We went back to Birmingham and ate another burger and it was really good.
Viewing entries tagged
fries
Are opinion polls and awards from over two years ago an effective Thermapen for recommending places in 2018? Rox Burger is the first test subject.
The latest US Burger chain to invade the capital.
It is Birmingham's best burger place. We took a train all the way there to try it.
Street food wing stop opens permanent space in new Olympic park legacy project. We check out the canal views. And eat the food. And are disappointed.
There are some pretty nice places to go eat around Farringdon and Clerkenwell, and more food traffickers are realising this and setting up shop. It is ample pickings. But sometimes it takes us so long to get around to reviewing gaffs that they've closed down and become something else before we get a chance to. Oh, how fickle is City crowd! Guess they didn't need our poxy website rambles to tell them it was shit. Bad restaurant gossip must spread faster here than the rumours about Brandon's chlamydia around High School.
So a residency in a pub kitchen is probably a wise idea in the revolving door of bricks and mortar establishments, and food merchants We Serve Humans have found one in The Gunmakers - A cute, simply designed wee boozer selling craft beer and cocktails that oddly has an rather expensive hairdressers above it, should you desire a chopped barnet with your IPA.
Technically the 'burger' section of the menu only contains one actual burger, named The Chairman (the rest being an array of differing sandwiches*) so we went with it. Upon arrival it most definitely looked disheveled, as if someone had briefly used it in place of their Shake Weight: The pickled red onion jam lay raggedly, discarded purply perm curls across cheese slices that looked barely rattled let alone melted, encased in what looked like a sad unsugared doughnut. So it was shit then...
Nope, it wasn't. It was actually bloody great.
The sad doughnut was a soft cream bun that had a great creamy mild flavour with a durable squish and just-chewy texture. The patty was delightfully soft beef, loosely formed with a pink stripe through the middle, and had stand out meaty well-seasoned flavour.
Despite being unmelted, the American-style cheese slices were the kind that easily acquiesced their salty rubberiness to the heat of the meat. The onion jam added sweetness without being overbearing, mellowed by the creamy custom bun sauce. This is one such example of sandwich thaumaturgy where simple mixtures of ingredients that don't look like much, when forcefully merged together by the crushing of two bits of tasty bread, just work. And work well.
Oh, and you get fuck loads of chips. Tick in the portion size box.
These guys currently have a couple of other pub residencies and a regular Saturday gig at the Signature Brewery in Leyton so if you are East London-centric you'll have no problem catching them. We will be again soon.
- Rob
*Yeah, we're pedants.
Patty Smith's serves out of a white-tiled hatch in a cosy and eclectically furnished space, adorned with neon signage and posters, skirting trendy bar whilst bleeding the essence of a gig venue. The Smith's flank the bar on one side while pizza tossers the Dough Boys occupy the other, a proper street food ambience à la Street Feast in London. Pizza, burgers and booze - this place has vibes on lockdown.
We grabbed their classic cheeseburger, the Dirty Burger. It has similarities with the wares of the eponymous London chain that it shares a name with, especially the bun which is shiny and sweaty from the beefy-grease sauna of the grill plate. It has that similar pliable softness and chewy pull-apart texture too, the facets of our favourite style of brioche.
The rest of the set up is pretty standard - tart American mustard swims with a tangy-sweet chipotle mayo, blending into a tasty sauce ocean below a flotilla of crisp chopped baby gem lettuce.
Thick crinkle bricks of pickle crank up the crunchy piquant, smoothed out by the mellow meat flavour of the savoury patty: It is plump, loosely packed with a largely pink core and the meat errs the right side of deliquescence in the chew. All it lacks is a bosh of seasoning. There also isn't enough of the melted-to-liquid cheddar, an absence notable by the translucence atop the patty. A bit more of it to amp up the tanginess and this would have been top notch. Regardless it is a very decent burger at a reasonable price.
Top notch are the session fries. The genius idea of a plastic serving tray size sharable platter of fries with toppings (which reminds us of L.A. street food legend Frysmith). Not only are the fries a crisp deep brown from their double frying, but they come topped with large chunks of pancetta, chopped kebab shop chilis, grated pecorino and fried rosemary - a forceful mixture of hot and matured savoury cuddled by an outstanding Sriracha chilli mayo which had both heat and creaminess and a deep sweetness. This was only really meant to be a snack stop but so good were these guys that we filled up our greedy faces finishing them.
It'd be lovely if we knew of somewhere in London that was like this - a multi-faceted gig space that you could also go drinking at and had some fucking solid food in it to boot - but we don't*. See, the North can be alright sometimes.
- Rob
*If you know one, let us know.
The haggis toastie slingers have a residency in London viewgasm hot spot Highgate. And they do a burger.
The Hoxton Hotel gets a sibling in Holborn and there's something a bit fishy about the menu.
We go hunting for bears in North London.