Stepping into Newtown for me is strange, like uncharted waters. How fitting that my first burger of Burger Welly is Bebemos’ Shiver Me Tenders, a stack of chicken and pepper that is jsut such a joy to tuck into.

Bebemos provides three condiments; the queso, the birria and the salsa. The queso, I’m warned, is rich and they give me a LOT of it. They’re not lying, I have to hold back from pouring all the cheesy goodness over the nachos, for a great reason I’ll come to later. The birria is spicy, but not overwhelmingly so, again, for reasons I’ll come to later. The salsa is fresh and light, a welcome hint of Summer in the current cold climate. The nachos themselves are crispy, crunchy, and toasty. Everything here feels like it’s been laid in preparation for something.

That something is the burger itself.

It’s so surprise that this is a messy one. Shredded chicken in sticky gravy, topping breaded chicken tenders and jalapeño poppers. It is a beautiful stack of chicken and pepper that holds itself just well enough for me to get good solid bites out, but falls apart just enough to drop pieces of chicken onto the nachos below.

I’m not normally a fan of a messy burger but this one’s different. The messiness has a purpose. As pieces of popper fall, as shreds of chicken drop, where do they go? Directly onto the nachos. I picked up the burger hoping to put in down to scoff on nachos between bites. It remained firmly in my hands until every bit I could hold was in my stomach, and the bits I couldn’t were flavouring the chips.

What Bebemos has created here is essentially, self-loading nachos. At the end, I emptied the birria and poured as much cheese as my lactose-tolerance would allow. It was like eating the burger twice, and I might just have to do that before this festival is over.