Tag: coleslaw

Victoria Stakes, Muswell Hill, London

Posted in london, Pub, ReviewsTagged , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

An unassuming cheeseburger that surprises and delights

Burger source 

I was visiting a friend in North London and he recommended this local pub that specialised in ‘meat’ (slight overstatement, despite the ‘stakes’ in the title); rather this is classic North London gastropub fayre – locally, ethically sourced produce, prepared with love and friendly-local vibes. Lovely atmosphere, especially if you’re the sort of person who likes extra botanicals in his gin.

The order 

The burger is as follows: short-rib cheeseburger, chipotle mayo, pickle, tomato, onion, lettuce, [red cabbage] slaw & fries.

The meat of it 

It looked a little homely on the plate. Getting a decent angle on the burger in the lighting was hard – it’s an immense (8oz at a guess) patty, the bun looks deceptively ordinary and curiously toasted. The chipotle mayo looks concerningly thin and the skin-on fries – well, they look spot on. Out of shot – you’ll see a quenelle (don’t ask me why) of red cabbage.

Cross section time, ‘scuse the lighting.

The heft on the burger is immediately apparent; as is the enormous buffalo tomato slice, the thick slices of pickle, the bright, fresh lettuce, the softness of the bun, the coarse grind on the beef – coupled with its well-doneness – the even melt on the cheese and the puddles of grease on the plate. A lot was adding up.

First bite… it’s juicy; there’s a sour-spicy tang from the chipotle mayo. The pickle adds crunch but is very mild; the salad adds juicy brightness. The cheese adds a savoury goo; the beef itself has good texture; perhaps slightly underseasoned and slightly overcooked but it doesn’t suffer greatly for it. The bun is extraordinary – soft and pliant whilst being robust enough to hold up to the gravitational field that the burger exudes, at risk as it is of collapsing into its own event horizon. The combination is really very good – sweet, salty, sour, fresh – whilst at the same time beefy, gooey and indulgent – it hits a lot of good notes.

The sides – the fries are excellent – well cooked, crisp and fresh with just enough potato-ey bite, perfectly seasoned. The coleslaw – meh. Mushy and indistinct, without the crunch and zing you’ll get from a more traditional ‘slaw. Room for improvement!

Overall – a really good experience. Good service, good food, well prepared in a lovely environment. Recommend!

Monkey finger rating  

Bun –  5.5/5  – something really special here
Build – 4/5 – it does get messy – a lot of beef
Burger – 4/5 – cook it less, season it more, and possibly shrink it slightly 
Taste –  4/5
Sides – 4.5/5 – small deduction for the unimpressive quenelle of coleslaw   
Value – 4/5 – £17 for burger, fries and coleslaw – with a pint and a tip, £28 a head. Not cheap but not ridiculous.  

Burger rating – 4/5 – would definitely go again. 

The deets 

1 Muswell Hill. A map will get you there, as will this link to Victoria Stakes’ website.

Cosy Club, Northgate Street, Chester

Posted in Chain, High street, Outside London, Restaurant, ReviewsTagged , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

It was fine. I said fine, OK?

Burger source 

I was struggling – there were a lot of good things on the menu of the Cosy Club – creative dishes, some healthy, some indulgent, almost all more exciting than a burger. I got myself down to a few options… and when I asked for help from the waitress, she guided me to the burger. FATE.

The restaurant choice itself was guided by the need for a family-friendly venue as we overnighted in Chester on our way further North to meet up with a friend for a few days. We’d had a brilliant afternoon at Chester Zoo so naturally the kids (well, Zoe, our youngest anyway) was/were somewhat tuckered out, so we didn’t venture far from our hotel…

The Club itself is a chain, with a fair few sites, though this – new – branch was a first for me. Despite the fact there’s one in my local town…

The order 

Modern fixtures with a classic trim, this restaurant had style if not a great deal of atmosphere on a sleepy Wednesday night in the Summer holidays. Service was brilliant – fast, polite, friendly and handled Amanda’s nut allergy and the kids miscellaneous fussiness with no complaint.

I went for the House Burger – replete with signature burger sauce, lettuce, tomato, red onion, pickle with fries and slaw – and added cheese to top it off. At around £16, it’s not for the faint hearted…

The meat of it 

[Main review] 

Presentation is not bad. The salad’s in the right place, the bun is toasted (perhaps a bit too much), there’s a good melt on the cheese, the slaw looks fresh and bright – and not drenched in mayo – and the fries look decent. Let’s go in for the close up.

Ok – the stack is good. The bun is soft and compacts a fair bit – but the excessive toasting helps it maintain structural integrity. The beef – you can see – has a coarse grind, but is very compacted. The salad remains bright, the cheese binds, and a good amount of burger sauce frames it. Let’s go to the first taste…

The char comes through immediately – both from the slightly blackened bun and the firm, hard sear the burger clearly had in the cook. But it’s not overwhelming and actually adds a pleasant smokiness. The burger is a little chewy, overcooked and slightly underseasoned, but has good flavour. The burger sauce adds a brilliant binding sweetness, the cheese an extra umami oopmh, and there’s fresh crispness from the salad. The pickle adds a – slight – vinegar tang – it’s not a paragon of its kind but is fine – and the whole comes together better than the sum of its parts would have you expect. But it’s expensive for an ‘ok’, pub style burger, especially when you consider…

  • the slaw – uninspired, underseasoned and possibly under-lemoned, this adds crunch but little flavour.
  • the fries – well cooked, self-seasoned skin-on fries, these are good… crisp on the outside, fluffy potato flavour within – but it’s not a generous portion, simply plated to look like it is

So good, but not great.

Monkey finger rating  

Bun –  3.5/5  
Build – 4/5 
Burger – 3/5
Taste –  3/5  
Sides – 3.5/5 – let down by the slaw and portion size   
Value – 2.5/5 – too much for a thing that was just OK.  

Burger rating – 3/5 – probably should have had the seabass Amanda went for – looked amazing. 

The deets 

Find your local here if you’re keen – probably skip the burger, fine though it was – it wasn’t special and wasn’t worth the sticker price.

Stax Diner, Kingly Court, Soho

Posted in Bacon, london, Restaurant, ReviewsTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Uninspired diner-style burger with few redeeming features

Burger source 

We’ve exhausted many of the mainstays of the London burger scene, but this place made it onto a few top ten lists and had phenomenal photography, so we decided to stop by.

The website sells it like so:

An infusion of soul and a nod to the past, Stax Diner brings you an authentic, all American dining experience in London.

Which should perhaps have been a good warning.

The order 

We were a group of five, and shared buffalo wings (between four) and popcorn shrimp (between 5). The former was servered with a blue cheese sauce and coleslaw, the latter with chipotle mayonnaise.

Most of us had the Stax cheeseburger with bacon, as the main – here’s how its billed: two flat griddled beef patties, melted American cheese, crispy onions, gherkins, French’s mustard & Heinz Tomato Ketchup, shredded iceburg and toasted brioche bun. It came with standard fries.

I had a lychee martini to drink.

The meat of it 

Let’s have a look.

It’s not unattractive – decent stack, looks to have a decent char, generous portion of bacon… but slightly anemic fries. Let’s check the cross section.

Concerns starting to emerge now. The meat is completely cooked through (to a fault), but the meat doesn’t have a crisp sear, so none of the upside of a smash burger. The bacon is soft and chewy – I realise belatedly it’s beef bacon so is bland, and not at all crisp, and totally unnecessary. Crispy onions – a lovely touch – fall out everywhere, bringing a delightful crunch when you catch them in the right place.

First bite – cheese is brilliantly melted, but the bread, meat, bacon – all has a uniformly… soft… texture. Not terrible, but the lack of contrast is a downside. The slightly acrid spice of the French’s mustard comes through, overpowering the meat but without adding a great deal. There’s seasoning on the patty but its just a bit dry, even with the cheese and a bit of ketchup trying to help it hold up. It’s not unpleasant but… not remotely special. Which would have been fine, had I been eating it at a diner by the roadside by a highway in the US, for $10. But for £15+ – daylight robbery. Plus the fries – you can probably see – are woefully underdone, and mostly underseasoned.

To the sides…

So, the popcorn shrimp – lovely seasoning, definitely has hints of the south, good heat. But the batter slides off the prawn a little too easily and the chipotle mayo lacks heat and depth. More chipotle, bit more salt I think. And better prawns.

The buffalo wings completely lack crispness, but the meat is tender and juicy, the buffalo sauce is perfectly spiced, the slaw is creamy, crunchy and delicious, especially with the buffalo spillover. Damo polished off the blue cheese sauce with his vegan burger, non-vegan bun and real cheese. We had a pot of BBQ sauce as well which was a waste of a pound – sickeningly saccharine, not to my tastes at all, and no-one else enjoyed it either.

The lychee martini was lush – sweet and floral. Friends had an Old Fashioned (inexplicably including soda water) and a Mojito (the ‘worst mojito I’ve ever had’) says Damo. But Pob’s Margarita was apparently nice.

Monkey finger rating  

Bun –  3/5 – unexceptional  
Build – 4/5 – well constructed
Burger – 2.5/5 – underseasoned, overcooked, dry, and poorly contrasted by texture and flavour in the stack 
Taste –  3/5  – tolerable but unexceptional
Sides – 3.5/5 – wings and popcorn shrimp were ok. 1.5/5 for the fries.   

Value – 2/5 – £33 a head with two drinks for all but me.  

Burger rating – 3/5 – if you need a burger and no other ones are available, you won’t hate yourself. Not exactly high praise but… it’s the best I can muster. 

The deets 

First floor of Kingly Court, just off Carnaby Street. You can’t miss it. And if you like monstrous novelty burgers, go and have the insanity, which James had, becuase what double cheeseburger isn’t improved by a fried chicken patty? Well done Jimjamjebobo; keep the change, you filthy animal.

Original Patty Men, Digbeth, Birmingham

Posted in Outside London, Restaurant, ReviewsTagged , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Crispy, cheesey, spicy, tasty doner burger

Burger source 

I was in Birmingham for a two day work event, and had a spare hour before my train home. Extensive research (10 minutes of Googling) found us Original Patty Men (“OPM”), on many lists as one of the best burgers in Brum. Their website is short on info but the Square Meal review says that their burgers are all made from Aged Longhorn beef. They are also known for some eccentric toppings so I may have broken my ‘standard bacon cheeseburger’ review rule a little.

The order 

Yeah, I broke it HARD. To transcribe the specials board; I had a £10 doner burger, topped with American cheese, homemade “kebab style” slaw, chilli sauce, garlic mayo and OPM homemade beef doner meat.

No sides, as I was short on time.

The meat of it 

You can immediately see why they describe themselves as “patty pimps and purveyors of filth” – whilst the burger comes neatly wrapped on a metal tray, the hot and steamy fresh brioche wrapped burger slides out on a slick of coleslaw dressing and garlic sauce. It looks the absolute business – toasted bun, melty cheese, slick garlic sauce, chilli coming through with the crunchy slaw, a round of tomato, some pickles, and the absolute crispiest looking doner meat slices you’ve ever seen.

In cross section, you can see the meat is quite compressed (but this isn’t quite a patty smash), and had it not been for the preponderance of sauces, you might be worried for how dry the meat felt on first taste. Speaking of the taste… on first bit, you’re immediately immersed in the soft, sweet brioche, the crisp, well-seasoned patty, the semi-pliant crunch of the doner meat, the sweet, slippy mess of salad and coleslaw… as well as the the gentle hit of garlic and chilli riding over the top of the flavour profile. It might sound like too much, but like a kebab, it all just works gloriously together, binding beautifully, making whole somehow greater than the sum of its parts.

The bun, toasted, despite its slim proportions, is in good proportion to the burger. And whilst it may seem hefty, the patty is not enormous and is closer to a patty-smash in proportions and texture than a full on gourmet burger patty. The American cheese provides both umani and structural hold, drawing the burger in close, physically and in flavour profile. It’s really very good.

Some minor critiques, though, as it wasn’t perfect… first, the meat was a little dry; and there was little age profile to it – it tasted good but not exceptional. Despite all the sauce, perhaps the fat ratio was too low, perhaps this particular patty had just been left on the grill a bit too long. I was early, so perhaps the first burger of the evening had hit a slightly colder grill and taken a bit longer to cook. The doner meat had amazing texture but little flavour – more beef bacon than beef doner in how it hits. The slaw could have used a finer slice – occasional bites pulled out large bits of cabbage.

But that’s really it. It was excellent. It will be high on the list of places to go – and try the sides – the next time I’m in Birmingham.

Monkey finger rating  

Bun –  4.5/5  
Build – 4/5 
Burger – 4/5 
Taste –  4/5/5  
Value – 4/5 – £10 for burger  

Burger rating – 4.5/5 – really had to stretch to find things to challenge here 

The deets 

There’s a few outlets in Birmingham. Find your preference here. The one I went to was less than 10 minutes from New Street station.

Hunworth Bell, Hunworth, Norfolk

Posted in Bacon, Outside London, Pub, ReviewsTagged , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Enjoyable despite its limitations

Burger source

The Hunny Bell is a local favourite, in the middle of nowhere in rural Norfolk. Rated highly on Tripadvisor, and by locals we know, it was a fun family meal out.

The order

I hadn’t intended to have a second burger in our holiday week, but the description of the HB double cheeseburger, topped with Emmental, served with onion rings, slaw, on a brioche and smoked bacon… well, it just sounded great. So I had to give it a go. We shared a carafe of Sea Change Negroamaro, a red wine whose billing features environmetnal activism, with a proportion of profits going to dealing with ocean plastics. Sold.

The meat of it

Let’s look at the main picture again.

The plating is tidy but a close inspection will show – a burnt brioche, unnecessary onion rings and a burnt edging on the bacon that bodes poorly… but it looks well assembled, and I’m intrigued.

In cross section, the errors compound themselves. These are thick patties, but cooked well done. They are far too big for the burger. The emmental is well melted and there’s an intriguing layer of sauce on the bottom bun… so, on to the taste.

Well, the burger is well seasoned. The crisp bacon adds excellent umami. The vegetables are crisp, fresh and sweet. The patties are a little dry, but the spicy mayo adds the required moisture and a lovely depth of flavour. There’s a wonderful smokiness to the whole thing.

Then… the whole thing kind of slides off the romaine slice and tomatoes at the base… leaving, in short, a mess:

The rest of it had to be eaten with cutlery, in two halves, split top and bottom. Ketchup helped balance the half without the spicy mayo, and yet somehow, the whole thing kept me wanting more. Despite almost everything going wrong with it, I still kind of enjoyed it. Though I think next time, the belly pork Amanda had is more likely to be on my order card.

The sides? The fries were well seasoned, standard french fries, but slightly undercooked. The slaw was soft – lacking all freshness and crispness – the mayo / dressing was just too heavy. But the onion rings were near-paragons of the form – lovely, crisp, well seasoned batter, sweet onion within… if they were a little greasy.

Giving notes on the whole dish:

  1. Don’t burn the bun
  2. Shrink the patties – 3oz each is plenty, 4oz each was too much
  3. Switch to a patty smash. higher fat ratio, melt cheese on each half as part of the build
  4. Go heavier on the delicious, animal-style sauce, consider adding some chopped pickle into it too for a bright, sweet crunch amidst it all
  5. Shred lettuce for a more stable base – the single leaf of romaine is pretty in theory, but irritating in practice
  6. Swap out the emmental for a sharp local cheddar
  7. Double fry the chips
  8. Find a new slaw recipe. It was bad.
  9. More onion rings. Because why not?

And the wine? Delicious. In both form and function. Highly recommend.

Monkey finger rating

Bun –  2.5/5
Burger – 3.5/5
Taste –  3.5/5
Sides – 3/5 – the onion rings and wine redeem the fries and slaw somewhat 
Value – 3/5 – £14.50 for burger and fries. Wine and other dishes reasonable.

Burger rating – 3.5/5 – really much more enjoyable than it should have been

The deets

The food, service, ambience etc., at the Hunny Bell were all brilliant. The burger isn’t the best but everything else comes highly recommended. Visit if you’re in the region of Holt in Norfolk at any point.

Miller & Carter, Winchester Road, Basingstoke

Posted in Bacon, Chain, Outside London, RestaurantTagged , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

This burger tastes better than it has any right to

Burger source

I was arranging to meet a client who happens to live locally for one of my first face to face meetings in about six months. He happened to like burgers, was sympathetic to my fondness for them, so I looked for a novel burger place – and to my surprise, discovered a local steakhouse I’d never heard of. So we went. First Monday of indoor eating in months. V exciting.

The order

Ordinarily my baseline review is a bacon cheeseburger – standardising the reviews somewhat. But the trademark burger was jumping out at me – the Miller’s Dirty Burger. And you can see why:

Tender fillet tails cooked to your liking, aged Cheddar cheese sauce, pulled beef barbacoa bearnaise, smoked streaky bacon, Monterey Jack, chorizo, special recipe burger sauce

Wawaweewah. It had to be done.

The meat of it

Other than the disproportionate height, the plating’s not bad. Clean plate, artful portion of what is (I promise, sorry for the soft focus) some nice, crisp, fresh coleslaw that’s not too heavy, standard posh chips in a tin-cup presentation and a burger that is well stacked. Lovely glossy bun, lettuce shielding the bottom half from the heft of meat, sauce, and toppings. I was given a choice of how I wanted the fillet tails done (medium rare), but the burger had to be cooked well done. This is par for the course in any restaurant that doesn’t grind its patties on site, but was nonetheless a shame in a place that prides itself on its meat.

Anyway, the cross section…

Somewhat predictably, the polish isn’t so evident in cross section. The burger is kind of a mess. The lower bun immediately gives way to the mass of everything, you can see the burger patty is cooked to a pale grey pallor, and is so tightly packed there’s almost no moisture left in it. The burger is so filled with toppings (I made those fillet tails out as medium, but that’s fine) so as to be impossible to eat as a sandwich, so I resort to cutlery and give it a taste.

And… against all expectations at this point… I really like it. The burger beef is well seasoned and has a good crust, and whilst its dry and dense as you’d expect, the fillet tails are soft and dreamy, the bearnaise, burger sauce and melty montery jack cheese (indulgent, much?) coalesce into a savoury, moist, gooey, bright yellow joy. There’s also the occasional spark of spice from the chorizo, and the fresh, sweet salad adds a clean crispness. But it’s not really a burger – I end up eating it in two halves, unable to get the mountain into edible bits without this drastic step. The fillet tails – tender, moist, luscious pieces of steak – are delicious in their own right, the bread is firmer than it appeared, holding up well… though I think the bacon was probably just a dead mound of calories, lost in all the other flavour. So yeah. Not bad, if not quite a burger. And working despite my understanding of what makes a good burger by almost every other measure.

The fries… are just slightly under-seasoned, under-cooked and a little shy of hot. But not terrible – good potato flavour, just on the tolerable side of cooked enough; a good stodgy compliment to the richness of the burger.

It being lunchtime on a Monday, the drink was a lime & soda, but we did have coffee and a ‘mini’ pud – I went for an Eton Mess.

It wasn’t particularly mini. And it was divine – light, crispy meringue, rich, sweet cream, sweet and sharp passionfruit laced throughout it… I inhaled it. I’m not an eton mess connoisseur, but after this, I kind of wanted to be. The shortbread was a waste of space, though – what use does anyone have for unsweetened shortbread? Perhaps I was meant to use it as a spoon for the mess…

Monkey finger rating

Bun –  3.5/5
Build – 4/5
Burger – 3/5
Taste –  4/5
Sides – 3/5 -bump for the onion fries 
Value – 3/5 – £30 for burger and pud and drink – a little steep.

Burger rating – 4/5 – perhaps slightly generous, but I enjoyed it in spite of its flaws.

The deets

Apparently Miller & Carter is a National chain. Who knew? Find your local here. Maybe have the steak. We had brilliant service and a good experience of it, can recommend.

Haché Burgers, High Holborn, London

Posted in Gourmety, london, Restaurant, ReviewsTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

A near perfect burger, marred only by a dense brioche and average sides

Burger source

There’s little about the burger itself origins, other than the fact that the original owners set out to create ‘gourmet bugers, with nothing but the best ingredients.’ Bought out by Hush in 2016, the restaraunt has expanded from its original site in Camden and now has locations all London; this one was on High Holborn, a short walk from the tube. The new owners wanted to ‘reclaim burgers for grown-ups’ (so far, so clichéd), so Haché Burger Social expanded.

I must admit, the name put me off slightly – have never been a fan of Steak Haché, but Debs at work has been evangelising it to me for some time so I thought to give it a try!

The order

I ordered the ‘Steak le Fumé’ – £12.95 of caramelised onions, smoked bacon, Gruyère & house coleslaw, rather joyfully presented in a smoke-filled dome. It was close enough to my standard ‘cheese and bacon’ standard to be indicative for the review, I felt, but had added panache and drama, which was, y’know, ridiculous but fun. Damian and I shared standard fries (frites, natch) and onion rings (disappointingly not rondelles d’oignon panées). And I broke and ordered the banofé pie for pudding. Drank a raspberry mojito thanks to happy hour.

Let’s get into it.

The meat of it

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The drama was as entertaining as needless as you’d expect. The smokiness was gentle, though, this isn’t a charcoal-grilled burger, a light woody, smokey aroma just infuses everything.

The stack was good, which is clearer still in the cross section. Whilst all burgers default to medium well, they recommend them medium rare and that’s what I went for. The meed has a good crust and a thick band of pinky-red running through the centre.

First bite, moment of truth.

The brioche (we had a choice of ciabatta, but that, for me, would not have been a proper burger) was dense. It lacked the pliancy you’d expect and indeed want froma burger bun; it’s too chewy and it’s extremely sweet. Unnecessarily so in a burger which had its own sweet caramelised onions, sweet coleslaw and sweet, sweet meat already.

Everything else, however: pitch perfect. Cheese was melty and bound the burger well; the bacon was exquisite; whilst not as crisp as American style streaky, it had a rich, salty, pancetta-y quality that was in perfect contrast to the sweet, pink ground beef. The beef is a star attraction, coarse ground and juicy, lightly smoked, a thick, crunchy, well-seasoned crust holding it all together; it’s melt-in-your-mouth luscious, and thankfully lacks the gaminess some dry-aged bef has. The onions and coleslaw provide a sweet finish (no ketchup needed at all), the meat melts in your mouth, and the overall experience was just… great. Even with the bready bun.

The sides… the fries are partially skin on, thin cut frites, crisp on the outside and well seasoned. Solid but standard. There were variants on offer and perhaps we should have tried those, but they were very pricey and seemed unnecessary to me.

The onion rings, whilst making use good thick chunks of fresh, sweet onion, were coated in an ordinary batter and slightly underseasoned. So they were just OK.

IMG_20180705_201611

Pudding… let me start by saying that banoffee pie is one my kryptonite dishes; no matter how determined I am not to pudding, if a banoffee pie or a sticky toffee pudding is on the menu, I will struggle. And I’ve never had a bad banoffee pie – after all – it is simplicity itself; biscuit base, caramel, banana, cream, chocolate. Nothing else to it.

Unless, of course, you get carried away and put on 3 inches of cream. Which is what Haché has done, sadly making an extraordinary pudding… ordinary. Every ingredient is high quality and tasty on its own, but this enormous slab of pud just has too much bland cream atop it.

The Raspberry mojito wasn’t bad, if you’re into sweet cocktails. Minty, fresh with a good soda fizz on top, appropriately limey as well.

Monkey finger rating

Bun – 2.5/5
Build – 5/5
Burger – 5/5
Taste – 4.5/5
Sides – 3/5 -bump for the onion fries
Value – 3.5/5 – £13 for the burger, £3-£6 for sides, £6 for puddings. Not cheap; even with 2-4-£10 happy hour cocktails.

Burger rating – 4.5/5 – the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Desite the bready bread, the ordinary sides and the disappointing pudding, I would put this in my top five burgers in London easily (alongside Dip & Flip, Cut & Grind, Bleecker Street, and Lucky Chip).

The deets

There are branches all over; online booking is easy. Check the website here.