This could easily be the start to a post about some new porkaterian cocktaileria in Dalston.
But it isn't.
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on tour
Is this the awesome brainchild of an industry veteran or a cynical attempt to cash in on the new wave of burger joints?
When hunger pangs befell us on Times Square, I knew the newest location of Five Napkin Burger was a couple of short blocks away. Boom. Payoff.
It didn’t really taste like a burger, obviously, because that would be weird.
This is a very famous burger. The elder statesman of destination burgers. Those who are better travelled and of a superior palate say it’s up there in the top few burgers in the entire United States.
I pretend to look at the rest of the menu while finishing a reassuringly strong Tom Collins.
It’s important to toil against the impending jetlag and the most efficient way of doing that is mainlining buttermilk pancakes and bottomless cups of diner coffee.
“And it looked like a typical diner burger - apart from the tsunami of special sauce…”
Whenever I go to visit friends in Ireland, I always try to find a way to hit up Supermacs, the fast food burger chain of Ireland. It’s incredible - go into a big one, like Eyre Square in Galway, and you can get pizza and fried chicken too. It’s immense, and it’s an enjoyably messy scrum late on a Friday or Saturday night.
Their burgers are sauced to the max, and their chilli cheese fries are as filthy as they come. Take me here drunk and I’ll lob 20€ at food with reckless abandon. And as we all know, that’s about £50 at the moment.
However, on my last few visits, my compadres have insisted we go for a classier burger fare, and so Eddie Rocket’s it was. Now Eddie’s goes for a quasi 1950’s American diner vibe, think Ed’s Easy Diner and you’re on the right wavelength. Also, if you’ve seen last year’s excellent ‘The Guard’, then you’d recognise it. This one was plonked in a leisure park opposite a cinema, so maybe throw in a bit of out-of-town TGI Friday’s and a dash of Frankie & Bennie’s for good measure.
Buoyed by the presence of American cheese on the menu, I thought I’d hit up the embarrassingly-named Cheeez Please. The waitress promptly caused panic by looking all befuddled and saying: ‘You mean cheddar right? They’re the same thing’.
No, I didn’t mean cheddar. Hmmm.
Sitting up at the the counter, we were able to see the chef at work, pounding the meat onto the grill with a round patty smasher. Sadly, it stayed on the grill for way too long and the cheese was thrown on the patty literally seconds before it was put in the bun. Heartbreaking.
Seconds later it was in front of me. And it looked like a typical diner burger - apart from the tsunami of special sauce: a weird pale, nuclear yellow colour. Very off-putting. On first bite though, it wasn’t that bad. The patty was seasoned and had clung on to some juice, the sauce was mayo with a touch of mustardy-spice (only a tiny touch mind), and the veggies were plentiful and crisp.
The cheese had fought hard to melt, against the odds, but separated upon eating rather than stringily pulling away. But the bun. Oh, the bun. It was stale to the point of crunchy, and therefore repelled moisture. A real let down on an otherwise passable effort.
The hot wings that accompanied were solid, and the bacon cheese fries were covered in an awesome cinema-style nacho cheese, even if its main ingredient was clearly salt.
Nice try Eddie’s. But on my next trip though, the plan is most definitely Occupy Supermacs.
- Rob.
Sometimes an idea comes along that is so simple, and yet so totally ingenious that you just have to stand up and slow clap the dudes that thought it up, ‘Lucas’ style. So we applaud the comfort food genius that is Los Angeles’ Grilled Cheese Truck.
What’s all the more awesome is that these guys take such a staple, classic, comfort food and reinvent it with panache too. It’s testament to how well they do it that I’ve seen queues for this mobile eatery easily stretch 20-plus long. Our first visit attempt was at the fairly legendary Abbot Kinney First Fridays festival in Venice. The trouble was we’d already tried five trucks by the time we spotted them. Dammit.
And those queues are there for good reason; their Cheesy Mac And Rib is hugely satisfying. The barbecue pork was saucy-sweet, soft and worthy of a place all of its own on a menu. The mac ‘n cheese was heavy on the gooey cheese, sticky yet still trying to escape from every opening, and hinted a savouriness that balanced with the pork brilliantly. One hell of a sandwich.
I’m pretty sure I put this away in under ten mouthfuls it was so good, and if we weren’t going on to somewhere else for more food, I would have had another. A bang up job, and a must for anyone In L.A. who has only got time to visit a handful of food trucks.
- Rob.
We were drunk. We were in Downtown Los Angeles. We wanted some junk food. A bouncer told us to bowl down to Spring Street, and there, we found L.A. Café. That bouncer was a right geezer.
Man, Americans can do brunch.
The French toast here was soft and perfectly moist. Paired with the coulis-like apricot jam, which was well balanced between sweet and sharp, and a dash of whipped cream it was cracking. The inclusion of the chicken apple sausage was inspired. More delicate on the palate than it’s porky brethren; lobbing a chunk of this in with the French toast and jam was a sweet ‘n savoury texture-laden pleasure.
There are a few Macrina’s dotted around Seattle, and I’d recommend you find one if you’re ever there. It’s laid back, with great staff who are happy for you to chill for as long as you like and let the hangover subside. You can even grab some sweet looking bread and pastries for later in the day. The coffee kicked ass as well.
- Rob.
