Harvey’s Angus Mushroom Melt 3/5

Harvey’s are currently pushing their Angus Mushroom Melt, and as I’m often up for one of their regular Angus burgers this was a product I just had to try. But first, to build anticipation, just check it out on their website. The picture of the burger is animated, the damn thing is *steaming* or at least wafting waves of beefy, mushroomy deliciousness out of the monitor at you.

The good news is Harvey’s pretty much deliver on the flavour and texture. But then it is based on their Angus burger, so they weren’t going to screw that up. It’s juicy, roasted and meaty. The bad news? The burger can’t possibly live up to the advertising image. Maybe the slice of cheese I got in mine was Swiss like in the picture, maybe not, it was too melted to tell based on the appearance, and in my experience Swiss doesn’t melt quite like this had…it looked like a melted slice of processed cheese, unappetizing. Furthermore, from the ground up the burger should be: bun, meat, cheese, ‘shrooms and bun on top. When I got mine I had to take it apart to find the mushrooms as I thought they’d left them off. Turns out they were there, on the bottom bun, hidden under the ‘cheese’ and not piled high and spilling out like I’d been promised. Perhaps I have too high an expectation, but if you’re going to show me a picture of something like this, it better look somewhat like the product you’re going to serve me. I know they wanted to make it look good, but if you underdeliver on appearance quite so comprehensively folks are going to be so underwhelmed they may never come back for a second try, and it’s all about repeat business in the fast food game, isn’t it?

In spite of my reservations, I have to admit, it’s a nice burger, representing good (but not great) value for money, and I might even buy another next time I’m at Harvey’s. After all, if I do buy it again it might just be put together right, with more mushrooms, and a little more care, and that would make all the difference.