Le Bun x Kelis

Pop will eat itself

Leicester Square - July 2016

It’s not every day you get your dinner cooked for you by a multi-million record selling, Grammy-winning musician. But when Kelis Rogers, of Milkshake/Boys/Yard fame, linked up with French/American street food stars Le Bun for a two week London pop-up (with additional nights at Standon Calling festival), that’s exactly what we got.

There’s no denying Kelis’ cooking credentials. She trained at Le Cordon Bleu part time for 4 years while knocking out albums & having a kid. She’s run a food truck at SWSX. She’s presented a show on the Cooking Channel. She’s released a range of sauces & she’s published a cookbook. Baby, she got this. 

In order to help her bring her passion project over to London (something she’d been wanting to do for years, apparently. I bet she says that to all the food scenes…), she teamed up with Le Bun, who have been growing steadily in reputation since starting up a few years ago at Street Feast, and whose beef bourguignon bun deserves to be on the pantheon of great London street eats.

So this was no mere gimmick, no half-arsed celebrity endorsement. And the lady herself was sweating it out in the kitchen. But was it any good?

In parts.

There were some moments of true brilliance – a sticky, soft, soul-satisfying ox cheek poutine with super tender meat and deep, rich gravy, served over crispy yukka wedges was bowl-licking stuff. 

The off-menu bahn-mi came with dipping gravy we enjoyed straight from the glass (even if the sandwich itself wasn’t setting the world alight). Her chilli & cornbread was a winning combination of deceptively spicy meat and sweet crumbly bread (addition of stem ginger gave it a fiery kick). 











And the truffle-aioli & parmesan coated corn is a mix of sophisticated and homely; the perfectly browned sweet corn matched against rich truffle and salty cheese. Even if the lack of available toothpicks meant the rest of the meal was spent working the bits out.

Then everything else is pretty average. There was a ‘Pho Get Me Not’ that was fragrant, but lacking in any depth, and only two pieces of rubbery chicken. It was pretty phogettable. The sea bass ceviche is pleasantly citrusy and slightly spiced, but the best in the game aren’t merely pleasant; they’re up to 11 with the flavours. (see Lima Floral for details). The arepas have their moments, with the pork being the best of the bunch, but there's nothing in there to convince me they're just inferior tacos.

The most obvious Le Bun portion of the meal was actually a little disappointing. Our cheeseburger was overcooked, the truffle mayo lacked any real truffle hit, and while the flank steak was perfectly  slow cooked and tender, the cherry barbeque sauce coating it was just too sweet like hoi sin for my tastes. It’s a shame, because as we’ve hinted, their food is usually top drawer.

And finally; a word on dessert. Half a fig with some warm almond milk and almond flakes is not ‘A Happy Ending’, it was more like a limp handshake.

As a one-off, I’m glad we tried it. But at £40 it seemed over-priced when you consider the places you can get top quality tasting menus for under £50. Perhaps there’s an element of the Leicester Square location and the nature of the event in that price.. And fair play to Kelis for actually running the service, rather than just landing her name.  Overall, we enjoyed the food, but would we go back if it was on again? Let me put it this way: Might trick me once, won’t let you trick me twice. Whoa-a-oh-a.

Dip & Flip

It’s all gravy, baby.

Clapham Junction - 30 September 2014

On the hunt for a beefy hit, we washed up in Clapham Junction for a second bite of London’s French-dipping champions Dip & Flip. We’d initially had a taste of the gravy life at Riverside Feast earlier this year and were suitably impressed, so wanted to give them a full appraisal on their own turf.

As testament to their popularity it was crazy busy for a Tuesday evening. We grabbed the last free table, before a period of others queuing out-the-door. The waitress claimed this was an unusual midweek phenomenon, but it was payday. Must be a good sign – even in the otherwise burger-free bleakness of Clapham Junction.

Sadly, the freak nature of the occurrence did mean the staff weren’t ready for it and the service was a bit slow. The worst result being we’d smashed through our incredible Oreo milkshake well before the burgers arrived. A super-thick malty marvel, spiced up with a shot of rum.

When the burgers did arrive, they seemed even bigger than we remembered, a towering beef-hemouth, oozing cheese and gravy with all the sensual swagger of a classic pin up girl. 

It looked dirty. 

The good kind of dirty your mother warned you about. 

Cutting through the thick layer of roast beef was a piece of cake, and the split revealed perfect pink thoughout the patty. And it tasted as good as it looks. 

The soft ground patty and the tender roast beef were both incredibly tasty in and of themselves. 

The gravy adds moisture and just in case you are worried this meat feast is too samey texture-wise, this was dealt with deftly by a liberal dose of mustard and crunchy pickles and slaw. It’s a flipping marvel. And that’s before you even dip it in more of that ridiculous rich meaty gravy, that requires three days of preparation. 

For a side we ordered what used to be called poutine, but is now just chips, cheese, gravy, bacon and chillis. It did exactly what it says on the tin. Boom. Fiery jalapenos. Could stand a couple more sprinklings of bacon, though.

In short, Dip & Flip is on to a winner here. In our view, it’s a London top ten contender. It’s a big beefy beast, and probably the best reason ever to go to Clapham Junction.

Dip & Flip

87 Battersea Rise

London

SW11 1HW

http://www.dipandflip.co.uk/

Boom Burger

I came here tonight to hear the crowd go...

Notting Hill - 10 July 2014

In case you haven't noticed, I ruddy love burgers. I am also a massive fan of jerk chicken and Caribbean food in general. And tucked away under the Westway off Portobello Road, these collide to great effect.

It's a ramshackle restaurant that's definitely more Notting Hill carnival than Notting Hill the movie. Which I quite like - it's got a lively, friendly neighbourhood vibe, with a few tables spilling out onto the pavement.

Resisting the urge for a Jerk Boom (I feel that kind of thing is best left in the privacy of your own home), we go for the signature bacon jam & cheese Boom Burger with fries and a side of sticky jerk wings.

On arrival the burger itself looks a bit anaemic with very little char on the outside of the patty, but there is a huge dollop of bacon jam falling out of the side and the patty is smothered in well melted american cheese, so it's still an appealing looking meal. Biting in reveals a perfectly pink patty, coarse grind, not too dense, with burgery juice spilling out. The jam is the most bacon-heavy I've ever had, which demands commendation even if it lacks a bit of the sweetness that makes Burger Bear's so amazing. And I like the addition of a little jerk seasoning through the mayonnaise to provide the requisite Caribbean twist, although I would say it could handle more heat, or on reflection I should have asked if they had hot sauce. Some Encona HPS would have made it. But nit-picking aside, this is a well-made burger that delivers on taste and texture.

The wings are a special, being either extra spicy or extra sticky depending on which of the serving kids you asked. I'm going with the latter, because they're certainly very sticky and not super spicy. The jerk flavouring is strong here (as you might hope from jerk wings), and the fresh chillies add freshness and a little heat. However they are very wee, more like beefed up budgies - the same size as half a lime (see photo). If they'd been bigger, then we're talking winning wings. As it is, yeah they're tasty, but nothing to write home about. Sounds a bit churlish, but it's true.

They can cook a fry, which is always good, but that's all there is to say about it. Disappointingly, we'd heard good tings about their signature plantain fries, only to be discover they were sold out upon our visit. So no news there.

Overall, this a cool little place that is doing an interesting twist on the standard burger imprint and doing it well. So if you're in the area, it's worth checking out.

Boom Burger
272 Portobello Road
London
W10 5TZ
http://www.boomburger.co.uk/

National Burger Day

Oh Happy Day!

Battersea Power Station - 27 August 2014

Record shops. Hugging.  Libraries. Talking like a pirate. Bacon. Gin. Pancakes. Dogs. Every thing has its day. And thanks to the good people of Mr Hyde, burgers have finally been elevated into such illustrious company, with a day of their own. A celebration of all things ground beef and bunned, National Burger Day sees restaurants all over the country offering a 20% discount on burgers (natch). And most importantly for the purposes of this post, it sees Mr Hyde teaming up with Tweat Up to throw a patty party.

This year it took place at the Street Feast's Riverside Feast site right in the shadow of the iconic Battersea Power Station. This has been my favourite Street Feast location yet, and it’s been an awesome summer of street foods down there. It'll be missed, with the power station about to become another beacon to over-priced London property. Impressively shiny, no doubt. But I doubt it'll have a fraction of the vibes.

Anyway, back to the burgers: 12 of London's finest were in attendance, cooking up one-off specials. Most of these being smaller than your average burger, as with all the best will in the world you'd never to be able to try more than a couple...

We managed 5, of which the first was the stand out – Slider Bar’s short rib slider: an aged beef patty (anything else just won’t cut it these days), 10-hour roast chipotle short rib, bone marrow & habanero salsa, American cheese and chipotle ketchup. The patty was excellently cooked, the short rib was rich and tender, and the whole thing had a real chilli kick to it, with the gf feeling the burn. I didn't think it was that spicy, but would happily have gone back for a second if there wasn't so much more to try.

Second was Club Gascon's foie gras burger. I would struggle to call it a burger, however – it was a slab of fried foie gras on truffle cream and crispy gem lettuce, in a brioche roll. A sweet, rich and delicious sandwich. But not a burger…

Similarly, Le Bun's ‘Le Royale with Cheese’ slider wasn't a burger, but was similarly satisfying – a thick chunk of is-the-night-tender short rib, doused in smokey, meaty hickory jus, topped off with fried goats cheese (which wasn't quite cooked enough in our opinion – not really gooey), and crunchy salad. Tres bien.

The next two efforts came from two of the biggest queues – HotBox & Mother Flipper. HotBox's looked beautiful on paper: short rib (a recurring theme), Monterey Jack cheese, chipotle slaw, bbq dripping and chimichurri. Lush. And when cooked it still made for an attractive burger, but sadly, beyond a beautifully cooked course-ground patty, it lacked a little flavour. Pickled chillis added punch (and gave me a dose of hiccups - how the tables turned), but the short-rib wasn't as good as the previous two examples.

And our final savoury burger - Mother Flipper's ‘Smoked BBQ Belly Flipper’ - was our pre-event favourite, a black angus patty topped with cherry BBQ glazed, smoked pork belly, gouda and crispy shallots. But sadly, it didn’t really deliver – our burger seemed a bit too densely packed, and was over-cooked with no pink left. The flavours were there, but the execution was a little off. A shame, because usually I love a Mother-Flipping burger…

After that, I did weigh up one more, having been smitten by the gravy life promised by Dip & Flip on our last trip to the power park. But by 7:30, the queues were off the meat-rack, so we took a call on mains and had a dessert burger instead…

Yep. Dessert burger. The cake dealers at Crumbs & Doilies had got to slinging burger cupcakes. Here is the Elvis, in all its salted caramel, banana mallow, candied bacon, peanut buttery wonder (I avoided the peanut butter. Ewwww).

The side order of cookie fries and sweet sweet sauces were a very clever touch. Expensive for a cupcake, but as a work of craft and imagination, I was very impressed.

All in all, that was a great way to say goodbye to Battersea – burgers, chillibacks, vibes and beats. Burger-y big ups to everyone involved. A fitting send-off to fine times spent down the Power Park.

Honest Burgers x Ribman Special

Gone, but not forgotten

April 2014

Living in Brixton, Honest Burgers have always held a special place in our affections, given their beginnings in their quaintly ramshackle unit in the Village. They were at the forefront of the burger-explosion that took off a few years ago, and we've always found something immensely pleasing about the 'Honest Burger' and its monster big brother, the 'Federation' (although the appeal of that has waned since they actually started listing it, rather than it being an off-menu item and it therefore holding a slight – and probably quite twatty – 'in-the-know' thrill). We like the fact their food represents a very British take on the American classic. And their rosemary-salted, triple-cooked chips are the kind of thing dreams are made of. If you dream about chips. Which we don't. Yet.

But it has to be said, since they have launched a Byron-esque quest to take over London (current count is six branches), they have faced accusations of spreading too far to be able maintain standards. And I was starting to buy into that theory; I had two burgers in a row where the buns were very dry - bordering on stale - and that totally tempered my enjoyment of them. In the early days I found the buns had a tendency to disintegrate under the full-force juice-assault, but if anything that's because they were too soft. These were dry and unpleasant, and I was starting to worry.

But then last month they totally won us back over. Teaming up with London street-food stalwart and hot-sauce hero Mark ‘The Ribman’ Gevaux, they introduced ‘The Ribman Special’. With the possible exception of the ‘Tribute’ (their take on an American cheese burger, which is a lovely, mustardy masterpiece now permanently on the menu in Kings Cross, Notting Hill & Oxford Circus), I've always found the specials to be slightly disappointing when compared to the Honest (try it with stilton – you can thank me later). I'd missed the Christ-on-a-Bike special back in February (one friend's verdict was that it was just ridiculously hot and you couldn't taste anything else. That sauce don't play.), but this one sounded way more exciting: Ribman rib meat, one-off special Honest-to-God BBQ sauce, cheese, pickles & lettuce. Before I first went, one friend (the same guy that introduced me to Tweat Up) described it as “one of the best collaborations of all time.” And when you consider there is an episode of Diagnosis Murder with Quincy in it, that's a big statement.

But he wasn't lying. Holy f*ck (see what we did there), this was good. The smoky flavours of the soft, super-slow cooked pork and the sauce were the perfect accompaniment for Honest’s medium-rare aged beef patties. Every bite was a meaty revelation. Those pigs and cows did not die in vain, they ascended to glory... Hyperbole aside, this is easily the best burger we've had out of Honest. If we were going to change one thing, we would have had the sauce a little hotter – it had a little kick to it when tried on the chips, but that was lost somewhat in amongst the meat and cheese, leaving just the sweet and smoke. But that’s nit-picking. It was still banging.

And having tried it at three different branches over the space of about 10 days, Mr. Eatings can safely say that no buns were dry.

Of course, it’s gone now; the final one was eaten on it’s last day. Thus it came with a minor side of sadness (as well as some awesome onion rings), accompanied by the thought that it may be the last we saw of it. Which is somewhat of a tragedy. Like a good holiday romance, it burned bright, burned briefly, and will live long in the memory.

…a dark day

http://www.honestburgers.co.uk/

London Burger Bash Final

Heroes in a half bun

6 April 2014 - Borough Market

Burger power!

There are no photos (here's a good photoblog from Hamburger Me), so I'll try and keep this brief.

The event was the culmination of an 18 month-long competition launched by Daniel Young of the Young & Foodish blog to find London's best burger. There were four prize patty pugilists who had ground their way through the group stages, to face off in a meaty maul to see who would walk off with the Golden Patty trophy. The contenders in this burger battle royale were:

• Tom Reany - Burger Bear. (I'm a big fan of Burger Bear. Definitely in my top 3, and his bacon jam is incredible)
• Zan Kaufman - Bleecker St. (I'd tried bleecker once before. Liked it, but didn't think it was too spectacular)
• Joe Grossman - Patty & Bun (Love Patty & Bun. Possibly my favourite London burger joint)
• Fred Smith. (Never had the pleasure of eating Fred's food before, beyond a few Byrons, which I don't think counts. Missed the Admiral Codrington, which I am reliably informed was immense.)

So although I'd tried the majority of these guys' wares before, I wanted in on this as I figured A-games would be brought to win the prize (and for a £47 ticket price for 4 half burgers - £23.50 a burger - they bloody well should have done and all).

Getting there and seeing the descriptions of the half (half!) burgers we would be eating, two immediately stood out as sure fire contenders. Patty & Bun were delivering 'The Piggy Rascal': Mangalitsa brioche bun, aged rib cap patty, Tallegio cheese, Mangalitsa belly bacon, confit pork shoulder, trotter & smoked pig dripping glaze, pickled cucumbers, smoked garlic mayo. And the Burger Bear was offering 'The Grizzly G&T': aged beef patty, wild sloe berry gin bacon jam, smoked bacon, smoked yuzu ketchup and American cheese in a disco bun. Both of these sounded like taste sensations when compared to the altogether more simple descriptions from the other two: Fred's Bacon Cheeseburger, and 'Bleecker Black': beef, cheese, black pudding.

But as with many things in life, things don't turn out like you expect. I wanted to love Patty & Bun and Burger Bear's efforts. But I merely liked them. Despite the power of Patty & Bun's porky prose, everything got a little lost. It just tasted like a burger with some tasty pork on it. I don't remember any hint of smoked garlic, or the crunch you'd expect of confit pork belly (P&B's confit chicken wings being a-bloody-mazing). And Burger Bear's just didn't taste different enough from his standard (but still absolutely delicious) Grizzly Bear. And the 'disco bun' was just a bit of edible glitter. Both perfectly great burgers that you'd be more than happy with in a restaurant. But this was a competition - where was the knock out punch?!

It was over on the other two stands. Fred Smith is widely regarded as some sort of burger wizard, and on this evidence I can see why. This was the perfect bacon cheeseburger. The quality of all the ingredients shining through, individually excellent but forming like Voltron to create an immensely satisfying eating experience. The patty, juicy without being messy or greasy. The cheese, perfectly melted. The bacon cooked exactly how I like it (i.e. still juicy. I don't get crispy bacon - you get less bacon!), all encased in a pillow soft bun. The closest thing I've had to this level of execution in a bacon cheeseburger was at Little Social. Loved it. And we got a badge. Again - I'm easily sold.

But at the end of the day, it was still a bacon cheeseburger. Which is why Bleecker was by far and away the best burger. The addition of black pudding was a master-stroke. The fact I was hanging out of my arse and this was like having a fry up in a bun might have swayed me - but they won, so it can't just have been me. The peppery spice of that black pudding between the lovely moist patties blew me away. And it was so different from anything else there. They went hard, and they went home with the trophy.

But one final word: Almost Famous - I don't care how delicious your crispy crackling-dusted, sweet & regular potato 'Squeal Piggy' fries were. Put barbeque sauce on a Percy Pig, and I'm always going to think you're some kind of monster.