8060 6664
Various locations – check http://www.beatboxkitchen.com/

Tagged as: burgers, food truck, Inner North, northern surburbs, restaurant reviews