Burger League: Burgers and Cocktails

The ‘Mac Mountain’ Burger complete with a wheel of mac ‘n’ cheese (yes, a wheel)

The Restaurant: Burgers and Cocktails, 35 James Street, London W1U 1EA.

The Hungry Ones:

Left to Right: Gemma (The Boozy Rouge), Madeleine (Cocktail Lover)

Gemma ordered:  Sloppy Joe burger, onion rings, margarita
Madeleine ordered:  Mac Mountain burger, sweet potato fries, mojito

The Scores:

So here’s what happened at the weekend:  After a long afternoon of shopping with my friend, we ended up ravenous near Marble Arch.  My excitement that Roti Chai was a mere five-minute walk away was short-lived as she declared that she did not want Indian food.  Fine.  So instead we walked towards James Street and Patty & Bun where there is a damn good burger and not a thali in sight.  There was, however, an enormous queue.  Just as I contemplated joining it, the heavens opened into a monumental thunderstorm that sent us running into the nearest restaurant that looked like it might have a free table.  This, inevitably, was where it all started to go wrong.  The place we ran into was Burgers and Cocktails.

Despite having a well-researched wishlist of burgers in both London and the UK, I had never heard of Burgers and Cocktails.  Had some unknown gem somehow escaped me?  Not exactly.  Firstly, the place was full of children and, consequently, a chorus of screams.  Secondly, the waiter was darting around the restaurant with such speed that it took us a while to get noticed for a table and even longer to get a menu.  To be honest, this was all forgivable as I was grateful to be somewhere dry with a drinks menu, but what followed was another story.

Margarita, or children’s drink? You decide…

The margarita I ordered was unceremoniously plonked on my table in a glass beaker.  With ice.  I get that restaurants are trying out new ways to serve their alcohol – cocktails in jam jars and wine in whisky glasses etc., but is it too much, once in a while to get the right glass? Also, I’m pretty sure margaritas aren’t supposed to be sweetened with agave.  Not great for a place that has ‘cocktails’ in its very name.  Madeleine’s mojito was acceptable.  I ordered the Sloppy Joe burger (mixed cheese, chipotle beef chilli, jalapeno relish and sour cream) which arrived medium-rare and pink in the middle, as ordered.  Actually the burger itself was not too bad.  I could not detect any hint of chipotle in the chilli, but the generous amount of jalapenos made up for it by giving it an enormous kick.  The bread was dry and unappetising (yawn).  Madeleine ordered a Mac Mountain which came with the most curious of toppings: a mac ‘n’ cheese ‘wheel’.  This was a portion of mac ‘n’ cheese, shaped into a disc, dipped in breadcrumbs and fried.  When eaten alone, it was actually not that bad, when eaten with the burger it was a little disastrous. The onion rings and sweet potato fries we ordered on the side were surprisingly alright.

The Sloppy Joe burger

I later discovered that the restaurant was owned by the chain Giraffe, which went some way to explain the abundance of children despite having a name that was 50% booze.  It is obvious that the chain is aiming to make a bit of extra cash by jumping on the gourmet fast-food bandwagon – if they brought something new to the market, fine, but this is a rip off of every other place in town.  The strategic positioning across from Patty & Bun, one of London’s most celebrated burger joints, is presumably to pick up its queue-weary diners.  My advice:  if you’re ever in James Street and can’t be bothered to queue at Patty & Bun, walk the extra five minutes and go to MEATLiquor.

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Burger League: MEATLiquor

The Dead Hippie and the Bacon Cheeseburger at MEATLiquor

The Restaurant:  MEATLiquor, 74 Welbeck Street, London W1G 0BA.

The Hungry Ones:

Left to Right: Gemma (The Boozy Rouge), Katie (Burgerista)

Gemma ordered:  The Dead Hippie, Deep Fried Pickles, Diet Coke
Katie ordered:  Bacon Cheeseburger, Fries, Coke

The Scores:

It was never going to be a surprise that we would have an excellent burger at MEATLiquor, after all I have enjoyed these burgers many times before.  In the old days from the Meatwagon, then at the excellent pop-up #meateasy, handily just around the corner from Goldsmiths College, where I was studying at them time.  The following summer they sold their burgers from The Rye pub in Peckham, a short walk from my flat, before setting up in a more permanent home, MEATLiquor at the back of Oxford Street, close to my office.  It is almost as though they pop up wherever I go.  They have since set up restaurants in various other locations, which I have yet to try out, with the exception of the wonderful MEATMission in Hoxton where you can actually book a table.  My inner planning-fiend rejoiced.

There are two reasons that I go back to MEATLiquor time and time again:  I love the food and I love the atmosphere.  ‘Dive bars’ are two-a-penny these days, and the phrase is almost as cringeworthy as when restaurants describe their food as ‘dirty’.  Travelling around the US on a tour bus, I visited many actual dive bars with dirty food and, without being too crass, regretted it for days later.  The fantasy, on which the inspiration for these venues is based, is far removed from the grim reality.  MEATLiquor, however, seems to set itself apart from this.  The interior is more Berlin squat than mid-Western roadhouse, and it does not rely upon lazy cliches to name its food, there is no ‘filthy’ sauce or innuendo-named cocktails, things just are what they are.  Many others have copied elements from MEATLiquor (food served on trays, cocktails in jam jars, industrial kitchen rolls on the table instead of napkins) that are now almost de rigeur in all gourmet fast-food joints, but they still manage here not to look trite.  I often take visitors from out of town here as I know that, no matter where they are from, they will not have anywhere like this: a dark and loud restaurant, open until 2am with outrageously strong drinks and the best burgers anywhere.

This is a hotly debated topic, but I do think that MEATLiquor has the best burgers in town.  The patties have the exquisite combination of being beautifully rare in the middle and almost burnt around the edges, and are the most flavoursome patties I have ever tried.  My favourite burger, the Dead Hippie, is essentially a double cheeseburger with two patties, a lot of American cheese, a ‘special’ sauce that loosely resembles a Big Mac sauce and, thank the Lord, pickles.  LOTS OF PICKLES.  It is impossible to eat one without using up several sheets of the kitchen roll, but somehow the burger doesn’t fall apart.  You can put a half-eaten burger back on its tray and tuck into your sides without the risk of its components spilling out everywhere.  Speaking of sides: I also almost always order the deep fried pickles with blue cheese dip and a side of chilli cheese fries.  Both are excellent.  In fact, there is little to fault about this place.  The only real bugger is that if you turn up any later than 7pm you will probably have to queue, at the weekends, potentially for quite some time.

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Burger League: Kua’Aina

Cheese and bacon burger at Kua’Aina

The Restaurant:  Kua’Aina, 26 Foubert’s Place, London W1F 7PP

The Hungry Ones:

Left to Right: Gemma (The Boozy Rouge), Claire (Queen of the BBQ)

Gemma and Claire ordered: 1/3lb hamburgers with cheese and bacon, sweet potato fries, coleslaw, ginger beer, Sicilian lemonade.

The Scores:

It’s actually been rather a long time since I had a burger.  I had planned to have a burger extravaganza during my Christmas trip to Southampton to settle up the 7Bone vs. Rockstone debate that I am currently embroiled in with my friend, however ate far too much festive food to even contemplate dinner out.  This will have to wait for another time.  On New Year’s eve, we were going to head over for a final BBQ at Will and Claire‘s before they leave their flat (and enormous BBQ behind), but rain and our hangovers prevented us from doing so.  Going out for a burger, or indeed anything indulgent in January, is always approached with some kind of apprehension as almost everybody seems to be on some kind of diet, however it is probably the best time to go as there are fewer queues.

Kua’Aina was bumped near to the top of my list due to its close proximity to my office.  I was also intrigued by the concept of a Hawaiian burger bar as there is little cuisine hailing from this little island state in London.  A couple of years ago I heard rumours of a pop-up Hawaiian omelette bar in Penge, although I never got to see it for myself and suspect it may be an urban myth.  The thought of pineapple and eggs together is almost too much to bear.  Pineapple with savoury food is quite an explosive topic among foodies and many are very outspokenly in the ‘no’ camp.  I have to admit that I am not entirely keen, although The Actress in East Dulwich does a pizza with black forest ham and chilli pineapple that I almost always order when I am there.  I am also enormously partial to cheese and pineapple on sticks.  Kua’Aina offers pineapple as a topping for their burgers, which I am not entirely convinced about, so steer well clear. Pineapple and beef?

Walking into Kua’Aina’s beach shack interior was an odd experience on such a miserably cold London day.  Once seated in the bright basement with its bleached wood walls, you would almost forget that the monsoon was beginning outside and Carnaby Street was flooding.  Foregoing the additional toppings of avocado and the pineapple, we opted for cheese and bacon burgers with shared sides of sweet potato fries and coleslaw.  When the food came, the first thing I noticed was the entire slice of grilled onion sat on top of the patty.  Cooked onion is actually a bit of a pain in the arse to bite through, so we wasted no time removing it and returning only a few rings to the top of the burger.  I also did away with the enormous slice of beefsteak tomato, but this is only due to personal preference.  The burger itself was quite nice – the bread, although not my favoured brioche, was fresh and the patty well seasoned.  It was a little well-done for my taste, but was still succulent and far from being overcooked.  I would have also liked some mustard and a gherkin.  Speaking of gherkins, which is fast becoming my number one topic of conversation, I am quite fond of the large dill pickle on the side of the plate that some restaurants give you to crunch on during mouthfuls of burger.  You could have added one at Kua’Aina for an extra £1.50, but if you choose not to or forget, what you get alongside your burger is a slice of carrot.  A huge wedge of raw, peeled, bog-standard English carrot.  Claire and I, almost in unison, picked them up from our plates uttering what the f*** is that?  Seriously – A CARROT. Whilst we’re on the subject of side dishes, those were completely divided.  The sweet potato fries were crispy, well-seasoned and very moreish but the coleslaw was a little bland.  Despite these little snags, all in all it was a good lunch, it’s just too bad we had to make the modifications ourselves.  A little heap of caramelised onions, a pickle on the side and a smear of mustard and it would be great.

And as Claire rightly said:  “Lose the carrot.”

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London Lunches: Savage Salads

You may have noticed that I have stopped complaining about the lack of lunch options close to my office.  There has not been a sudden influx of eateries around White City, instead I have started a new job and have moved to an office in Portland Place.  As you can imagine, I was ecstatic about the myriad of lunch options within walking distance of my new desk and barely let the door shut behind me before I was planning which ones to get to first.  With my ever depleting bank balance in mind so close to Christmas, I have limited myself to one lunch out per week – very sensible for such a glutton – and have resolved to bring in packed lunches the rest of the time.  So far I have feasted on brie and lingonberry on rye and the best cinnamon buns ever at Marylebone’s Nordic Bakery and trekked over to Grillshack for a sneaky lunchtime burger.

Berwick Street Market is not really that close to my office – it is about a 15 minute walk – but it is the closest street food market and I have not seen one of those at lunchtime for a long time.  I love walking down Berwick Street as the old record shops, fabric stores and little cafes remind me of times of old. Ollie and I used to go looking for records before heading off to one of the pubs for a drink when we were first together.  The market has been there for many, many years, but the street food is a fairly recent addition.  It has been the springboard for some great outlets – Pizza Pilgrims, who now have their own restaurant nearby, and the fabulous Banh Mi 11.

I stumbled across Savage Salads by accident when looking for a slightly healthier street food option.  The night before was all about gin and burritos and I was craving some nutrients.  The giant bowls of beetroot with quinoa and lentils with pumpkin called out to me from among the grill smoke and hot sauce, a shining beacon of health ready to revive my poor hungover body.  Savage Salads offer two options for lunch: a large salad, or a soup and salad, both priced at £5.  You can have any combination of the salads on offer which, I am told, change regularly.  In addition to this, you get a choice from the grill – on this occasion halloumi or chicken – and some pitta bread.  The chicken was beautifully spiced and the roasted pumpkin with puy lentils was a particular delight.  It was a very difficult walk back to my office knowing I had such a delicious lunch in my hand. I only just resisted the temptation to open the box and scoff it very ungracefully whilst dodging pedestrians on Oxford Street.  It was well worth the wait.

Burger League: Grillshack

The bacon cheeseburger a Grillshack

The Restaurant: Grillshack, 61-63 Beak Street, London W1F 9SL.

The Hungry Ones:

Left to Right: Gemma (The Boozy Rouge), Claire (Queen of the BBQ)

Gemma and Claire ordered: Buttermilk chicken nuggets with smoked chilli mayonnaise, hamburgers with cheese and bacon, unlimited refills from the soda fountain.

The Scores:

When Grillshack first opened a few months ago, I couldn’t help but think that new burger restaurants of the same ilk were starting to reach their saturation point.  As I was about to file it into my ‘one day’ pile, I became intrigued by the revelation that they are the first burger restaurant in London where you order your food by app.  And the restaurant is a short walk from both Claire’s office in Mayfair and my office in Portland Place, so I decided to go.  I downloaded the app on my phone in advance, thinking I could save some of my precious lunch hour by ordering in advance, only to realise that you could not place an order until you were inside the restaurant.  There are also computerised screens inside for those who do not have a phone compatible with the app (which is free to download, by the way).  Once seated, we put our order through, paid by card, and within a few minutes at the most, a waitress appeared with two frosted glasses for our drinks.  We were instructed to help ourselves from the soda fountain and to revisit as many times as we liked.  Who doesn’t love a free refill?

Buttermilk chicken nuggets at Grillshack

Unfortunately, that was where my love affair with Grillshack ended.  First to arrive at our table was a bowl of buttermilk chicken nuggets, which were fine, if a little processed.  If there was any smoked chilli in the mayonnaise it would take a more sophisticated palate than mine to detect it.  The burgers arrived shortly after and were not up to the same standards as other nearby restaurants offering similar products and charging more-or-less the same.  The patties were nicely seasoned and cooked a little rare in the middle, but were quite thin and reminded me a little of McDonalds quarter pounder, and the buns would have been acceptable were they not a little stale. Just as we were about to send the burgers back for not containing any bacon, we found it: a few small chunks nestled under a slick of melted cheese.  We could overcome the shock of having no ketchup and mustard as standard as we could fetch some from the ‘help yourself to sauces’ stand, but we could not get past the fact that there were no pickles, either in the burger or as an optional extra.  Even McDonalds give you a sodding gherkin.

It’s a shame, as I really like the concept of the place.  As far as I’m concerned it has two big selling points: the convenience of the app and the bottomless sodas from a rather snazzy-looking fountain.  There is something that gives me the overwhelming feeling that this is a rushed jump on the bandwagon, rather than a serious attempt to add something new and innovative to an already crowded market.  People will go as a novelty and, due to its location, it will always attract tourists and passers-by, however it falls far short of its competitors and I would even recommend dining at the Byron across the street instead.  Hopefully in time it will improve, but until then, it’s unlikely I will be going back.

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Burger League: Patty & Bun

A Feast at Patty & Bun

The Restaurant:  Patty & Bun, 54 James Street, London W1U 1EU

The Hungry Ones:

Left to Right: Gemma (The Boozy Rouge), Katie (Burgerista)

Gemma and Katie ordered:  Smokey Robinson burgers (beef patty, cheese, tomato, caramelised onion, bacon, ketchup, smoky P&B mayo, brioche), coleslaw, chips with rosemary salt, red stripe beer and sauvignon blanc.

The Scores:

Patty and Bun opened their first restaurant in Marylebone a year ago and has already become the stuff of London burger legends.  Despite having had their burgers from stands at various street food events, I had yet to visit the restaurant.  I had two failed attempts earlier in the year when the queue was so enormous that my hunger forced me to go elsewhere.  Such is the popularity of these burgers that queueing is always a major concern, hence why we planned our visit for 6pm on a Tuesday – and walked right in.  It has everything you would expect from a central london no-reservations burger bar: stripped down decor, communal tables, food eaten from paper, buckets of cutlery etc. etc.  It had a really pleasant atmosphere and my only real bugbear was the wine served in a tumbler. I know this is the cool thing to do these days, but sometimes I just yearn for a proper wine glass.  Anyway, I can easily overlook this due to the  magnificent quality of the food.  The burger had all of my favourite things: slightly sweet brioche, crispy bacon and a seasoned patty cooked medium rare.  It had a pile of soft caramelised onions and some good tangy cheese, but I just would have wanted my smokey robinson to have a touch more smoke – just a few notches up on the chipotle, perhaps.  The chips were among the best I have had in London recently and the slaw perfectly creamy.  This restaurant has had a lot of hype and it is all to be believed, thoroughly excellent burgers and, at £34 for two burgers, two sides and two alcoholic drinks, a total bargain.

A note on the photography:  I was only able to take a picture of our newly-arrived order before my iPhone died.  I wish I had better photographs of the burgers as they looked quite spectacular.  If you’d rather not take my word for it, go to the Patty & Bun website for the ultimate burger gallery.

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