Tag: chicken nuggets

Filthy Buns @ The Star of Kings, York Way, Kings Cross, London

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Well formed but unbalanced burger

Burger source 

Kings Cross is a convenient place to meet with some of my oldest friends, but we’ve been to many of the stalwarts of the burger scene in the area. It was just our luck, then, that Filthy Buns, erstwhile of Dalston, has taken up residence in the Star of Kings on York Way. I wish there was more to their story than this, but it’s kind of joyous for what it is:

“Someone once said ‘You can’t call food filthy’ we wholeheartedly disagreed – Filthy Buns is all about grabbing the humble burger and turbo charging it to give your tastebuds a good smack in the chops.

Quality ingredients, banging flavours, freshly cooked and a funny name – what more do you need from a burger?…Ohhhh that bit of juice that runs down your hand when you eat it, well, we’ve got that covered too.”

The order 

I went for the ‘Smokin gun’ (Patty, swiss cheese, bacon, bbq sauce, miso mayo, crispy onions); friends tried le chunion and the sh*t cheese burger. We shared the ‘nugs’ (w/ BBQ sauce), a regular and a jerk-seasoned fries.

The meat of it 

There’s very little to fault here. A hot, toasted bun; perfect melt on the cheese, a generous portion of well cooked bacon, a healthy covering of BBQ sauce as advertised, and a delight of crispy onions for further umami and crunch. Does it taste as good as it looks?

Let’s look at it in cross section before we get to that. You can see the airy bun is soft and pliant, whilst holding its structural integrity against the heft of the burger/sauce combo. You can see a bright, warm flash of pink in the coarse ground, loose packed patty. Which is confusing, as on eating it – it feels like a smash patty, with crunch and bite… but also the tenderness from a more traditional patty. It’s a mindbender. You can probably see there’s too much sauce – we’ll come back to that – but otherwise there’s little to complain about. This is as advertised.

BUT THE TASTE, Armand, tell us of the taste! WAS IT RIGHTEOUS?

Well, no. Unexpectedly so. This is a burger that is curiously LESS than the sum of its parts. The bun was hot and fresh; the meat perfectly cooked, almost outrageously so. The bacon savoury and with good bite; the cheese unctuous and not overly salty against the weight of everything else. The crispy onions added crunch and my always-sought-after textural contrast.

But the BBQ sauce. The BBQ sauce is delicious, but it is massively overpoured. This means the whole burger is… tainted… with a saccharin sweetness that overwhelms anotherwise well balanced sandwich. Every bite just feels slightly off and whilst the individual components are fabulous – you are weirdly left longing for a bit sour pickle tang, or fresh lettuce crunch, or raw onion crisp – to temper the sweetness and rebalance the burger. The miso mayo might as well not be there. It’s such a shame – the components were so good, the balance was just missing.

As to sides…

Let’s start with the nugs; poor chicken/batter ratio (too much of the latter), slightly overcooked, slightly underseasoned. But crisp and juicy (when you got through to the meat) and well complemented, actually, by the self-same BBQ sauce in this instance.

The fries – regular and jerk – were outstanding. Crisp, fluffy, well seasoned, and full of flavour – they were fab with all the sauces, even the slightly underwhelming Katsu curry sauce I ordered as an experimental side.

Overall it was a great experience; the pub atmosphere is fab, service was brilliant, and the food and drinks were solid. But the burger needs to find the balance in the force for this to be really exceptional.

Monkey finger rating  

Bun –  5/5 – hot, soft, well structured  
Build – 4/5 – too much sauce! 
Burger – 4/5 – it’s a good patty
Taste –  3.5/5 – the sauce I think undermined the whole  
Sides – 3.5/5 – the fries on their own would have been 5/5. The nugs brought the score down.   
Value – 3.5/5 – £13 for the burger; £5 for the fries; £8.50 for the nugs. Not bad but not amazing.  

Burger rating – 3.5/5 – I really wanted to love this. There was so much potential. I think I need to go back and try a Sh*t cheese burger at some point!

The deets 

The Star of Kings is just a 7 minute walk from Kings X station, North and slightly East. I really like the buzz of Coal Drops Yard and that campus around Kings X; which does extend across York Way into this trendy, vibrant pub. That they were playing Blur music the whole time we were there was a bizarre and nostalgic bonus. Find out more about them here.

Shake Shack Dark Kitchen, Deliveroo, Islington

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Almost perfect (albeit pricey) takeaway patty smash

Burger source

Shake Shack needs little introduction. A US import, with food-stand to National chain heritage (albeit via the medium of a large food services company), it arrived in the UK in 2013 and expanded slowly from its original location in Covent Garden. In addition to its dozen or so physical locations, it runs a dozen “dark kitchens” with Deliveroo, starting peak pandemic and evidently thriving.

So, when Lisa and James (who I was catching up with) asked me what I wanted to do for takeaway dinner, and Shake Shack was provided as an option… well, I felt I was long overdue.

The order

James warned me that the burgers were ‘small’ but I assumed that he was using the same mindset to describe it that I use when I go shopping when I’m hungry – i.e. one informed entirely by greed. So I flexed my willpower and ordered a single smokestack burger (cheeseburger with applewood smoked bacon, chopped cherry peppers, shack sauce), and we shared a time limited herb mayo bacon fries (crinkle cut fries with – you guessed it – herb mayo and bacon, sprinkled with chopped spring onions), and – largely because Simon was mocking me about it at Black Bear Burger and I relented – we shared ten chicken bites.

The meat of it

Post unboxing, this is how it presented.

Turns out, James wasn’t seeing this through a lens of greed. This is a small burger (4oz max, at a guess), but in a delightfully soft, brilliantly yellow brioche bun. A perfectly melted American cheese is evident and dark, crisp bacon peeks around the edges. You can sense rather than see the shake shack sauce.

In cross section, those peppers come into evidence, and the burger squishes into further submission. The knife didn’t so much cut through the applewood bacon as shatter it along a fault line, it is crisper than Walkers. The burger’s a little dry, though: no fatty ooze, and only the faintest hint of the shake shack sauce.

First bite: this is umami-tastic. The textural contrast is superb – melty cheese, soft, coarse ground, well season, well-charred meat, crunchy bacon, sweet soft brioche and creamy – if slightly too sparse – shake shack sauce. The red peppers didn’t add, for me, what this burger needed – bright, sweet acidity. Give me a pickle, any day. And a couple of dollops more of the shake shack sauce to make up for the dryness of the patty-smash-plus-delivery-travel combo. And… I think a double is not too greedy given the proportion of the burger. But really, all in all, a splendid takeaway burger.

The world underestimates crinkle cut fries. Or maybe it’s just me, too used to having them slightly underdone from a McCain’s bag when I’m rushing cooking supper at home. But well done – as these are – they are beautiful, full of crisp surface area, replete with soft, hot, luscious potato. The ‘herb and bacon [and spring onion]’ build is self-assembly, provided in pots and tipped ingloriously over them, adding creamy sweetness (from the mayo), bright freshness (the spring onion) and crispy crunch (guess from where?). It’s great, though for the price – £7 ish IIRC – the portion is far too small.

The chicken bites were reasonably seasoned, hot, juice, somewhat crisp and fresh. BUT – another £7 or so later – they were hugely erratically sized, the supplied BBQ sauce was saccharine and insipid, and – on the whole – I’d rather have had another burger.

Overall, a great experience. Not the best value small-burger-and-fries you’ll ever have, but an excellent takeaway treat, especially if you are low on salt.

Monkey finger rating

Bun – 4.5/5
Build – 4.5/5
Burger – 4.5/5
Taste – 4.5/5 – just the dryness! And the indeterminate peppers!
Sides – 4/5 – good fries, meh nuggets, overpriced
Value – 3.5/5 – it is a lot of money for an undersized burger and overpriced sides

Burger rating – 4/5 – an excellent, albeit overpriced and every so slightly dry takeaway burger

The deets

Most of the restaurants seem to be in London at the moment, but the dark kitchens are more dispersed. So, you know, deliveroo it! A full list of locations can be found here.

Truffle Burger, Bateman Street, Soho 

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An almost perfect burger… if you like truffles 

Burger source 

Truffle Burger has started emerging on a variety of ‘best burger’ lists in recent months, and I even sent a colleague and her husband there on other people’s recommendations, so when a chance cancellation left me briefly without evening plans on a night I was in London,  it felt like a good moment to try it. The Elizabeth Line even made zipping into Soho of a Tuesday evening relatively easy, so we carpe diemed and headed on in. 

Their backstory is fairly standard as these things go:

TRUFFLE BURGER STARTED AS A STREET FOOD OPERATION. WE TRADED WITH LONDONS BEST STREET FOOD ORGANISATIONS AND MARKETS WHICH HELPED US PROPEL OUR BRAND TO A BIGGER STAGE…

When Truffle Burger was started in 2018, the goal was to bring a luxury product to the masses in an affordable and accessible way. All the food features truffle in one way or another and the idea came from the love of the ingredient by the founder, Tom.

The mission is to cook for as many people as possible, to show there is more to grab and go food than a quick fix, create a destination meal in a simple and affordable way.

Truffle Burger website

The order 

I had a Truffle Butter burger and my friend Pob ordered the eponymous Truffle Burger. The former a more or less standard burger, but generously doused in truffle butter, melty raclette and caramelised onions, the latter a bacon and beef patty topped with truffle mayo, raclette, fig jam and crispy onions. We shared sides of truffle Parmesan fries and some BBQ chicken bites. 

The meat of it 

The melty raclette caused the top bun to slide around a bit but the burger – arriving on a side plate – otherwise looked perfect. The bun was gloriously soft yet somehow standing up to a hefty 6oz ish patty, other toppings glistening slightly in the burger drippings.  The fries are peppered with Parmesan nubs and heavily scented with truffle, presumably fresh from a truffle oil deep fry, and the nuggets present an alluring invitation to chomp and crunch. More on that shortly. 

Butter burger on left, Truffle burger on right

The cross section is reassuring. A bright pink, perfect medium burger. A splash of meaty burger juice lands on the plate as the coarse ground, loose packed patty is revealed in all its glory. The bun continues to impress, holding up to the juiciness of the burger without being unnecessarily dense or firm; pillowy softness holding up the meaty lusciousness of the patty.  

Then the bite. Amazing texture – a firm, crisp crust masking soft, tender, perfectly cooked beef underneath. Perhaps slightly light on the seasoning, the truffle flavour – in the butter burger at least – is delicate, subtle, it draws you in to the wider experience of the burger. The caramelised onions add light sweetness and the beef and butter provides all the moisture needed for balance, although perhaps – it was a smidge too greasy. On the whole, however, a delight.  

The Truffle Burger provides a slightly different experience. The truffle mayo is slightly too generously applied and the truffle flavour is more in-your-face. The bacon woven into the patty adds a pleasant boost of umami, in unexpected and delightful pockets. The crispy onions add bonus texture (I would – and do – add these to a wide variety of meals, they’re a phenomenal condiment). Still great, but not as good (to my mind, at least) as the butter burger. Both, I think, would have been improved by a sharp cheddar versus the beautifully melty but slightly inspid raclette, which adds lots of texture but little flavour. 

As to the sides… I was not a huge fan of the Parmesan fries. The truffle flavour adds too persistent, too lingering, a funk. Despite being perfectly seasoned (via the medium of Parmesan), the flavour wasn’t entirely pleasant. And whilst I do love Parmesan, and Parmesan fries, the way in which these fries are prepared means its only barely distinguishable from salt. So, slightly, what’s the point. I also felt that the fries themselves weren’t entirely fresh – there was an ever-so-slight staleness to them. So OK, tasty, probably brilliant if you like Truffle, but not my favourite. 

The BBQ chicken bites… looked glorious, and were texturally perfect. Crispy on the outside, accented with fresh spring onion and more crispy onions, juicy, tender meat underneath that crunchy bite. But… they were slightly underseasoned – no heat or spice or even enough savoury salt to them – and the BBQ sauce was slightly cloying and insipid. A dousing in Uncle Frank’s hot sauce I think would have been a far better choice. Though it was a relief to have something that wasn’t completely infused with truffle funk after the overload of the burger and fries. 

To drink… I had an amaretto and (diet) cherryade cocktail drink from their ‘cocktails’ list. Overpriced and you’d expect it to be overpoweringly sweet, it ends up as a sort of delicious, alcoholic ice cream soda. A perfect contrast to the salt-bomb of the meal. 

Overall, this was a brilliant experience. If you love truffle, this is probably the best burger you can find in London. If, like me, it’s a pleasant novelty, you might not rush back. But do go if you haven’t. It is super. 

Monkey finger rating  

Bun –  5/5  
Build – 4.5/5 
Burger – 4.5/5 
Taste –  4.5/5  
Sides – 3.5/5 – deductions for weird fries and underseasoned chicken   
Value – 3.5/5 – £14.50 for burger and fries, plus £9 cocktails – this is not a cheap eat 

Burger rating – 4/5 – really very strong option 

The deets 

There are a few of these around – in Soho, Seven Dials and the South Bank. Find it here.