[FIELD REPORT] New Year's Eve Burger Swarm at the Admiral Codrington

Dude. Amazing. Dude.

A rallying cry from the head chef of the Admiral Codrington in Chelsea, site of our favourite London burger of 2011:

Who would be interested in a new years eve burger night? All the burgers I’ve done this year available. Please RT

— Fred Smith (@FredSmith_) November 18, 2011

Knowing our reputation, we were all over it like Lindsay Lohan on a Playboy cover.

After a pre-game round or two of Champagne with PBR chasers, we zoomed over to The Cod to get our celebration on.

Fred served up a masterful array of top notch gastro fare. We nearly over-did the starter platter, the highlight of which is definitely the calamari and mini sausages.

The bacon cheeseburger was incredible. The perfectly formed 8oz patty was a appropriately sizable chunk of soft, tender beef with a neatly seared outside, with cheese melted beautifuly on top. The bacon was crispy, but sweet and flavourful. Indeed, Rob was already half cut, but we’re pretty sure his incessant ramblings about how “fucking amazing” the burger was were mostly due to the quality of what he was eating.

Probably.

The Double Stack was a beauty of a Big Mac tribute. A nicely toasted bun with two thinner patties, a bevy of pickles and plenty of house special sauce. This needs to be a permanent menu fixture. It’s such a classic sandwich in the hearts of us all, and Fred has made it look better than the McDonald’s food stylists could ever hope to in a laboratory.

If these two were amazing, then the Ox Cheek Chilli burgers that came out, compliments of the chef, were other worldly.

This is a historic sandwich. He’s pulled the Double Beef out the bag. The Ox cheek chilli brought a second wave of meatiness to the table, flavouring the burger with a deeply rich beef ‘n umami flavour. At the same time, the crunchy chilli slaw provided a constant pleasurably gentle heat to the whole affair.

It was brilliant. Inspired. Fucking brilliant. There are no more superlatives. If you get the opportunity to get one of these from Fred, then take it.

After the meal, Fred came over for our verdict. Cue intoxicated shouts of “Dude” and “Amazing” and a few more “Dude”s, and thanking him in the best way we could think possible: buying him a Jagerbomb.

Dude. Amazing. Dude.

He tells us the next release of the Admiral Codrington Cheeseburger v2.1 arrives towards the end of January, and everyone should try it.

Not many other London kitchens are capable of nailing the classics and bringing us such assured, confident innovations like the Ox Cheek.

A fitting start to 2012. As you were.

• Simon and Rob.

“This thing was a fucking revelation. Roam aren’t scared to shift from burger tradition and introduce a few unorthodox ingredient combinations, and frankly they nail it every time.”

—

[2011 HONOURS LIST] Simon’s Best Burger Pick / Roam Artisan Burgers / San Francisco, California

Read the full review. Mind that drool.

“I’m practically gushing about this place, but honestly, it was the burger of my trip. You know a burger joint is good when a queue forms at 11.30 in the morning.”

—

[2011 HONOURS LIST] Rob’s Best Burger Pick / Little Big Burger / Portland, Oregon

Read the full review. Go on.

★[2011 HONOURS LIST] The 2011 Burger Anarchy Top Five Faves

Happy New Year and all that everyone. Hopefully, like us, you are all ready to belt out another corker of a year. But before we get into eating ALL the burgers, we’ll just bend your ear briefly about what floated our two-seater speedboat in 2011.

1. Portland, Oregon

Despite Rob only spending two nights in this city, and being too depressingly full most of the time to sample all of the food, Portland is a no-brainer to be in the Top 5.

The place is laid back to the point of horizontal, full of cool little neighbourhoods that all offer something unique, and a heartland of micro brewers. It also boasts the largest and most diverse selection of street food we’ve seen yet.

All available space in downtown is lined with every cuisine you could want in your lunch hour. Rob still rues not having time to get the PB&J fries from Potato Champion before he left.

It also was the home of one of Rob’s favourite burgers of 2011, Little Big Burger. And Seattle is only an hour away! Screw Thailand and all that Far East bullshit, if you want a holiday, go visit here. And if you can’t, we recommend you watch season two of Portlandia, coming in January.

• Rob reviews Little Big Burger
• All Portland coverage

2. Epic Meal Time

To say our videos are a little bit of a homage to these guys is an understatement. Although they technically came into being in 2010, they really hit their stride in 2011, getting totally crunk and serving up some truly awe-inspiring meal ideas - a mantra we are 100% behind. It’s mouth-watering and gross in equal measures, but wow, is it entertaining. Am I right, hater? Check out their fast food lasagne.

• Marvel at how similar our videos are to theirs here, buddy

3. MEATliquor and Lucky Chip exist

Listen up London. Stop fucking whining about how long you have to queue for, how you have to eat outside in the cold or that it’s too dark and the music is too loud and, oh no, is that rain I felt?

Just appreciate the fact that two of the best burgers in London are now so readily available. Need we remind you of the dark days of the past, when you’d actually go to a Gourmet Burger Kitchen because you didn’t really have any other option.

Yeah, you remember that. So shut up.

• Our Meatliquor preview (we’re working on the next version)
• Our Lucky Chip coverage

4. Eat Street / Long Table / London Street Food Getting It Together

It was a few years coming, but London has finally started to catch up with Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Austin, Chicago and other places we like to visit.

Sadly, London’s tyrannical regulations made the American ideal of ‘proper’ food trucks literally impossible. But with a plucky Dunkirk spirit, Londoners have found a way. Eat Street is probably the best example of bringing together different foods for the Everyman, and without it we wouldn’t have found the meatoric rise that is the Rib Man and his bottled Holy Fuck, but late runner Long Table also proved that it was possible in East London. Kinda.

And there’s a bunch more we haven’t tried yet either, so 2012 is going to get us down to North Cross Road market and Brockley Market amongst many others. This is exciting.

• Our Eat Street Posts
• Long Queue? Long Table! A Field Report

5. @FredSmith_

Fred is head chef at the Admiral Codrington. He made three of our favourite London burgers of 2011. We were lucky to bump into him purely by chance at the Superette popup. He hosted a Burger New Year’s Eve party. He’s a lovely bloke. He shares an incredible passion for detail in burger preparation. He’s a reason to actually go to LOLCHELSEA. We hope our bromance flourishes in 2012.

• Admirable Admiral Codrington coverage

Thanks for the all support we’ve had in the few short months we’ve been doing B/A. You guys rule.

★[BREAKFAST] Hawksmoor / Guild Hall / A Sausage Sandwich to Die For

So good I had to write it up twice.

I’d just like to make a quick concession to the Sausage Sandwich with French dip. What is this French dip you ask?

A French dip sandwich, also known as a beef dip, is a hot sandwich consisting of thinly sliced roast beef (or, sometimes, other meats) on a “French roll” or baguette. It is usually served au jus (“with juice”), that is, with beef juice from the cooking process. Beef broth or beef consomme is sometimes substituted.

Source Wikipedia

This is the second French Dip I’ve had in London, the first being from Yianni at the Meatwagon when he was still in Peckham.

What you need to know is that they are great. The Hawksmoor sausage variant is one of the best sandwiches of the year, and just adds to the arsenal that is the Guild Hall breakfast menu. The bread, sausage and gravy are an incredible morning combination.

Another quick mention for the boiled eggs with anchovy soldiers - perfectly soft and the soldiers are perfectly crisp sticks of umami. And also those baked goods are still incredible.

Best breakfast in town.

Wendy's go Japanese. With foie gras.

Maybe they’ll come back to the West End one day…

[SANDWICH INSURRECTION] Keu! / Shoreditch / London / Banh Mi

This is a fantastic Banh Mi spot. Pick up the pork belly example and be amazed.

[VIDEO] Burger Anarchy Season 1 Episode 6 - Christmas Burger

• Forgotten a present for a special someone?
• Suffering from a monstrous festive hangover?
• Tired of ‘gift lists’ full of Amazon affiliate links?

Then allow Burger Anarchy to save the season with a very special Christmas Creation.

Credits

Starring Mike, Simon and Rob

Special Guest Star - Gail

And introducing Santa as our special guest announcer

Shownotes:

• [SERIOUS EATS] The Burger Lab: How To Make Any Cheese Melt Like American (Almost)

We love Buffalo wings as much as the next person. Nope, scratch that, we love them more. But even this may be going too far #BuffaloChickenShake

[VIDEO] Burger Anarchy Season 1 Episode 5 - Pizza Burger

Crime fighting in the park. It’s radical.

Credits

Starring Mike, Dan, Tom and, of course, Rob.

And Introducing Alex Mills as Alex.

“The cheeseburger couldn’t have existed until nearly a century ago as, indeed, it did not.”

—

On the impracticality of a cheeseburger.

This is great.

“Our new burger patty is 100% British beef, nothing else. We use viennoise buns baked daily by The Bread Factory especially for us. Our bright orange melty cheese is a secret, as is the sauce, pickles and salad mix which makes it taste brilliant. Come down, try it, it’s juicy, naughty and tastes amazing.”

—

Our buddies from one of B/A’s favourite pubs in London town, The Ship.

It sounds like they’ve got another reason to love them.

One of EVERYTHING on the menu / Taco Bell / Lakeside, UK (but none of the veggie nonsense)

[LINK] Have we had our fill of Fine Dining?

The final nail in fine dining’s coffin is that it’s simply not cool anymore. The food world is a newly hip place to be, full of facial-haired young gunslingers, whether behind the stoves, creating the artisan cheeses and saucissons or scanning the menus. They’re setting themselves up in funky mobile kitchens like food mavericks the Eat St collective in King’s Cross, or opening speakeasy-style dives such as Meat Liquor with its perfect burger obsession, or leaving city life like James Swift, creator of Trealy Farm’s silky British charcuterie. They’re chefs like Stevie Parle or Young Turks Isaac McHale and James Lowe, working every hour God sends in the pursuit of good food.

Wonderful stuff from Marina.

“Everyone is so busy buying ‘organic artisan’ food from Broadway Market that the pie ‘n mash shop is empty. This is a TRAVESTY people.”

• Rob, a few weeks after the Superette popup.

Reviewing a popup is pointless and annoying. We went. You might have gone. You probably didn’t. You certainly can’t go now. So here’s a few pictures instead.

We enjoyed ourselves. The golden buns were fun, but serving burgers in boxes doesn’t help them maintain their shape very well.

A messy, busy, noisy night. We were there early, so didn’t suffer the wait that others did.

And London, don’t forget your pie ‘n mash shops.

A short visual precursor to the full Admiral Codrington review…

The Steve Buscemi from @Lucky_Chip. I wish it was an In ‘n Out tribute, turns out it was a cheeseburger with thousand island on it. Sad times.

So trendy Shoreditch bar / cafe / venue / table tennis association The Book Club makes tremendous buttermilk pancakes for brunch.

They cost a paltry £4.

Who knew?

Some wonderful wood-fired win from @homesliceldn