Category: Reviews

Hawksmoor, Knightsbridge

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Beautifully cooked, beautifully assembled, averagely seasoned.

Burger Source

For many, the notion of going to a Hawksmoor and ordering a burger is sacrilege. It’d be like making a stir fry with foie gras; the restaurant’s beef is famed for its quality and not to be minced and mashed into a burger. Yet it consistently makes the ‘top burger in London’ listicles, and I was keen to try it. The beef is made from “British grass-fed, dry-aged beef from the Ginger Pig”  and gets put into two burger variants; the Hawksmoor burger (served with your choice of cheese, pink or well done) and the Kimchi burger – which is what it sounds like. Both can be served with triple cooked chips or salad.

The order

My friend James and I both went for the Hawksmoor burger; pink (obviously), with cheddar, with triple cooked chips, served in a metal mini bucket (hipsters!) on the side.

The meat of it

This is an astonishingly beautiful burger. The 5oz patty is relatively thin yet coarsely ground, loosely packed, perfectly shaped, with a brilliant crisp finish and an evenly pink centre. I’ve no idea how they did this without drying out the burger, which remains tender and juicy and with the lovely aromatics you get with dry-aged beef. Sous vide with a grill finish? Who knows. It’s stacked on some lettuce, a crisp sweet pickle and a thin layer of mustard (spread-on, not fried-in, as far as I could tell), topped with a thick slice of well melted cheese and a large slice of beef tomato in a sizeable and airy brioche. The fries were crisp and looked inviting.

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Isn’t it beautiful?

Sounds amazing? Almost perfect, but not quite. Here’s what went wrong: the brioche is overly sweet, getting the flavour balance wrong whenever there’s too much bread in the bite. The burger itself, whilst perfectly tender, richly beefy and well cooked – was underseasoned. This turns the cheese from an umami-fest on top of a good burger into necessary seasoning; a necessary addition to make it feel like you’re eating something other than a sweet bread roll. You barely notice it as a result. Whilst the lettuce and tomato were amazing – fresh, crisp, amazingly complementary to the rest of the burger – the mustard spread is uneven. In most mouthfuls you can’t taste it, in others it’s a spike of unexpected heat. I much prefer the Dirty Burger / In&Out practice of frying mustard into the burger on the grill, which gives a richer, more even flavour IMHO. If I’m being picky – the burger wasn’t crisp enough not to need some textural contrast (from, say, a crisp piece of streaky bacon) – it’s all softness and squidge.

hawksmoor_chips
Tin cup! Who needs chips in a tin cup? Give me a basket any day.

The fancy ketchup – unnecessary for the burger due to the cloyingly sweet brioche – is some strange, slightly spiced, watery version (like a hybrid ketchup / sweet chilli sauce) – and it wasn’t a great help for the chips either, sadly. We both agreed Heinz would have been preferable. The tin cup made it challenging to salt the chips evenly (they were also underseasoned). Pouring them out would have cooled them down rapidly, of course…

All that said, it was still a good burger; it just doesn’t stack [sic] up against my current top rankings; Hawksmoor chefs, please embrace salt!

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Eagle Rare!

Drinkswise, we both opted for a very nice Eagle Rare bourbon from the menu’s extensive, expensive selection. Served with rocks on the side, it has a smooth, sweet finish and amazing aromatics.

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I resisted pudding, it would have been spoiling me too much.

Monkey finger rating

Bun –  3/5
Build – 5/5
Burger – 4/5
Taste –  3.5/5
Sides – 4/5
Value – 3.5/5 – £56 for two including a single shot of bourbon and service for two – the burger and chips by themselves list at £16. Hawksmoor has proven its worth its premium pricing for its steaks – not so sure about its burger.

Burger rating – 3.5/5 -It’s a good burger, but is expensive and underseasoned. Dip & Flip trounces it on many counts.

The deets

There are many Hawksmoors, but make sure the one you visit has a bar menu, as that’s the menu with the burger on it. The Knightsbridge branch is just off the Brompton road, an 8 minute walk from Knightsbridge tube. 3 Yeomans Row,

London, SW3 2AL. 020 7590 9290 for bookings and general steak chat.

Shoulder of Mutton, Hartley Wintney

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Country gastropub vs. London mainstream – a different burger experience.

Burger Source

The Shoulder of Mutton is a classic country pub, upgraded to Gastropub cuisine standard with the accompanying reviews and crowded tables you’d expect of an excellent pub. The burger seemed to feature reasonably prominently on its menu, and I thought – why not, this place has amazing reviews, the burger should be interesting.

And it was interesting, if a completely different experience from the London scene, for a number of reasons which I’ll get into in this review.

It’s also 15 minutes drive from me, so a perfect location for a night out with Amanda; thanks to Sophie for the recommendation.

The order

The ‘home made beef burger’ is billed as: “fresh minced beef infused with our blend of herbs & spices, tomato, lettuce on a grilled bun served with baby leaf salad and hand cut chips.”

The critical point here is the ‘blend of herbs’ – most burgers these days seem to emphasize salt and pepper over all other herbing and spicing, something I don’t tend to argue with. But I was interested in the treatment this pub would give it…

The meat of it

The preparation and the presentation made for an interesting display. The burger sat atop a bed of thick cut, likely double fried (and duly crispy) chunky chips. The soft white roll was warmed (possibly grilled as promised?), making for a soft yet surprisingly capable foil to the 6oz burger patty. The thick cut bacon sat on top of the meat, coated in a thick layer of cheddar which had not simply been melted on but also crisped up under a broiler, giving a good crust and crunch to the cheese, which was unexpected. The burger itself had a good crust, made of coarse ground, loosely packed beef (my fave), with a pink medium-well shade to it (I like them slightly rarer, but it wasn’t bad at all).

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Such a thing as too much cheese?

The meat was relatively lean (which explains why the standard white bun survived) and unadorned by further sauce or relish. For some reason the promised tomato and lettuce wasn’t in there and I didn’t notice at the time so didn’t make a point of it.

The taste? Well, it was definitely herby, which was an interesting change of pace. Tasty; though my palate couldn’t figure out what was involved but I suspect parsley featured centrally (it was scattered liberally around the plate too). The lean meat (or possibly the broiling?) meant the burger wasn’t as juicy as it should have been but it was still pretty tender. The cheese was somewhat overdone, and the bacon could/should have been crisper in my book, but they were all quality ingredients.

The chips were outstanding, though an excessively large portion. The salad was unnecessarily dressed with a thick squirt of salad cream, which should have been applied more sparingly.

The overall impact? Not as good as it should have been. The burger needed pickle or relish, and – for my mind – a different sort of flavouring. The herbs alone make it taste slightly medicinal (or at least, more meatloaf than burger) and the lack of sweetness in relish or salad or pickle within the burger itself made it overwhelming salty – too much cheese and bacon, a phrase I never thought I’d say, much less write. A better fat/lean ratio would have improved the taste of the burger as well.

Monkey finger rating

Bun –  4/5
Build – 4/5
Burger – 3/5
Taste –  3.5/5
Sides – 4/5
Value – 4/5 – £50 for two including pudding and a round of drinks, incl service. Pretty good.

Burger rating – 3.5/5 – It’s really not a bad burger, but the peculiarity of the flavouring and the slightly unsatisfactory toppings mean it’s only maybe something I’d order again. I think maybe the steak next time; the service and atmosphere is outstanding so it’s definitely worth a return visit.

The deets

Whilst the Shoulder of Mutton claims to be part of Hartley Wintney, it’s clearly far closer to Heckfield, just off the A33 between Basingstoke and Reading. Full details: Hazeley Heath, Hartley Wintney, Hook, Hampshire RG27 8NB. Phone: 01189 326 272. Recommend booking – it was busy on a Saturday night.

Dip & Flip, Battersea Rise

Posted in london, Restaurant, ReviewsTagged , , , , , 4 Comments

Surprise contender for best burger in London?

Burger Source

I can find surprisingly little on the web on the genesis of this small, seemingly independent chain of burger restaurants. I can tell you what they say about their beef: “West country beef, forerib, chuck, and a little added fat make our 180g patties. They are then smashed onto our imported chrome griddle, which is super hot, sealing in the flavour and creating a wonderful crust, so no flavour is lost on our grill. Served in a soft brioche bun with French’s mustard, ketchup, American cheese, cabbage slaw and pickles.” And, crucially, given it’s a signature feature, what they say about their gravy: “We roast a selection of carefully sourced beef bones to a rich golden brown. Then we simmer them, with organic vegetables and herbs, for a long time. This bone broth is the heart and soul of our gravy. Roasting juices from the bottom of the pan are added to the broth along with a few other little secrets (All beef related) to make our delicious gravy which we serve with almost everything for dipping.”

It’s all pretty delicious.

A little bit of web investigation reveals that “Bob Francis Double Dip Limited”, the company that has registered the dipandflip.co.uk domain name, was founded in February 2013 (as far as Companies House knows), and has one director – presumably company founder – Timothy John Lees, whose past ventures include “Lees Library Consultancy Services Ltd” of Dundee, a company which was wound up in 2014.  Oddly, I was ignored on Twitter when I asked for someone to email some questions to about the company’s history…

Regardless, nothing to see here, so let’s get to the beef.

The order

I went for the bacon double cheeseburger, which was just greedy really. F&D’s 6oz patties are plenty for a single, so you probably don’t need more – I certainly didn’t, but that didn’t stop me finishing it.

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I wasn’t keen to try the actual dip & flip specials, which feature sliced roasted lamb or beef soaked in gravy on top of a burger bun – and felt validated by the choice. Whilst I’m sure it would have been good, I wanted the textural contrast the crispy bacon promised, and didn’t feel that I needed that much gravy. Sides featured regular fries and chilli, gravy, cheese and bacon fries.

The meat of it

Holy moley, this was totally unexpected. The beef patties had a rich, crispy  crust, which surprisingly held a deliciously juicy, perfectly medium patty. The coarsely ground, loosely packed beef was incredibly well seasoned and topped with gooey, delicious cheese. The bacon strips were curled and crispy and packed with salty flavour. Two crisp, large but thin pickle slices, supported by the promised cabbage slaw, protected the underside of the thick, sturdy brioche bun from the intensely beefy juices which dropped out of the burger with each bite, a gift of the burger’s sensibly high fat/lean ratio (I suspect 25%:75%). On initial cross bite, I was worried the burger might be overcooked, but it was just edge factor – the middle of the burger was a perfect medium pink. The (fairly) sweet brioche provided a necessary counterpoint to the umami fest that the rest of the burger represented. Wow. Just wow.

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The fries were crispy but slightly overseasoned. The chilli/gravy/bacon/cheese fries were, on the other hand, perfect. Not soggy till the very end, delicious cheese, a light kick from the chillis and a delicious crunch from the same bacon that topped the burger.

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Almost everything about this meal screamed ‘outstanding’.

But wait, I hear you ask, what about the dip, the gravy? Even the normal burgers come with the gravy which is, admittedly, excellent. Just not wholly necessary; I enjoyed it more with the fries than I did when dipping the burger in it; the burger just didn’t need any further savoury-ness. If anything, something beyond the salt and sweet of meat and bun – perhaps a little more mustard, in the fry (in the style of Dirty Burger) would have sorted it.

Drinks wise, friends had a couple of hard shakes (I had a taste – outstanding) but I stuck with bourbon – a nicely bitter taste to clear the palate in and amongst huge meaty mouthfuls.

Monkey finger rating

Bun –  5/5 – even if you don’t normally like Brioche, it’s the perfect companion for this burger
Build – 5/5
Burger – 5/5
Taste –  5/5
Sides – 4.5/5
Value – 5/5 – £18 a head including tip between six of us, with drinks, felt reasonable

Burger rating – 5/5 – This is now in joint first place for best burger in London for me, alongside Bleecker Street and Lucky Chip (which may get a re-visit during its ‘Stranger Things’ month). Amazing.

The deets

There are a couple of Dips & flips around Southwest London, find the locations here. We ate at Battersea rise, 5 minutes walk from Clapham Junction station, by the Northcote pub.

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The Salusbury, Salisbury Road, Queens Park

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Gastropub tries to do good burger, doesn’t quite manage it.

Burger Source

If you read my appeal to publicans, you’ll know that I don’t generally review pub burgers. I made an exception for the Salusbury as the pub clearly makes a feature of its ‘aged short rib burger,’ so I thought I’d give it a try.

An independent pub under the same ownership for 15 years, the Salusbury boasts the talents of Andrew Fila, former head chef at the Medcalf, Exmouth Market. The aim to deliver the best food, drink and service. The service is excellent, and I can’t talk to the drink… and the food is generally OK.

But how did they fayre with that pub kryptonite, a genuinely good burger?

The order

Just one burger on the menu, the ‘aged short rib’ burger served with chips. I was asked how I’d like it done and opted for medium, which was a good sign. I was eating with family, who ordered fish and chips, amongst other things, which looked excellent.

The meat of it

This burger should have been good. It was clearly good meat; it was cooked perfectly – look at the cross section shot. But a few crucial things went wrong, sadly.

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The meat was underseasoned; so didn’t taste of much. The toppings didn’t add enough to counter it (not even that substantial pickle), and the (very, very) firm eggwashed roll just added too much chewiness. I abandoned half of it immediately.

The burger wasn’t juicy enough; I put this down to too high a lean/fat ratio. It was slightly too tightly compacted too, despite being coarsely ground, which means it was a dense thing to eat your way through.

This sounds incredibly nitpicky, but the end result was a substantial burger that tasted of very little. Not bad… but not good either. And it’s frustrating because the ingredients were clearly top quality.

The chips, however, were crisp, fluffy and delicious with the provided mayonnaise. Which, to be fair, also helped bring the burger together somewhat , packed as it was with salty goodness.

Monkey finger rating

Bun –  1/5
Build – 4/5
Burger – 2/5
Taste –  2/5
Sides – 4/5
Value – 1/5. This thing is not worth £14.50.

Burger rating – 2/5 – A few things for the Salusbury to fix; they clearly have the technical skills but some of the core ingredients – in particular the bun and the beef – need some thought.

The deets

If you’re keen to stop by, the Salusbury is near Queen’s Park tube station in North London; 50-52 Salusbury Road, NW6 6NN. I’d have the fish and chips.

Bleecker Street Burgers, Pop-Up until Sept 30th 2016, South Bank

Posted in Bacon, Pop up, Restaurant, ReviewsTagged , , , , 2 Comments

The best burger in London? Very possibly.

Burger Source

Zan Kaufman, American founder of Bleecker Street burgers, came to London in 2011 and launched Bleecker Street with a van and a mission to serve the best American style burgers on the streets of London. Having learnt everything she could from an East Village burger joint called Zaitzeff, she wanted to bring the same experience to London. As to the beef itself, and the burgers? She puts it better than I could: “There is zero compromise with our ingredients. Burgers are about the beef. We use rare-breed, pasture-fed beef from small farms in the UK. It comes to us from the geniuses at The Butchery in Bermondsey, where it is dry-aged for about forty to fifty days, giving it an intense, beefy flavour. The finishing touches: a sesame seed bun, scratch burger sauce and good old American cheese. We like to keep things simple.” Does the Bleecker Street reality live up to the promise?

The order

The menu is simplicity itself, especially at the South Bank pop-up where the Blue-Cheese special is not available – single, double, bacon and the Bleecker Black – a black pudding slice sandwiched between two substantial burger patties. Having seen people being served singles, which looked like 4.5oz patties at most, my hunger conquered me and I went for a double – and, because I’m greedy – added bacon, alongside the skin-on fries. The South Bank pop up does a good trade in  American beer, too, if you’re into that sort of thing.

The meat of it:

BleeckerDoubleClose-up
Now for my close-up

The burger doesn’t look that extraordinary there’s little to the presentation, the sesame seeded bun is toasted and looks very standard fayre… and the patties look surprisingly small. The camera adds a few ounces of flattery in the picture above. Even a double doesn’t have the heft of a P&B burger, for example. And mine, surprisingly, was cooked medium well rather than the medium rare a friends’ Bleecker Black came with. I suspect the guys struggle with consistency in the small confines of the pop-up kitchen as other friends’ doubles were also rarer than mine. The fries come in a generous sized cardboard cup and are crisp, well-seasoned and delicious dipped in the plentiful ketchup, mayo or mustard that adorns the few small tables outside the Bleecker Street Shack.

Medium well double cheeseburger
Very pink Bleecker black

As to the burger… OMG. The aged beef delivers a gamey taste and, despite being cooked medium well, the coarse ground meat is unbelievably juicy – literally spilling onto the cardboard plate as I took my first bite. It’s really well-seasoned too; though simply – no unusual flavours, spices or herbs. The American cheese singles are completely melted in to create wonderful mouthfeel, and whilst I had initially feared that the sesame seeded bun was dry and overtoasted, in this world of soft brioche, in the end it proved necessary for it to stand up to the juicy intensity of the burger. There was some onion in there, but it didn’t really factor in the taste behind the beef. The bacon – thinly sliced, not-entirely-crispy streaky bacon – was somewhat lost in the beef-fest, which is probably why they don’t do a double bacon cheeseburger as standard. Occasionally the burger got dipped in mustard or ketchup (wow), but it was fine on its own too. I suspect a fat/lean ratio of 75/25, and the result on the taste and the texture… well, wow. I want to go back. This, Honest Burgers, and Lucky Chip are currently in top contention for my personal best burgers in London, but there’s still far to go on this burger gastronomic adventure.

Monkey finger rating

Bun –  4.5/5
Build – 5/5
Burger – 5/5
Taste –  5/5
Sides – 5/5
Value – 4.5/5 – I missed out on the ‘deal’ by ordering a custom burger. You save a quid or two otherwise.

Burger rating – 5/5 – very possibly the best burger in London. I want to go back for lunch.

The deets

The pop up supposedly runs until 30th September. You can find it under the Hungerford bridge, by the Royal Festival Hall on the Queen’s Walk, right by the river. A straight walk over the bridge from Embankment tube. From 11.30am to 11pm daily.

Patty & Bun, Old Compton Street, Soho

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Huge, tasty, juicy burger; a little rare and a lot caramelised oniony. Eccentric sides.

Burger source:

Another one from the stable of ‘pop-up done good’, founder and chef Joe Grossman reportedly fell in love with the burger scene in NYC and, when he met business partner Mark Jankel and started the P&B story over here, decided he wanted to build on the craze here. More on the origins of P&B here. The hype for P&B I heard was stupendous, possibly second only to how people rave about Honest Burger, so I was both curious and excited as my Burger Crew friends and I gathered for a semi-spontaneous mid-week visit.

The order

I went for the ‘Smokey Robinson’ – largely by mistake and, for my tastebuds – it did prove to be something of an error. It’s loaded with ‘mounds’ of caremelised onions – which I love – but seriously, MOUNDS.

P&B burger

They are not exaggerating. We also had the much-vaunted chicken-skin fries, confit chicken wings (“Winger winger chicken dinner”), Rosemary fries, and some rather eccentric chicken thighs – possibly the ‘Thunder thighs’ – which seem different in my memory from those on the current menu at the Soho branch, but I suspect my memory is playing tricks. Also confit’d I think, and coated with a strong flavoured marinade, apparently Urfa chilli.

The meat of it:

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The meat is coarsely ground, loosely packed and cooked very medium – verging on rare. So much so there was almost that smell of raw meat as you bit into it. A bit too rare for my liking, to be honest. But it is an immense burger – easily 8 oz of meat and fat that’s otherwise well seasoned and luscious for anyone whose tastebuds are that way inclined. The caramelised onions, for me, overpowered the gentle juiciness of the beef; the sweetness took over and I was waiting for a salty bite to recover it. I should have had the Ari Gold burger with bacon, I think, for my tastebuds, but if you like a sweeter burger, it’s a good choice. The demi-brioche bun really struggled under the weight and juiciness of the meat (unlike TomTom Mess Hall, these guys have an excellent meat/fat ratio) and added further (unnecessary to my mind) sweetness to the experience. That said, the overall impact wasn’t bad at all – just not to my slightly more savoury tastes. A bad choice on my part.

P&B fries.jpg

The chicken skin fries were an interesting novelty and reminded me of the Orange Walkers’ Crisps packets from the mid-90s (I know you can still get them, but… who does?). Nothing extraordinary but well fried, crisp, and a good counterpoint to the burger; despite doubtless being natural flavouring, the flavour can’t help but feel slightly artificial as your only other frame of reference is a 60p bag of crisps! The confit nature of both the thighs and the wings added a satisfying crunch but, for me the flavours were too strong – you could barely taste the chicken for the marinade. The fact that the sauce on the wings was cloyingly sweet (and I was having a sweet burger!) and the sourness of the chilli of the thighs was slightly odd (I guessed the spice was tamarind before double checking the menu). On their own, I can understand why everyone raves about the Rosemary fries; but in the context of this mess of a tasting meal, they were lost. Next time; Ari Gold burger with bacon, Rosemary fries, and I’m done.

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I also had a very delicious cocktail – the Would I Lychee You (Kudos, Bob’s Burgers) – which was refreshingly sweet and punchy. And this time, sweet was what I wanted.

Monkey finger rating

Bun –  4/5
Build – 4/5
Burger – 3.5/5
Taste –  3.5/5
Sides – 3.5/5
Value – 4/5

Burger rating – 4/5 – I blame my poor taste experience entirely on my own error of judgement in ordering the wrong burger. I think everything about P&B is good that should be, even if I haven’t acquired a taste for the more eccentric sides yet.

The deets

P&B is seemingly everywhere, with branches in Liverpool Street, Old Compton Street, James’ Street and beyond. Check out the list of locations here for your most convenient stopover.

Bonus pic with the decor:

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Tomtom Mess Hall, Belgravia

Posted in london, Restaurant, Reviews1 Comment

Well presented, well seasoned burger, if somewhat dry. SLOW service.

Burger source:

So, you own a cigar shop. Somewhat obvious course of diversification: open a coffee shop. Less obvious course of diversification: you open up a burger ‘mess hall’ in a 4 * 5m space and fill it with slightly aggrieved looking young people as wait staff, and you serve, actually, quite good burgers. We popped out for a lunchtime burger to bid farewell to my co-blogger Richard, who was off ‘up north’ for what he explained were very good reasons.

The order

Cadet burger with cheese and bacon. Because, who could cope with Raclette on a burger? I’m sure there as some people, but it didn’t even make me curious; other menu options that inspired none of us at the time; the airman burger (chicken, bacon, avocado), the ‘Mess hall’ burger (Raclette, pickles, onions, lettuce and ‘MP’ sauce). I think a return journey (if they fix the service issues) would have me try a ‘Spitfire burger’ with Red Leicester cheese and spicy relish.

A side of onion rings topped the order out at £12.50  a head, with shared rings, without a drink. Not quite ‘mess hall’ affordable; but not bad at all for a burger of this standard. Note: cadet burger comes with fries, making it exceptional value vs. the rest of the menu.

The meat of it:

The 100% chuck steak mince is well seasoned, loosely packed (ideal) and perfectly cooked… but lacks somewhat in flavour and juiciness. I suspect the fat/lean ratio is too high in lean’s favour and as a result, the good (non-brioche but eggwashed starchy white roll) is barely challenged by the burger.

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Other toppings were presented in good order; duly melty cheese, bacon with good bite and saltiness, and with ketchup added manually to meet sweet/savoury contrast needs. No salad had to face off against the cadet burger.

Tom Tom Mess Hall onion rings

The chips were good, solid chunky chips – crispy and tasty – and the onion rings, whilst well-cooked, were slightly underseasoned.

Monkey finger rating

Bun –  4/5
Build – 4/5
Burger – 3/5
Taste –  3/5
Sides – 4/5
Value – 4/5.

Burger rating – 3/5 – lowered by the appalling service and the dry burger. 40 minutes for a burger took a lot of the, ahem, relish out of it for us.

The deets

Find TomTom Mess Hall at 114 Ebury Street, ‘Belgravia’ (near Victoria Coach Station). And come when you’re not that hungry, so you can stomach the wait.

Honest Burgers, Kings Cross

Posted in Condiments, Restaurant, ReviewsTagged , , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

The Tribute is a contender for the greatest burger in the world; plus amazing atmosphere and delightful service, what’s not to like?

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Grub’s up!

The latest in my Monday night meet-ups shifted to a Wednesday, but otherwise followed the same pattern as before. Four friends, fine burgers. This time, we strayed from Islington’s comforts to hit up Honest Burgers in Kings Cross – significantly more spacious than its Brixton counterpart but home to the same, much-hyped menu. I’ve probably had as many people tell me that Honest Burgers is home to the best burgers in London as have told me of Meat Liquor’s greatness, so, needless to say, we were very excited. I’ve also been told that their Rosemary Fries are ‘crack’ by more than one person, so, was keen to see for myself.

Burger source:

HonestBurgersPattties
Reassuring amounts of spatter and melt. Look how thick that bacon is!

Tom Barton and Phil Eles, the founders of Honest Burger, reportedly met whilst waiting tables in Brighton and decided they could ‘do better’. They met an experienced restaurateur, Dorian Waite, who helped them get set up in a tiny unit in Brixton Village, using savings to fund the initial fit-out. Despite their lack of experience in the food industry, it’s been a hit: their focus on British quality produce, featuring some particularly exceptional meat from the esteemed Ginger Pig butchers, seems to have worked well for them. A round of investment in 2014 also sees them expanding (far) beyond their first home in Brixton Village, and hence – Honest Burgers Kings Cross.

The order

We had sadly missed February’s special – Honest Burgers’ monthly rotating time-limited burger – called the ‘Rib Man Special’, featuring rib meat and Honest Burgers’ own proprietary ‘holy f**k sauce.’ The new special seemed rather conventional by contrast – the ‘Deli Special’ features garlic aioli, emmental cheese and smoked bacon, as well as spinach in place of lettuce. So I persuaded Jimjam to split a Tribute with me – a burger recommended to me by TK, and for good reason, allowing me to try both the special and a menu staple. The Tribute shares the burger and bacon, but swaps out aioli for mustard and burger sauce (a distant relative of Big Mac sauce, to my palate), cheddar for the Emmental and lettuce for the spinach.

We also ordered virtually every side: red-cabbage slaw, onion rings, buffalo wings, and a pot of each of the four sauces on offer – bacon ketchup, holy f**k sauce, chipotle mayo and curry sauce.

The meat of it:

HonestBurgersTributeCrossSection

The stack was perfect on both burgers. A cross section cut revealed the same perfect pink medium finish on the loose ground, melt-in-your-mouth, perfectly seasoned 7-8oz patty. This is a big burger. The brioche was muscular enough to stand up to the burger, but only just – don’t leave it hanging – and had the bread’s characteristic sweetness and bite. The burger – both burgers – melt in your mouth, and the thick smoked bacon adds delightfully to the flavour melange.

To each individual burger’s attributes, now:

March 2016’s ‘Deli Special’ features aioli. As far as I can tell, aioli has drifted from its origins as a Mediterranean garlic sauce to become hipster flavoured mayonnaise, (heavily featuring garlic). It can be tasty, and it was, but it was also somewhat overwhelming; the intense (yet silky-smooth) garlic sauce kind of overwhelms the more delicate beefy flavours. The pickles were good but failed to cut through the aioli, and the spinach added very little other than an insulating layer, protecting the lower bun from the burger’s plentiful juices. The red onion, bright and shiny in the promo picture, was barely evident. The net result was pleasant but not necessarily re-orderable, especially when in contrast with…

The Tribute: bringing to mind Tenacious D’s song, this burger is an incredibly nostalgic taste explosion. This is how a Big Mac tastes in your memory; but with a dose of the best bacon cheese burger you’ve ever had, coupled with some more modern refinements. The burger sauce and pickle are a sweet accompaniment to the other ingredients; the melted cheddar adds a sharper and more explosive salty finish, and – somewhat unlike the Deli Special – the combined effect of the different flavours is more than the sum of its parts. This is a fine burger indeed, and a contender for my ‘Best Burger Ever.’

HonestBurgersSauceSelection

The sides: the rosemary fries are hand cut, thicker than regular fries, apparently double or triple cooked and utterly delicious. The rosemary itself is neither here nor there for me, but the perfect finish and salty seasoning on these delicious fluffy potato fragments makes them, as I was promised, intensively addictive. Especially when coupled with the sauces:

  • Chipotle Mayo – mildy spiced, sweet and savoury mayo. Great.
  • Bacon ketchup – looking little like ketchup, this lumpy sauce tastes like the best ketchup you’ve ever had with the bonus explosive crunch of bacon hidden within. It’s less sweet than Heinz varieties but no worse off for it.
  • Holy f***k sauce – genuinely evoked the reaction in the name. Too hot for consumption as a side, this might have worked better for me sparingly within a burger construct. Or maybe I’m just a chilli lightweight these days.
  • Curry sauce – another burst of nostalgia here; this is an utterly refined variant on chip-shop curry sauce, though as far removed from it as the Tribute is from the Big Mac. Much more delicious.

The onion rings featured large thick rings of sweet, crisp white onions, beer (I think) battered and well spiced; and an even crisper exterior than Meat Liquor’s offer. Definitely the best onion rings I’ve had!

The buffalo wings were well sauced and juicy, but lacked the crispness you might have had elsewhere (ahem, Meat Liquor); no blue cheese sauce, though, and inexplicable amounts of chopped spring onions.

The red cabbage slaw was not noteworthy, and left no lasting impression. It was the only thing on the table we didn’t finish. It lacked the crispness of a white cabbage slaw, and there was no real need for it.

The cocktails – I had the Botanic Garden – gin, apple, elderflower and wine – so delicious I had another one, and great value at £5 a pop. Sweet and refreshing. I’m told the beer was good too.

A quick note on the service: the waitresses were amazingly entertaining, engaging with us on our burger choices and manliness (or lack thereof) in tackling the hot sauce. The chefs let me take pictures of them cooking (“but not the face”) which was amusing and gracious in one fell swoop. The overall experience was excellent as a result.

Monkey finger rating

Bun – 4.5/5
Build – 5/5
Burger – 5/5
Taste – 5/5 (for the Tribute, 3.5/5 for the Deli Special)
Sides – 4/5
Value – 5/5. £28 – felt like amazing value for burger, fries, ALL the sides + 2 drinks apiece. But maybe I’m just too used to London pricing.

Burger rating – 5/5 – I think if I had to choose between this and Lucky Chip I’d be hard pressed – but the atmosphere and drinks at Honest Burgers vs. the Old Queen’s Head, plus the excellent sides, probably tip it in HB’s favour. All the points.

The deets

Tonnes of locations now (full list below) but the Kings Cross venue is at 251 Pentonville Road London N1 9NG, just 5 mins walk from Kings X. Tweet them @honestburgers. And go, go go go, if you haven’t been.

 

 

Guest post: Ferg Burger, Queenstown, NZ

Posted in Guest Post, International, Restaurant, ReviewsTagged , , , , , , , 2 Comments

This is a guest post from fellow Burger-Lover and world traveller Dan Bond.

This burger too fergilicious for you babe.

The decision was made. Six weeks into a five-month around-the-world trip, we’d reached the other side of the world (New Zealand) but also the need to budget.

It turns out that income is pretty limited when you’re unemployed and don’t have any (as far as I’m aware, I’m not getting financially rewarded for this guest post), but there were indulgences we could cut back on: dining out being #1. We could handle that. We had a campervan. We knew how to boil water and put pasta into the water and then take it out again. It’d be fun, being self-sufficient. Fine. We left the Queenstown café in complete agreement. And walked down the street. And turned a corner. And stumbled into a bustling, overflowing queue, outside what transpired to be the 15th birthday party of Fergburger.

We TRIED to just walk past and pay no attention. But the customers were so animated, so delighted with what they were unwrapping. One particularly polite-looking middle-aged lady grappled with a burger larger than her face, which turned an increasingly meaty shade of red with each bite taken until diner and dinner became almost indistinguishable. It was a betrayal of either complete culinary delight or her slipping into early, pattie-induced stages of cardiac arrest. This was serious meat, evidently. Fine…we’d start budgeting after one more meal out.

Burger Source

Fergburger is one of those places you Google almost immediately after visiting. It invites curiosity. Apparently, 15 years in business and solid word of mouth buzz have seen its operations transition from a hard-to-find garage off Cow Lane to central Queenstown, Shotover Street. It did so via an international reputation and an avoidance of becoming a chain restaurant. Yeah! Rock on Ferg. The burger joint is now joined next door by Mrs Ferg Gelateria.

The order

So here’s the menu:

Fergburger menu

I doubt I could even imagine this number of burger variations, let alone do so and then deliver on the promise with actual food. The Chief Wiggum (in my opinion one of The Simpsons’ most underrated characters) caused a smile. But I went traditional; a Double Ferg with Cheddar Cheese, costing $15.50. I’m no financial advisor but $3 more for a whole other pattie seemed to me a big green tick in the economics department (omg, hardcore budgeting already implemented).

My girlfriend opted for the $14.50 Tropical Swine: New Zealand beef, streaky bacon, cheddar, pineapple, lettuce, tomato, red onion, aioli and tomato relish.

The meat of it

The food came in a paper bag heavy enough to lift respectably at the gym. My 2x patties were massive: one the size of a small frizbee, the other of a mildly disappointing pizza. All the expected ingredients (lettuce, tomato, red onion, relish) present and correct, and correctly proportioned.

This is the first burger I’ve had that brought to mind a perfectly balanced cocktail. I was expecting the much-touted meat to be the main event but while it was great, the ingredients lay in perfect symphony with each other to deliver one knockout overall taste. And all encased by the most glorious burger bap I’ve ever had. The bread! The hyperbole I could use to describe this bread…it’d be indecent. Crisp and a tad sweet at the first bite, with wholesome dough beneath the surface, the bap absorbs all the juices in the most satisfying way as you journey through the burger – like some NASA-designed food-supersponge developed exclusively for Heston Blumenthal’s signature range of edible appliances that somehow fills entirely with flavour yet never loses its form or becomes soggy.

It was miraculous. And I’ve no knowledge of Mr or Mrs Ferg or the inner workings of their personal security, but I wouldn’t not consider kidnap as a means of getting more of this bread of theirs.

We didn’t order fries because a.) we were clearly told we wouldn’t manage them b.) hellloooo, budgeting. But I did try the Tropical Swine, which was in its own realm of mind-bogglingly brilliant (the bacon thin, salty and very crispy, the pineapple fresh and not distractingly sweet). In the interest of delivering a balanced review, I should point out that I didn’t get two free gelatos in honour of Ferg’s 15th birthday (despite technically ordering a double burger) – just the one. But seeing as I, in my food coma state, couldn’t even consider approaching this single free dessert, I’ll let that slide.

And for the record, this isn’t the excitement of a guest blogger getting carried away with his first burger breakdown. We passed the place the following morning, at 8:20am, and there were people queuing for burgers. At 8:20am. And, if I’d hadn’t just recovered from the meat-sweats, I would have joined them once more.

Monkey finger rating

Bun – 5/5
Build – 5/5
Burger – 4.5/5
Taste – 5/5
Sides – N/a
Value – 5/5 – £7:50ish for all this?

Fergburger doesn’t do Twitter, but if it did, it’d probably be the best Twitter account in the world. Find them on your next world tour to New Zealand: 42 Shotover Street, Queenstown 9300, New Zealand.

Edwards of Conwy – Welsh Beef Steak Burgers – mini review

Posted in Home made, Reviews, Supermarket burgersTagged , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

This blog is only three posts long and already I’m breaking the convention. Sorry.

But… I made a home made burger using a supermarket bought patty this weekend, which was so delicious I thought it deserved a little write up. Click here to read more about Edwards of Conwy’s excellent steak burgers. Here’s what the butcher tells you about them:

Made with prime cuts of Welsh beef forequarters and steak, we use a simple recipe and our secret seasoning blend to create our award winning Welsh Steak beef burgers. Each one is bigger than a quarter pounder and we make our burgers in thick patties which helps keep it juicy & succulent throughout the cooking process.

Disclaimer first: I struggle with home made burgers as I always get ‘the fear’ and end up overcooking them into charred, rubbery pucks of meat, dried out and past well past their best flavour. Determined and inspired by the great burgers of London, I attempted a proper medium finish… and achieved it, using a lid and will power – I managed to deliver a smokey, crunchy charred exterior and a perfect pink middle.

  
And with these ~6oz beauties… well, the taste was outstanding. Juicy and with a relatively thick grind on it, despite the necessities of packing for distribution, the flavour was rich and the texture was excellent. No additional seasoning required, when topped with dry-cure bacon, sweet pickle, condiments of your choosing and a particularly exciting Mexican style spicey sliced cheese – well, the flavour was incredible. The lid delivered a particularly satisfying melt on the cheddar too.

Recommended. Pleased I added it to the Ocado shop. No monkey finger rating due to self-build nature of the burger, but would heartily recommend both the cheese and the burger to anyone able to buy them.

For those curious about the rest of the burger build, it included:

  • Ocado brioche bun (one side toasted in bacon fat, warmed through)
  • Swedish sweet pickle
  • Crunchy salad
  • BBQ sauce (Heinz, could/should have got something fancy – next time)
  • Denhay dry-cure streaky bacon

Omnomnom.