A paragon of mediocrity
Burger source
It seems that I have something of a reputation for my burger fandom. So, when meeting an industry friend for lunch, I was asked ‘are you going to have the burger…’
Honestly, I was considering the salad. But I didn’t want to disappoint.
The order
OK, there’s nothing fancy about it, but it sounded fine (though I have now had to Google ‘Applewood cheese’ – save yourself the trouble, it’s just a smoked cheddar) – the simply billed ‘cheeseburger’ came complete with: 7oz British beef, Applewood cheese, lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise & chips.
Unpretentious. Fine. Could be good – a good burger doesn’t need to be complicated.
The meat of it
But it does need to be some other things.
Presentation’s OK (to a point). But some worrying tells. First – that pickle. Unnecessarily gargantuan proportions, slightly worrying shade of green.
Second: large lettuce pieces atop burger. Wrong place. Schoolboy. It’s meant to be protecting the underbun from the juiciness of the burger. And it should be chopped.
Third : where’s the aforementioned juiciness? Nowhere to be seen. That plate is too clean, that bun is too intact.
Time for the cross section.
Structural integrity of the stack was next to zero. Top bun slid off salad, which – unchopped – slid off in turn (dice your lettuce, people, it’s not hard. A rough chop is fine). The mayo is meagrely applied, the bun is even more suspiciously dry, and now – whilst the romaine is bright green – you can see a peek of an extremely underwhelming tomato slice beneath the burger, too. Now, I’ve always had my reservations about tomatoes on a burger, but a pale, flaccid looking specimen like this? No. Just no. It’s wrong. That said – the cheese melt is top notch, the burger looks to be made with coarse ground meat that isn’t overpacked… but it’s so dry. I’m worried.
First bite.
Bread’s dry. Burger’s dry; overcooked but tolerably pliant. There’s no sauce. There’s no salt. The cheese adds texture but next to no flavour – no smoke evident, applewood or otherwise. In aggregate, the burger adds texture but almost no flavour. It’s like chewing on burger textured cardboard; the mouthfeel isn’t bad, but the lack of taste makes the whole experience surreal. In fact, they could have marketed this burger as the ‘Covid simulator’ because it’s like they took your dang sense of taste away. If Uncle Roger did burger reviews, he’d be taking away the Anthologist Chef’s Uncle title in this very moment.
The chips – however – were fine. Well seasoned, crisp, made of decent quality potato, and only marginally too chunky for my liking.
Monkey finger rating
Bun – 1.5/5
Build – 1.5/5
Burger – 1.5/5
Taste – 1/5
Sides – 4/5 – the chips were good, lose a point for being a tad on the chunky side
Value – 1/5 – £16 for burger and side, ish. But tbh at £12 it’d have still only been a 3/5.
Burger rating – 1.5/5 – I ate it. Had it been much worse, I wouldn’t have.
The deets
I’m only telling you so if you find yourself there you remember NOT to order the burger; it’s a Drake & Morgan pub round the corner from Bank station. Avoid it here.