caramelised onions – Burger Source

Star by Liverpool Street, London

March 5, 2026Posted in london, Pub, ReviewsTagged burger sauce, caramelised onions, karaoke, liverpoolstreet, london, pickle, Pub, review, Reviews, rosemary fries, skin-on fries, smash burger, starLeave a comment

Undersized, underseasoned, underwhelming – but fun

Burger source

A much needed team night out took us to the Star by Liverpool St; the limited menu did feature a tasty sounding smash burger, so it felt worth a try.

The order

The burger featured two aged aurox smash patties, cheese, smoked mustard butter, whisky caramelised onions and house sauce. Together with rosemary skin-on fries – the combo tapped out at £19.

If you’re wondering what an aurox is, it is apparently either an [sic] auroch, an extinct breed of wild ox, or a cryptocurrency. Given it seemed to consist of ground up cow meat, I’m assuming it was some modern ox variant with a self-important genetic heritage.

The meat of it

It looks decent. Excellent melt on the cheese, good char on the patty, tasty looking burger sauce slathered on generously. The bun looks robust but standard – not a bad thing, standing up to the structure of the burger and providing starchy, comforting accompaniment; a potentially harmonious pairing.

In cross section:

A few things become immediately apparent; whilst the structure is robust, it’s immediately clear that the bun is cold (boo) and untoasted (double boo). The next thing you notice is that the patties cover – at most – 2/3rds of the surface area of the bun. It feels light in hand. The coarse ground smash burgers look small and decent but there isn’t the crunch of a truly lacy smash patty when I cut the cross section. Everything holds together, so it’s time for…

…first taste. The burger is ok, texturally, perhaps a little underseared. The bigger crime is that it is also underseasoned, as well as being a little too small. The meat is a little bland as a result, also apparently lacking the usual funk of dry-aged beef (something about the process, or the aurox breed(?))… The bun’s starchiness is not contrasting well with the not-quite-savoury-enough bite of the burger either, instead combining into an indifferent melange of blandness. The cheese is barely present, the onions don’t seem to be there at all, and the (thick) slice of pickle I was gifted with added – some brightness – but didn’t feel quite right; there was no scent of summer in it at all, no memory of sunshine and long evenings; of cooling breezes and wind in the trees.

But the burger sauce is decent – adding moisture and flavour contrast, and the net impact isn’t horrible – it’s just a slightly underwhelming burger. Not terrible; but [ironically] not worth writing home about. That said; my compatriots who also had the burger had different experiences (better ratios, better flavour), so your mileage may vary.

As to the rosemary seasoned fries? They were also inconsistently portioned – my bowl was half as full as my neighbour’s. But the seasoning was good – not overly heavy on the rosemary, but distinctive. The fries were crisp but fluffy on the inside with a good starchy flavour. Excellent on their own or dunked in ketchup and mayo. Not quite a paragon, but really not far off the top of the class for that style of skin-on, not-quite-chunky chip.

Monkey finger rating

Bun – 3/5 – points off for cold and untoastedness
Build – 5/5 – for all that the ingredients were underwhelming, you can’t argue with the architecture here
Burger – 2.5/5 – underseasoned, small patties, underseared, and pretentiously bred
Taste – 3/5 – somehow it’s sort of OK in spite of all of that
Sides – 4/5 – they’re just rosemary fries. But they’re good ones.

Value – 4/5 – £19 for burger and fries, which is depressingly standard for this part of London.

Burger rating – 2.5/5 – it’s just fine.

The deets

All that said; this was one of the most fun nights out I’ve had in a long time. A lot of that was the fantastic company I was with, but some of it was the affordable and well maintained karaoke rooms, the flights of Baby Guinnesses that seemed a necessary part of proceedings, and the excellent service we had throughout the evening. You wouldn’t go to the Star for their bar burger – but you might to have an amazing night with your friends – and the burger is inoffensive enough that you’d welcome it as a way of keeping your consumption balanced.

Queens Head, Bradfield Southend, Berkshire

November 16, 2024November 16, 2024Posted in Country, Outside London, Pub, ReviewsTagged Berkshire, bradfield, burger sauce, caramelised onions, cheese, fries, queen’s head, reading, sticky toffee pudding, triple cheeseburgerLeave a comment

Messy, sumptuous smash-beast

Burger source

The Queen’s Head is a rural pub in the Berkshire countryside; not far from Reading and the M4 but sufficiently far away from it all that it feels like the middle of nowhere. The pub was described to me as ‘excessively dog friendly’ and, as Harley was joining us this evening, that was really the key criterion we were weighing up to eat here. As it happens, under new management since the Summer, the pub is clearly making an effort to build a reputation around its cuisine, billing itself as a pub/brasserie, and shifting between different seasonal menus throughout the year. The burgers, though, I think are staples.

The order

I got greedy and ordered the XL Smashburger – three thinnish patties, smashed and crisped on a hot grill, “cloaked” with melted cheese and caramelised onions and burger sauce.

The meat of it

The presentation is… slightly underwhelming, if I’m being critical. The burger is sat in a pool of cheese sauce and burger sauce, though the bun looks decent. The fries are well fried and seasoned, but the portion is modest. A little side salad would have brightened the plating somewhat, and a bit more restraint on the toppings might have made it more – as the kids like to say – aesthetic.

The side profile shows the mess in all its glory. I think the bright yellow is an American cheese, the light yellow a cheddar, and the burger sauce and caramelised onions are mixed up all in there.

Let’s look in cross section, then get into it.

The patties are well formed and the stack is well made, for all that the greed of the third burger meant the bun really didn’t hold up to it and the surplus of sauce and cheese made this unhandleable – this is a burger that had to be eaten with cutlery. The char of the smash is very evident and adds a nice aroma to the burger. I’m excited.

First bite (and all subsequent bites) are cutlery assisted. The patties are well seasoned and tasty, if made up of what feels like a fairly conventional meat blend, and cooked in a conventional way. I sensed no dry aged meat, nor a mustard fry on the patty at work here. The burger sauce is sweet and savoury, but balances the salt-fest of the meat well, and the onions merge very well with the charred beef. The bun acts as a necessary stodgy contrast to the savoury mountain within, but doesn’t hold up terribly well against the onslaught of meat, grease and cheese. The combination of flavours works well – the burger is moist, the sweet and salty notes are well balanced, there’s a light crunch and char to the patty which adds a little textural contrast… it works well as a package.

The fries are topped with salt and something that looks like pepper but brings no noticeable flavour. They are perfectly crisp and well seasoned and perfect for dunking in mayo and ketchup. Whilst the core fries are – I suspect – frozen from a wholesaler – there’s little to complain about.

I did have a pudding (sorry, no picture) – a modest portion of sticky toffee pudding, served with ice cream. This was delicious, though if I’m being brutal the ice cream could have been lighter and the caramel sauce more generous. But excellent flavour combination, well made sauce, chewy dates in and amongst the light fluffy sponge of the pudding, with a swirl of light, sweet caramel sauce – yum.

Monkey finger rating

Bun – 3/5 – nice but not up to the challenge
Build – 4/5 – sauce and cheese overdone
Burger – 4.5/5 – very little to complain about with the patties
Taste – 4.5/5 – for all that it was messy to eat, it tasted delicious
Sides – 4/5 – more fries, more caramel sauce and it would have been faultless
Value – 4/5 – £24 for burger and pudding and service, ish.  And there are more modest double patty burgers which are a few quid cheaper.

Burger rating – 4.5/5 – despite the mess and the compromises on the build, it really is delicious and I would have it again… but ask them to go easy on the sauce/cheese a bit next time!

The deets

I’m afraid the pub’s ‘website’ is a Facebook page – hopefully you can still find all the details here.

Patty & Bun, Old Compton Street, Soho

July 21, 2016Posted in london, Restaurant, Reviews, UncategorizedTagged burger, caramelised onions, london, onions, patty & bun, rare, soho1 Comment

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.

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:

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.

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.

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: