GBBF is officially Great again

This time last year, I begged the question: Has the GBBF lost its G?

CAMRA's flagship beer festival was, I felt, in the doldrums. A victim of both its own success and the younger, more exciting competition. Many agreed with me. Long-time GBBF volunteer Tandleman asked 'How was GBBF for you?', stimulating further debate.

(I like debate. Though possibly not as much as I like good beer.)

Well, we've had another one since then. So how was the Great British Beer Festival 2018?

Monster Mashcakes and other Halloween tips

So, it's fucking Halloween again. The cuntiest American import since Mayor McCheese.

(I'm not entirely sure, technically, if we did import him and his wide, bunny, face, but as cultural references go it feels right, so I'm sticking with it!)

The Good ol' US of Stateside has given us many good things (especially in the world of food and beer) but the manufactured sentiment around what they call 'holidays' certainly isn't one of them. Apart from maybe seasonal ales and the Treehouse of Horror episodes of the Simpsons. They're usually pretty good.

Monster Mashcakes

Now, I'm lucky enough to live in an apartment without a front door that faces the outside world, so I shall be spared the worst excesses, but I've heard from others that the 'trick or treat' phenomenon has reached hideous levels in recent years and over the next few nights your doorstep will be infested with local scrotes in Harold Shipman costumes armed with rotten eggs and pump-action water pistols.

Fuck off.

I know I'm probably sound sounding like a grumpy, grizzled old grandfather, and some of you will be thinking 'pfft, it's only once a year, let the kids have their fun', so you can fuck right off too.

Fucked off yet? Good.

Food and beer pairing insights from GBBF 2013

Well, I wasn't completely sure if I'd make it through the week, but I'm pleased to report that I've survived the intensive beer marathon and emerged from the experience a wiser, happier, more accomplished man.

(The 'wiser' assertion is based on the idea that previous studies are wrong and excess alcohol consumption does, in fact, boost brain cell production, obviously.)

Last week, the GBBF at Olympia became my home. It was my living room, my dining room and, yes, my toilet.

Battle of the blands

In the 1936 German parlimentary 'election', the National Socialist German Workers Party polled 98.8%.

A similarly skewfucked democracy was evident across the internet this week as over 98% of the views on the US Presidential election were pro-Obama (or anti-Romney). That's quite a staggering statistic and the deep, institutionalised conformity saddens me a little.

Admittedly this is based on my own Facebook friends and Twitter feeds, but you'd think that there might be a little more balance, wouldn't you? Especially given that I'm not instinctively sympathetic to the Democratic Party.

The actual result was - as I predicted - a routine Obama win with only a couple of States changing colour but some of the shit people were coming out with was quite baffling.

'If you don't vote for Obama you shouldn't be allowed to vote!11one1'

'Don't let that dangerous nutter get his finger on the nuclear button!11republicanseatbabies11'...

'Well done America, you made the right decision!11fourmoreyears1'... 

And so on.

Could this have been my big break?

It's been a surreal few days, what with losing my Grandma, and then starting a new job today - the day after leaving the previous one! And going back for a meeting at the place I just left on my first day!

Our family seem to have suffered rather a lot of bereavements over the past year, and coupled with the stresses of job insecurity for much of that time, it's been a bit of a rough ride. But, hey, I can cope with pretty much anything, me.

Anyway, in preparation for leaving my old job I had to allocate several hours to 'digital tidy-up', sorting out anything I wanted to copy off my work laptop before I had to give it back.

For some, this task is inconvenient and tiresome, but I actually find it quite cathartic, not just because of the whole 'putting stuff in order' therapy, but also because I'm constantly finding little bits and bobs that I forgot about. Humourous jpgs, revealing and salacious emails, 'To Do' lists of stuff that never got done, that sort of thing.

All flights grounded...

The exercise also turned up a little gem about which I'd completely forgotten - a copy of a foodie article I'd written for Maxjet's in-flight magazine in 2007, just weeks, or possibly even days before they went bust.

The funny thing is, I actually got paid for the piece, but was never sent a proof (or indeed a final copy) and to this date I've no idea if this issue of the magazine ever made it onto a flight. I suspect it didn't.

I'd rather have not had the money but got the article into the skies though - and if Maxjet had survived, there would have been a series of these fuckers, which might possibly have propelled me to minor stardom, but alas this was not to be.

And so, I've reprinted the article below in all it's glory - hopefully not violating copyright legislation in the process - for all to see.

I've not edited it, and there are some concessions to contractual obligation in the copy, but overall I think it's a decent piece and one that Maxjet passengers would have enjoyed, if only they'd ever got to read it...

The Duke of Pork (and Beef)

I've been having a tough time lately - mostly work-related stuff, though there is an end in sight, but also my ongoing health issues - and so I frequently need cheering up.

Fortunately I'm quite easy to cheer up. Good food. Good beer. Indulgent treats. (Although these probably don't do anything for the health issues, admittedly - the doctors in their infinite medical wisdom have decided now that my calcium channels need blocking, as well as my ACEs inhibiting!)

So the other night we opted for one such indulgent treat. Several pints of excellent beer (including Arbor 'Goo Goo G'Joob' at a hefty 11%) and a few bags of Pitta Chips at the Craft Beer Company, and then on to Duke's Brew & Que.

Munch, Lunch and Cousin-fucking

Never averse to a spot of culture, I took the opportunity this lunchtime to pop out and visit Sotheby’s with the wife to view Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’.

The horror! The despair! It's probably an appropriate picture for Cov City fans at the moment, given our current dire predicament.

Scream your heart out

One of about four versions of the same painting produced by Munch, which are very rarely displayed publicly, this was a unique opportunity to see something famous and important before it sells next week for £50 million, though the airport-style security and queues weren’t as unbearable as I’d envisaged.

Now, whilst I appreciate art in almost all its myriad forms, I’m not one to buy into this idea that one particular work is necessarily magnitudes better than any other work, and the groupthink that supports and creates this mythology always baffles me a bit.

I’ve seen the Mona Lisa, and Rodin’s The Thinker, and felt that while they were alright, they weren’t worthy of the fuss made about them. It's all art. Yeah, it's quite good but is it really worth millions of pounds? I've seen stuff by local artists that they can't sell for 50 quid which I'd put on a par.

This pastel edition of the Scream, likewise is sort of OK,  though far brighter in colour than I expected, and with almost a camp theatricality about the screaming figure rather than the haunting terror for which the image – or, more likely, peoples mental idea of the image – is known.

And I don’t really see why it merits metal detectors, crowd barriers, a team of dedicated staff and its own room in the gallery. But then, what do I know?

In the next room were various Picassos, Chagalls and indeed several other works by Munch, and many of these were, to my eye, more interesting than the open-mouthed one, though singularly glossed over by most of the visitors, some of whom even walked straight out after their five minutes looking at the Scream.

Getting down and dirty

Just up the road, but a world apart from Sotheby’s is MEATliquor, a relatively recent addition to London’s burger scene though with a lustrous heritage in the form of the travelling Meatwagon van. Some of the artwork on the walls here is actually more interesting and challenging than the Scream, if I’m honest.

MEATliquor art

There’s bears and horned monsters and bare breasts and everything.

But, more importantly, what’s the food like? How does it compare to, say, Haché or Byron?

Well, it’s good. Very good. In a baaaaaaad sort of way.

You see, whereas the excellent Haché chain is a deliberate attempt at taking the burger into new stratospheres of upmarketness, MEATliquor is your no-nonsense, all-American working class hero and proud of it.

It’s a Ford Mustang that can’t corner properly. It's a speakeasy hoedown. It’s a vote for George W. Bush. It’s one of those provocatively-knotted-at-the-front tops that comely (and, sometimes not-so-comely) American ladies sometimes wear.

You get the idea.

Certainly the look and feel is the most authentically American I’ve ever seen in London, and with food served on greaseproof paper on plastic trays, and kitchen roll provided on every table instead of cutlery, it feels only a couple of guilty steps away from fucking your cousin over the bonnet of a rusting Buick behind the drive-thru.

Dimly lit, even at lunchtime!

And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes something that feels a bit dirty is good.

For some people, the edgy atmos and décor would make MEATliquor an instant no-go area. It is dimly lit, alterno-rock plays loudly at all times, and the toilet facilities are badged ‘frocks’ and ‘cocks’.

This was lunchtime but it’s easy to imagine what it would be like at night – even dimmer, even louder and chock-full of people looking for a cheap and dirty good time. On a Friday or Saturday evening there are apparently 90 minute queues to get in, and you can’t book in advance.

But if you can live with these things – which are all arguably part of the experience – you’ll be rewarded with some damn good food that might surprise you.

The vibe and attitude might be a world apart from the Sotheby’s and Armani’s in the upmarket streets outside, as if a little bit of a bad neighbourhood has been built in the wrong place, but as burger joints go, it has quality, seeping from every pore. Or maybe that’s just the juice from the burgers?

White Trash at its finest

We kicked off with the fried pickles – long, slender slivers of gherkin in a light, seasoned batter with a chunky blue cheese dip. The sort of thing you normally have to fly across the Atlantic to eat. Perfectly cooked and still cool and tangy and sweet in the middle, it makes for a strange reverse cheese’n’pickle experience.

Only in America... and Welbeck street

There are a few other options available (Philly cheesesteaks, chicken burgers and ‘rabbit food’)  but we were here for the beef and tried two different burgers from their selection, the Dead Hippy – a double cheeseburger with a mustardy special sauce – and a classic cheese and bacon.

Unlike certain other burger places, the policy here is to serve medium-rare and this is a good thing. The meat is charred nicely on the outside but very juicy and pink in the middle, which is just as it should be.

Both burgers were messy, in a good way, like ripped denim shorts on trailer park totty. With the Dead Hippy in particular it was hard to tell sometimes where the patty ended and the cheese/mustard/bun began, but that’s all part of the attraction for me. In it's own way this, too, is Expressionist art.

Being an English gentleman, a part of me would have preferred to eat the mess from a big, sensible English plate, with an English knife and fork and an air of civilised refinement, but I fought back these emotions, took a big gulp of beer and got down and dirty, Yank-style.

Prepare to get messy. Very messy.

The bun is soft and bready but doesn’t completely fall apart, and the burgers included more slices of gherkinpickle and some token salad, which all adds up to a faceful of tasty brilliance.

We also had the fries – standard, stringy variety but lots of them – and onion rings. These were big bastards and, like the pickles, the batter was awesome, but you’ll be reaching for the kitchen roll soon enough.

Given that the burgers probably aren’t as lean as those in most other ‘premium’ burger places, it’s certainly not a place to go for a healthy meal. They might be slightly too greasy for my palette (especially when you’re having fried stuff with them) but that’s a pifflingly insignificant criticism really.

Drink!

There’s only a small selection of bottled beers available, but the Flying Dog Old Scratch is exactly the sort of beer you want with a big, badass burger. Frosted glasses are a nice touch too.

Drinking. Better than screaming.

It being lunchtime, I didn’t venture into the mixology world, but they have a good reputation for strong, no-nonsense cocktails (£6-8 each).                 

We finished up with a Goose Island root beer float, which is about as American as it gets without actually sticking flags onto a pickup truck.

A meal for two will cost £40-50, or more if you do lots of drinking, obviously. For the West End this isn’t bad, and it’s extremely satisfying food that will leave you uncomfortably full for hours if you’re not careful!

So, is it the best burger in London? Well, it’s a bit different from other places and certainly scores high on authenticity factor if you’re pining for a trashy, transatlantic dive, but I probably wouldn’t want to come here every single day and somebody like me probably has to be in a certain mood to fully enjoy MEATliquor.

The meat is probably on a par with Hache and Byron’s Big D (which is only available at certain times of the year) and a bit better than a standard Byron burger.

Slightly less expensive than these places too, although if you go around comparing the prices to McDonalds or Burger King you’ll be totally missing the point. Fucking pointmisser.

I guess the conclusion is that each of these three has something that they do better than their brethren (beer choice in Byron, brioche bun in Hache, fried pickles and unique atmosphere here) and they are all streets ahead of any other burger I’ve yet tried. I’d find it very hard to eat in, say, Gourmet Burger Kitchen these days, let alone order a burger in Wetherspoons.

So, rather than try to conclude definitively which is the best place to go for burgers in London, I shall just be glad that there are now some really good places to go for burgers in London!

Where to find it...

Meat Liquor

76 Welbeck Street

London

W1G 0AY (map)

********* 

The Scream is on display at Sotheby’s until tomorrow, April 18 (admission free)

Doing stuff in the wrong order

When I was a child, my primary hobby was probably collecting Star Wars figures. Han, Luke, Leia; Ree Yees, Bib Fortuna, The Gamorrean Guard. I had them all. Well, most of them.

The hunt to find them all excited me to such an extent that until relatively recently I still purchased vintage figures on Ebay in an attempt to complete my collection, and even now I occasionally have dreams that I’ve found a shop with a rare, new figure I haven’t seen before.

Yeah, I know. Victim of commercialism. At such a tender age. Tragic.

All my childhood hopes and dreams!

What is surprising though is that I was a bit of a late arrival on the scene, only having been born in 1977.

That was the year that the first of the three Star Wars films was released (there are only three Star Wars films and if you think otherwise you are a Stormtrooper's cock) and the first that I saw was actually the final part of the trilogy: Return of the Jedi.

This was 1983. In the Streatham Odeon back when it had three proper, big auditoria instead of 138 micro screens. Good times.

It opens with the resolution of a cliffhanger from Empire Strikes Back, but, being six, this didn’t bother me in the slightest. I got to see Ree Yees, Bib Fortuna and the Gamorrean Guard brought to life and so, to me, ROTJ was Star Wars, at least until we rented the first and second instalments from the video shop and I got to see the earlier portion of the trilogy.

I was also fascinated by the first series of Monty Python’s Flying Circus by virtue of not having seen it. When I was about eight they showed series 2 and 3 on TV and I was addicted. Utterly.

But in those days there was a very strange policy that the BBC could or would not repeat programmes more than three times, which is why the first series wasn’t shown in my lifetime until the rules were relaxed in the late 1980s, by which time I was 12 and Python was 20!

It’s hard to imagine this kind of reality these days, when channels like UK Gold and Dave show the same episodes of the same programmes ad infinitium, and you can watch them on Youtube whenever you feel like it.

I swear, every time I notice that an episode of Fawlty Towers is on, it’s always The Anniversary – Series 2, Episode 5 – which includes memorable appearances from the late Ken Campbell, and strident comic actress Pat Keen who used to live in the flat above me in Ipswich!

Why am I banging on about this shit?

Anyway, one thing I concluded from all this is that there isn’t necessarily any harm in ‘doing stuff in the wrong order’. Except when there is, obviously.

This lunchtime - following a pint or three in the consistently excellent Craft Beer Company - I finally made it to Daddy Donkey in Leather Lane. And given my enthusiasm for the Craft, I must have walked past the self-styled 'Kick Ass Mexican Grill' more times than I've seen Polly pretending to be Sybil Fawlty. Which, UK Gold and Dave, is a lot of times!

There are perhaps two reasons why the order of events could be said to be 'wrong' in this instance:

a) I’d already been a couple of times to their spin-off Burger van, ‘Boom’, which appeared on the scene far more recently and;

b) Daddy Donkey actually pre-empted all the other conveyer-belt Mexican food chains, like Tortilla, which I’ve previously favourably reviewed.

The twin towers of takeaway street

Boom Burger was never going to win any prizes in my search for the best burger in London.

It's fast and cheap (£4.95 for a burger with a couple of toppings and £6.50 for the deluxe version with fries and 'slaw - toppings extra) but the quality of beef just isn't up to the mark, and the char-grilled meat has a strange, burnt, shish-kebab-like flavour.

Whack that in a bog-standard toasted sesame bun and you've got a burger that tastes like it's come from a kebab shop late at night, and if you were in a kebab shop late at night you would, surely, have a kebab, no?

Also, food that might be acceptable late at night, when everywhere else is closed and you're staggering pissed, seldom hits the spot in the cold light of lunchtime, which is the only time that Boom is open.

Burr(it)o!

But I can probably forgive Daddy Donkey his lacklustre beef offspring for the simple reason that the 'Kick Ass Mexican Grill' does indeed kick ass and I really wish I'd sampled it earlier.

The formula is the same as that which has been copied by Tortilla. You choose your meat and rice and veg and salsa and they wrap it up in a big, err, wrap, and you're tucking in within seconds. Simple.

Fresh, fresh, fresh

It's classic street food and fairly good value at £5.95 - certainly given the choice between a substandard burger and a good buritto at a similar price, I know which one I'd plump for, and that might explain why Daddy Donkey typically sports a lengthy queue, while Boom Burger can serve you straight away.

 
Sometimes when things are assembled 'fresh', the components taste anything but, having been lying around all day, but this isn't the case here. The charcoally flavour in the burgers is nowhere to be found, and the grilled beef here is lean, tender and nicely seasoned. 

It would be tasty enough on it's own, but it's even better with the accoutrements of sour cream and salsa - which comes at a temperature of your choosing, though even the 'medium' version is actually fairly hot. 


While the beef is probably best, you can also choose from pork or chicken, and the number of possible combinations available, depending on what exactly you want on it, is almost beyond calculation.

Beany Breakfast burritos are available from 7 to 11 AM, when the lunch service takes over. They pack up at 4 PM, sometimes earlier.

That'll do, Donkey, that'll do

For my money the quality of the food is superior to the Tortilla chain and the portion is a tad more generous. Then again, Boom burger is a one off, run by the same people, and yet it's notably inferior to chains like Byron and Haché, so there are no hard and fast rules.

I could admit now that 'Jedi' is actually my favourite Star Wars film, but then I'd probably get beaten up by somebody, or force-fed Boom Burgers or something...

Where to find it

Daddy Donkey
Leather Lane

Clerkenwell,
EC1N 7TE
*********
Boom Burger

Leather Lane

Clerkenwell,
EC1N 7TE
********* 

Trailer Park Foie Gras

Having drastically culled Britain’s Turkey Twizzler population a few years ago, Jamie Oliver has been at it again, this time taking on low-grade filler meat across the pond.

‘Lean finely textured beef’ aka ‘Pink slime’ – the highly-processed beef that finds its way into American fast food to keep the cost down – has now received such negative PR that it’s become a no-go area in much of the US food industry. 

It looks like another battle won by Mr. Oliver, and for those of us that prefer our food tasty and natural, that can only be a good thing.

Yes, he can be a bit of a twat at times, and his girthy tongue sometimes runs away with itself, but on these sorts of issues I’m largely in agreement with him.

But even prior to the Oliverian backlash, it was still easier a hell of a lot easier to find a really good quality burger in the US than it is in this country, which rather begs the question of what goes into some of the manky burgers we get over here?!? Possibly something just as slimy and pink that hasn’t yet been tarred with such an unappealing name?

As a Libertarian I wouldn’t want to ban ‘food’ like this altogether, and because so many people will be boycotting Pink Slime it might develop a mystique and become the foie gras of the poor.

Sick and wrong

One of the most disgusting things I’ve ever eaten – and it was only a tiny smidge, which was all I could bear – was some ‘Potted Meat Food Product’. You find it occasionally in small tins in gas station minimarts, particularly in the Mid-West and South.

The product that has to tell people that it's food...

I took a can back to share with my then-colleagues and most refused to try it outright. Some couldn't stand to be in the office kitchen when we opened it - such was the unpleasant aroma. The only person who ate an entire crackersworth is now the Labour PPC for Ipswich and might possibly end up as some kind of junior food minister in a future government!

Generally I find tinned food hard to stomach anyway, but this lurid, salty sludge was particularly grotesque. I reckon it probably had some Pink Slime in it, in addition to the mechanically separated chicken, partially defatted cooked pork fatty tissue, beef hearts and tripe.

I just can’t work out why people – even very poor people – eat these things. It’s like the (largely apocryphal) stories about students eating dog and cat food, which make no sense as they could buy value baked beans and pappy sliced loaves for a lot less. Do they need meat that badly?

And, incidentally, prior to the 1970s Pink Sludge was considered only suitable for use in pet food products!

Surely even vegetarianism is preferable to these sorry excuses for ‘meat’?!?

If you only learn how to cook one dish, learn this!

You’ll have noticed, or possibly not, that I recently customised the design of Ben Viveur to include a background image that looks like a never-ending portion of chilli.

Mmm, infinite chilli. Feel free to salivate for there are few mental images more alluring than this.

A good chilli is, it has to be said, one of my favouritestever foods. So long as the guiding principles are right, it's a hugely flexible dish, and if you only teach yourself how to cook one thing, chilli would be a pretty good choice because a few variations can turn it into something that's more like a curry or a Bolognaise sauce or a cottage pie filling.

Not all chilli is good though. Rubbishcunt chilli makes me shudder, and there are so many ways in which chilli can be substandard – too bland, too mindlessly hot, too full of the wrong things - it’s a minefield out there, so it is.

 

Not that you'll ever find anything approaching consensus on what a chilli should contain, mind. A heated debate has been raging for a great many years - for some, kidney beans are a defining feature, but to some purists in certain parts of the US, beans of any kind are strictly verboten. Personally I like them, but they’re not mandatory.

In fact, almost no one ingredient is essential in my chili recipe, though if you left out too many of them, it might cease to resemble a chili.

There are, however, a few things that I’ve encountered in some unfortunate chillis over the years, which I really don’t think ever have a place –  prawns, peas, carrot, quorn… and a chilli should never EVER contain sweetcorn in my view. Not even a veggie one.

The only thing a chilli really definitely ought to contain is, I guess, some actual chillis, although I’ve tried some that seemed notably bereft!

Generally I’ll cook my chilli using either minced beef or chopped stewing steak, but I’ve made chicken chilli and an all-veggie version (with extra mushrooms, chopped celery and a variety of beans) too.

It’s satisfying and nourishing, and if you use extra-lean meat and low fat sour cream, it can be an extremely healthy dish.

This recipe is the classic – you can figure out your own variations – and it’ll keep well for a couple of days, improving over time.

My chilli, what I done made

I cooked one the other night. We ate with garlic bread balls, and finished it the following evening with rice. I'd have happily tucked into it a third night running if it weren't all polished off. Chilli be good.

Chilli

Ingredients

Minced beef, extra lean ( ¼ to ½ half a pound or so per serving)

Onion, finely chopped (roughly 1 small onion per serving)

Fresh chillies, finely chopped (either green or red, to taste)

Red peppers, finely chopped the long sweet twisty ones are best

Shitake mushrooms, finely chopped

Kidney beans, (¼ to ½ a tin per serving, depending on how beany you like your chilli). Get a tin that doesn’t have extra sugar or salt or anything else added to it, obviously.

Tomatoes, finely chopped, lots

Garlic, finely chopped, lots

Cumin, lots

Paprika

Black pepper

Cayenne pepper

Celery salt

Ground Ginger, a little

Chives

Fresh lime juice

Dark chocolate, a little

Dark (but not heavy) beer – dark lager is best, but a mild or porter will do

Worcestershire sauce

Olive oil

Butter

Sour cream

Method

Set a big sautee pan upon an high heat. The pan will need to have a lid for use later on.

Fry the chopped onion, chilli and garlic in a small amount of oil for a few minutes, then add a knob of butter and throw in your mushrooms.

Now put your beef in there, along with a big splash of Worcestershire sauce and generous quantities of cumin, black pepper, cayenne, and celery salt and a little ginger, and cook until almost browned, adding the peppers along the way.

Chuck in your kidney beans and a few squares of dark chocolate. Don’t drain the beans – the juices will enrich the sauce, as will the chocolate.

When the meat is brown, add the old tomatoes and cook for a few more minutes on maximum heat, then pour in a little beer for liquidity, whack the lid on the pan and turn the temperature right down.

Allow to simmer for an hour, stirring periodically if it makes you feel better about yourself. Midway through, chuck in some chives and the juice of a lime or two.

You might want to taste the sauce and see if it needs any more cumin or cayenne or whatever – just make sure it’s to your taste.

The longer you cook it on a low heat, the better it will get. If it looks dry, feed it with some beer.  

You can transfer it to a casserole and continue cooking it in an oven if you prefer - I have no strong argument for doing this, unless you need your hob for other purposes.

Serve it when you want to eat! And swirl some sour cream on top before so doing.

Chilli goes well with bread, garlic bread, green salad leaves, rice, baked potatoes, burgers, well pretty much anything really.

To drink? Dry, fruity whites or dry, fruity beers would seem to be the order of the day.

Burger Me!

I recently returned from my latest trip to the USA (the ‘Four Corners’ area around the rocky mountains and Monument Valley as it happens) and as usual, I drank plenty of uber-hoppy microbrews and polished off a few big, meaty burgers.

Now back in The Wharf, with a shiny new food’n’drink blog to pen, I’m left to reflect on what is ultimately a bittersweet experience, because trips to the US tend to remind me that, with scant few exceptions, our beers are generally nowhere near as uncomprising as I’d like, and most hamburger products available in this country are crap too.

You can get crap burgers in the States too, of course. They pretty much invented fast food and have sustained a passionate love affair therewith for decades. But you don’t have to look too far to find something much better; much beefier; much more flavoursome. Pretty much any bar will grill you up a thick injection of beefy goodness, topped with whatever you like. It’ll taste damn good, it’ll fill you up good and proper, and it won’t cost the earth either.

And, unfortunately, it’s an experience that seems so difficult for British restaurants to recreate.

It’s not all about the toppings either, or we’d have it sussed by now. Yes, it’s great to have your half-pounder bursting with chilli, avocado and sour cream, or (my personal favourite) Canadian Cheddar, bacon and BBQ sauce, or whatever. But so the fuck what? Any donkey can whack stuff on top and sell the burger off the back of the other ingredients, but it should be the bovine slab of delight underneath that matters.

A few years ago the Gourmet Burger Kitchen exploded onto the London restaurant chain scene, giving hope to burger aficionados everywhere. Run originally by exiled New Zealanders, they've expanded across the country, specialising in some inventive topping combinations – try mango and ginger on ‘The Jamaican’, or aubergine and tahini on ‘The Babaganoush’.

GBK’s chunky fries and aioli and polenta chips and coleslaw are all pretty good but none of these tasty things are burgers. And their actual burgers are, compared to their transatlantic brethren, pretty average (though, it has to be said, half-decent compared to most of their local competition).

One thing that has always really annoyed me about GBK is how the lack of table service completely detracts from the 'restaurantness' of the experience. It's all so 'fast-foody', deciding what one wants rather hurriedly whilst queuing to pay for it upfront, then returning to the counter to pay again if you want something else. The last thing you want to do when stuffed with Kiwiburger is to struggle to your feet and sift through your loose change just to get a coffee

Over the last few years Wetherspoons and similar pub chains have leaped onto the bandwagon to promote their own ‘gourmet’ burgers, as if it’s the toppings that somehow make them good, but it doesn’t fucking work. Try the regular and gourmet burger in our local Spoons, The Ledger Building – you’ll see it’s exactly the same burger, and there’s nothing much gourmet about it.



'Gourmet' Wetherburger, now with plate-corners



I read on Wetherspoons Facebook page this week that they've now upgraded their gourmet burger... to be served on a rectangular plate! Great. That'll make it taste so much more awesome!!!111one1

Thing is, you could put the finest foie grois and truffle oil on the sort of tasteless, gristly lipid-lumped patties that routinely pass for burgers in this country, and succeed only in ruining your foie grois and truffle oil.

But Why, I ask you, Why?

So, one has to ask the question. Why are so many British burgers uninspiring and bland when just across the Atlantic, a similar type of outlet can sell a similarly-named product at a similar price point that tastes like proper cow.

The quality of the beef cattle probably has a lot to do with it. I’m guessing here, but it wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of the meat that goes into hamburger mince in the US would have remained intact and become rump steak or perhaps a roasting joint of some sort, had it come from the flesh of an English cow.

It also wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if our burgers were made from the lowest-grade meat available, but from the next level up over there – their decent burgers get made from ‘premium economy’ beef, or maybe even business class, because all the economy stuff gets used by the low-end fast food outlets, with which we’re unconcerned, and whose burgers taste the same all over the world.

I think I've hit on something here: Wetherspoons burgers, say, aren't really much better than those from Burger King or a van outside a football ground, because they probably come from the same off-cuts and offal silos, if that isn't some sort of culinary libel. (If it is, I didn't say it, obviously). 

Here’s a little tip: one pretty good indicator of a good burger is that the taste holds up (and, as far as I’m concerned improves) when cooked on the rarer side of medium and eaten without extraneous toppings.

Burgers in outlets where there is no option other than the house ‘medium-well’ tend to be less good than those in places where they’re happy to give the customer the choice, knowing that it won’t disappoint, however it’s cooked. It’s all about the quality of the beef.

This rule holds true for haemophobes too – even if you’re always going to ask for your burger bien cuit, a burger that tastes good when rare will taste better when well done than a burger that tastes strange and falls apart when rare will taste when well done, if that makes sense, which it probably doesn’t, but I don’t fucking care because I’m lost in burger fantasy right now anyway.

New kids on the meat block Byron opened their Canary Wharf outlet a few weeks ago so I was naturally keen to see if their self-proclaimed ‘Proper Hamburgers’ could hold a candle to those I’ve eaten in the US - and the good news is that they can. Pretty much.
 
Get past the deliberately quirky branding, and toilet facilities eerily wallpapered with comics and the fundamentals are all there.



Byron, Canary Wharf



They’ll ask you how you’d like your burger cooked, and actually listen to you and act on it, which is a great start! The menu includes a few suggested topping combinations (the signature ‘Byron Burger’ comes with cheddar and bacon, and their tangy house sauce), but doesn’t make too big a meal out of toppingness and lets you choose your own, or indeed none at all.

(i've no idea who the Byron in question actually is, but it's reassuring that their slogan is 'Proper Hamburgers' rather than something convoluted around 'lording it over the competition' or 'club foot sandwich' or somesuch!)

The burger itself is more flavoursome than any I’ve previously sampled in a country with taps and pavements; the meatiness wafting through the toppings and working with them rather than hiding behind sauce like some frightened, beefy bastard.

Maybe they fly their cattle over from Montana first class and slaughter them en route to The Wharf from City Airport? It certainly tastes like it.

There are proper bottles of various sauces on the table, including Tabasco, which adds to the American diner-type feel, and which is no bad thing.

You can mix and match and share your sides (crispy courgette fries are a particular highlight) rather than be shoe-horned into a meal combo you might not want which is great, especially at lunchtime, and there’s Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and Brooklyn Lager on the drinks list for an authentically modern American experience (or you could go for an old-fashioned milkshake served in the frozen bucket it was made in!)

Another reliable marker for the quality of a burger is to ask yourself if you could happily drink wine with it. Byron offer a succinct list, 'helpfully' self-rated from 'Good' (Pinotage) to 'Best' (a Californian Pinot Noir) via 'Better' and 'Great', though I'd suggest that in this context it's pretty much of a muchness and the scale goes from 'Alright' to 'Alright'.


They have a similarly-rated quartet of Whites, but who on God's fat earth would consider drinking white wine with a burger?!?.Come on.

There are myriad places to eat on The Wharf, but even with the presence of GBK, there was a burger-shaped gap in the market which has now been filled admirably.

OK, they ain’t quite perfect. The dessert menu is safe and bland (though GBK doesn't even have one). There’s no choice in the bread department, and the standard bun isn’t very inspiring, and I’ve been told the vegetarian and healthy salady options are disappointing and come across as an afterthought.

But then who seeks out the best burger joint in town only to eat something that isn’t a burger? Possibly the same people who are drinking Chardonnay when they eat something that is?

Anyway, a substantial meal for two with a couple of beers or a bottle of wine will set you back £35-50, which is about comparable with GBK (and 3-4 times the price of Wetherspoons but fuck 'em).

Bottom line is that I might have been to a dozen or so places that are better than Byron Burger, but they are all a lengthy plane ride away. So go to Byron for your burgers, dickwad.

On The Wharf...

The Ledger Building (JD Wetherpoons)
4, Hertsmere Road,
West India Quay
E14 4AL
********* 

Gourmet Burger Kitchen
Unit 24, Jubilee Place,
Canary Wharf,
E14 5NY 
********* 

Byron Hamburgers
Second Floor, Cabot Place East
Canary Wharf
E14 4QT
*********  
(Other branches of all three chains are plentiful across London