Scene – The Ultimate Samosa Burger

Review of Scene, Indian Street Kitchen – The Ultimate Samosa Burger

What they say:

Scene have produced this unique and original burger using fresh spices and ingredients including melted cheese. Scene’s signature sauces and salad, topped with a mixed vegetable samosa with or without a chicken patty on a soft sesame bun to present a different option on National Burger Day.

Price: £7.95.

Calories: Unknown.

You’ve had samosas before, no doubt. And I know you’ve had burgers – maybe not as many as Burger Lad® and me but you’ve definitely had burgers before. But I bet you’ve never had a SAMOSA BURGER…. The Ultimate Samosa Burger!

Addressing this obvious gap in the market is Manchester’s bustling and clearly innovative Indian street food kitchen – Scene.

The Ultimate Samosa Burger
Outside in Spinningfields…

Situated in Spinningfields – the new(ish) corporate quarter with a growing name for food and drink, Scene and its Executive Chef Sudesh Singh have decided to embrace National Burger Day on 25th August by developing possibly the ultimate East meets West dish – a samosa burger.

So when Scene kindly asked us to come and check it out in advance of NBD, you can well imagine this was not a difficult decision for yours truly. Reading the blurb beforehand, I noted this comes in chicken or vegetarian variants. Not beef, sadly, as you might expect from a burger, so it’s the chicken for me. That said, there’s lamb elsewhere on the menu here and I left feeling this would work really well with a lamb patty.

Anyway, although the Ultimate Samosa Burger was kindly offered to me without charge, it goes on sale at a pretty reasonable £7.95, having already been tested away from the restaurant by Scene at various festivals (to the obviously positive response).

The Ultimate Samosa Burger
The Ultimate Samosa Burger…

My friend and I were given a big family welcome by manager Emaan (it’s largely a family run business here at Scene). And the family, led by Sudesh in the kitchen and Emaan’s husband in the office like to be innovative – and it shows!

So, by this point I’d only read the PR release about the dish – not seen a picture. In my mind I pictured a samosa stuffed with chicken cheeseburger. How wrong I was. That would’ve been a fairly thin and probably dry dish. This is in fact a proper burger with samosa in it as one of the many toppings.

And when Sudesh brought them to our table, my jaw just about dropped. How wrong I was about this being a small dish. It was utterly massive. So much so in fact, that it was nigh on impossible to get in my mouth, and I had to resort to cutlery.

The Ultimate Samosa Burger
Big portion here – be hungry…

So there’s a thick chicken patty, cheese, samosas (obviously), lots of sauces, red onions… The list goes on.
Trying to pick this up was difficult. The bun was decent and held together – crumble wasn’t the problem here, it was the sheer size. And immediately my hands were sticky as a result of the sweet sauce, one of many flavours and textures in this well-thought out build. And as for texture, the samosas gave a dry crunch to begin with but soaked up the sauces and softened throughout the eating.

The samosas themselves were dry, obviously, but the yoghurt sauce particularly kept this in check, creating a moist and tasty experience. And the interplay between the yoghurt sauce and the red onion was dazzling. I know the samosas are the core ingredient here, but this double riff of yoghurt and onion was possibly my favourite part.

The Ultimate Samosa Burger
Thick chicken patty and loads of toppings…

Well, apart from the patty of course. This chicken patty was not for the faint-hearted. It was thick and very well-seasoned, including tiny pieces of carrot giving it a slight but fantastic sweetness. Sweetness which was quite a theme throughout the whole burger. I did try to get a decent photo of the inside of the patty and may have let you down on that front, but it’s almost as delightful on the eye as it is on the tongue.

There were tomatoes on here too, and like everything else, provided very generously. I’m not a fan, and I’d happily leave them out, but that applies to most burgers. There were even three whole chillies.

The Ultimate Samosa Burger
Samosas on top succumb to sauce…

My friend @Si_Bags summarised “thumbs up from me but bring wet wipes”. I’d tend to agree with that. This was messy, fun, hugely satisfying and genuinely innovative. The burger scene (forgive the pun) is pretty full but Scene proves that there’s always room for real proper innovation with the Ultimate Samosa Burger.

On National Burger Day itself, Scene will be offering them on a Buy One Get One Free basis, but even if you can’t make it on that day, it’ll be making its way to the menu longer term and trust me, it’s well worth the visit.

Admiral Burgerbar

Website: http://www.scenedining.com/

The Ultimate Samosa Burger
Sudesh with his creation…

The Ultimate Samosa Burger

£7.95
7.8

Flavour

8.5/10

Presentation

8.0/10

Quality

7.0/10

Hot

  • Innovative & exciting
  • Generous proportions
  • Correct heat levels

Not

  • No beef or lamb option
  • Samosas a little dry