Tag: review

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.

Jones the Grocer, Terminal 2, Heathrow

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Dry, overpriced cardboard with undercooked fries

Burger source 

Not gonna lie – we were disappointed that T2 didn’t offer the delights of Wagamama. Dubious as it is as a source of authentic East Asian cuisine, my kids love it and I will basically be delighted with almost any variation on a katsu curry. But options at T2 for a proper hot meal are relatively limited and it was this, a pub, or an airport grade “smokehouse”. So we went to Jones the Grocer.

The order 

The burgers people were eating looked great. And I was drawn in by the marketing materials around the venue. So the ultimate mr. jones it was – a brisket and wagyu beef burger, topped with streaky bacon, mixed leaves, cheddar, a seeded bun, skin-on fries, and served with something called a bois boudran sauce (apparently ketchup, worcester sauce and shallots – though I’ve read of variants including tabasco, vinegar and other eccentricities).

The meat of it 

Let’s take a look.

So far, so decent. Salad in the right place, good melt on the cheese, intriguing looking bun, skin on fries… I’m not regretting my life choices, yet. Did it last?

It did not. The bun wasn’t particularly airy and flattened on contact with a knife. The meat is dryer than the sun and practically breaks in half, despite its coarse grind. It’s a double patty in there but there’s no cheese between the smash burgers (rookie error), and way too much on top. The (streaky?) bacon looks flaccid and pale; the leaves token and sad.

Let’s not judge a book by its cover though; first taste.

Oh no, this book was exactly as bad as it looked. The meat doesn’t melt in your mouth, it sort of crumbles in dry, mealy mouthfuls with each bite. The cheese has an acrid taste; like it was a sharp cheddar that had grown an unhealthy amount of pinmould on its surface before it was melted over the burger, the process entirely failing to mask the sharp sourness of the decay at all. The bun is inoffensive; the bacon adds unwanted salty flavour over the cheese and the fancy ketchup is nowhere to be found. If not for the fact that I wanted to be full up before the flight, and I’m incapable of wasting food and at this point too British to send it back, I would have left it fully uneaten.

Redeemed by those tasty looking fries in any way?

No. Not even a little bit. The majority had the harsh bite of raw potato; they were underseasoned and undercooked, and most went uneaten.

I think I got unlucky though; the kids burgers (similar in every way but less fancy) were apparently good, and their fries were well cooked. But goddamn it, Jones, for £19 you’d expect better, even at the airport.

Monkey finger rating  

Bun –  3/5  
Build – 4/5 
Burger – 0/5 
Taste –  1/5 – there are tastier hockey pucks, I suspect
Sides – 1/5 – undercooked and unseasoned   
Value – 1/5 – you won’t want to eat after this. And possibly not during it.  

Burger rating – 0.5/5 – the presentation was nice? 

The deets 

If you’re at terminal 2, I very much recommend you don’t have this. Some of the other dishes looked better but looks are clearly deceiving.

Heard Burgers, Flat Iron Square, London

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Delicious, distinctive smash burger

Burger source 

This is the eco-friendly, posh-ish take on the smash burger by michelin-starred chef Jordan Bailey.

This is how they describe their ambitions:

Heard was born out of Jordan Bailey ’s desire to make an everyday classic exceptional. Two Michelin-starred chef, Jordan uses his expertise and relationships with top suppliers to make burgers that are deceptively simple yet made with the same care and precision as a Michelin-starred dish.

Creating the perfect burger starts with the ingredients – and we only use the best. All produce is ethically and locally sourced – a transparent supply chain from farm to bite.

Our British beef comes from a cooperative of regenerative farms. Aged for a minimum of 35 days, for the ultimate texture and taste.

Sounds regeneratalicious? Wait and see.

The order 

It was a tough choice. My usual rule is to find something that as closely as possible resembles a cheese and bacon burger, and have that as the reliable benchmark. But, somewhat ostentatiously (and to the possible tears of Uncle Roger), there is only bacon jam available at this fine establishment. So I went for the eponymous “The Heard” – apparently Jordan’s Pick, The OG! Which comes replete with Jalapeño hot honey, Ogleshield [cheese], white onion, their secret Heard sauce and pickles. I’m not writing Heard with a fullstop after it because it’s just too much. For a side, I went for the also eponymous Heard fries,
seasoned with Heard beef fat and herb salt. I have not experienced tallow as a seasoning before – let’s see if I’m, erm, here for it.

The meat of it 

Let’s have a look.

Was the first thing you noticed how small the patties were relative to the bun? Because that was the first thing I noticed. But the second thing I noticed was that the two, crisp patties were coated with a gooey melt of Ogleshield, and the fries look absolutely perfect – crisp, hot, well-seasoned. The orange-red hue of the Heard sauce – also looked spot on.

In cross section (via chomp, not knife as there was no cutlery provided, not even for ready money…. although possibly there was, we didn’t offer any readies)… well, you can see the perfect melt of the cheese continue. The double, crisp and crinkly patty smash made up of coarse ground, dry-aged beef. The chunks of pickle, the drip of tallow and hot honey, the light toasting of the bun, the fine grain and airiness in said bun… there’s very little else to fault aesthetically.

First bite (well, third by this point but who’s counting?) – every bit leaves you the foundational structure of the bread, the umami and slight funk of the beef, accompanied by a light crunch; the sharp, acidic savouriness of the oglefield; a hint of sweetness from the honey and pickle, alongside a crisp freshness from the latter, backed by a soupcon of heat. It’s an absolutely glorious combination and only really limited by the bun-to-bread ratio – this little fella is chunkier than it looks and will not leave you hungry.

Especially not when accompanies by the Heard fries. These are a glorious thing; crunchy on the outside, squidgy in the middle; despite somehow being seasoned with tallow, these are dry – none of the greasiness of chip shop chips. Perfectly seasoned; glorious dunked in the sweet/savoury Heard sauce (think – big mac sauce but better in every way).

It’s a simply glorious combination, well executed. I’ll forgive all the ostentation in the website copywriting – go to Heard, you will not spend a better £17 on a burger and fries. My only complaint (which I did voice) was that the Heard sauce needed to come in bigger tubs.

Monkey finger rating  

Bun –  4.5/5 – oversized but otherwise perfect in every way
Build – 4.5/5 – per aforementioned bun comment, and perhaps a smidge too much sharp cheese
Burger – 4.5/5 – a fine, fine smashburger 
Taste – 4.5/5 – so close to perfect  
Sides – 5/5 – these very possibly take the crown for best fries in London   
Value – 4.5/5 – £17 for a burger this good and fries this extraordinary, generously proportioned in the case of the latter, is a fair price in these inflationary times. Well done the (posh) lad.  

Burger rating – 5/5 – I’m giving Heard > than sum of its points scoring. 

The deets 

It’s just round the corner from Flat Iron Square, between London Bridge and Southwark tubes. You could miss it, as I did, but keep walking where Google tells you to and you’ll get close. Or find it via their website, here.

Bleeding Heart Tavern, Hatton Garden, Farringdon

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Slightly overcooked but tasty, chunky burger

Burger source

The Tavern Wine Bar & Grill is a city staple and offers a decent gastropub-style selection of food, which I think you might classify as ‘modern European.’ The restaurant had a fab atmosphere and brilliant service and was a lovely place to celebrate a few colleagues moving on to new things, and a great chance to catch up with our former chief crochet officer, Josie.

Naturally I was tempted by their take on the burger.

The order

The Tavern’s 6 oz Scotch beef burger was served on a toasted sourdough bun, with red onion marmalade, Gruyère cheese, dill gherkin & tomato. I had a side of “Truffled” fries (I did not realise we were doing truffle as a verb, but I’m unexpectedly here for it). Because we were doing starters, I went for a Morteau sausage, served with puy lentils and a mustard sauce, which I’ll handle with the ‘sides’ to keep consistency with my review format and avoid throwing my sense of order to the wolves.

The meat of it

Let’s take a look.

It’s good plating – tidy, well stacked. The bun, toasted on both sides is… unexpected, and you can see a good melt to the cheese. The fries look crisp and the coating of shaved Parmesan – well, you can’t go wrong with fresh Parmesan, though it can be too much. BUT WAS IT? We’ll get there, be patient.

First, an accidental close up of the burger and the obligatory cross section shot:

The close up shows the beautiful melt on the Gruyère. The cross section shows the elegant stack, a layer of unadvertised lettuce along the base alongside the promised tomato, peeking slightly unobtrusively out from amongst it, the LONG, long dill pickles (more on this shortly) and the meat… which is decidedly not medium, as I was promised, but very close to well done. It is also surprisingly densely packed. Will it suffer for it?

First bite… and it’s good. The meat is juicy despite being overdone, and there’s char coming through from both the bun and the crust of the patty. It’s subtle and pleasant; no dry aged funk, just straightforward, high quality beef with an (un)healthy fat/lean ratio. The patty is well seasoned, the Gruyère adds bind without much flavour, but the burger sauce/mayo/whatever’s in with the salad adds a pleasant salty gooey-ness that helps bind it all together. The pickle is pleasant but indistinct and rather too large – you have to be careful to not have it sliding out in its large, long slices, and I’m silently wishing they’d just cut it into discs like Maccers does.

The ‘marmalade’ – relish by any other name – provides the sweet balance to the umami mouth punch of the rest of the burger, giving good balance to it. The sourdough provides structure and stability and pleasant starchiness. It’s a good combo, that would have been improved with a bit more crunch from somewhere (bacon? Crispy onions?) for that textural contrast I value so much, and just slightly less time on the grill for a pinker finish. And if I’m being brutal, a looser pack on the patty to make it just a tad less robust. The whole was definitely greater than the sum of its parts, and the heft of the 6oz patty means this will leave you pleasantly full.

As to the fries and the sausage? Well you can see the fries above, but let’s get to the sausage ‘Morteau’:

I did ask what Morteau was, and it was described as a ‘smoked sausage’. If you’re thinking that looks like slices of a Matheson’s sausage, you’d be spot on. But it’s denser and richer, and the puy lentil and mustard sauce are done perfectly, providing a surprisingly delicate counterpoint to the salty, garlicky, smoky sausage. It’s lovely.

The fries… were a little disappointing. Even without the caveat that I don’t love truffle (but I prefer fries to the chunky chips on offer elsewhere on the menu). Disappointing because they weren’t fully cooked (some of the fries were decidedly undercooked), and because the combination of a healthy amount of seasoning, Parmesan and truffle flavour led to a confusing profile. It was simultaneously just a bit much… and not enough.

Monkey finger rating

Bun –  4/5 – good but unexceptional
Build – 4/5 – curse you, pickle slices!
Burger – 4/5 – more pink, less pack
Taste –  4/5 – solid
Sides – 4/5 – deduction for fries redeemed by quality sausage 
Value – 4/5 – £22 for burger and fries, £30 with sausage, plus service plus drinks – feels sensible if unexceptional value for a nice burger in a nice restaurant.

Burger rating – 4/5 – I would go back here, though I’d like to try some of the other excellent looking food next time.

The deets

Just a few minutes from Farringdon station, make sure you know whether you’re going to the Bistro or the restaurant – we did the latter. Find out more here.

The Gourmet Burger Club, The Strand, London

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Well put together halal (?) smashburger

Burger source 

I must admit, I’ve been curious as to how the Gourmet Burger Club has avoided intellectual property suits from whoever owns Gourmet Burger Kitchen today… but the concept – and the delivery – is very different. The London location is super central – right on the Strand – but it wasn’t born here, starting in Banstead… then Cobham before reaching London. The founder explains their origin story on the website and it’s rather charming:

” In 2020, when people had run out of spirit and were bound to their homes, I was sitting by my window thinking how I could help in restoring the spirit and bringing a smile on people’s faces during these dark times. So, I went into my kitchen and started to experiment with flavours and ingredients. This is where Gourmet Burger Club was born.”

It goes on a bit after that. But lovely nonetheless. Anyway: it was a convenient place to meet a friend who works nearby, and easy to get back to Waterloo after, and we thought we’d give it a go.

The restaurant is well appointed, clean, and a quiet pool of calm in the busy of the Strand. It is substantially upmarket from fast food, but at posh-diner vibes vs a full on restaurant. Still, no complaints – we booked, were greeted and seated quickly, and served in short order. On to the food…

The order 

I had the Lockdown 2.0, feat: a double smash patty, melted cheese, turkey bacon (hence my assuming it’s halal, because why else? I didn’t check for the Halal markings or ask unfortunate), fried onion, lettuce, mustard & BBQ Sauce. Side of curly fries (YES! Top of my fries hierarchy, don’t @ me), and 7-up Free to drink (delighted to find this on the menu, as someone that loves sweet drinks but doesn’t need sugar in his life).

The meat of it 

I like the presentation. Toasted buns, melty cheese, even distribution of bacon, salad in the right place in the burger… and the fries look well-seasoned and cooked, if the obligatory metal basket wasn’t as full as I would have hoped for. Let’s see if it holds up in cross section…

This is basically most of what I’m looking for in a double smash burger. The presentation is pretty much perfect – all toppings perfectly layered. The bun holds up to the greasiness of the burger (you can see a shimmer of it on the plate), whilst retaining the softness you’d want in each bite. The turkey bacon, controversially (?), sits between the patties. I’m not sure if this is genius or there’s a reason people don’t normally do this, but I appreciate the innovation nonetheless.

First bite… brilliant umami, excellent mouthfeel. The meat is uncomplicated – none of the dry-age funk you get with fancy meats – but the blend is excellent, the seasoning is on point, the melty cheese compliments beautifully. The extra flavour from the turkey bacon works well (though it’s not fooling anyone that knows the taste of actual bacon, it is a good substitute). Another bite and you get into the BBQ sauce – which is very well balanced and successfully tamps down the savouriness elsewhere, as do pockets of sweet fried onions, cut super fine and merging in with the BBQ sauce beautifully.

I search for notes and I find them – the BBQ sauce is a bit too meanly portioned, so the balance of the burger is slightly off – not enough sweet to edge off the salt. The onions should be more generously portioned too, to further help temper the savoury taste. I found myself dunking the burger in some ketchup on my plate to manage the balance. And I would perhaps have liked the burger fried in a little bit of mustard, to give it a bit more… bite, though that is just be the In & Out fan in me. But these are minor – on the whole, this is an excellent smashburger.

Monkey finger rating  

Bun –  4.5/5  – little to complain about!
Build – 4.5/5 – More sauce! Weird bacon positioning!
Burger – 4/5 – less salt! 
Taste –  4/5  – more sauce/onions
Sides – 4/5 – more fried! more fries!
Value – 4/5 – £18 for burger and side, ish.   

Burger rating – 4/5 – would have this again, or try one of the variants. My friend had the spicy club, which he found very good also! 

The deets 

Find all three locations of the Gourmet Burger Club here, or order via Deliveroo if you’re in range.

Mother Flipper, Seven Dials, Covent Garden

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Excellent meat, middling to good toppings

Burger source 

Mother Flipper is on so many best burger lists, for so many good reasons it was exciting to check it out. The Seven Dials website (where the street food burger has a permanent residency) describes it thusly:

Brace yourself for thick, juicy patties, handcrafted from a blend of 28-day aged cuts, grilled to perfection, and topped with flavours of your choice. Slap that patty on a decadent brioche bun, then stack it high with lettuce, pickles, and onions. In the kingdom of London burgers, many declare that Mother Flipper wear the crown.

Let’s GO.

The order 

I had the ‘Candied Bacon Flipper’, feat their aged beef patty, candy bacon, ketchup, mustard, lettuce, red onion, pickle and american cheese. We shared a fries, at £4.95 for a health portion, as well as a ranch and spicy mayo sauce pot for dunkin’.

#YOLO?

I’m too old to know if I used that right. Tell me in the comments.

The meat of it 

Right, it’s decent presentation. Pretty stack, lovely glossy brioche, crisp looking fries, generous sauce pots… It’s on.

Time for a cross section:

It was quite dark in the (very busy) seven dials, so flash was required… but wow, look what it showed. Brilliant, coarse ground beef, cooked medium. Perfect melt on the cheese. The candied bacon (check out their Insta/Facebook pages to see how they make it, drizzling it in syrup and leaving it to caramelise) generously portioned on top. The salad looks a little on the anaemic side, other than some healthy chunks of red onion, but it’s a lesser fault.

First taste.

The bun is cold. I don’t know why this offends me so much, and to be fair this might be down to the fact that – due to the crazy-busy-ness of Seven Dials market of a Tuesday evening (who ARE all these people?), we were sat about 150 yards from Mother Flipper when our buzzer went off indicating food readiness – so my plodding schlep there and back might have cooled it down, but nonetheless. It was disappointing. But – crazy amounts of flavour, alongside the back-of-your nose, back of your throat hit from the dry-aged beef. The meat is delicious, heavily seasoned, well coated in the melty cheese, and well supported by the (intemperate) bun.

Second bite, and third, and the candied bacon and brioche, alongside the (meagre) ketchup portion provide a counterpoint to the salt bomb that this burger is, but not quite enough of one – chef went just a tad heavy with the salt shaker. The pickles and sauce are decent but could be more generously portioned – and I’d have liked more salad and onion too, just to balance the ratio of sweet, fresh, crisp, vs unguent, savoury umami. Just a tad off balance as it was made onight.

As to the fries… and the SAUCE.

These are lightly seasoned (would have liked some salt on the side to top them up, ironically), crisp, fresh fries. They had a good potato flavour and were brilliant dunked in the lightly spiced mayo (think mayo + a glug of sriracha) and the creamy ranch. The ranch was good but… needed fried chicken, really, it wasn’t the best compliment to the fries on its own.

Overall, a really good experience. Imperfect, but just a few minor notes and this could have been close to [chef’s kiss].

Monkey finger rating  

Bun –  4/5  – did I mention it was cold?
Build – 5/5 – more salad. More sauce!
Burger – 4/5 – less salt! 
Taste –  4/5  
Sides – 4/5 – more salt!   
Value – 4/5 – £17 for burger and side, ish. Which is about the going rate.  

Burger rating – 4/5 – would definitely be keen to go again. 

The deets 

Find Mother Flipper at Seven Dials near Covent Garden, or in Brockley. More details here.

Grind, Broadgate Circle, Liverpool Street

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A posh McD’s double cheeseburger

Burger source 

I’ve popped into the Grind in both London Bridge and Liverpool Street a couple of times now; they are both vibey places with great drinks, good service and what looked like good food. When I met with a former colleague there to catch up on life and work and beyond, it seemed like a shame to not see if the burger lived up to the other positive attributes of the venue.

The order 

The Grind cheeseburger is served with dijonnaise, crispy shallots, pickle and skin-on fries. Let’s check it out.

The meat of it 

To the picture, maestro!

Two simultaneous first thoughts 1/ decent presentation and 2/ did they overtoast the bun? Followed by my admiration of the cheese melt, a bubbly feeling of pleasant surprise that the burger featured a double smash patty, and the glimpses of fresh pickle around the edges. Let’s see the cross section now.

Well, it’s well built – the lower bun holds up, the melt carries all the way through, the dijonaisse is evident but not overwhelming, the pickle and cheese are well dsitributed… but the bun is definitely over-toasted. It cuts with a crunch and looks dry, and also slightly crushed on service – the bun isn’t soft enough to spring back to shape after handling. The patties also look somewhat overdone, though it is hard to tell with smash patties. Let’s see.

First taste… there’s a healthy crust on the patties, but the meat isn’t too chewy – it gives way under just the right amount of pressure, filling your mouth with a rich, savoury explosion. It’s maybe just a smidge overdone. However, it’s well seasoned and the American cheese is very reminiscent of the McDonald’s varietals, in a good way – melty, savoury, binding the flavours together. The bread has a bit of crunch and chew – it is dried out from its run-in with the toaster and slightly disappointing. Second bite, and I found the djonnaise; it brings a little texture but no heat, with a light, creamy underside providing additional umami. The pickles struggled to cut through against the salt of cheese, beef and dijonnaise, but they did bring a light, bright crisp sweetness if you were looking for it – though definite room for improvement here too. A few more bites and I’m dipping it in ketchup – something is needed to cut through the salt explosion. The balance is just slightly off – salt, salt, salt, salt and crunch – and that’s your burger.

The fries – are exceptional. Skin on, medium cut but crispy, filled with soft, fluffy potato, perfectly crispy and well paired with the pots of mayo and ketchup. Not much else to report.

All in, with a couple of drinks, it came to about £27 including service a head. Pretty reasonable for the location (right behind Liverpool Street station) and the quality, given what inflation seems to have done to burgers in the main.

On the whole, I recommend this – I’d probably add ketchup and mayonnaise into the burger myself next time, to balance the salt, and ask them to just toast the bun on one side to soften the bun.

Monkey finger rating  

Bun –  2.5/5
Build – 4/5 
Burger – 4/5 
Taste –  3.5/5  
Sides – 5/5 – close to perfect   
Value – 4/5 – £17 for burger and side, which is apparently decent now.  

Burger rating – 3.5/5 – less burnt bun, better managed sweet/salty contrast, improved cook on the beef, and higher quality, sweeter, fresher pickles would earn this the remaining points.

The deets 

There are a few Grinds around, in the city and in the E/SE of London. Find your nearest here.

Red Dog Saloon, Berwick St, Soho

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Hefty, chewy, tasty burger option

Burger source 

Red Dog Saloon purports to be all about ‘Austin, Tx’ BBQ, but the menu features Buffalo Wings (Buffalo, New York), Philadelphia Cheesesteak (famously from Philadelphia), Po Boys (Louisiana), Nashville Hot Wings (guess?), St Louis Pork Rib (at a loss as to where this one is from)… so, well… maybe all the food that’s from elsewhere in the USA is terrible? Regardless, I went for a burger, of which there are a grotesque multitude, with toppings as varied as fried egg, cheese whiz, habanero peppers, mozzarella sticks and onion rings. All the burgers come in multiples of 5oz patties, going single, double, XL (presumably a triple?) and double XL (perhaps a quad, or 20oz of beef).

I’m a fan of simpler choices, here…

The order 

…so went for the standard cheeseburger, featuring fresh cut onion, American cheese, homemade dill pickle, baby gem, and their eponymous red dog sauce. I added bacon, because, as the young people in 2010 said, YOLO.

We shared a side of fries (it was lunchtime, after all).

The meat of it 

Let’s take a look.

I almost immediately regretted going for a double, as their singles would have been plenty. But it is a beautiful stack, resplendent with melty cheese, well charred patties, a glistening brioche and a healthy dose of fresh bright lettuce.

In cross section…

The heft of this burger is obscene. The meat is cooked well done, which is a shame, but on the plus side, it is coarse ground and loose packed. The bacon is thick cut and generously portioned, the red dog sauce is in evidence but not overwhelming, and there’s the occasional hint of pickle camouflaged in the lettuce.

First taste… you are slammed with flavour; the red dog sauces reminded me of In & Out’s animal style toppings, adding moisture, light spice and smoothing out the salty tang of melty cheese, well seasoned beef and chewy, moreish bacon. The patty is tough – overcooked and chewy – but good quality meat, albeit uncomplicated. None of the pungency of dry-aging, no 11 herbs and spices – simple, well seasoned, yum. The salad was a crisp and necessarily bland compliment, helping balance the umami, and the pickles – well, I could have done with more pickles given the quantity of meat. Again, my mistake for not just getting a single. Not bad at all, in all.

The fries…

Despite their pale-ness, these were crisp and well seasoned, with a good fluffy exterior. Solid, but unexceptional, and a pleasant complement. I’m glad we shared these as the burger was just mahoosive (I believe that’s the technical term) and these could probably have been left as surplus to requirements had we not been feeling greedy.

Soft drinks as sides (this was a lunch meet, after all), so nothing exciting to report there.

Monkey finger rating  

Bun –  4.5/5  
Build – 4/5 
Burger – 3.5/5 
Taste –  3.5/5  
Sides – 4/5 – solid   
Value – 4/5 – £26 for double burger, shared fries and soft drink each in Soho, £52 in total. Not outrageous  

Burger rating – 4/5 – whilst individual components left bits to be desired, the whole was enjoyable. Would go again, order a single, ask them to be more generous with the pickles, and attempt to order it medium… 

The deets 

There’s a few around. Find a convenient one at the Red Dog Saloon website. 

Fallow, Haymarket, London

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Tasty but flawed – and expensive

Burger source 

Fallow‘s conceit is that is a place where “culinary creativity meets hospitality experience and passion.” That’s certainly how the menu is constructed, with inspired combinations of food and flavour on practically every plate, and the service was pretty excellent. Meat is a key attribute if not a defining feature of the menu, and the two “dairy cow” meat burgers on offer (one with rarebit cheese and shortrib, one with bacon, cheese & shallot alone)  stared temptingly at me. Why dairy cow meat? I didn’t ask, and the internet is awash with confusing answers. Some say a milder, less pronounced flavour, others say its inferior, others say there are some breeds where it tastes better. This one? Wait and see.

The order 

We shared (dairy) beef short rib to start (£13 buys you two), and then all had the dairy cow burger (feat, aged dairy cow, bacon, shallot, cheese, brioche bun, £19), and Koffman fries (£7). As you can see, the prices are not for the faint hearted.

The meat of it 

Let’s take a look.

Well, it’s rather fetching. The brioche bun seems to have crisped off the baking sheet, the lettuce looks fresh and inviting, the cheese (American?) seems to have the most glorious melt and ‘fallow’ is branded into the top bun.

In cross section…

Some good, some concerning things become apparent. First – the meat – coarse ground, tender to the point of melting at room temperature, pink with what seems to be a good crust. The cheese melt maintains confidence; the bacon doesn’t seem enormously evident and the shallots… are confusing.

Let’s peek under the bun.

I normally wouldn’t bother with this view but when eating the first half of the burger, I couldn’t taste any bacon. And this explains it – a small rectangle of bacon is all that’s in evidence here, and you can see the uneven distribution of the shallots too. Minus points for assembly and toppings, I think.

As to taste – this is, after all, the important thing…. the first bite is luxuriantly tender, the culinary equivalent of a goose down pillow, giving way to the lightest pressure with the barest of resistance. The cheese – definitely some variant of processed American – provides unguent umami, flavour and binding texture all in one. The bun provides starchy counterbalance but the bottom half is sodden and imploding in the juices from this very fatty patty. It’s not bad, but a second bite (with less cheese and no bacon) draws attention to the slight underseasoning and the lack of a crunch in the crust. Perhaps a feature of the dairy cow meat, there’s no textural contrast in the burger – it’s all soft – and the flavour, despite the dry ageing, is mild – without the funk you might expect from dry-aged cattle that’s been reared for its meat. The crunch, unexpectedly, comes from the shallots, which seem mildly pickled and provide a sour-sweetness and light crunch – not unpleasant, but I’d have preferred a more traditional gherkin/burger pickle, ideally something “home made” in a sweet brine. And when I eventually find the bacon – it’s a good compliment, a mild bacon that pairs well with the extremely salty cheese. The whole is well balanced – a good thing given the absence of any burger sauce, relish or other sauce I could detect, this could easily have tipped over into dead-sea levels of oversalted. But the bacon lacks any crunch – either sodden by the pickles and burger juices, or just too thick cut to crunch like American streaky bacon can (at its – debatable I’m sure – best).

It’s good, in all. Not great, and unsure if it is worth £19 plus 15% service (yep).

As to the sides/starters…

The glazed dairy cow baby back ribs look sumptuous, and just as well at £6.50 a rib. It’s hard to know what to expect but the tender, melt-off the bone meat speaks to a perfected cooking process. The flavour is all salt – its like it’s been marinaded then stewed in marmite; the flavour is not subtle at all. A single rib was plenty to start – any more and you might have had to ask for BBQ sauce…

Google tells me that the ‘Koffman’ in ‘Koffman fries’ refers to the potatoes used for chipping, and I wish I’d spent more time considering the potato texture and flavour now because honestly you’re kind of blown away by the seasoning. A mix of smoked paprika, salt, and maybe garlic or onion powder – I’m guessing from memory – these fries are crisp on the outside, soft and fluffy on the inside, and more generously portioned than it might looks. The savoury blast is immense, which seems a running theme of this menu, and I was glad of ketchup and mayo dunking pots to take the edge off. Good, all told.

To drink, I had the somewhat confounding rhubarb and custard spritz (£15) – feat No.3 gin, rhubarb, yogurt and vanilla. You’d be forgiven for expecting something at least somewhat creamy, but no, it was this (right):

The ping tinged drink is served short, in a glass flecked with rhubarb powder, which is irritating and keeps needing to be wiped off sticky fingers. It has a sweet/sour flavour that’s entirely pleasant, and a light carbonation that lifts the drink and establishes its place in a Summer drinks pantheon. It’s refreshing and light and very tasty. A couple of my friends had the frozen margarita – £14, served from a slushy machine – which was apparently very good also.

All told – a very pleasant experience of a Summer’s evening on the edge of Theatreland. It was definitely expensive – £60 a head all told – but I think if you’re less of a philistine than we are and after some of the more creative cuisine on offer, then it might have been a better all round experience. The hard sought reservation for burgers? Probably overkill. Though a couple of my friends ranked it amongst the best we’ve had on one of these evening excursions… I’m left feeling nostalgic for the Lord Wargrave pub.

Monkey finger rating  

Bun –  4/5  – soggy bottom
Build – 2.5/5 – uneven toppings, meagre bacon, middling shallots
Burger – 4/5 – slightly underseasoned, undercrusted
Taste –  4/5  – the whole was better than the sum of its parts
Sides – 4.5/5 – Herr Koffman, I salute you
Value – 3/5 – maybe not great value for burgers. 

Burger rating – 4/5 – it was good, but I’m honestly not in a hurry to have it again 

The deets 

Find it a little more than halfway down Haymarket towards the Mall; pop into the Haymarket Hotel bar for a digestif as we did and it’s a lovely way to spend a summer evening with friends. But I’d probably have something other than the burger, despite its positive attributes.

The Breakfast Club, Southwark Street, London

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Small but perfectly formed

Burger source 

The Breakfast Club – proud purveyors of comfort food – is round the corner from my previous workplace, and I’d always looked into its crowded space when I went past hoping to be the kind of person who is organised enough to book a table at the popular breakfast/burger spot, but never had the wherewithal to do so. Meeting up with an old friend nearby, we  strolled past and found it nearly empty and so seized the opportunity.

The restaurant itself – has café/diner vibes (it’s a caf, full stop, says its website) combined with a touch of speakeasy (there’s a password protected – literally – bar underneath the main restaurant). Menus are simple and options are limited, service is homely and brisk, and there’s a small – but decent – cocktail suggestion hinting at more to come downstairs. It was… cosy, in the low lighting, a nice respite from the summer rains spitting around irrepressibly outside.

The order 

I had the bacon and applewood burger, which came with fresh lettuce, tomato, pickles, crisp bacon, smoked red cheddar, spicey roasted jalapenos, smashed ‘brown’ (hash brown?) pickled red onions bacon on the standard patty, all enclosed in a brioche bun and basted with ‘virgin mary’ mayo. We shared sides – £7 for two – corn ribs and fries. A club mai tai was my drink of choice.

The meat of it 

First look – it’s a well made, fairly conventional looking diner-style burger. Controversially (for things that pass as controversial in the worlds of burger tasting and emoji design) the salad is atop the bacon, not protecting the lower bun from the meat juices. There’s a good melt on the cheese, a robust hash brown sits in the middle of it all, the salad looks bright and fresh, the crisp bacon is peeking out the side, and the bun has good height and a reassuring glisten.

In cross section… the melt is even more evident, as is the modest scale of the patty itself relative to the toppings. The generosity in the cheese serving is also clear, and the softness of the bun.

First bite, and I’m instantly hit with the salty umami of the cheese, the savoury crisp of the bacon, and sweet brine from the pickle. A gentle burn emerges, presumably from the tabasco in the virgin mary sauce, possibly from the jalapeno. It’s actually a delightful contrast, and far from seeming stingy, the ratios are perfectly balanced. The patty – not quite crisp enough to be a smashburger, perhaps, again seems fairly diner-standard, but is perfectly seasoned, and in combination with the fresh, sweet salad, gives a delightful mouthful in every bite. The cheese is sharp and unguent, not quite as melty as American slices, but adding mouthfeel and saltness with every bite. The hash brown adds a small amount of crunch and a good amount to the mass and ratios in the burger.

To the last bite, this was a delight. Really a brilliant balance of standard burger construction. The bun – despite the lack of shielding from the burger – held up to the end. Highly recommend.

On the sides… the corn ribs (3 to a basket, a bit pricey) were fine but not surprising – just a standard corn in the cob cut into pieces for lols and fashion. They hadn’t take the opportunity to crisp it on the grill and add texture, or season and add flavour, so it really was just a pretty decent, but very standard corn (off the) cob. The fries – perfectly cooked, brilliantly seasons, crisp and fresh with starchy potato flavour in every bite – were also nigh on perfect.

The mai tai – was faultless. Sweet and sharp, perfectly balanced, a sweet dream in a glass. I’m not a mai tai pro but suspect that all their cocktails are solid.

Monkey finger rating  

Bun –  5/5  
Build – 5/5 – in spite of the positioning of the salad, it looked and worked perfectly.
Burger – 4.5/5 – really with the toppings it was a perfect mouthful every time 
Taste –  4.5/5  – hard to fault
Sides – 4/5 – bigger portion and more creative corn ribs would have earned this a 5
Value – 3/5 – £19.50 for burger and two sides, ish, feels a lot given the size of everything, but I might just be in denial about the cost of living. Add on £10 for the cocktail and service… not a cheap night out

Burger rating – 4.5/5 – Very close to an ideal burger, of the type. Would recommend. 

The deets 

Minutes from London Bridge and slightly more minutes to Southwark, this is on a bustling corner opposite one of the exits from Borough Market. Well worth a stop in; the pancakes looked lush too.