salad – Burger Source

The Plimsoll, Finsbury Park, London N4

August 5, 2025August 6, 2025Posted in Gourmety, london, Pub, Restaurant, ReviewsTagged aioli, beef, brioche, burger, burger sauce, burgers, cheese, cheeseburger, dexter, Finsbury Park, fried potatoes, greens, london, north london, pickle, pickles, Pub, restaraunt, review, Reviews, salad, the plimsollLeave a comment

Possibly perfect cheeseburger

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The Plimsoll is on so many ‘best burger’ reviews it’s almost obscene that it’s taken me nearly a decade of my burger gastronomic adventure to get out there. But thanks to an invite from local resident and corporate affairs industry watcher, Helen Dunne, I had a good reason to discover quite how accessible Finsbury Park is from Central London and give the gastro-pubbed refurb of the old, Auld (it used to be the Auld Triangle, so that was a pun), Irish pub and its famous ‘Dexter’ cheeseburger. Which I’m told is named for the Irish cow breed used for its meat, not the storied serial killer…

The pub is apparently under the management of chefs Jamie Allan and Ed McIlroy, who previously ran a pop up called the Four Legs @ the Compton Arms elsewhere in North London. But I couldn’t find a website, so blame me for citing a three year old Guardian article if I have this wrong…

The order

If you want chips, this is the wrong place to be. I had the Dexter cheeseburger (beef, cheese, burger sauce, pickles, fresh onion, crispy onion, brioche – £14), and we shared a pile of ‘greens’ (it’s a Caesar salad of sorts, at £11) and ‘fried potatoes with aioli.’ (£7).

The meat of it

OMG. You can immediately see the butteriness of the bun; the double onion combo is spilling out the sides. The home made pickles speak of sweet and sour pleasure; the cheese is melted perfectly on a beautifully charred patty… and the glisten on the brioche. Wow. If looks could cause type two diabetes…

In cross section you can see the build is pretty much perfect. The plate remains clean despite the healthy amount of burger sauce that’s within, the bun is super soft but providing structure, the meat is coarse ground and the assembly precise. There’s a lot to play for.

First bite… soft bread, robust, perfectly seasoned bite to the patty and a melty, meaty centre. The sweet burger sauce and unguent, umami-rich cheese contrast beautifully, and the double onion combo gives you crisp and crunch in one. The pickle adds fresh, bright sweetness with a sour pickle edge and tastes of the summer day on which it was picked. The mouthfeel is fantastic, the flavour sublime.

It’s just a glorious combination. It feels and looks small but this thing is dense and packed with flavour. The first bite loads my hands with grease and burger sauce and I don’t even care; I switch over to cutlery to preserve my dignity and my shirt, and to draw out the luscious sensory experience. Every bite of this is like injecting pleasure into my taste buds; I don’t understand the appeal of class A drugs, but this… This I can see myself getting withdrawal symptoms from. It’s glorious.

On the sides…

I love that the salad was billed as “leaves with vinaigrette”; this felt like a loaded Caesar salad, dense with Parmesan and a slick sweet and savoury dressing – which is what you’d expect for the money. I wouldn’t exactly call it bright and fresh – this is a rich, rich salad – but it was a lovely contrast to the burger.

The potatoes – are perfectly tender and simultaneously crisp all over. I didn’t expect to love them – I LOVE chips – but they are beguiling, and provide a heft that ensures you walk away full – we didn’t finish one portion between the two of us.

Monkey finger rating

Bun – 5/5 – soft, buttery pleasure
Build – 5/5 – clinically precise, beautifully architected
Burger – 5/5 – inarguably extraordinary
Taste – 5/5 – flawless victory
Sides – 4/5 – these were great but felt a bit pricey
Value – 5/5 – it wasn’t cheap but if this is what I get, this is what I pay for.

Burger rating – 5/5 – this deserves its billing as one of the top burgers in London. Absolutely extraordinary.

The deets

It’s about 4 minutes walk from Finsbury Park tube. Take the Station Way exit. Go tomorrow; Finsbury Park is < 10 minutes from Kings X on the Victoria Line so there’s really no excuse for anyone who’s based in London.

The Cliff, Cenang Beach, Langkawi

April 4, 2024Posted in Bacon, International, RestaurantTagged beef bacon, burger, cheese, crinkle cut fries, dressing, International, langkawi, lychee, malaysia, mango, mocktail, review, salad, wagyuLeave a comment

Underwhelming pricey wagyu burger, beautiful sunset

Burger source

I hadn’t intended to order the burger. We were at a the Cliff (as in next to a cliff, not actually on a cliff), chasing sunsets on a family vacation in Langkawi, an idyllic Island near Thailand, off the coast of Malaysia. Absolutely beautiful place and we descended on the Cliff, interrogated its menu, and when a Wagyu burger appeared for RM65 (approx £11) – I thought it was worth trying.

The order

The wagyu burger – I presume named as such as they used high grade, fatty beef from Japanese (or Japanese descent) cattle – was fairly unadorned. I had it with a Lychee / Mango virgin mojito on the side, because – beach holiday!

The meat of it

Let’s take a look.

Other than the suspect dressing on the salad and the slightly pale fries, this presents well. Beautiful soft shiny bun, thick patty resting on a protective bed of lettuce, good char on the meat… promising.

In cross section – perfect pink centre of coarse ground meat contained within the beautifully charred exterior. It looks like one of the best cooked burgers I’ve ever seen. The salad is bright and fresh, there’s a melty cheese and a plant slice of beef bacon. Whilst the bread is – perhaps excessively – abundant, I have hopes…

First bite… the meat practically melts in your mouth. It’s mildly flavoured – this doesn’t carry the funkyness of a dry-aged bit of chuck – and indeed is also slightly underseasoned. The mouthfeel is good but lacks the textural contrast a strong sear offers on a different type of meat – suspect there’s just too much fat to allow for it. The vegetables add fresh crunch but lack sweetness – a fresh gherkin or two would not have gone amiss. Nor would some richer burger sauce, but on balance you can’t help but be left thinking it’s a bit of a waste of such a high grade of beef, to be used and abused in this way. I abandoned some of the bun to finish it – just too much bread unfortunately. The bun’s flavour – starchy counterbalance, solid but unexceptional. The beef bacon added salt but no texture, as is the way with beef bacon, a necessary thing in a predominantly muslim country.

The fries? Crisper and tastier than you’d expect from the pale finish, but nothing [sic] to write home about. The salad? The dressing was saccharine and sickly. Do not recommend, left it unfinished.

The unphotographed Virgin Mango and Lychee mojito? Perfectly suited to those of us with a sweet tongue. But warmed too quickly in the tropical warmth.

Monkey finger rating

Bun – 3/5 – too much bread
Build – 4/5 – reasonably well constructed
Burger – 3.5/5 – perfectly cooked, slightly underseasoned, poorly suited to the task
Taste – 3/5
Sides – 3/5 – unexceptional
Value – 3/5 – by UK standards it was cheap – by local standards, approx 2X the price of other main courses.

Burger rating – 3/5 – enjoyable to try. Would not order again.

The deets

Find the Cliff on the border between Pantai Tengah and Pantai Cenang on the SW tip of Langkawi. More at the website here. The food was just OK all around, but the sunset was glorious.

Bodean’s BBQ, 10 Poland Street, Soho

August 9, 2017Posted in london, Restaurant, ReviewsTagged Bacon, bodeans, burger, chewy, raw fries, salad, smokehouse, steakhouse, tomatoLeave a comment

Competent, if unexceptional, burger

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Privately held Bodean’s was founded by Canadian Andre Blais, who, mysteriously, had a dream of bringing Kansas city style BBQ to London. An obvious dream for a Canadian, some might say, whilst others wonder what that’s all aboot, eh? Regardless, the arrival of Bodean’s at its first site on Poland Street in 2002 was a watershed moment for American food in London, one that I remember rejoicing in at the time. It’s where I was introduced to pulled pork, ribs and burnt ends in a more significant way, and its chipotle buttered steak was something I was very fond of. Whilst I’ve not always had a consistent experience there in the fifteen years since it launched, I was curious as to what its burger had to offer. And the burger’s description isn’t overly complicated: “100% Prime Beef Burger Topped with Tomato, Lettuce, Red Onions and Pickles on a Toasted Sesame Seed Bun. Served with Fries.”

Alrighty then.

The order

I just ordered the burger, but topped it with Monterey Jack cheese and streaky bacon.

The meat of it

On arrival, the scale of this burger took a while to process. There’s too much salad – a thick slice of tomato and lettuce was too much for the stack, so were duly extracted and consumed (fresh, crisp, sweet). The remaining burger, an 8oz behemoth, was topped with well melted-jack, slightly underdone bacon for my taste (chewy, not crispy) and crisp red onions and pickles. The sesame bun is not a brioche, a novelty these days, and the sauces need to be applied yourself – a basket of BBQ sauces, ketchup and mustard adorns every table.

The cross section shot shows a slightly over medium finish (they wouldn’t do it medium rare for me). As such, the burger’s a little dry and overpacked for my liking, but extremely well seasoned, which leads to umami-filled mouthfuls. Sauceless, this burger is too dry and too salty – in the absence of a relish, some appropriately applied hickory-smoked BBQ sauce took the edge off it. Ironically, a brioche would have actually served a purpose here. But the sauce wasn’t bad and balanced the burger out. The cheese and bacon may have been what took the saltiness over the edge, though despite being slightly chewy the latter was at least a welcome contrast to the meat and cheese.

The fries looked crisp but were underseasoned and undercooked, which was a bit disappointing. That was it for sides for me. To drink, I had a Maple Syrup old fashioned, which they made with Jim Beam.

I really don’t like Jim Beam. It’s a sorry excuse for a bourbon.

On balance, the overall experience was fine, if somewhat unremarkable. I think the next time I go to a smokehouse, I’ll have to accept the possibility that the ribs and the pulled pork is what I should be going for.

Monkey finger rating

Bun – 3.5/5 – not a bad bun, but not well suited to the burger. Possibly my fault for salty toppings
Build – 3.5/5 – too big! No sauce!
Burger – 3.5/5 – been better with a coarser grind, looser pack and slightly smaller patty
Taste – 3.5/5 – fine, not extraordinary
Sides – 2/5 – fries were unexciting
Value – 2.5/5 – £15 for burger, two toppings and fries. Honest gives you a better version of the same thing for £10.95.

Burger rating – 3/5 – don’t go to Bodean’s for the burger – get the ribs.

The deets

Poland Street, but in seven other spots across London. Locations via the website. Drink at the Blind Pig and go singing at Lucky Voice after, though, it’s probably my favourite bit of street in Soho!