Once again another food adventure out west, this week to Goodtime Burgers in Liverpool. Keen for a delicious feast, the three of us piled into a car with water bottles ready. Little did we know, Goodtime has free complimentary water! And hand wipes! And attractive, retro red and white checkered tables! Definitely big pluses in our book.

Goodtime Burgers is a cosy outdoor diner tucked away behind El Toro Hotel, right next to a large industrial car park. It’s hard to miss but they had a van with Goodtime Burgers on it parked outside of an archway, just walk through to get to the burger joint.

Location: El Toro, 6 Homepride Ave, Warwick Farm NSW 2170 (Liverpool). Also available at Bondi and Newcastle.

Burger: The Caged Animal

Animal sauce
Beef patty
Melted American cheese
Sliced tomato
Lettuce
Popcorn chicken

Melissa

Rating: We’ll see next time…

We learned a lesson when we went to Goodtime – don’t get lured in by specials and deals when sampling a place for the first time. You’ll want to try their OG, staple menu item first and use that as a benchmark. We sampled ‘The Caged Animal’, Goodtime’s Wednesday $5 (with any drink) special. The burger was well balanced, the sauce creamy and the lettuce and tomato crunchy. However the meat was the real let down of the burger. A beef patty that was undeniably textured, thick and chewy. Their regular burger had wagyu beef patty and I think that would have made a real difference in the overall rating of the burger. We opted for the loaded fries topped with cheese sauce, bacon and salami and they were excellent. Milkshakes were not too overwhelming but largely forgettable. Overall, my experience at Goodtime was let down by the poor meat quality in their weekly special. It was at a very competitive price point so it was definitely worth the money. However to any first timers I would suggest sampling their staple burger before branching out. I would definitely come back for more.

James

Rating: I would happily come back to try their other burgers.

A good time at Goodtime? Maybe next time. Although we’re usually wary of burger ‘specials’, we couldn’t resist opting for the Wednesday deal – a burger for $5 as long as you order a drink – and whilst the cookies and cream milkshake I had was delicious, the burger was not so much. The bun, sauce and complementing ingredients were reasonable but overall, the burger was let down by the pattie, which felt and tasted like microwaveable, processed meat. It was extremely bland and chewy, giving my jaw a workout as I struggled my way to the finish line. To be fair, at that price point I probably shouldn’t have expected anything more and the sides were able to redeem some points in my book. I highly recommend trying their range of loaded fries and milkshakes, as the ones we had were delicious and enough to motivate me to come back.

Eamon

Rating: Fancy-looking Whopper

Despite all the patty-bashing that’s been done by my colleagues, I will note that the description states rather bluntly “beef patty” and we all know how burger joints love to advertise anything that’s “Angus”, “Wagyu” or even “grass-fed”. The resulting product is a rather standard-tasting burger with a uniform texture featuring a rather mellowly-flavoured sauce which failed to add a great deal. This was topped off with a few rocks of tasty fried chicken. There was not much else to this creation. However, their thick-cut chips were excellent and the loaded variety that we sampled gave a well-balanced taste. As for the shakes, I suppose I am getting less and less tolerable of them. They seem to all taste the same. I will not say that I expect each “choc” or “double-choc” milkshake I order to be amazing or unique but for what I am forking out, it should be satisfying. The shakes served were definitely not sickeningly sweet but not satisfying either. This all being said, one weekly special is not ruining this place for me so a revisit is undoubtedly on the menu.

 

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Make sure you follow Feeds for Three on Instagram to keep up with all our food adventures around Sydney. Check out Goodtime on Instagram for more creative $5 Wednesday specials.