This year, the popular food contest will see 245 eateries around the region offer up innovative and exciting burgers based on the theme \u2018Word of Mouth\u2019. <\/p>\n
For more than a decade, Yamat has served as Burger Wellington\u2019s unofficial ambassador.<\/p>\n
The chef-turned-content-creator, known online as @titty.eats, started his food account as a way to post reviews of the contest in 2015. <\/p>\n
\u201cOne year I was like, \u2018You know what? No one\u2019s reviewing burgers, so I\u2019m going to start\u2019 … It kind of caught fire.\u201d <\/p>\n
Each year, Yamat eats 30-40 burgers during Burger Wellington and has set himself a goal of knocking back 50 burgers this August – an average of two and a half burgers a day.<\/p>\n
His personal record is eating 64 burgers in three weeks \u2013 which he accomplished in 2018 \u2013 which included a staggering 10 burgers in one day. <\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like death by like 11.30 pm, I was over it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The endeavour is pricy, with many of the burgers on offer this year costing more than $30 each. <\/p>\n
Yamat pays for most of the burgers himself each year by actively saving up several thousand dollars in the months leading up to Burger Wellington. <\/p>\n
He has tucked away $1000 so far for this year\u2019s contest, but intends to save up more before August.<\/p>\n
A portion of the burgers he eats are gifted to him by restaurants who want him to try out their burger. <\/p>\n
He said staff get nervous when they see him come in. <\/p>\n
\u201cPlease don\u2019t be nervous, I\u2019m a nice person,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Tim Yamat holding restaurant Burger Liquor’s entry into this year’s Burger Wellington contest. The burger is inspired by the book Green Eggs and Ham by children’s author Dr Suess.<\/p>\n
Yamat trained and worked as a chef for seven years before getting burned out by the industry and pivoting to working in the public service.<\/p>\n
When August rolls around, he takes multiple days of annual leave from his full-time job so he can dedicate full days eating burgers. <\/p>\n
On his days off, he will eat about five burgers \u2013 three by 2pm and another two by 6pm. <\/p>\n
On a work day, he will try to squeeze a burger into his lunch break and fit in a couple in the evening. <\/p>\n
Every burger is eaten to completion but he left the sides untouched unless he felt they enhanced the dish.<\/p>\n
Deciding which restaurants to try burgers from remained tricky but spots like Victoria Tavern, Thistle Inn and The Hangar were always on his list. <\/p>\n
During his burger-only days, Yamat lives on a diet of burgers and black coffee only. <\/p>\n
He takes breaks on Sundays to rest and catch up on posting content. <\/p>\n
The most expensive burger he ever ate was a $185 gold-plated, Japanese Wagyu A5 beef, caviar and crayfish burger he was gifted by Jardin Grill, which created it for the 2022 contest. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was okay, it was a stunt burger pretty much,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Above gimmicks, Yamat valued simplicity, flavour and structural integrity in a burger, saying it \u201chas to hold until the last bite.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was not a fan of what he felt were overdone trends, such as charcoal buns and pulled pork, or impractical creative choices, like when chefs would slather sauce onto the bun and make it messy to eat.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t pile everything all at once, don\u2019t add bacon and black pudding and all that stuff … keep it simple.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yamat\u2019s long-standing love affair with burgers did not stop him getting sick of them once the festival was over. <\/p>\n
\u201cAfter Burger Wellington, I probably won\u2019t eat a burger until January or February,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Wellington On a Plate will run for the duration of August, while Burger Wellington will run from August 3-23.<\/p>\n
Janhavi Gosavi is a Wellington-based journalist for the New Zealand Herald who covers news in the capital.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This year, the popular food contest will see 245 eateries around the region offer up innovative and exciting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":510118,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[13212,4886,36595,130835,12474,2837,15416,156,14768,78,92823,5158,5969,111,139,69,54552,2742,1529,210,61,4518,52,253902,379],"class_list":["post-510117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-13212","tag-aims","tag-burger","tag-burgers","tag-dollars","tag-during","tag-eat","tag-entertainment","tag-every","tag-in","tag-loves","tag-man","tag-much","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-saves","tag-thousands","tag-three","tag-through","tag-to","tag-weeks","tag-wellington","tag-yamat","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=510117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/510118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}