This halal Underwood shop will rekindle your love of steak sangers

Sydney Morning Herald

3 days ago

Perfectly cooked wagyu, shokupan, fries, Swiss cheese and pecorino. There's nothing extraneous about this creation. It might just be the perfect steak sandwich.
Bilal Ghumra wasn't looking to open a sandwich shop. He wasn't even looking to open a burger shop. Instead, he wanted to open a pizza shop.
So how did he end up with all three? Well, actually, it's two shops. But in one. Let's explain.
Fatty Patty, a burger shop by accident
Bilal and his brothers Zainuddin Ghumra and Shehzad Ghumra, and father Imtiyaz Ghumra, are best known for BurgerMe, their Calamvale burger joint that became a minor sensation for its halal smashed patty burgers.
The Ghumras sold BurgerMe in May last year with the intention to open a pizza shop, Sam's Pizza, in Kuraby. The only issue? Turns out, the property it sat on was being resumed.
'So we had to relocate the pizza shop,' Bilal says. 'But where we ended up relocating to is [three] times the size. We had to fill the space, so Fatty Patty was born.'
Fatty Patty shares a simple shopfront with Sam's Gourmet Pizzas on the northern side of Underwood Marketplace. Walk through a door off the outside car park and you're presented with two counters – pizza on the right, and Fatty Patty on the left – and a small dining room (most of that extra space is occupied by a much larger kitchen).
The Fatty Patty menu leads with a bunch of burgers – a couple of cheeseburgers, an All the Way burger that adds lettuce and tomato, a chicken burger, a plant-based burger, and a snack-sized cheeseburger. They're different to BurgerMe, though, Bilal says.
'BurgerMe was more of a hybrid – so a thick patty, not completely smashed,' he explains. 'Fatty Patty, we've gone full smash. And then we have the sandwiches.'
Ah, yes, the sandwiches. That is, after all, what we're here for.
The burger shop that keeps selling out of sandwiches
Below the burgers on Fatty Patty's menu are a clutch of sandwiches. These, it turns out, are its killer app. The first time this masthead visited late during lunch service on a weekend, the shop had sold out of sangers.
Fatty Patty actually had to take a timeout on its most popular sandwich, the Fatz Signature, after the Ghumras discovered they hadn't prepped enough house-smoked and cured pastrami.
'We're a halal restaurant,' Bilal says. 'Being Muslim, I couldn't really find anywhere to eat a nice deli-style sandwich, or even pastrami in a sandwich or anything like that. We thought, 'sandwiches are semi-trending right now,' so we went with it.
'The first week we opened, the pastrami did take us by surprise. We cure it in-house and smoke it in-house, it's a bit of a process. So we did a fair bit and were, like, 'This should be good for two weeks, maybe three.' And by the Friday we thought, 'Oh no.' So we had to pull it off the menu temporarily so we could catch up with stock levels.'
The Fatz is a Swiss precision variation on a Reuben served on shokupan bread, hence its popularity. Beyond that, there's the Mama Mia mortadella focaccia, and the Silly Sam mozzarella and pesto sandwich, also served on focaccia.
And then there's the Goat'd.
The humble steak sandwich gets a major upgrade
Steak sandwiches are a perennial afterthought, often propping up the menu at a burger joint, fish and chip shop or pub.
'Our [steak sandwich] was inspired by a trip to Melbourne, where a few places were doing a steak frites sandwich ... even if I felt sometimes they took things a bit far.'
Bilal Ghumra
'We wanted to have some sort of steak sandwich because we felt they were a bit hit and miss,' Bilal says. 'They weren't really getting the proper attention around town. 'Afterthought' is the right word.
'Ours was inspired by a trip to Melbourne, where a few places were doing a steak frites sandwich. They were very nice, even if I felt sometimes they took things a bit far.'
The Goat'd is designed to flip the script on the traditional steak sandwich. And the six-seven score wagyu beef and shokupan bread it's served on are bold starts, but this isn't some sort of over-the-top blockbuster. Instead, everything has its place.
There's Swiss cheese; griddled onion along with pickled red onion; fresh tomato; a considered scattering of fries; a spinach and rocket mix; a premium off-the-shelf whole egg chipotle mayo; and a final sprinkle of pecorino once the sandwich is sliced.
The Swiss cheese adds a sweet, nutty flavour that helps smooth the mouthfeel; the pickled red onion provides a lovely tangy crunch; the chipotle mayo is velvet smooth; and the pecorino a lovely piquant, appetising touch.
Normally fries in a sanger could amount to carb-on-carb crime but not when combined with the shokupan, which is a lovely, luscious number the Ghumras have sourced locally and given a quick toast on the griddle. It's a bit of a masterstroke – there are no shredded gums with this thing.
And then there's that wagyu: cooked medium to render down the fat, the choice of beef means this is a touch more spenny than your average steak sandwich, but you'll hardly care.
There's absolutely nothing extraneous on the Goat'd – no stunt ingredients – and it's an absolute joy to eat (in about three minutes in our case, because it's so easy to demolish). It's the reinvention of the steak sandwich we've been waiting for.
'We thought the sangers would be an add-on to the burgers, because we do a really great smash patty,' Bilal says. 'But the Fatz and the Goat'd are our most popular items.'
Where to get it
Fatty Patty's Goat'd steak sandwich is $26. You can get one at Shop 44/3215 Logan Road, Underwood. But maybe aim for an early lunch to avoid disappointment.