Moose Leg Steaks - Lidl [review by @CaptainKindling]

On a recent visit to my parents, conversation turned towards my exotic meat adventures.  Being frequent visitors to Lidl, they mentioned that there were some interesting meats in the freezer section, but that they hadn't payed too close attention and so weren't entirely sure what was there.  I had heard tales of exotic meats in Lidl in the past, but being a store which changes their wares as often as most people change their socks, I'd never actually seen any myself, and was starting to put this down to a campfire story.

Undeterred - and always keen to try something new - I saddled up and headed to my nearest branch to see if I could find something different, and for once they did not disappoint!

 

 

Amongst the three bird roasts and gammon joints, they had two offerings which I hadn't tried before; quail and moose leg steaks.  I was initially leaning towards the quail, but after a quick look on the back of the packet the cooking instructions seemed a little overly complicated for my simple tastes, so I decided to opt for the moose.

As with my other exotic steaks, I kept with my practice of leaving them unseasoned so as not to interfere with the natural flavour, and sealing and frying them lightly on either side for a nice rare consistency.  Normally I'd only fry for 2-3 minutes on either side, but the moose leg steaks were quite thick and the packet recommended 5 minutes per side, so I decided to err on the side of caution and follow this recommendation.

 

 

Normally I'd mention the aroma at this point before moving onto the taste and texture, but unlike my previous meaty discoveries, the moose leg didn't really have much going on in this department.  This was a little disappointing, but by no means a game-changer, and luckily I had some nicely seasoned new potatoes to make up for things!

Cutting into the first steak revealed the moose to be a tender meat.  Not as tender as ostrich fan tail I had recently (which may be the tenderest meat I've ever eaten!), but certainly more tender than a beef steak.  The five minutes on each side had left the steaks cooked to a medium consistency - I prefer mine rare, but can still enjoy anything aside from well-done, so if I were to have these again I'd definitely reduce the cooking time slightly.

The taste was certainly an unusual one.  Moose isn't shy with it's flavour, so it could have gotten away with a little seasoning, and surprisingly it tastes like a cross between liver and beef steak.  The liver-ish taste is very distinctive and unmistakeable, but not as strong as actual liver, and the beefy flavour is running alongside to complement it.

Unfortunately I've never liked liver since I was a child, and as I've grown and my tastebuds have developed, this is one thing which hasn't changed.  The liver flavour wasn't enough to put me off the moose entirely (so I was able to finish my dinner fortunately!), but it was enough to ensure I won't be going back to them.

However, this is purely my personal preference!  If, on the other hand, you enjoy both steak and liver, then these will probably be right up your alley!

 

Living alone, I did find the quantity of three a little bit awkward - two would have done me quite nicely, but would have left one left over which wouldn't have been enough for a full meal the next day, so I had to go for all three at once which a little bit too much!

If you manage to catch your local Lidl branch at a time they have these in stock, they'll set you back £6.99 for a pack of three.  This does seem a little overpriced in my opinion, as there are more interesting exotic meats with lower price tags if you're prepared to do a little leg work.

Kezie Foods: Partially Cooked Ostrich Fan Fillet [Review by @CaptainKindling]

Kezie Foods: Partially Cooked Ostrich Fan Fillet

This week my continued adventures with Kezie Foods took me back to Africa, with one of their partially cooked Ostrich Fan Fillets.  Ostrich is becoming more and more common as a meat option, and as far as exotic meats go may well be the most frequently tried.  I've personally had ostrich burgers in the past and thoroughly enjoyed them, but this was to be my first taste of an actual cut of meat.

The fan fillet is from the upper inner thigh of the ostrich, and is descirbed as the most tender cut from the bird by Kezie.  The partial-cooking before the freezing stage supposedly seals in the freshness, so I was looking forward to seeing how it tasted!

As with the kangeroo steak, I decided to fry this up lightly and to have it unseasoned so as not too interfere with the bird's natural flavour.  After leaving the fillet out for a few minutes to mosey on towards room temperature, I heated up some sunflower oil in a pan (again, I refer olive oil but wanted a more neutral flavour) and decided to give it three minutes on ech side.

The first thing I noticed before even dropping it into the pan was that it looked much more like a red meat than a bird, and if I didn't know it was ostrich I probably would have thought it came from a four-legged source!  I didn't stop to wonder at this for too long though, as I had a sizzling pan and a rumbling belly!

After three minutes on each side it seemed to be cooked well enough for my taste, so I served it up with a plate of curly fries - this may sound like sacriledge but I just wanted something quick and simple, and there was an abundance of them in my freezer!

My first impression of the ostrich was a very good one - Kezie's description of it as the most tender cut seemed to be accurate, and my steak knife slid through the fillet with ease even when cutting against the grain.  The three minutes on each side seemed to have cooked the fillet just right, with a nice red centre surrounded by a pinkish halo, so it was time for the all-important taste test!

And boy, what a taste!  The tenderness of the meat gave just enough resistance, and the flavour came bursting through instantly.  As the uncooked appearence indicated, ostrich is much more like red meat than a bird, and has a very strong, rich, meaty flavour to it, leaving an almost tangy aftertaste once finished.  I'm a big fan of steaks (Tuesday night is traditionally my steak night!), and I'd happily view this as an alternative to beef, ticking all of the same boxes but not feeling quite so heavy on the way down.  It certainly isn't shy with its flavour, and could certainly be seasoned without losing its identity.

Ostrich fan fillet is one of the pricier meats on Kezie's menu, with a single 200g portion costing £6.18, so it's better suited as an occasional treat rather than a regular choice, but I'd have to describe it as a must-try meat for any carnivore!

Kezie Foods: Wild Game Hotpot [review by @CaptainKindling]

Kezie Foods: Wild Game Hotpot

Continuing slowly through my exotic meat parcel from Kezie Foods, I thought that their Wild Game Hotpot would make a nice dinner for a Sunday evening.  This is another of their Wild Gathering Gourmet ready meals, in which they take quite typical everyday ready meals and give them an exotic Kezie twist.  In this case the Wild Game Hotpot features venison steak pieces, pheasant breasts, and diced rabbit, all cooked in a red wine and juniper berry sauce with carrots, leeks and kidney beans, finished off with a garnish of parsley.  This might not seem quite as exotic as some of their other offerings (Kangaroo chilli con-carne springs to mind!), but it's still a more exciting take on a fairly run-of-the-mill dish.

As I mentioned whilst reviewing the Thai Green Soup, I've thrown my cooking habits out of the window for this selection (particularly my prejudice against microwaves), and left myself in Kezie's hands when it comes to preparing their foods.  As such, I once again followed their suggestion that it was best microwaved from frozen, and served it up with some roast potatoes and vegetables to round off the meal - as a lighter snack they recommend just having the hotpot with a fresh bread roll, but my appetite's bigger than that!).

It's been a while since I had either venison or pheasant, and I've never tried rabbit before, so I found myself in the same boat as I did with the Thai soup, in that I wasn't immediately aware of which meat was which!  The first thing I'd have to say is that, once again, there was a lovely aroma coming from the hotpot as soon as it was removed from the microwave.  It wasn't exotic meat-specific, but rather a general hotpot aroma, but still it was nice way to start dinner!

I started off with a piece of pheasant breast - being the only bird in the dish it was easy to identify - and I actually found it quite tough to cut into, almost resulting in the hotpot bowl catapulting across the room and ending the review early!  Once I'd got into it though it wasn't as tough to chew, but I was a bit disappointed with the flavour.  The hotpot sauce tastes delicious - with the strong rich wine flavour mingling with the sweet aftertaste of the berries, and a mildly spicy kick right at the end - but it almost overpowers the pheasant's own natural flavour - there is a subtle, background taste, but it's so close to being lost that it's difficult to identify.

Next I tried one of the two red meats (I think it was the rabbit, but I can't say for certain!).  Again it was a little tough to cut through, but in this case the flavour came through with a little more emphasis, complementing the sauce rather than taking a backseat to it.  Finally I tried the second meat (the presumed venison steak).  In contrast to its two companions, this was incredibly tender and was easy to cut with just the edge of my fork, and the strong gamey flavour actually dominated the previously unassailable red wine/juniper comination!  Out of the three meats in the hotpot it was definitely my favourite.

All three meats were present in the hotpot in generous quantities, although the sauce very nearly stole the show!  The vegetables in the hotpot were nice enough (I find it hard to get more excited than that about veggies!), and helped to round off and balance the dish nicely.

I would have to say though that I don't see this as a "ready meal" in the strictest sense of the term.  For me the definition of a ready meal is that the meal is fully prepared for you, and all you have to do is throw it in the oven/microwave and put your feet up.  With the hotpot it would be more accurate to say that the hard part of the meal has been prepared for you, but the fact that you still need to sort out your own potatoes/veggies etc. throws its ready meal status into question.

At £3.99 the Wild Game Hotpot is a fair price for a high-range ready meal (when compared to supermarket's high-range offerings), but the question of it actually being a ready meal or not may throw the value-for-money factor off a little bit.

The Biltong Company - Original Sticks & Sweet Chilli Jerky [Review by @CaptainKindling]

The Biltong Company - Original Sticks & Sweet Chilli Jerky

Continuing with my new duties as Foodstuff Finds' designated carnivore, I was recently given a choice of a couple of products from The Biltong Company.  Originally from South Africa, Biltong is on the rise in the UK at the moment.  They do a range of different products, so to get a little bit of variety in both flavour and texture I chose their original sticks and sweet chilli jerky.

Seeing as it was in more managable, bite-sized chunks I started with the sweet chilli jerky as a lunchtime snack.  I am a big fan of both jerky and sweet chilli, but had never tried a combination of the two, so I had quite high expectations going into this one!  The first thing to notice is the size of the chunks - unlike your typical off-the-shelf supermarket jerky which tends to be finely shredded, the jerky in this pack came in very generous portions.  The 125g size bag was the smallest size available, and this still felt like it was more than enough to snack on for a few days.

To keep the meat well preserved the jerky was kept well-sealed, so when I opened the pack I was hit by a potent waft of both beef and chilli in equal measure.

As you'd expect with jerky, you need a decent set of teeth and strong jaw muscles to dig into it!  The sweet chilli taste hit me first of all, but as it softened up the beef flavour was released more and more, eventually leaving the chilli as a tingling aftertaste.  I managed to get through five or six pieces before my teeth started to ache, so I begrudgingly allowed the rest of the office to try a piece before popping the rest into a tub to return to over the following few days.  For my colleagues this was their first taste of jerky, and it was met with a positive reaction all round.

As a jerky fan I know that the natural flavour of dried beef is a very strong one, and so it's difficult to add a flavour which won't be completely overwhelmed.  In this case the chilli competes for its place very well, but I couldn't help but feel that the sweetness was lost amongst those two strong flavours.

After a few days of finishing off the jerky and letting my jaw muscles recover, I moved onto the Original Stick.  As the photo shows, this was just one solid slab of dried meat, which made it quite an inimidating prospect!  I was slightly tempted to just go nuts and have at it like a dog with a chew stick, but decided to be a bit more sensible and use a knife to cut off strips as and when I fancied a nibble.
As with the sweet chilli jerky, there was a strong aroma released as soon as I cut through the vacuum packaging.  On this occasion it was overwhelmingly peppery, and personally I found it a bit much!
I have to admit the overpowering aroma made me a little bit hesitant when it came to tasting time, but in fact it didn't taste nearly as strong as it smelled.  The pepper was there, though more as a complementary taste, allowing the full flavour of the beef to come through.  Being a dried meat product it was quite salty, but not as salty as many other products I've tried.  According to the ingredients label it did also contain worcester sauce and coriander, but neither of these were particularly apparent to my tastebuds.
In terms of the texture, it was actually surprisingly tender!  I'd geared myself up for another jerky-esque war of attrition going into this, but it was much softer and more managable on the teeth.  While I did decided to play the nice colleague and offer tasters around the office, I did feel as though this was something I could have selfishly tackled on my own!

To summarise I'd say that the sweet chilli jerky is something I could have as an occasional treat, but the original stick was something I could happily have on a regular basis.

The Biltong Company  does have a wide range of products to choose from starting from £2.80 for a 125g pack, so if you're a fan of dried beef or just fancy taking the plunge and giving it a try then they'll probably have something to take your fancy.

Kezie Foods: Zebra Meatballs [Review by @CaptainKindling]

We got offered a large selection of exotic meats that none of our regular reviewers were brave enough to try so I invited a good friend of mine, and fellow blogger CaptainKindling to give them a try.  If you want to read more of his stuff then head on over to his regular home of Games & Tea and see what you find...

Kezie Foods: Zebra Meatballs

Another day brings another one of Kezie Foods' exotic offerings to my dinner table.  They do  whole range of meatballs from different, unorthodox sources, and the pack included in their food bundle were zebra.  Like kangaroo, this was a meat I'd tried before, but had again been semi-cremated on the barbeque, so I was looking forward to seeing how the meatballs would fare.

Once again I followed Kezie's cooking instructions from their website - as of this point they hadn't steered me wrong yet, and I don't go in for meatballs very often so they're not an area of great experience for me.  In this instance it was a pan-frying job , so after browning off the outside of the meat, I just cooked them for around 5 minutes and they were ready to go!  Kezie recommend serving them up with spaghetti and your favourite sauce, which is the choice I went for, but also suggest just having them with a dipping sauce as a light bite alternative.  Given their quick and easy cooking process that did strike me as a tempting idea, and seeing as I only used half of the pack I might be heading to the supermarket to browse the dips tomorrow!

But I'm getting way ahead of myself.  As I said, for these 6 meatballs I decided to serve them up with spaghetti and sauce.  Normally I'm a fan of my spices so would have liked to go for a tomato and chilli sauce, but I didn't want to run the risk of overpowering the zebra flavour, so I went for a safer option in tomato and basil.

Well first of all Kezie were bang on the money with their cooking instructions.  After browning time plus 5 minutes the meatballs were cooked perfectly throughout without beginning to dry.  I ate the first one after rescuing it from the sauce, so that the flavour would come through uninhibited, and boy what a flavour!  Zebra has a very strong and distinctive gamey flavour to it - strong enough that I probably could have gone for that tomato and chilli sauce without the flavour getting lost.  When mixed into a big forkful along with the spaghetti and tomato & basil sauce the flavour of the zebra still came through.
The meatballs are also very lean compared to beef, and it really comes through in the taste and texture.  As much as I love my carnivorous side, I do feel a little guilty on the old ticker when I'm tucking into a fat steak or juicy burger, but felt fairly guilt-free with zebra.  The only downside is - much like burgers - you're a little limited on how to use them, but if you're planning a meatball dish anyway then they're well worth a go!  Like I said, I'm really looking forward now to seeing how they work on their own with perhaps a barbeque dip...

A pack of 12 zebra meatballs from Kezie cost just £3.15, making them a realistic alternative for an interesting spaghetti dish.  12 should feed two people quite comfortably, as 6 was enough for me alone and I'm quite a big eater!

Kezie Foods - Thai Green Seafood Soup [Review by @CaptainKindling]

We got offered a large selection of exotic meats that none of our regular reviewers were brave enough to try so I invited a good friend of mine, and fellow blogger CaptainKindling to give them a try.  If you want to read more of his stuff then head on over to his regular home of Games & Tea and see what you find...

Kezie Foods - Thai Green Seafood Soup

Having now tried some nice African crocodile burgers and a tough-but-tasty Aussie kangaroo steak, my next worldwide offerings from Kezie Foods took me to another continent with their Thai Green Seafood Soup.

I had heard of Kezie before receiving their food parcel - they were one of the two companies on my shorlist for an exotic barbeque some years ago, but ended up losing out purely on the flip of a coin.  But since then they have branched out from simply offering exotic meat cuts and barbeque foods, and started to offer a range of Wild Gathering Gourmet Ready Meals, which includes the Thai Green Soup.  Their food parcel contained three meals from the Wild Gathering range, but for a nice light bite on a Saturday afternoon the Thai Green Seafood Soup seemed to fit the bill.

The most convenient thing with the Wild Gathering range is that they can be cooked from frozen, so it was nice to be able to just pick this out of the freezer as a spontaneous decision whilst the zebra meatballs were on their second day of defrosting in the fridge!  The second most convenient thing about them is that - like most ready meals - they can be microwaved.

Now I have to admit to being a bit of a microwave snob.  Maybe it's some kind of primal urge to burn things with fire, but I prefer to heat food in an oven rather than blasting it with radiation from a microwave.  However, so far with Kezie's offerings I've been dispensing with my usual way of doing things and putting faith in their instructions.  Whilst the ready meals do come with instructions for oven cooking they do say that microwaving from frozen produces the best results, so that was the method I chose to go with.  The website also recommends serving the soup up with some freshly-baked bread, so whilst it was microwaving I threw a couple of part-baked rolls into the oven to make it a slightly more filling lunch.

As soon as I dished up the soup I was hit hard by a fishy aroma with a light coconut background.  It was tantalising, but I'm a man who loves his coriander, so I was hoping that would come through a little s well.  Being an eastern dish, the soup itself is very watery - much more like a broth really - but that's really just a flavour pot for the generous chunks of seafood to sit in!  The soup contains Kingklip, Cape Hake, Swordfish and Black Tiger Prawns, but it's been so long since I last had Swordfish, and I've never tried Cape Hake or Kingklip, so I have to confess everything except for the Tiger Prawns was a mix of new experiences!
I tried a small sip of the broth first of all to get an idea of the overall flavour, and was instantly taken by surprise by the spicy kick to it!  I like spices so it was very welcome, but again the coriander seemed to be lost, making me regret not adding a little more upon dishing up as the website suggested.  The coconut provided a nice, subtle background flavour though, as did the zing of the lime.
The presumed-Swordfish (as I say, it's been a while since I last tried it!) had a very strong flavour to it, which competed well against the spice of the broth.  The Prawns, Cape Hake and Kingklip however had much lower-key flavours to them, which actually worked well as they blended together with the broth for an overall flavour.  The aroma of the broth continued to come through whilst eating as well, so it really was something of a sensory overload, but in a good way!  The green beans were completely overpowered by the broth though, and as a result they seemed to be present more for added texture than anything else.
As someone who doesn't eat ready-meals very often I had approached this soup a bit warily, but overall I was very impressed.  In fact if this was served up to me in a restaurant I would be extremely satisfied!  My only criticism of the soup is the complete loss of coriander flavour and aroma, so if you're a fan of it then I'd highly recommend following Kezie's guidelines and adding a little extra when dishing the soup up.

A single 300g serving costs £4.49, or a 600g (2 person) serving costs £8.08, so it's quite an expensive option as a light-bite, but as an occasional treat I think it's worth a go!

Kezie Foods: Kangaroo Rump Steak [Review by @CaptainKindling]

We got offered a large selection of exotic meats that none of our regular reviewers were brave enough to try so I invited a good friend of mine, and fellow blogger CaptainKindling to give them a try.  If you want to read more of his stuff then head on over to his regular home of Games & Tea and see what you find...

Kezie Foods: Kangaroo Rump Steak

Following on from the rather nice Crocodile burgers, my next dinner choice from exotic meat supplier Kezie Foods was Kangaroo Rump Steak.  I mentioned previously that I've had Kangaroo once before but didn't really do justice to it, so this time around I was determined to do things properly and make a decent meal out of it!  Fortunately the cooking guide on Kezie's website tells you everything you need to know about making the most out of your exotic meats, and so I was only to happy to put the fate of my dinner in their hands.

After three days of defrosting the steak in the fridge, I removed it from the vacuum packaging, patted it dry with some kitchen roll, and then left it on the chopping board for 20 minutes to reach room temperature.  The product page, cooking guide and how-to video all suggest that exotic steaks are best cooked medium-rare.  Having chosen to pan fry the 'Roo I followed the guide, heated a little olive oil in the frying pan, and seared the meat all over before cooking it for 1 1/2 minutes on each side.  Afterwards I placed it on a wire rack to keep it from sitting in its juices, covered it with some foil to keep the heat in, and plated up the rest of the meal ready for the big taste test!  The Kezie guides suggested serving the steak with a little side-salad, but I decided to follow the traditional pub-grub approach of having it with chips and peas.

Initial thoughts?  Well Kangaroo definitely tastes much better having been lightly fried than it did having been half-cremated on a barbeque!  The gamey flavour comes through strongly, but it isn't overpowering.  I refrained from seasoning the steak as I didn't want to risk losing the 'Roo's flavour, but it's definitely a meat which could be lightly seasoned without losing its identity.  There was a small amount of gristle in the steak, but not nearly as much as you'll find in beef, so cutting around it requires only minimal effort.

One thing I would suggest is that if you like your steak medium-rare then it's probably better to cook it for slightly longer than the 1 1/2 minutes on each side suggested.  Using those guidelines mine came out rare which is actually my usual steak preference, but may not have been to my liking if I'd preferred my meat a little less red.  Having said that, even cooked rare it did come out pretty tough, so overcooking with Kangaroo is definitely something to be avoided!  I've spoken to a few friends who have tried 'Roo steaks, and they all agree that it's a meat that needs strong jaw muscles!  But tough or not, it was nicely juicy, and the flavour was a definite winner with me.  I'd thoroughly recommend them to any steak eater!

Kangaroo rump steaks from Kezie will set you back £4.95 for a 225g steak (as shown here), or £5.50 for a pack of 2 smaller steaks (250g combined), which means there's not a great deal of price difference between these and good-quality beef steaks.

Kezie Foods - Crocodile Burgers [Review by @CaptainKindling]

Kezie Foods - Crocodile Burgers

A few short years ago, if you told someone you'd had a nice juicy llama steak for last night's dinner you'd be given a strange look at best, and considered an inhuman monster at worst.  More recently, however, there seems to be a growing trend of weird and wonderful meats making their way to our dinner tables and onto our barbeques.  In fact it's not uncommon for Christmas markets to offer up a reindeer burger for those who think Rudolph just looks too tasty to pass up.

I have, in the past, had the pleasure of sampling zebra and kangaroo steaks (which I probably didn't particularly do justice to, by dicing them up into kebabs and throwing them on the barbeque), as well as ostrich burgers, and these early experiences of exotic meats have certainly gone down well.  I am a self-described "enthusiastic carnivore", so when Kezie Foods offered to send Foodstuff Finds a selection of their wares, I was more than happy to step up to the plate (literally) and see how they stacked up.

Whilst Kezie do have a wide range of more traditional meats on offer, it's their substantial exotic section which turns heads, featuring steaks, sausages, burgers and ready meals from sources most of us wouldn't normally consider at mealtimes.  The generous selection provided for the review consisted of the following:

• Crocodile Burgers
• Zebra Meatballs
• Game Hot Pot
• Rosé Veal Vindaloo
• Thai Green Seafood Soup
• Mahi Mahi Portions
• Marlin Loin Portions
• Kangarooo Rump Steak
• Octopus Tentacles
• Horse Striploin Fillet Steaks
• Ostrich Fan Fillet

If I want to do justice to these tantalising offerings then there's no way then can be squeezed into a single review, so I'll be splitting them across a few articles as I slowly empty my freezer over the coming weeks!

Crocodile Burgers

After an afternoon of indecisiveness and torment, I finally settled on Crocodile Burgers to be the first on the plate!  Crocodile may be new, but burgers on the whole are comfortable and familiar, so they seemed like one of the safer options to ease myself in.  And crocodile is something I've been wanting to try for a long time, as Hollywood has made it abundantly clear that alligator barbeques very well, so I'm taking a leap of faith that their toothier cousin is just as delicious.

With a couple of exceptions, most of Kezie's products are covered by their cooking guides and videos on their website and Youtube channel.  I have to confess I'm not usually the most patient of cooks in the world - I don't rush cooking times, but I'll run roughshod over the preparation stage to get my dinner in the oven or on the hob asap!  To justice to this selection, however, I'm going to exercise some rare self-restraint, and follow Kezie's instructions to the letter - I have to assume they know what they're talking about!

So with this in mind I took the unheard of step of removing the burgers from the fridge and allowing them to reach room temperature for 20 minutes before putting them under the grill.  In an ideal world I'd have liked to try barbequeing them, but given the weather and my lack of garden this seemed like an impractical option to say the least, so the grill became my fallback option.  Kezie also recommended brushing the burgers with oil to help them sear - again this isn't something I usually do with my burgers, but I wanted to do this properly and so stuck with their guidance.  Normally I'm a big fan of olive oil, but I didn't want to overpower the taste of a new meat with such a distinctive flavour, so I opted for simple sunflower oil.

The first thing which I couldn't help but notice after cooking is just how lean crocodile meat is!  I'm a man who enjoys his burgers, but I can always guarantee that when I remove them from the grill after cooking there'll be a veritable lake of grease in the bottom of the grill pan.  With the crocodile there was barely a drop, setting the burgers off to a very promising start!
Whilst I know it's typical to garnish burgers with relish, salad and so on, I served these up just on plain and simple rolls so that nothing would interfere with the croc's flavour.  With dinner plated up, it was time to see if they were worth the anticipation...

Absolutely!  As you can see above, crocodile is a white meat, and its flavour was far more delicate than the tastebud-assault of your typical dark-meat beefburger.  The consistency was just what a burger should be - it didn't disintegrate at the merest hint of contact with a bread roll, and it wasn't like trying to tear chunks out of a steak.  I had tried sticking to the barbeque guideline of cooking for 4 minutes on each side under a medium grill, but after that period they still didn't quite seem cooked, so I gave them an extra 2 minutes on each side and this seemed to have them cooked to perfection.  Being so lean, there was no issue with grease leaking out from all sides with every bite, but this by no means left them dry - "juicy" is perhaps not a word I'd use to describe them, but certainly not dry.
And as for the flavour?  Well that's a tough one to put into words!  The term 'unique' gets used far too often, as in "It's got quite a unique taste, a bit like venison", but for crocodile it's the only word I can use!  It's unlike anything else I've ever tried by a long shot, and it's definitely something I'd be happy to eat again (insert obligatory "and make it snappy!" joke here).  At around £4.50 for a pack of two they're a shade pricier than good quality butchers' burgers, but are a nice alternative to the typical humdrum of cow or lamb.