Tag: aioli

The Plimsoll, Finsbury Park, London N4

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Possibly perfect cheeseburger

Burger source

The Plimsoll is on so many ‘best burger’ reviews it’s almost obscene that it’s taken me nearly a decade of my burger gastronomic adventure to get out there. But thanks to an invite from local resident and corporate affairs industry watcher, Helen Dunne, I had a good reason to discover quite how accessible Finsbury Park is from Central London and give the gastro-pubbed refurb of the old, Auld (it used to be the Auld Triangle, so that was a pun), Irish pub and its famous ‘Dexter’ cheeseburger. Which I’m told is named for the Irish cow breed used for its meat, not the storied serial killer…

The pub is apparently under the management of chefs Jamie Allan and Ed McIlroy, who previously ran a pop up called the Four Legs @ the Compton Arms elsewhere in North London. But I couldn’t find a website, so blame me for citing a three year old Guardian article if I have this wrong… 

The order

If you want chips, this is the wrong place to be. I had the Dexter cheeseburger (beef, cheese, burger sauce, pickles, fresh onion, crispy onion, brioche – £14), and we shared a pile of ‘greens’ (it’s a Caesar salad of sorts, at £11) and ‘fried potatoes with aioli.’ (£7).

The meat of it

OMG. You can immediately see the butteriness of the bun; the double onion combo is spilling out the sides. The home made pickles speak of sweet and sour pleasure; the cheese is melted perfectly on a beautifully charred patty… and the glisten on the brioche. Wow. If looks could cause type two diabetes…

In cross section you can see the build is pretty much perfect. The plate remains clean despite the healthy amount of burger sauce that’s within, the bun is super soft but providing structure, the meat is coarse ground and the assembly precise. There’s a lot to play for.

First bite… soft bread, robust, perfectly seasoned bite to the patty and a melty, meaty centre. The sweet burger sauce and unguent, umami-rich cheese contrast beautifully, and the double onion combo gives you crisp and crunch in one. The pickle adds fresh, bright sweetness with a sour pickle edge and tastes of the summer day on which it was picked. The mouthfeel is fantastic, the flavour sublime.

It’s just a glorious combination. It feels and looks small but this thing is dense and packed with flavour. The first bite loads my hands with grease and burger sauce and I don’t even care; I switch over to cutlery to preserve my dignity and my shirt, and to draw out the luscious sensory experience. Every bite of this is like injecting pleasure into my taste buds; I don’t understand the appeal of class A drugs, but this… This I can see myself getting withdrawal symptoms from. It’s glorious.

On the sides…

I love that the salad was billed as “leaves with vinaigrette”; this felt like a loaded Caesar salad, dense with Parmesan and a slick sweet and savoury dressing – which is what you’d expect for the money. I wouldn’t exactly call it bright and fresh – this is a rich, rich salad – but it was a lovely contrast to the burger.

The potatoes – are perfectly tender and simultaneously crisp all over. I didn’t expect to love them – I LOVE chips – but they are beguiling, and provide a heft that ensures you walk away full – we didn’t finish one portion between the two of us.

Monkey finger rating

Bun –  5/5 – soft, buttery pleasure
Build – 5/5 – clinically precise, beautifully architected
Burger – 5/5 – inarguably extraordinary
Taste –  5/5 – flawless victory
Sides – 4/5 – these were great but felt a bit pricey 
Value – 5/5 – it wasn’t cheap but if this is what I get, this is what I pay for.

Burger rating – 5/5 – this deserves its billing as one of the top burgers in London. Absolutely extraordinary.

The deets

It’s about 4 minutes walk from Finsbury Park tube. Take the Station Way exit. Go tomorrow; Finsbury Park is < 10 minutes from Kings X on the Victoria Line so there’s really no excuse for anyone who’s based in London.

Gothic Bar, Kings Cross, London

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Expensive, delicious, unholy mess of a burger

Burger source 

Part of the Midland Grand Dining Room, a bar in the wings of the ultra grand St Pancras Renaissance Hotel (on the site of the former Midland Grand Hotel for which it is name), the Gothic Bar is a super lush, very chilled (although pretty pricey) island of calm in the middle of the bustle of Kings Cross. A little way from the ultra modern developments of Coal Drops Yard, the bar has a distinct 19th century vibe – friendly, ultra attentive service, chatty and charming bar staff and management, amazingly dim lighting (sorry for the terrible photos), and a wonderful warmth and charm. The burger seemed a conceit of the bar menu (not the even posher restaurant), and it felt worth a go, despite frightening prices on the menu.

The order 

The “Grand” cheeseburger au poivre (because nothing makes a burger posh like two words in French) – at £21, two portions of fries between five of us (£7 a pop), and a main fried chicken dish as a side between us (£14 – for three large tenders).

It’s worth admiring the official photography and description, via Insta, from the Midland Grand folk:

A “pot” of pepper sauce being a dish. But let’s get into it.

The meat of it 

Obligatory, but disappointing after the model shot, is my pic:

The poor lighting detracts from the impact but it’s still amazingly close to the posed pic. Fresh lettuce on the bottom, a well seared patty with an amazing cheese melt, thick slices of home made pickle, and a shiny, soft bun. Some slight concerns about the bun/burger ratio, but let’s come back to that. First, the cross section. Prepare for an even worse picture.

Ok, there is a lot of bread vs. bun. But there’s fresh red onion, a pinkness to the coarse ground patty, and for the most part it retains structural integrity well.

First bite… and its good. Unctuous is the word – the gooey cheese binding and adding savoury bite, the bun providing (slightly too much) starchy padding for the soft, tender meat. Sweet salad and bright pickles bring contrast and texture and the combination is an absolute, messy delight, as fat drizzles out the far side of the burger. It takes careful eating. Initially – the burger feels too small, swimming in the bread. But it is so rich – between the high (25%+?) fat ratio, the generous melty cheese and the rest, it carries some heft. Being slightly critical – it feels intially slightly underseasoned and under-seared – a crisper texture wouldn’t have gone amiss.

But the “au poivre” pepper sauce? Absolute delight. Adds all the salt the burger needs, a light, breezy heat, more richness and depth – a joy. Would that the “pot” (dish) of sauce was slightly deeper, and slightly fuller, and dunking the fries in here would have been lush. It’s a delightful experience, hurt only by the crazy prices.

The sides?

The fries were a paradigm. Perfect potatoes, perfectly fried, perfectly seasoned, just a treat. Like the childhood memory of a McDonald’s fry, but with actual, consistent crispness and potato flavour. 5/5. £7 does buy a portion for sharing – it’s hefty.

The chicken tenders – we were told we’d get 4-5 pieces between us. We got three. I nabbed a whole one in the interests of science / this blog (the things I do for my art). It was crisp, hot, juicy, fresh – just great, especially dunked in the sweet-not-sharp garlic aioli. A pickle as a palate cleanser and bob’s your uncle.

A lot of money and a lot of food later – we were sated. Time for the final wrap.

Monkey finger rating  

Bun –  4.5/5 – soft, not too sweet, only slightly oversized
Build – 5/5 – a thing of beauty
Burger – 4.5/5 – tad more seasoning and sear 
Taste –  4.5/5  
Sides – 4.5/5 – great fries, good chicken, lots to delight, little to excite   
Value – 3/5 – £50 for burger, share of chicken, share of fries, and three half-pints a piece. Ish.  

Burger rating – 4/5 – this was great. It loses a point because it is not £30 burger and fries great – there are lots of places that will be a third cheaper than this and almost / as good – including the very good Double Standard across the road. 

The deets 

Turn right onto Euston Road when you exit Kings Cross, past the ultra posh hotel, and you’ll find the Gothic Bar (and the Midland Grand) in the West Wing. Worth a visit, save up though – it’s ££££. To give you a sense of why they get away with this pricing? There was a metallic purple wrapped McLaren parked outside the hotel. There’s no accounting for taste.

Prairie Fire BBQ, Mercato Metropolitano, Elephant & Castle, London

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Excellent, messy, juicy double patty smash burger

Burger source

Mercato Metropolitano London is a sustainable community market; in practical terms, this means it’s a massive half in/half outdoor food court, filled with a myriad of wonderful food stalls including at least three places that serve burgers. And none of the cutlery is single use plastic, hurrah!

Prairie Fire BBQ serves ‘Kansas style BBQ’  founded in 2013 by American Expat in London Michael Gratz; his job titles include ‘founder’, ‘chef’, and ‘Pit Master.’ The philosophy is Kansas style, sauce heavy, smoked meat, or in their own words: the “…slow smoked, sauce heavy Kansas City Style is the apex of the ancient art of cooking with wood. The rub, the char, the smoke ring, the tenderness, the umami, the sauce, the smile and well used napkin define Prairie Fire and the future of European BBQ.”

The order

I have had the PFQ, their signature burger, which is: “two seasoned chuck & rib tip steak patties smashed into diced onion on flattop. Served with melty American cheese, crisp lettuce, tomato, onion & BBQ aioli.”

I had seasoned fries on the side.

The meat of it

The Mercato eating environment is a lot of fun. Noisy, half indoors, half outdoors, all smell, sounds and raucous laughter.

Food is served in paper baskets; the ordering system ‘texted’ me to collect the prepared food hot off the grill and fryer.

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It’s hard to photograph, but there was nothing bad about the appearance. That said, the incredible amounts of sauce meant it was a slippery burger, whilst perfectly stacked, had this been on a plate it would probably have collapsed in moments.

The pickle, to the side, was crisp, sweet and fresh. Very mild on vinegar, it’s a palate cleanser for the main meal.

In cross section…

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Here’s where you can see the structural limitations of the burger; the sauce is so heavy that the burger is slipping apart even as I hold it up for its glamour shot.

That said… looks aren’t everything, and on first bite you get an immediate understanding of the splendour of this burger.

The patties are thin and crisp – 2.5-3oz each, at a guess, the patty smash on a hot (though not the hottest) plate lets them char in their own fat, developing a wonderful texture and flavour – though I didn’t notice the onions they’d apparently been cooked in. Cheese is melted in on the grill, though it’s hard to detect under the BBQ aioli. The salad, too, is somewhat token, lost in the sauce. But none of this is a bad thing.

The incredible umami of the burger, with a faint hint of dry-aged, quality beef funk, is complemented perfectly by the runny sweet aioli, a mild peppery heat, and something like the memory of cheese. The salad is present but provides little more than textural background noise. The bun is soft and pliant, with a lovely crumb but thankfully little sweetness.

It’s pretty glorious, if messy, in all. My only criticism, and it’s a marginal one, is that a hotter grill would have provided even more crunch to the patties (which would have been welcome), and the aioli was just fractionally too heavily laid on.

The fries are ‘seasoned’ fries – a sweet smoked paprika, basically, heavily dusted over salted, thin cut fries. There’s nothing bad about these, though nothing exceptional either; thicker cut potatoes might have provided more natural potato flavour but it wasn’t necessary. The additional BBQ aioli they are served with was possibly a perfect condiment in the context of the meal.

Monkey finger rating

Bun –  4/5
Build – 3/5
Burger – 4/5
Taste –  4/5
Sides – 4/5
Value – 3.5/5 – £12.50 for burger and side – felt a bit toppy in a food market setting, but everything at Mercato is a little pricey.

Burger rating – 4/5 – really good patty smash option. Next time will add bacon for a bit more crunch and request they leave it on the grill a little longer than normal.

The deets

Mercato Metropolitano is a 5 minute walk from Elephant & Castle tube, and 15 minutes from my office in Southwark. Recommended for anyone in the neighbourhood. Find more info on PFQ here.