An extremely well put together burger let down by the meat
Burger source
The Table Café is characteristic of the Southwark neighbourhood; independent, owner-managed, distinctive, generally innovative and relatively unconventional. It’s not a burger house but does feature an interesting one on the lunch menu which I thought I’d sample, given the reputed quality of the rest of the cooking. More of the backstory of the restaurant here; worth a read.
The order
I went for the Cheeseburger, red onion relish & triple cooked chips, resisting the urge to add bacon for £2.50!
The meat of it
The burger is well if simply presented. The bun has some gloss but is not a brioche; there’s a light dripping of unidentifiable burger sauce spilling out the side, the stack looks well assembled. The triple cooked chips on the side are golden with crunch evident before you even pick one up, much less bite into it. So far, so promising.
The cross section improves and detracts in equal measure. It’s a perfect stack; a thick layer of the red onion relish, a good melt on the cheese, a good amount of pickle, a sturdy but pliant bun, and a good ratio of everything involved. BUT you can see the meat is overdone – it’s grey in the middle and soft the whole way through, no real juiciness at all.
On tasting it – the red onion relish brings a wonderful sourness to every bite, contrasted by the crisp sweetness of the pickle and the savoury nature of the rest of it. The burger meat is well seasoned but the lack of a distinctive crust and the dryness of the overcooked meat detracts from the overall experience, despite the best efforts of the mildly spicy mustard-filled burger sauce elsewhere in the stack. The meat isn’t terrible, but it is far less special than the rest of the burger, which really pulls together very well.
The fries -whilst underseasoned – live up to the first impression. Crisp crunch, but cut thick enough for a fluffy interior despite the triple cooking. The ketchup that was on the table – a brand I didn’t recognise – was somewhat eccentric. I suspect the consequence of buying posh, locally sourced, organic stuff. I’d have preferred Heinz, tbh!
Monkey finger rating
Bun – 4/5
Build – 4/5
Burger – 2.5/5
Taste – 3/5 – let down by meat despite how good everything else is
Sides – 4/5 – good chips
Value – 3.5/5 – £12.75 for burger and fries, which is pretty reasonable for the restaraunt. The bacon was too much extra though!
Burger rating – 3.5/5 – could have been better had it been better cooked.
The deets
This is one of our locals on Southwark Street, near the Tate Modern and five minutes’ walk from Blackfriars. If I go back I’ll ask them to cook it medium explicitly and see what happens.
Overpriced, but competent burger in sterile environment
Burger source
Five Guys is an American institution. Founded in Virgina in the mid 80s, it made its way to the UK a few years ago and has been spreading like wildfire.
Unlike McDonald’s style fast food, the food quality is high – Five Guys prides itself on freshness, not having freezers, sourcing meat well (in the UK, it’s grain finished Irish beef), and offering extremely simplicity in their menu – it’s basically just burgers, hot dogs and fries, though the ‘25,000 customisations’ on offer come in the form of swapping out salad, cheese, bacon, etc. and various other toppings on offer.
They also have Coca Cola vending machines with endless customisation on offer – any syrup, with any flavouring. For a caffeine-intolerant person that’s never been able to try vanilla Coke… well, I’m getting ahead of myself.
The order
I had the bacon cheeseburger – standard salad options – and shared a large fries with Matt and James. And a bottomless Coca Cola vending machine drink.
The meat of it
The burger doesn’t look particularly special, though it’s clearly good meat and a capable bun, it is somewhat squished into its wrapper. There’s a reasonable melt on the cheese and the salad looks healthy and fresh. So far, so ok.
The cross section reveals a burger that’s cooked to well done, rather than my preferred medium. Not inherently an issue, the two 4oz ish patties still seem to retain a reasonable amount of juice. A taste of a stray bit of bacon – a thin slice fo streaky – reveals a good crisp finish and good bacon flavour.
On first bite – the burger is juicy but could do with a little more moisture. The meat has good texture, is a coarse ground, high fat-ratio item but the overcooking has left it somewhat wanting. I’d have liked a smidge more seasoning, but the cheese compensates somewhat. The bun is a standard seeded white roll, so the sweetness comes from the vegetables; in a rare break with personal tradition I leave the tomato in place and eat it as is. The pickles are (too) mild, but the mayo helps bind the lot together. The whole is somehow better than the sum of its parts, which – whilst passable – are unexceptional. When you take into account the price – £8.50 for the burger, followed by a share of £5 for the fries and £3.50 for the drink… it feels somewhat overpriced.
The ‘large’ portion of fries is enormous (MyFitnessPal tells me that a full portion weighs up at 1,368 calories, so definitely share it) – the above is just overspill, the majority of the pack is elsewhere. The chips are crisp on the outside and soft on the inside, fried in peanut oil (peanuts are a major feature of the Five Guys experience, left scattered around the restarunt in large sacks, making it totally unsuitable for allergy sufferers like my wife and nephew).
HOWEVER…. the seasoning is completely overdone. I’d have far preferred a simple salt finish. I should have customised their cajun seasoning right off them, would have dramatically improved it.
The final piece…
I discovered in about 2000 that I was caffeine intolerant, and am now completely incapable of consuming it. I loved Coke, though, and ‘gold Coke’ – caffeine free Diet Coke – has been my only option if I wanted the flavour. I’ve watched all these novelty flavoured Cokes come and go and been unable to try them.
So I drank a lot of flavoured coke with my meal. Vanilla (YUM), lime (not bad!), raspberry (chemical!) – totally worth the £3.50 for me, though probably not for any normal person who is happy with a single large cup of carbonated (fake) sugar water.
The one critical thing worth noting about the Five Guys experience is that the restaraunt is really very simply adorned; it feels like sitting in a McD’s, complete with over-bright lighting, occasional mess on the floor, unkempt furniture and dazed and confused patrons. It’s not a pleasant place to eat, and given that the price compares with some of the best burger restaraunts in London… well, it loses points on that front.
Monkey finger rating
Bun – 3.5/5
Build – 3/5
Burger – 3.5/5
Taste – 3.5/5
Sides – 3/5 – 4.5 without the cajun seasoning
Value – 3/5 – £15 for a fast food eating experience with better quality food.
Burger rating – 3.5/5 – passable quality burger, but not excited to have another one.
The deets
Five Guys is everywhere in the UK now. Find your nearest here. We were en route to the Star Wars VR experience (The Void) in Westfield, hence choosing that particular eatery. THAT was amazing. Definitely try that.
Gorgonzola-y goodness at the British Film Institute
Burger source
The BFI’s Bar & Kitchen has an eclectic modern European menu, and the burger sounded an interesting take on the convention. It was also the only burger on the menu, and of course they make little of its provenance, so I was fully prepared that this would be a mediocre attempt at best. I was pleasantly surprised… but… spoilers.
The restaurant itself is a delight – light and airy, completely calm at lunchtime on a Friday. I’m sure it’s busy at the weekends… but the service and ambiance today was perfect. I know from past experience that they have an excellent cocktail menu too.
The order
Bread, oil and balsamico to start followed by the burger – the BFI 6 oz beef burger, served with Gorgonzola, radicchio and red onion, on a butter milk bun. Accompanied by ‘fries’ (again, little send-up, though truffle fries were also on the menu).
The meat of it
The presentation was good, and the burger delivered medium well (I was promised medium). That aside, the meat was juicy – a coarsely ground, loosely packed patty. Any seasoning of the meat itself vanished in the face of the punchy gorgonzola – an absolute umame-packed salt-fest coupling beautifully with the juicy meat.
The enriched bun holds up well, but further interest comes from the red onion/radicchio (leafy Italian salady thing) combo, which provides a slightly sour, slightly sweet, slightly crisp topping to the burger. As the only substantive flavour contrast to the savoury, the buttermilk bun doesn’t quite provide the necessary counterpoint – I think some sweet relish or gourmet Italian ketchup would have slightly tempered the saltiness of the dish and perhaps have rounded it out without tainting its Italian stylings – but it’s not bad. Good crumb, airy but sturdy, with a soft bite to it. Really quite enjoyable on the whole.
The fries – there’s something special about these. They’re more chips than fries in the American sense – thicker cut, skin-on. They have a delightful exterior, light and almost flakey, crisp with a delightful crunch. The inside – soft and floury, a perfect contrast. I didn’t even ask for ketchup – that’s how good they were. Perfectly seasoned.
The bread starter – which is really neither here nor there as it’s a burger review, but what the hey – lovely hefty brown slices, lightly grilled and served with a pot of rich olive oil and thick balsamic glaze. Very tasty!
Monkey finger rating
Bun – 4/5
Build – 4/5
Burger – 4/5
Taste – 4/5
Sides – 5/5 – very special fries
Value – 4/5 – expensive but reasonable for the area – £14 for burger and fries, £4 for bread, central London drinks prices etc., plus service – £55 for two
Burger rating – 4/5 – you’re unlikely to be disappointed. An interesting twist on the convention.
The deets
The BFI’s next to the National Threatre on the South Bank. The Bar & Kitchen bit is round the back, on Belvedere Road. But you can cut through the main BFI from the South Bank itself! More here.
Well cooked, well-constructed, slightly sweet burger in this meat-palace
Burger source
Independently owned by husband and wife team Simon and Joy Briggs, two road-tripping Brits who fell in love with Memphis, Porky’s is a full-on-rib shack. But they have a decent burger selection and were shortlisted for an award lately so we thought we’d give them a try. The burgers are 100% brisket mince, and to be honest I’m not sure what that’s meant to add to the burger (the brisket is a ‘primal cut’ of beef, featuring muscle and lots of connective tissue, classically braised or roasted – not sure if or how it has to be treated in a burger).
The order
A lunchtime visit so little extravagance; a ‘Beale Street Special’ and fries was the sum total of the order. The Beale Street special is a cheeseburger with onion rings, jalapenos and hot sauce. There wasn’t a ‘standard’ cheese and bacon, so I opted for this as the closest option on the menu!
The meat of it
It’s a well presented burger, to be sure. Like Byron, it was a little too perfect, and I wondered what would happen on the cross-section…
…but medium rare it was, juicy and perfectly cooked.
As to the taste… I was unsure about the hot sauce – have never been a fan in anything other than Buffalo wings. However it adds just a gentle heat to the backdrop of an extremely meaty burger. Perfect grind, well-seasoned, intensely flavoured (maybe it’s the brisket?), this is a burger that’s more than the sum of its part. Like the Byron B-Rex, the combination of jalapeno, onion and pickles – alongside a brioche bun – adds a lot of sweetness, and the burger probably could have used a little bacon to take the edge off it…. But on balance the taste was excellent. Juicy, high quality beef, wrapped in a stack of complementary ingredients, well prepared and presented.
As to the fries… as you can see from the picture, they didn’t look like much. McD’s style thin cut fries, arriving in need of seasoning… but it’s a healthy portion for the money, and they are much more crisp than they appear, so on balance – a good thing. Colleagues had the sweet potato fries, which also looked good.
Monkey finger rating
Bun – 4/5
Build – 4/5
Burger – 4/5
Taste – 4/5
Sides – 3.5/5 – good but unexceptional
Value – 4/5 – £12 for burger and side, ish… but then 20% discount with a Bankside Buzzcard!
Burger rating – 4/5 – meaty goodness that would have benefited from a little more saltiness and chew amongst the sweet and spicy toppings.
The deets
Just round the corner from the Tate and the South Bank, this branch of Porky’s is super-convenient to my office. They have one in Camden, too, if you’re North, or Boxpark if you’re East. All locations here.
My first night in SFO (ever) for a business trip, and US colleague Rene booked us into Marlowe – also on the top three favourite restaurant list of my AirBNB host. Awesome start.
Other than billing the burger as one of the most popular in the city (well marketed by my French bartender), there’s little detail on the meat’s origins, burger style, etc. on the menu. An enigma! Exciting.
The order
Whilst there was a Sunday special that swapped bacon for porcini mushrooms and added gem lettuce and pickles for crunch and tang… I opted for the standard Marlowe burger for the experience. It comes with caramelized onions, cheddar, bacon, horseradish aioli and what looked like fresh cut herb fries. The burger itself – my charming French waiter repeatedly advised – was cooked medium rare… and was I OK with that? Heck, yeah.
The meat of it
The burger is a ~6oz affair, with a soft-ish white roll well coated with horseradish aioli, and with the patty topped with the onions, crisp fresh lettuce, mega-crispy streaky bacon and super melty cheddar. The “medium rare” looked somewhat medium to me, but no complaints there. The lean/fat ratio was 80/20 according to my French gourmand, so it wasn’t overly juicy but moist enough. The aioli made it somewhat slippery in the stack, and it was somewhat hard to handle. That said; the meat was coarse ground and loosely packed, making for a tender bite and an amazing amount of umami. The crisp bacon and lettuce adds a nice textural contrast and the aioli adds to the meat’s juiciness to take the edge off a slightly too-firm-for-my-taste burger bun. The onions added a little sweetness to the whole thing. The overall impact was excellent, although I must admit, I ate the second half with my cutlery rather than by hand…
The fries are exceptional; herby, salty, crispy with a soft centre. The side of horseradish aioli was more than I needed; a little ketchup to take the edge off was a better fit for my palate.
Drinks-wise; an excellent selection of Bourbon had me sample an Elijah Craig small batch, followed by a Templeton Rye Old Fashioned – utterly delicious and unexpectedly sweet for a Rye. I liked it!
Monkey finger rating
Bun – 3.5/5
Build – 3.5/5 – slippery, off centre
Burger – 5/5
Taste – 5/5
Sides – 5/5
Value – 3/5 – $34 for the burger and sides – which I think is reasonable for San Francisco – and about $1m for the drinks. This city is EXPENSIVE. Subject to review once I’ve eaten anywhere else and know how this stacks up against anywhere else.
Burger rating – 4.5/5 – you have to be pretty nitpicky to fault the flavour combinations here, and the overall experience is amazing and more than makes up for the minor shortcomings. Hugely recommend it.
The deets
Marlowe is in SoMA in San Francisco, 500 Brannan Street, San Francisco, CA 94107. You can make a booking via 415-777-1413 or online at OpenTable. It was busy on a Sunday night – most other places were shut – so do book!
Good all rounder, over-ordered like crazy as a result. Hard shakes are ftw.
Burger Source
Having eaten our way through many of the mainstays of London burgerness, we are having to hunt harder for top shops to feed our (well, mostly my) burger habit. Friends wanted to meet near Holborn, so Burger & Shake it was to be. The other mooted venue was a Hoxton Burger, but I also wanted my first experience of the famous Hoxton Grill to be in Hoxton, rather than in the more generalist restaurant that supports the Hoxton Hotel in Holborn, so I vetoed it…
To call the website minimalist would be overstating things, but the menu does tell us this much: “Our 100% beef patty is made up of cuts from Aberdeen angus and charolais cattle, that graze in Ayrshire Scotland. We cook our beef burgers medium rare as standard…”
So far, so good.
The order
The friends who wanted to meet in the area (and who worked locally) were late. So we kicked off with some wings and some chilli fries. I kicked in for a “Bourbontun” hard shake, feat. Vanilla, peanut butter and bourbon… because obviously. Then came the main order; Jimjamjebobo and I split the House Burger (“180g beef patty, lettuce, tomato, pickle, American cheese and sweet cured bacon with our mustard and horseradish ketchup sauce”) and the New Yorker (“180g beef patty, lettuce, French’s mustard, Monterey Jack Cheese, pickle and fried onion. Served in our potato bun that is cooked with the patty under a cloche on the grill.”)
That’s when things started to go wrong (in terms of how much we ordered). And I’ll take a lot of responsibility for this – I’d been ill for a few weeks and this was a first outing with friends in a while, so I was celebrating/commiserating the bloc of time out of commission with food.
And so we ALSO ordered onion rings. More chilli fries. A further double portion of wings. Mac & Cheese with bacon. AND sweet potato fries. Even between five of us, this was WAY too much food.
The meat of it
NEW YORK NEEWW YORK
House burger
Both the burgers we ordered looked great – fresh, glazed potato roll, well stacked with a healthy six ounce patty that was clearly well cooked (if perhaps more the medium side of medium rare than the rare side). Grind, pack and fat ratio was good (I like my burgers like I like my women… coarse ground and loosely packed*), meat was juicy but not dripping, the build was excellent on first impression.
Then to the taste…
The House burger was good, if perhaps lacking in the bangin’ beats the name and description promise. There wasn’t a hint of horesradish in the horseradish ketchup and, if I’m being critical, the patty was a little underseasoned. The bacon was good but not crunchy enough to provide textural contrast, and not enough saltiness. The bun and other fillings held up well, but there wasn’t quite enough umami in this one for me. Could be better.
The New Yorker came up trumps, though (no pun intended). The onions and pickle provided a lovely crisp, sweet finish, the monterey jack cheese added a salty oomph to the thing, and the whole was greater than the sum of its parts… although the burger did slide around on the onions something chronic.
If I’d had to choose between them from the descriptions alone, I’d have backed the House burger for the top job (everyone else ordered it), but the New Yorker came up from behind to win it all. Impressive work. Even if it’s less effective an analogy for the 2016 presidential raced than it initially seemed it might be.
As to the sides:
the wings were lush, substantial, crispy and perfectly coated with the uncle Frank’s hot sauce/butter combination that is Buffalo.
The chilli fries – weren’t seasoned before the addition of chilli (WHY, OH WHY?) so they were a bit bland and soggy, but the chilli was good as those things go. Depth of flavour and lovely hint of heat, rich meat and bean sauce in plentiful supply. Regular fries would have been better in my view, but I think I’m perhaps the kind of guy who likes fries AND likes chilli, but doesn’t love them together.
The onion rings were disappointing for me; the batter hadn’t stuck, and the onions were glistening through like an exposed femur on an animated corpse. The flecks of pepper in the batter felt like false advertising; there was little flavour to them. That said, the onions were sweet and the batter crisp… just a few (major) minuses holding it back from excellence.
The first bowl of sweet potato fries were sent back as they were undercooked. The second batch were cooked but still somewhat limp and lifeless, and needed seasoning to oomph up.
The mac & bacon (no pic, soz) was fine but bland as I always find mac & cheese variants. Probably a reasonable example of the genre, if you were someone that had tried it enough times to care to differentiate between one bold of cheese mush and another.
The bourbontun… OMG, this was delicious. Mostly a vanillla shake, the occasional glugs of peanut butter you get are like winning a mini lottery, and the bourbon gives a background hint that you’re not just indulging five year old you (ok, mostly you still are… but totes worth it). Definitely want to have this again, and I’m lactose intolerant!
Monkey finger rating
Bun – 4/5
Build – 5/5
Burger – 4/5
Taste – 4/5
Sides – 3.5/5 – slight losses for chilli fries and sweet potato shenanigans
Value – 4/5 – £23 a head for burger, a tonne of sides & drink, & tip – not cheap but reasonable value for the quality and quntity o the food.
Burger rating – 4/5 – only really suffering from a minor umami docking and some mediocrity around the sides. It’s a good place.
The deets
The small, diner-style restaurant is halfway down Marchmont Street. Full details: Burger & Shake, 47 Marchmont Street, London WC1N 1AP Tel: 020 7837 7718 info@burgerandshake.co.uk
You’ve doubtless noticed that London, and increasingly the UK in general, has undergone something of a renaissance when it comes to burger fayre. No longer are we satisfied with an overcooked hockey puck of beef, wedged into a floury bap and presented with a bottle of squeezy ketchup by way of condiments. That doesn’t mean we’re all pretentious gits who should order something else (well, maybe it does, but nonetheless); please consider the following attributes of a good burger, easily managed in virtually any kitchen, which will turn your ‘burger’ option from a tedious, seldom-ordered staple to a featured attraction.
After eating burgers at well-thought of pubs and hotels in the area out of curiosity (given I write this blog), I’ve been nothing but disappointed, so felt the need to offer some genuinely well-intentioned advice for chefs to consider. One of these disappointing venues, incidentally, is a five star luxury country hotel and the other is a local pub that boasts a chef who worked at a Michelin-starred restaurant in its kitchen, so these aren’t amateurs. Which makes their burger offers all the more mystifying in their mediocrity.
See what you make of the following:
If you freeze your burgers, freeze them well. Wrap them individually, seal them (zip lock if possible, cling film is porous apparently) limit moisture lose through sublimation when they’re awaiting cooking. Otherwise the juiciest burgers will become dry and powdery when you take them out to cook them. It’s perfectly possible to make a delicious juicy medium burger from a frozen patty – cook it slow and finish it fast.
If you’re buying your burgers in, get them to do all of the above! If they don’t, switch your burger supplier! I found an excellent supermarket burger recently, am sure they’d be available wholesale nationally.
The fat/lean ratio is important. Again, don’t feel the need to use lean meat. 20-25% fat vs 75-80% lean seems to be the magic number. People have to cope with the fact that a burger isn’t the healthiest option on the menu.
The grind is important. If you’re making your own burgers, don’t pack them full of finely ground meat and squash them till they hold their shape. Course ground, loosely packed. Makes for a less chewy mouthful and that melt-in-your-mouth experience.
Burgers shouldn’t be served well done. You’re not allowed by law to sell them below ‘medium’ so go with that. It’ll add a juiciness quotient that is well worth striving for. If you sous vide, this is easy to do for large groups too – just char them on a hot grill for a quick finish and those vital flavours. Unless you’re going for a different burger style (smash-burgers and sliders have different rules).
You can see all the things that are wrong with this burger. Dry, overcooked patty. Tightly packed, fine ground mince. The thick cut bacon? Flavourless and insufficiently charred for my liking. Bun? Stale. Sauce? Ketchup on the side.
It needs seasoning! At least the salt and pepper, the rest is for fancier burgers, but the ‘natural’ flavour of beef is quite bland so help it out.
Think through the sauce. A good condimentary [sic] partner for your burger may not be the cloying sweetness of ketchup or the sharp bite of mustard. A relish, a mustard fry – lots of easy, great options to plan a burger around.
The bun matters. Dry, slightly stale floury baps – won’t do. I’m partial to an egg-washed soft white roll, toasted on the inside only. Has to hold up to juicy beef, and depending on the sweetness of your relish/sauce, you may not want the sweetness of a brioche or demi-brioche (much as they are all the rage, it seems). The bun/patty ratio is important too – except for,dehydrated frozen burgers (the bad kind) most fresh burgers shrink as they lose moisture, so plan your patty size/bun size accordingly. Unlike the BK ads, meat doesn’t need to overhang the bun (you’ll have a problem with bun structural integrity if you do) but less than 95% bun coverage and you start to have plain bread mouthfuls and that’s not a good thing.
Cheese needs to be melted on. Nothing else needs to be said here. A lid and a bit of water work well here without needing to overcook the burger (I witnessed the dirty burger chefs do this, also softening the lettuce and tomato slightly at the same time – a great trick).
Everything else is an accessory. But accessories matter! Whether you include a pickle. Raw or cooked onion or caramelized onion. Chicken-skin fries, triple or double cooked. Lettuce or slaw. Just think it through in the context of a plate. Less is definitely more.
I think that’s most things, but if I’ve missed anything, I’m hoping the burger community will help me out in the comments, and I’ll update this post (with attributions). It seems like a lot but… it’s not really! Change your burger supplier and your baker (or at least, your order from the same!) and brief your chef and you’re away.
In a year with Brexit, Trump, terrorist attacks and celebrity deaths, the last thing anyone needs is a mediocre burger to top it all off.
The Tribute is a contender for the greatest burger in the world; plus amazing atmosphere and delightful service, what’s not to like?
Grub’s up!
The latest in my Monday night meet-ups shifted to a Wednesday, but otherwise followed the same pattern as before. Four friends, fine burgers. This time, we strayed from Islington’s comforts to hit up Honest Burgers in Kings Cross – significantly more spacious than its Brixton counterpart but home to the same, much-hyped menu. I’ve probably had as many people tell me that Honest Burgers is home to the best burgers in London as have told me of Meat Liquor’s greatness, so, needless to say, we were very excited. I’ve also been told that their Rosemary Fries are ‘crack’ by more than one person, so, was keen to see for myself.
Burger source:
Reassuring amounts of spatter and melt. Look how thick that bacon is!
Tom Barton and Phil Eles, the founders of Honest Burger, reportedly met whilst waiting tables in Brighton and decided they could ‘do better’. They met an experienced restaurateur, Dorian Waite, who helped them get set up in a tiny unit in Brixton Village, using savings to fund the initial fit-out. Despite their lack of experience in the food industry, it’s been a hit: their focus on British quality produce, featuring some particularly exceptional meat from the esteemed Ginger Pig butchers, seems to have worked well for them. A round of investment in 2014 also sees them expanding (far) beyond their first home in Brixton Village, and hence – Honest Burgers Kings Cross.
The order
We had sadly missed February’s special – Honest Burgers’ monthly rotating time-limited burger – called the ‘Rib Man Special’, featuring rib meat and Honest Burgers’ own proprietary ‘holy f**k sauce.’ The new special seemed rather conventional by contrast – the ‘Deli Special’ features garlic aioli, emmental cheese and smoked bacon, as well as spinach in place of lettuce. So I persuaded Jimjam to split a Tribute with me – a burger recommended to me by TK, and for good reason, allowing me to try both the special and a menu staple. The Tribute shares the burger and bacon, but swaps out aioli for mustard and burger sauce (a distant relative of Big Mac sauce, to my palate), cheddar for the Emmental and lettuce for the spinach.
We also ordered virtually every side: red-cabbage slaw, onion rings, buffalo wings, and a pot of each of the four sauces on offer – bacon ketchup, holy f**k sauce, chipotle mayo and curry sauce.
The meat of it:
The stack was perfect on both burgers. A cross section cut revealed the same perfect pink medium finish on the loose ground, melt-in-your-mouth, perfectly seasoned 7-8oz patty. This is a big burger. The brioche was muscular enough to stand up to the burger, but only just – don’t leave it hanging – and had the bread’s characteristic sweetness and bite. The burger – both burgers – melt in your mouth, and the thick smoked bacon adds delightfully to the flavour melange.
To each individual burger’s attributes, now:
March 2016’s ‘Deli Special’ features aioli. As far as I can tell, aioli has drifted from its origins as a Mediterranean garlic sauce to become hipster flavoured mayonnaise, (heavily featuring garlic). It can be tasty, and it was, but it was also somewhat overwhelming; the intense (yet silky-smooth) garlic sauce kind of overwhelms the more delicate beefy flavours. The pickles were good but failed to cut through the aioli, and the spinach added very little other than an insulating layer, protecting the lower bun from the burger’s plentiful juices. The red onion, bright and shiny in the promo picture, was barely evident. The net result was pleasant but not necessarily re-orderable, especially when in contrast with…
The Tribute: bringing to mind Tenacious D’s song, this burger is an incredibly nostalgic taste explosion. This is how a Big Mac tastes in your memory; but with a dose of the best bacon cheese burger you’ve ever had, coupled with some more modern refinements. The burger sauce and pickle are a sweet accompaniment to the other ingredients; the melted cheddar adds a sharper and more explosive salty finish, and – somewhat unlike the Deli Special – the combined effect of the different flavours is more than the sum of its parts. This is a fine burger indeed, and a contender for my ‘Best Burger Ever.’
The sides: the rosemary fries are hand cut, thicker than regular fries, apparently double or triple cooked and utterly delicious. The rosemary itself is neither here nor there for me, but the perfect finish and salty seasoning on these delicious fluffy potato fragments makes them, as I was promised, intensively addictive. Especially when coupled with the sauces:
Chipotle Mayo – mildy spiced, sweet and savoury mayo. Great.
Bacon ketchup – looking little like ketchup, this lumpy sauce tastes like the best ketchup you’ve ever had with the bonus explosive crunch of bacon hidden within. It’s less sweet than Heinz varieties but no worse off for it.
Holy f***k sauce – genuinely evoked the reaction in the name. Too hot for consumption as a side, this might have worked better for me sparingly within a burger construct. Or maybe I’m just a chilli lightweight these days.
Curry sauce – another burst of nostalgia here; this is an utterly refined variant on chip-shop curry sauce, though as far removed from it as the Tribute is from the Big Mac. Much more delicious.
The onion rings featured large thick rings of sweet, crisp white onions, beer (I think) battered and well spiced; and an even crisper exterior than Meat Liquor’s offer. Definitely the best onion rings I’ve had!
The buffalo wings were well sauced and juicy, but lacked the crispness you might have had elsewhere (ahem, Meat Liquor); no blue cheese sauce, though, and inexplicable amounts of chopped spring onions.
The red cabbage slaw was not noteworthy, and left no lasting impression. It was the only thing on the table we didn’t finish. It lacked the crispness of a white cabbage slaw, and there was no real need for it.
The cocktails – I had the Botanic Garden – gin, apple, elderflower and wine – so delicious I had another one, and great value at £5 a pop. Sweet and refreshing. I’m told the beer was good too.
A quick note on the service: the waitresses were amazingly entertaining, engaging with us on our burger choices and manliness (or lack thereof) in tackling the hot sauce. The chefs let me take pictures of them cooking (“but not the face”) which was amusing and gracious in one fell swoop. The overall experience was excellent as a result.
Monkey finger rating
Bun – 4.5/5
Build – 5/5
Burger – 5/5
Taste – 5/5 (for the Tribute, 3.5/5 for the Deli Special)
Sides – 4/5
Value – 5/5. £28 – felt like amazing value for burger, fries, ALL the sides + 2 drinks apiece. But maybe I’m just too used to London pricing.
Burger rating – 5/5 – I think if I had to choose between this and Lucky Chip I’d be hard pressed – but the atmosphere and drinks at Honest Burgers vs. the Old Queen’s Head, plus the excellent sides, probably tip it in HB’s favour. All the points.
The deets
Tonnes of locations now (full list below) but the Kings Cross venue is at 251 Pentonville Road London N1 9NG, just 5 mins walk from Kings X. Tweet them @honestburgers. And go, go go go, if you haven’t been.
This is a guest post from fellow Burger-Lover and world traveller Dan Bond.
This burger too fergilicious for you babe.
The decision was made. Six weeks into a five-month around-the-world trip, we’d reached the other side of the world (New Zealand) but also the need to budget.
It turns out that income is pretty limited when you’re unemployed and don’t have any (as far as I’m aware, I’m not getting financially rewarded for this guest post), but there were indulgences we could cut back on: dining out being #1. We could handle that. We had a campervan. We knew how to boil water and put pasta into the water and then take it out again. It’d be fun, being self-sufficient. Fine. We left the Queenstown café in complete agreement. And walked down the street. And turned a corner. And stumbled into a bustling, overflowing queue, outside what transpired to be the 15th birthday party of Fergburger.
We TRIED to just walk past and pay no attention. But the customers were so animated, so delighted with what they were unwrapping. One particularly polite-looking middle-aged lady grappled with a burger larger than her face, which turned an increasingly meaty shade of red with each bite taken until diner and dinner became almost indistinguishable. It was a betrayal of either complete culinary delight or her slipping into early, pattie-induced stages of cardiac arrest. This was serious meat, evidently. Fine…we’d start budgeting after one more meal out.
Burger Source
Fergburger is one of those places you Google almost immediately after visiting. It invites curiosity. Apparently, 15 years in business and solid word of mouth buzz have seen its operations transition from a hard-to-find garage off Cow Lane to central Queenstown, Shotover Street. It did so via an international reputation and an avoidance of becoming a chain restaurant. Yeah! Rock on Ferg. The burger joint is now joined next door by Mrs Ferg Gelateria.
The order
So here’s the menu:
I doubt I could even imagine this number of burger variations, let alone do so and then deliver on the promise with actual food. The Chief Wiggum (in my opinion one of The Simpsons’ most underrated characters) caused a smile. But I went traditional; a Double Ferg with Cheddar Cheese, costing $15.50. I’m no financial advisor but $3 more for a whole other pattie seemed to me a big green tick in the economics department (omg, hardcore budgeting already implemented).
My girlfriend opted for the $14.50 Tropical Swine: New Zealand beef, streaky bacon, cheddar, pineapple, lettuce, tomato, red onion, aioli and tomato relish.
The meat of it
The food came in a paper bag heavy enough to lift respectably at the gym. My 2x patties were massive: one the size of a small frizbee, the other of a mildly disappointing pizza. All the expected ingredients (lettuce, tomato, red onion, relish) present and correct, and correctly proportioned.
This is the first burger I’ve had that brought to mind a perfectly balanced cocktail. I was expecting the much-touted meat to be the main event but while it was great, the ingredients lay in perfect symphony with each other to deliver one knockout overall taste. And all encased by the most glorious burger bap I’ve ever had. The bread! The hyperbole I could use to describe this bread…it’d be indecent. Crisp and a tad sweet at the first bite, with wholesome dough beneath the surface, the bap absorbs all the juices in the most satisfying way as you journey through the burger – like some NASA-designed food-supersponge developed exclusively for Heston Blumenthal’s signature range of edible appliances that somehow fills entirely with flavour yet never loses its form or becomes soggy.
It was miraculous. And I’ve no knowledge of Mr or Mrs Ferg or the inner workings of their personal security, but I wouldn’t not consider kidnap as a means of getting more of this bread of theirs.
We didn’t order fries because a.) we were clearly told we wouldn’t manage them b.) hellloooo, budgeting. But I did try the Tropical Swine, which was in its own realm of mind-bogglingly brilliant (the bacon thin, salty and very crispy, the pineapple fresh and not distractingly sweet). In the interest of delivering a balanced review, I should point out that I didn’t get two free gelatos in honour of Ferg’s 15th birthday (despite technically ordering a double burger) – just the one. But seeing as I, in my food coma state, couldn’t even consider approaching this single free dessert, I’ll let that slide.
And for the record, this isn’t the excitement of a guest blogger getting carried away with his first burger breakdown. We passed the place the following morning, at 8:20am, and there were people queuing for burgers. At 8:20am. And, if I’d hadn’t just recovered from the meat-sweats, I would have joined them once more.
Monkey finger rating
Bun – 5/5
Build – 5/5
Burger – 4.5/5
Taste – 5/5
Sides – N/a
Value – 5/5 – £7:50ish for all this?
Fergburger doesn’t do Twitter, but if it did, it’d probably be the best Twitter account in the world. Find them on your next world tour to New Zealand: 42 Shotover Street, Queenstown 9300, New Zealand.
A good burger, let down by its seasoning and outshone by amazing sides.
Next in the series of Monday-burger-meet-ups I’ve been doing was Meat Liquor N1, the latest location in a fast-expanding network of high-end, highly stylized craft burger eateries. The N1 venue is new, not busy on a Monday, and confusing in the extreme; tucked away in a back-alley, made to look like a converted auto-garage from the outside (maybe it is?), and very easily confused with some kind of dystopian post-apocalyptic meeting spot. The décor and atmosphere instilled excitement, but perhaps it was just literally years of hype on how great Meat Liquor was that got me worked up about it.
Burger source:
Founded by Yianni Papoutis in a street food truck in 2009, the “Meat” brand has grown from strength to strength; starting with a residency in a pub, moving into pop-ups and, since 2011, with real locations in London and beyond. The N1 site is the newest in the family, and carries an amazing atmosphere; something like an ‘end of the world’ party being hosted by a bunch of people who have a dastaradly apocalypse escape plan, drinking cocktails and eating dead cattle even as the zombies horded down through the alleys of Islington, in search of human prey. A kind of ‘restaurant at the end of the universe’, but with stylings of 90’s video game Resident Evil (not the 2000s movie franchise). Anyway, I loved that aspect of it.
The order
Determined to keep trying the ‘specials’ and excited at the prospect of the mustard-based sauce in MeatLiquor’s ‘Dead Hippie’ burger (I’m a big fan of In-n-Out’s ‘Animal Style’ burgers), it was the obvious choice. Meat Liquor’s menu describes it as: “2x French’s mustard-fried beef patties, Dead Hippie sauce™, lettuce, cheese, pickles, minced white onions).” Apparently French’s sponsors it.
I’d also heard beyond-mad ravings about Meat Liquor’s Monkey Fingers – fried chicken breast strips in a crispy batter, rolled in a good amount of buffalo sauce. And of course, fried pickles, onion rings and chilli fries were hard to resist.
Not being a beer fan, I washed it down with a ‘Space Gin Smash’ – perfect for a Monday night – Bombay sapphire gin, fresh lemon juice, apple juice, elderflower cordial, mint & grapes. Suffice it to say that for a man of my (sweet, sweet) tastes, it was delicious.
The meat of it:
The two patties weighed in about 3-4oz each, were fried to a perfect medium, and made from a fairly lush meat blend that melted in your mouth. The bun, a muscular white roll, has the perfect combination of softness and bite. The pickles – a good amount of tartness but managing that elegant balance between crisp and pliant.
And that’s where it went wrong.
I *LOVE* the In & Out Double Double Animal Style, on which I have read this burger is styled. However, whether I had a poor experience on the night or there’s something gone wrong with the recipe, I could not say. A repeat experience may be called for to provide a more scientific basis for my assessment. The ‘Dead Hippie’ sauce lacked for flavour, the minced onions were barely evident, the cheese relatively flavourless. A perfect textural experience was let down by inadequate seasoning and flavour combinations. The ineffable Mr Knock tells me that the French’s sponsorship may have let the side down, but again – I am not qualified to comment.
It felt like the American cheese let it down; like some crisp bacon was needed to umami-up the experience and make it something more than it was. As it was – after all the hype (Meat Liquor in many ways has defined the burger renaissance London is experiencing today) – it was a disappointment. I had food envy for Damo’s bacon cheeseburger, and I almost never envy Damo anything. So this was, indeed, a shame. Don’t get me wrong, the burger wasn’t bad – perfect meat, perfectly cooked, excellent bun, good pickle. But the overall burger flavour was disappointing.
Monkey Fingers in Foreground (YUM!) and circlets of oniony goodness bringing up the rear. Dead hippies in soft focus.
However… the sides told a different story, on the whole. The monkey fingers – delicious. Buttery and slick with buffalo sauce yet somehow incredibly crisp, they had an excellent balance of heat and crunch whilst maintaining perfectly cooked, juicy chicken breast strips within. The blue cheese sauce was a thick, delicious moderating influence on the mild heat.
The onion rings arrived with a satisfying crunch covering a thick circlet of sweet white onion. The chilli fries were less impressive, a bowl of likely once-proud, once-crisp fries drowned somewhat in a (respectably) spicy, somewhat gungey chilli. I suspect it was an excellent example for what it was, but didn’t add a great deal to the meal for me.
Deep fried pickles. OMG.
I feel I need to return to Meat Liquor, to try a different burger or perhaps even resample the Dead hippie and establish if this one-off experience was an anomaly; after all, there are many who continue to rave about the burger as the best they’ve ever had. To me, it’s a distant runner-up to Lucky Chip, Dirty Burger, and even the White Ferry House’s fayre. But those are reviews for another day…
Monkey finger rating
Bun – 5/5
Build – 4/5
Burger – 4/5
Taste – 2.5/5
Sides – 4.5/5
Value – 4/5. £20 a head with a cocktail felt reasonable.
Burger rating – 3/5 I’m going back. But it’ll be hard to order the Dead Hippie again; I may have to chance the Bacon Cheeseburger or even the Buffalo Chicken Burger next time around.
The deets
There are Meat Liquors all up and down the country now. Find your local one here, or visit the N1 one here. They Tweet here.
Burger Source 