In a bid to remain semi-healthy in my eating-out diet, once in a while I suggest to RM that we should go eat a vegetarian restaurant. It’s become a running joke that he always counters with ‘well if you’re going to have vegetarian food, I’m going to the Napier to have a Bogan Burger.’

I’ve been threatened with this Bogan Burger for many years now but it was only with the advent of long sunny summer evenings that I had a chance to visit the Napier Hotel.

The Napier Hotel is a smallish pub sitting on a quiet roundabout in the back streets of Fitzroy. The wooden indoor part of the pub (decked out in Fitzroy Football Club memorabilia) hides a really pleasant decked outdoor area. As you can imagine, it’s super-popular over summer but we were lucky to find a spot for a late-ish dinner on a weeknight.

The menu is heavy with protein and fried food pub standards with a few more palate-stretching dishes in the form of a Moroccan tagine ($17) and house smoked roo salad ($18).

The two girls had the relatively light ‘Suburban steak sandwich’ with thick sliced white bread sandwiching a normal-sized-single-portion 200g Black Angus rump piled with smoked bacon, grilled onions, cheddar, tomato chutney, rocket, roast garlic aioli with fries and salad ($17). One of the guys had the ridiculously large 500g aged Black Angus porterhouse steak with a choice of sauce which came with fries and a garden salad ($20).

RM tackled the infamous Bogan Burger. Read this and tell me it doesn’t make you break out in a fat sweat: steak, chicken schnitzel, caramelised onions, cheese, pineapple, beetroot, egg, potato cake, bacon, lettuce, tomato with wedges and salad. All that protein and fat held together by a jaunty cocktail umbrella and for the bargain price of $17.50.

As you can see from the pictures, each of the servings was huge. In fact, I would have been quite happy to share the steak sandwich instead of having one to myself. The steak was a little chewy for my liking but the cushion of salad ingredients, cheese and bacon made this a caveman (or cavewoman) satisfying meal. B said that his porterhouse was cooked just right at medium rare.

As for the Bogan Burger, I’m not sure that RM enjoyed it as I suspect he ordered it just so I could take a picture! He gave up about halfway through and looking again at the photo I find it hard to believe that anyone would want to eat that much meat in one sitting. I have a huge appetite but even I think I’d need to bring a personal defibrillator to jolt my heart back into action after this meat-shock. In fact, between us we only knew one person to ever finish the burger – RM’s brother who is uber-fit and pays hockey for the national team.

For a person who doesn’t enjoy eating large piles of meat, the Napier Hotel‘s menu is definitely  ‘sometimes food’. But if you’re after a hearty huge dishes at a bargain price, then this relaxed neighbourhood pub is the place to go.

Napier Hotel 210 Napier Street, Fitzroy +61 3 9419 4240

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