Grab Burger, the Diner Soho

When it comes to food, I think that I can be easily satisfied but not easily impressed.  I'm not averse to trying, well, just about anything; as long as it lives up to expectations, then I'm happy.  Pizza almost always falls into this category - I've been experimenting with different dough formulations for quite a number of years now, but even so, I love a dirty street slice at the proper time.  There's only one place near Leicester Square (shock) where I couldn't actually finish my slice, and this was post-many-a-tipple.  Shame on them, putting melted plastic on top of a sponge -- that's what it tasted like.

Can you digress before even starting?  Well it appears as though I have.  I was very lucky to be invited, along with other much more established burger enthusiasts, bloggers, etc. to sample a new limited run burger from The Diner, the grab burger.  In the invite, the burger was described as:

• 2 x 3oz USDA short rib patties heartily seasoned and cooked medium rare 
• Each topped with a melted slice of US cheese
• Served in a Harvey Rinkoff “big slider” bun http://www.rinkoffbakery.co.uk/ 
• With shredded lettuce, dill pickles and USA sauce
• Presented in your grab bag with fries and topper
• A no frills celebration of the good old American cheeseburger

Sounds good to me.  We tasters were ushered to a cluster of booths in the corner, and a bourbon sour was promptly placed in front of me.  Now, there is a fast lane to my heart (and liver), and it is via aged-in-charred-oak-barrels-American-corn-whiskey.  The night was already a success.  Not long after that, the very attentive staff started bringing out fistfuls of grab bags.

Inside was a massive cup of chips sitting alongside the main event.  First impressions were good: I saw meat and lots of oozing cheese.  So how did it taste?

Well, I was definitely satisfied.  Not blown out of the water, and there were obvious bits that could've been improved straight away, but it wasn't bad.  Immediate negative impressions: patties weren't heartily seasoned enough for my taste, resulting in no real crust on the meat, and they had hurtled passed medium rare a while ago.  As a result, there was a decided lack of juice to the patties, and I imagine that some of the short rib flavour was left on the flattop as well.

That said, I thought that the cut of beef still retained a good amount of meaty flavour, and the cheese, lettuce, pickles and sauce complemented each other quite well.  There was a good bit of sauciness from the ketchup and sauce, which was a clear Thousand Island derivative.  The bun was soft, yielded easily to my mastication efforts and had a light, open crumb.  It remains to be seen how it would stand up to a seriously juicy burger, but it fit the bill here very well indeed.


I lived in California for over 8 years, and as such was fortunate enough to eat a Mini Cooper's worth of In-N-Out (both in weight and cost, I imagine).  And this burger definitely was reminiscent of that -- not the same, and it certainly didn't reach that level, but it was enjoyable nonetheless.  Fries were crisp and plentiful - again, not mind-blowing, but I'm much more easily satisfied by most types of hot potato sides.

And so I had a few more drinks (also on the house!), chatted with the burger crème de la crème, and made my way home.  Great bourbon, great company, and a tasty burger.  That's me happy.  They're on the menu from 31/1 for 10 days; so a very limited run indeed.

The Diner

5 Locations

http://www.goodlifediner.com/

Grab burger available from 31/01 - 09/02

Mother Flipper, Brockley Market

I haven't been to Borough Market on a Saturday (or Friday for that matter) for ages.  It's a shame, really, as there are some fantastic foods on offer.  But with two mini-me's it's just a nightmare to navigate - mostly attempting to push by weekend photographers with horribly loud American accents, me all the while saying to myself, "Do I sound like that too?  No, please say I don't."  

So I've retreated to other markets on the weekends; the vendors at Maltby Street are absolutely amazing, the queue at the Monmouth there takes but a few minutes, and there are St. John doughnuts.  If you have never had one, then you don't know how life-changing they can be.  The custard is almost a slightly thickened crème anglaise, and it's heaven (I'm drooling Homer-style as I type this).

Back to the burger trail: I have also recently discovered Brockley Market, another great market near me.  It's not massive by any means, but the selection is top-notch, and even all of the posh produce is very reasonably priced.  And this past Saturday, 17/12, saw the debut of London's newest street burger purveyor, Mother Flipper Burgers.  Naturally, I was there.

The first thing that I saw as I approached the stall was unsurprisingly the menu, and it appeared to tick most of my burger boxes - decent sounding beef which has been "course"ly [sic] minced, light brioche bun, and the obligatory clever burger names.  What is it with burger joints and odd names for the sandwiches?  Not a complaint, just a query.

The buns were out on display, and I must admit that they looked quite shiny and lovely; I'm often wary of brioche buns, as I fear that they might be too sweet, but let's just wait and see.  The presence of multiple cloches to melt the cheese also warmed the burger-shaped cockles of my heart.

The gentleman behind the counter did tell me that the chuck contained somewhere around the industry-standard 20% fat mark, and that their burgers were served with American (hooray!) cheese.  As it was my first time, I thought I'd have a plain cheeseburger, but there was a Chilli Flipper ready to go, so my decision was made for me.  

I popped down on one of the benches in the market and took it out of its plain brown wrapper.  First impressions were quite favourable: coarsely ground, loosely packed meat covered in an oozing layer of American cheese.  Nice.

 Atop the patty was the "chilli" element of the burger; he had described it as onions and hot peppers (I forgot to ask which kind) slow cooked to produce a sort of relish.  It hadn't been cooked long enough to achieve that; it was comprised of larger slices of the aforementioned ingredients that still had a bit of bite to them.  Underneath the burger were some pickles, red onion slices, lettuce and some ketchup.


The chilli portion was tasty, if unspectacular.  It had the slightest hint of heat, but along with the onions they had been cooked long enough to release a lot of their sweetness to complement the meat/cheese combination.


And as for the main event: it was a very good meat patty indeed.  The depth of the beef flavour betrayed its 28 days of ageing, bordering on that almost steak-like taste.  The meat was packed quite loosely, and although it wasn't a river of juices like a MEATliquor burger, it was far from dry.  The raw elements underneath provided a crunchy texture to counteract the meaty softness, and the American cheese was generously applied, properly molten, and wholly dirty-delicious.


The bun had only the slightest element of sweetness on its top, and it yielded easily to my gaping jaw.  I suppose that it was good, if unremarkable, but it did its job, stayed out of the way of the meat flavour and didn't break down; so in my book that's a success.


As mentioned, the chilli was nice, but I'd probably go straight burger next time.  I'm still having trouble accepting that a "chilli burger" isn't covered with a mountain of Tex-Mex chili con carne, but again, that's my issue.

So altogether it was a very competent effort with just a few small adjustments required to make it amazing.  But it was still quite delicious, and at a fiver it more than washed the taste of last Monday's burger from my mouth.  And given that I've never had a good burger at Borough Market (although I haven't yet been to Elliot's Café), I am probably not going to be going there too often thanks to the vendors of Brockley Market and Mother Flipper.

Mother Flipper

Brockley Market

Lewisham College Car Park

Lewisham Way

SE4 1UT (map)

https://www.facebook.com/MotherFlipper

Saturdays, 10.00-14.00

Bukowski, Shoreditch

At the best of times, I'm a cynic.  So perhaps I should've been more wary of a burger place naming itself after a German-American hipster icon.  With Spanish touches to the menu.  It didn't raise alarm bells to the likes of a place offering "Chinese-Thai-Fish & Chips," but shame on me for going in so eager.

Anyhow.  Boxpark Shoreditch bills itself as the "world's first popup mall;" is this supposed to be a good thing?  Don't get me wrong, I hail from the country that has a mall with a roller coaster in it; so I'm not a stranger to retail-related hyperbole.  But even in an ideal situation I hate malls....so perhaps the advertisement of its own inevitable mortality is a good thing?  Meh, who knows.  

I do know that the original intention was to have small independent retailers selling their goods in The Land Where Movember Never Ends.  What ended up there?  Oh, little niche players such as Nike, Puma and Levi's.  Yawn.  

But onto the burger spot - from the outside, it's what I expected of a converted shipping container: narrow.  An innocuous entrance to what was obviously a space lacking width.  I found the interior to be mainly inoffensive - some decent large photos on the walls, faux-wood booths (which were quite comfortable), and it wasn't cold inside, despite the door being open and it being December and all.  We were greeted with a smile and shown to a  table.

Onto the menu.  Prices seemed to be quite reasonable for the offerings, a standard burger - or "Purist" on their menu - setting you back £5.50 with an extra quid for the cheese.  Of course, due to my preferences, my heart sank a touch when I saw that said dairy offerings were limited to Double Gloucester or Stilton.  Sigh.  And perhaps I'm just an old grouch (well, probably not just that), but the whole 'cutesy' phrasing on menus works exactly 0.1% of the time - "add some of our homemade condiments and call your GP." Indeed.

I decided on a Purist, medium rare, with Double Gloucester.  Whilst awaiting our food I sampled the homemade condiments on offer. (no, I didn't just jam my finger into the communal offerings)  The mayo that came out was passable, but tasted too eggy and didn't have enough acidity.  The scotch bonnet relish had the smallest hint of kick, but the taste of the peppers came through quite well.  The organic horseraddish [sic] mustard tasted of mild English mustard with a dab of horseradish from a jar.

And then there's the ketchup.  I won't go on a massive diatribe, as it has already been done very well indeed by Chris @ Cheese and Biscuits, but suffice to say that I feel he was nearly too kind.  I truly love ketchup with all my being, and yes, Hawksmoor do a fantastic homemade version, but otherwise I'm Heinz all the way.  Back when I was in Uni, during the Iron Age, there were so few people using email that we could choose our own email address.  My first ever one was ketchup@blah.  True story.  So their watery, listless version really did hurt my soul.

As for the main event, when it arrived, let's just say my heart didn't soar.  Quite the opposite.  One look at the bun, and I knew that this leavened product's best days had come and gone.  The top had that dry, flaky consistency that only comes with a good bit of bread ageing.  Flavour-wise, it was quite sweet, bordering on a breakfast-brioche taste.  Not ideal.

Under the hood, things didn't fare much better.  The patty itself sat on top of a swipe of their HOMEMADE™ mayo and a few pieces of lettuce, guaranteeing that they were limp beyond edibility upon reaching the table.  There was a healthy slab of cheese on the top, and a bit of it had clearly been melted.  But observe the cut-through pic:

Look at that enormous chunk of 100% unmelted cheese astride my burger.  Sadness personified.  This, children, is why cheddar belongs in many many places, but not on a burger. It had the dual pleasure of being both unmelted and unremarkable in taste.  There were some oven-dried tomatoes on the burger as well, and the oven had successfully removed their flavour.

As for the burger....well, it was cooked to order.  I've found a good thing to say about it.  Otherwise, it lacked seasoning, a slight that I just can't understand; salt is a burger's best friend.  I caught a glimpse of their super-hip Josper in the back, but is it the best for cooking a burger?  Not if this one is anything to go by.  But what I was sure of was the fact that I couldn't taste much beefy flavour in their oh-so-carefully-sourced meat.  It might've ticked all of the boxes as far as the best suppliers and what not, but the proof is in the (meaty) pudding.  No evidence was offered of the quality of their suppliers.

I added the gherkins from the side of the plate to the burger and this improved it immeasurably. That's not a compliment by the way.  It just helped the situation a bit.

Fries were not as bad as some others' experiences -- they were mostly crisp, although still bordering on the too-greasy side.  I finished them; so they weren't terrible, but they weren't very good either.  Our starchy friends seem to be an afterthought to many, even my favourite burger joint.

So, not exactly a ringing endorsement, in fact, quite the opposite.  I didn't go in with the highest of hopes, but I also didn't expect them to be dashed so severely, especially seeing as I went in before the aforementioned review came out, as well as Burgerac's hot off the press.  I might've still gone anyhow to see for myself.  

And now I have.  And I can tell you that this review was specially curated in my bedroom, atop my John Lewis duvet cover and Land's End sheets, to ensure that you could indulge in a spot of reading that would whisk you away from the hustle and bustle of your ordinary existence to a land of whimsy and damn depressing burgers.

Bukowski Grill

Unit 61 BOXPARK
Bethnal Green Road
E1 6GY

http://www.bukowski-grill.co.uk/

Monday - Sunday
from 11:00 - 20:00
Late Thursdays open until 22:00

5 Napkin Burger, Boston, USAmerica

This mini-chain boasts quite the reputation.  Because I have what some might consider an unhealthy obsession with burgers (the aforementioned people now referred to as "ex-friends"), I read about these life-changing meat discs....a lot.  

And despite the incredibly strong competition in NYC, 5 Napkin Burgers has been fêted quite a bit, even in an article by Tom Byng, the founder of the highly enjoyable and always-tasty-if-not-mindblowing local chain Byron Hamburgers.  Alas, multiple forces have conspired to keep me away from NYC for the last couple of years, but I happened to find myself just up the Northeast Corridor in Boston last week.  When meeting up with friends for dinner, I stipulated a 'killer burger,' and the suggestion of 5 Napkin was proffered and promptly accepted.

The 5 of us showed up at around 8pm on a Tuesday evening; not exactly prime dining time in Boston. (the place was probably 25% full)  No worries, I hadn't seen everyone for at least a year, and we were eager to share a collective moan about our child-rearing troubles peppered with reminisces about when we thought we were cool.  Anyhow.

The space is open and semi-spare without feeling cold: picture white tiling, exposed bulbs dangling from the ceiling, booths with whitewashed wooden sides -- no, really, picture them, because I forgot my camera, and it was far too dark to take any interior shots with my phone.  One big plus in their favour was the 200+ bottles of Maker's Mark on the top shelf behind the bar -- my bourbon-flavoured Achilles' heel.  

Photo courtesy of Tina from Carrots 'n' Cake; her review is here.

We settled into our booth and perused the menu.  Apparently their signature burger is shockingly titled the 5 Napkin -- "10 oz. fresh ground beef, gruyere cheese, caramelized onions, rosemary aioli, soft white roll."  As it was my first visit, I wanted to keep it a bit more simple and see how they did the classic, which in my book is a cheeseburger. 

And much to my delight, when listing off the cheeses available, the waiter finally delivered that magic word (at least when imagining said dairy product atop a burger): "American."  And thus my mind was made up - 1 cheeseburger, with American, cooked medium rare.

We had a couple of starters to kick things off.  The Hot Spinach and Artichoke Dip was pleasant.  I've intentionally kept that short and sweet, as I feel it sums it up quite well.  But just in case it doesn't, I'll add that there was plenty of the titled vegetables, the artichoke chunks were just a bit firm (in a good way), and it was held together by a blandish cream cheese concoction.  Pleasant.  

I would imagine that the Hell's Kitchen Wings are named thus solely because the recipe originated from that region of Manhattan (?).  I'm hopeful that there isn't an implication of spice or kick in the name.  These followed the previous dish in the Pleasant Starters category: the slightly undersized flappers were juicy and well cooked with what was a fairly bog standard Buffalo wing sauce atop them.  Blue cheese dip on the side was, well, you get the idea.

And finally the main event.  When the burger was placed in front of me, I felt a slight twinge of apprehension.  First off, observe the size of that lettuce leaf.  Comical.  It and its tomato partner were unceremoniously flung aside.  Second issue was the charred American cheese betraying its time under the salamander.  Sigh.  I know that there are success stories of melting the cheese this way -- Fred Smith at the Admiral Codrington springs to mind -- but I definitely have a bias toward cloche + steam.

On to the meat.  As you might be able to discern from the horribly blurred cut through, the burger was cooked precisely to order, and the texture of the meat was fantastic.  It was loosely packed, peppered with pockets of juicy goodness.  I believe it was 100% chuck and would hazard a guess that the fat content was closer to 20% than 15%.  The top and bottom of the patty both had a decent char on them as well.  The meat itself tasted as though it had aged a bit, and whilst not mind-blowing, it was fairly - yep, you guessed it - pleasant.

Can you hear my disappointment?  Surely I've just described a pretty good burger, right?  Well, here's the thing:  I couldn't taste a speck of seasoning.  None.  

I'm sure I don't have to tell you that a burger needs a shit ton of salt on its top & bottom, added just before cooking, to create that unmistakable, dizzying, life-affirming crust.  This had none of that;  in fact, the taste buds on the tip of my tongue went home unfulfilled and sad.  What a shame.  At least this pushed the disintegrating bottom bun into the shadowy recesses of my already disappointed soul.

So what could've been a pretty damn good burger just left me with a lingering sense of sodium-free disappointment.  Part of me is tempted to give one of the NYC branches a try - or perhaps someone wants to send me to Miami to test theirs - but until then, I'd rather read about other burgers than try another one of theirs*.

5 Napkin Burger

105 Huntington Avenue (Prudential Center)

Boston, MA 02199 (map)

USA

http://5napkinburger.com/back-bay-boston

Monday through Thursday from 11:30AM – 11PM
Friday 11:30AM – Midnight

Saturday 11AM – Midnight
Sunday 11AM – 11PM

*This is 100% untrue.  I will eat almost any burger put in front of me.  I have issues.