Chef Minh Van is staging a burger revolution in an unassuming little cafe in a quiet suburban street in Dianella.

J and I dropped in on a recent Saturday night, curious to see what all the fuss was about. We’d been reliably informed by J’s brother that the burgers were ‘awesome’ (and chastised for having not already tried them) and I’d read about them through local bloggers Michelle and Ai-Ling.

We started with a small serve of chips to share, $3.50, which was surprisingly good value. Small it wasn’t (easily a large serve) and both J and I had to throw in the towel before we were even close to reaching the end of these.

J and I both decided to try the hamburger with the lot ($9.50), featuring a homemade beef patty, fresh lettuce, tomato, cheese, bacon and a fried egg.

The burger buns are standard white, and topped with sesame seeds. Though the buns weren’t exciting by any means, it was the juice beef patties that  were the standout here. At Novembar’s, they come hand shaped and full of flavour, from the addition of fresh herbs and chopped onion.

Chef Minh’s burgers come with ketchup as standard – delicately daubed over both halves of the bun. But if you’re a ketchup hater like me, fear not - there’s plenty of other condiments on offer, like my favourite Sriracha chili sauce.

Novembars may look like your average lunchbar, but average it is not!

Chef Minh is known for his gut-slaying Man vs Fat Boy burger challenge, where speed eating is the name of the game. If you finish his creation (the Fat Boy burger) in the shortest recorded time out of the last 1,000 entrants, you win $3000.

But the Fat Boy isn’t any ordinary burger. This gut buster features not one, but seven beef patties, lettuce, tomato, three slices of cheese, bacon, egg, and caramelised onion all topped off with tomato ketchup. 

If a seven patty burger isn’t your thing, then there’s also the Red Face Runny Nose challenge – tuck into ‘planet earth’s hottest and deadliest chilli burger’, a 500g cheese-stuffed beef patty on a homemade star-shaped bun with caramelised onion, lettuce, tomato and chilli sauce. If you finish it, this $30 creation is completely free. If you finish it.

This creation features the famous Ghost chilli, rated as one of the hottest varieties of chilli on the planet (according to the Scoville scale). In fact, the chilli in this burger is so potent, that this eating challenge was apparently responsible for hospitalising at least three diners.

Well, I don’t know whether I’d ever be game enough to take part in either challenge at Novembar’s. But I’ll definitely be back the next time the mood for a fresh home-style burger takes my fancy.