Getting your teeth into a croc for lunch

''PIG!'' my companion spat in mock disgust, joining me unexpectedly for lunch and spotting five burgers a waiter had placed before me.

''No, not pig,'' I replied, pretending to misunderstand. ''Buffalo, camel, crocodile, emu and kangaroo - but no pig. They tell me they're thinking about adding wild boar soon so perhaps you can come back then.'' My extenuating circumstance is that this was my final lunch on a Darwin trip and I felt compelled to try all the exotic offerings at Ozzy Burgers.

A nondescript food stall in a downtown shopping mall, it bills itself as the ''wildest hamburger joint in Australia''. (It also serves Mexican fast food but let's not get confusing.) Darwinite Norm Coonan, a droll and blunt-spoken 40-year-old who had ''tried my hand at all sorts of jobs'', took over an existing fast-food business a year ago and runs it with his wife Grace, an immigrant from the Philippines.

''I love wild meats,'' earthy Norm says, wiping ''rooburger'' gravy from his chin. ''I thought, 'We've got all these fantastic wild meats in Australia's Northern Territory but the only place for the average bloke to sample them is in some posh restaurant.

''It made sense to turn this stuff into affordable meals. I contacted a supplier, and started making my own burger patties from meat he delivered. Business boomed from day one.'' In Norm's view, Australia should make far more use of its wild meat as food and he points to tourists' never-ending quest for a new dining experiences.

''I'm not talking about endangered species,'' he insists. ''Hell, crocodiles and emus are widespread these days. Camels and buffaloes are introduced creatures that have gone feral and are plentiful in the wild - and the kangaroo meat comes from varieties that are so common they have to be culled to avoid overpopulation.'' Foreign backpackers make a beeline for Norm's stall. So do Australian tourists. Increasingly, the place is also a trendy eatery for the well-heeled.

''But we've kept our prices low,'' notes Grace, whose menu shows burger prices average the equivalent of about HK$30. For that amount, the customer is given a juicy burger made of the wild meat of his or her choice in a freshly-baked bun - with plenty of salad.