HACHE: BURGERS IN CAMDEN “CHOP, CHOP”

Despite the proliferation of “gourmet” joints all over London, the quality of the burgers in our fair capital remains appallingly low. Floppy grey discs of meat atop buns of a soggy disposition remain the norm even if you are being charged well over the odds for them.

This fact never normally bothers me given that I rarely crave a burger and, if I do, it is usually when I am in NYC where they know how to do these things properly. However this week I really did fancy one in a bad way. I think it is because Dawn mentioned that she had a decent one on a recent business trip.

A bit of research later and HP suggested Hache. Open for about two years, this has now become a bit of a stalwart of the Camden Town scene and it has won any number of awards for its burgers which are made by hand chopping (hence the name) rather than mincing.

Table service means it is more akin to BLT Burger in NYC than some of its London rivals. The range of burgers is pretty wide and the quality certainly seems a notch or two above anything else I have tried in town.

They offer a 14oz Steak Burger so there really was not much choosing to be done. We both plumped for that.

What came was probably as good a hamburger as you are going to get in London. Two meaty slabs of excellent beef toped with a sharp, proper cheddar served in on a bun that you might actually want to eat rather than use as packing material.

If you don’t specify a cooking preference they tell you that the burgers will come out medium. Minus points then for being slightly overcooked. But, not to the point that they dried out or lost any of what was a pleasingly beefy flavour.

Equally pleasing were two sides. One of onion rings with crisp, crunchy batter which shattered under the slightest tooth to free up some sweet soft onions. The other, more than acceptable French Fries.

I am, as I mentioned the other day, on the wagon for a few days. So, stuck to a well made berry smoothie. HP is very much not on the wagon so slurped down a couple of glasses Shiraz.

That lot? About £23 each inc service which is fair enough for the amount we ordered and for a burger that is the only one I have had that comes close to anything I have tried in the US.

Given that it is, by its nature, fast food, £23 does not buy you a particularly leisurely experience and we were in and out (if you will pardon the obscure – to Brits anyway- reference ) in about 45 minutes.

Early enough to contemplate a long walk home where we passed at least five “gourmet” burger joints. I am sure I will be passing them again without stopping on my way back to Hache the next time I fancy a decent Hamburger.

GUERILLA BURGERS: THE WRONG TACTICS

I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that the feeble attempts of most London restaurants to create a decent hamburger is like watching a bunch of one legged men in an arse kicking contest. It might provide some initial car crash excitement as you wonder just how bad it can get, but in the end, you just want to turn away in embarrassment.

Lunch today was at the latest entrant to the ‘Burger Wars” the (brand) new Guerilla Burgers in Marylebone. It had been open for all of half an hour when I arrived and was already packed with what I assumed were family and friends, but was assured were real, honest to goodness paying punters, all of who were apparently enjoying themselves

For the fifteen minutes or so I had to myself before my companion, Signe finally deigned to turn up, I had enough time to look at the menu and around the room. Both looked the part and for just one brief moment I dared to believe that I might actually be sitting in London’s first worthwhile dedicated burger joint.

Just how wrong I was only became apparent once Signe turned up and our shared starter arrived a few minutes after we ordered. It may be difficult to get a decent hamburger in London, but it is impossible to get a decent hot dog. So, when I saw a “New Yorico Jumb All Beef Hot Dog” advertised on the menu, it had to be done. Unfortunately, as is so often the case, the reality turned out to be so much less interesting than the menu description as we were presented with a sizable but shrivelled sausage (no sniggering) which may have tasted perfectly pleasant, but was let down by a fairly grim bun and onions which had not been cooked for long enough and lacked any sweetness.

The main event served in silver trays, was presented with some ceremony by the lovely wait staff, but the sight of a seeded bun did not augur well. The walls of the restaurant were covered with praises of the perfect burger, which makes the insipid efforts that were placed in front of us all the more disappointing. The meat is cooked medium (unless requested otherwise) but was dry and tasteless, the advertised “crispy” bacon was nothing of the sort and the toppings, served on the side so you could add them yourselves, were limp and unappealing. Both hamburgers came with a small portion of tarragon sauce which our waitress assured us was “sensational” It wasn’t, it was actually rather nasty, but not as nasty as the green slick of chilli in Signe’s burger which she announced “just gave a huge hit of raw garlic”

Side dishes are well priced but come in tiny portions, which are poor value even if you are ordering the small size. The onion rings come in for particular fire for being heavy and slightly greasy (see those on recent post about The Lord Clyde for an excellent version) and it barely took the fingers of one hand to count the number of sweet potato fries in the small bowl placed between us.

There is one aspect of US restaurants that is guaranteed to drive me up the wall. Tea should not ever, ever, ever be served as a cup of tepid water with a bag at the side for you to fashion your own beverage. It is wrong when the yanks do it, it is even more insulting that the one aspect of American restaurants Guerilla Burgers chose to ape should not be decent short order cooking but a failure to serve a proper cuppa.

It was not all dreadful, thankfully. Milkshakes were teriffic, creamy and thick and the service was efficient and a total delight, if slightly over eager on the first day. It deserved the 10% service charge which brought the bill to £36 for two. However, there are enough weaknesses here, quite aside ones that might be overcome when the kitchen finds its feet, for me to be pretty sure that those who are looking for a great burger in London are not going to find it here.

A paragraph on their menu reads (their caps)

“ The ICONIC burger is the leader of all sandwiches. The meal of the people, one that NEVER FAILS to satisfy”

Unfortunately, in London, it seems that it is one that RARELY FAILS to disappoint.

P.S – Just for all those of you who were worried I might forget my promise to keep posting the picture of THAT double chilli cheeseburger from Marty’s in LA, here it is. You will have noticed that I have added a picture the Marty’s chilli dog too, just in case anyone from Guerilla Burgers wanted to see what a proper one of those looked like.

COLONY: A LIMITED OFFERING

I received a few harsh e-mails and twitter comments after yesterday’s post about a dispiriting meal at Guerilla Burgers. The reason? I had the temerity to suggest that, if a restaurant was open and charging punters full price, they should be judged no differently than if they had been open for weeks.

Words like “bedding in” “teething problems” and “find their feet” were used suggesting that the restaurant would need time to find their natural rhythm and flow before it would be right to judge them. That might all sound reasonable enough, but seems less than fair to the punters, like my companion and I, who came in expecting that, as we were paying full whack and the doors are open, the restaurant is suggesting it is operating at full capacity.

For a restaurant to know that they are not offering the best of themselves but still to take the same amount of money borders, to my mind, on the fraudulent. To be fair Guerilla Burgers them selves did not offer up this as an excuse and posted a constructive response on Twitter. Good for them, but it is still leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.

Which brings us to today’s post, another lunch at a newly opened place, Colony. So new, in fact, that they were still painting the outside when I arrived to meet my companion, Nikki. My choice today was more driven by location than a desire to try somewhere new, so while I am sure I will receive the same shrieks and squawks from the restaurant sympathisers club, the fact that they were not offering a soft opening discount means that they too should come under the same scrutiny as they will receive from the critics in a few weeks time.

The menu at Colony is overseen by Atul Kochar, Michelin starred Chef of the recently refurbished Benares and is predicated on that all too familiar and scary concept “small plates to share” which normally allows you and your companions to construct a bill of dazzling proportions while still remaining hungry. Our server asked if we “understood the concept of the menu” to which if I had not been in polite company I might have replied “we order, you bring, we eat, you clear, we pay, we leave, right?”

Instead, I nodded that we did and he left us to our own devices as we chose. Just as well as I heard the menu being described to the next table by him as “Anglo-Indian inspired tapas”, which assumes that The Colony Club assumes most of their guests will never have experienced the Nashtas, or snacks on which the menu is supposedly based.

They also assume that most of their guests will be frightened off by any native descriptions on the menu, deeming only a few instantly recogniseable curry house words like “Tikka Masala” (not Indian anyway, guys) “Vindaloo” and “Biryani” as safe to include, the rest being given the full Anglo treatment. Not that it mattered as we were told that nearly 50% of the main dishes were not available for this opening day because, and here are those words again, there were “teething problems”

Teething problems, really? Was the opening date a surprise to you? We’ve known about it for ages. The odd dish here and there because of a missed delivery is acceptable. Half the menu is not. Particularly not when you are charging full price and a hefty price per dish at that. If only I had the gumption at the end of the meal I would have said “Sorry, my credit card is only working at 50%, so just charge me half”

That too left a nasty taste in the mouth, which is a shame, because as soon as I took my first bite of a small amuse of “chaat”, it was apparent that there is patently some ability in the kitchen. This was confirmed when the rest of our meal was brought out and we both agreed that some of the dishes were packed with far more flavour than their apologetic and polite descriptions on the menu gave credit for.

There were misfires of course. Two pieces of monkfish were mushy and overcooked, but rescued by fresh and excellent crab vermicelli. Proper Biryani should come with goat, but if Indian names are too scary for the punters I am guessing using Billy meat is right out of the window. Instead it came with lamb and rice that did not taste as if they had been cooked together the latter being spongy and the former slightly chewy.

Spiced Tiger prawns were excellent, for £15.50 for two they damn well should have been, but the cooking and ingredients were spot on. That Glaswegian classic, Chicken Tikka Masala was not bad at all, if totally alien to any Indian street vendor who has ever drawn breath and a side dish of aubergine was deliciously smokey.

Without dessert, all this lot brought the bill to £81 including a service charge, which was well deserved by the young staff who were, here it comes, finding their feet. It is a whacking amount to pay especially when you consider that they were offering such a limited menu. But, my main criticism has nothing to do with how new the restaurant is handling its early stages, but with the concept itself, which shoehorns this potentially glorious cuisine into an unsympathetic format by sucking all the spirit from it and making it as inoffensive as possible. That is not to say that you cannot serve Indian cuisine in a smart and attractive way (see below for the recent meal at Indian Zing, for a perfect example of how it can be done) but few restaurants achieve it and Colony on this showing is not going to be one of them.

I don’t think that will change, however long they are open.

CASSELL'S: BUILD YOUR OWN HAMBURGER IN K' TOWN

Another day and another lesson in Los Angeles cheap eats from my good chum, John Haskell. This time it came by way of Cassell’s Hamburgers on the fringes of K-Town.

Al Cassell first opened his eponymous hamburger joint after returning from serving in WWII, some sixty plus years ago. Although it has changed location and ownership in that time, precious little else seems to have changed about a place that is consistently rated in the top ten hamburger places in Los Angeles. Al Cassell died a little over a month ago at the ripe old age of 98 (who says burgers are bad for you?) but he would have been proud of the fact that his gaff is still turning out a very fine hamburger indeed.

Cassell’s works canteen style. You order your burgers, in our case, two 2/3lb slabs of house ground prime beef, which are then cooked to order before being handed to you so you can slide your plate down the line to choose from an impressive selection of condiments. Now, the “Build Your Own” concept of burger service is one of which I am profoundly dubious, remembering Pete’s in London, which allowed idiot consumers to come up with disgusting combinations including, wait for it, anchovy and radish.

However, at Cassell’s, they keep the choices simple. There are pickles, superb house made mayonnaise, slices of fresh as a daisy tomatoes, crisp lettuce, some Russian dressing and their justifiably famous potato salad (to be topped with the aforementioned mayonnaise). John Haskell has been a loyal customer of Cassell’s for nearly forty years, so I followed his lead and worked my way down the line until I had constructed an impressive, if visually rather unappealing, end result. We filled our cups with Diet Coke and took a seat before tucking in.

Does it deserve its place in L.A.’s hamburger pantheon? Well, yes, yes it certainly does, not only for the fact it is the messiest burger I have ever encountered, but also because it is damn tasty. The burger patty is looser than many I have tried, which is primarily down to the fact we asked for ours to be cooked rare and medium rare. However, the beef is patently from a very good source and the toppings are fresh, crisp and delicious. The potato salad was good enough for me to pay a return visit to the line to spoon some more onto my plate and also make sure to add another blob of that excellent mayo.

This time it was John’s turn to dig deep into his pocket and fork over what I imagine what was about $25 for the lot including a few $$ tossed in the tip jar for the friendly staff. We have shared many expensive meals together since I have been fortunate enough to know John and his wife, Liz Haskell, but we both agreed, as we wiped Russian dressing from our chins, that it is places like this that make us really happy.

The worry is, that the dining room was almost empty. We ate lunch early, but there were still only two tables occupied when we left. Apparently, it is a scenario being played out all over the US now as family run diners and restaurants are slowly disappearing before the juggernaut chains and as young folk go in search on new and often wretched takes on American classics (hang your head in shame Umami Burger, hang your head in shame). They are closing, I am told, almost at the rate that pubs are shutting their doors in London. A huge shame, but perhaps, it is just the end of an era. I certainly got that feeling as I left Cassell’s.

Still, for as long as it is around, I suspect Cassell’s Hamburgers will get a lot more of my custom and, I am sure a lot more of John Haskell’s. I also suspect Al Cassell would be happy to know we approved.

UMAMI BURGER: ONE TASTE TOO MANY

It had to happen, I guess.

Over the last year or so, I have taunted the UK’s mostly feeble burgermeisters with tales of how good their equivalents are in Los Angeles. I add, by way of extra humiliation, a picture of that double chilli cheeseburger at Marty’s to prove that our American cousins just instinctively know how to get these things right. Now, after my recent experience at Umami Burger, I have to come clean and admit that Yanks are just as capable of screwing up beef in a bun as their former colonial overlords.

The Japanese word Umami is often called “the fifth taste” referring to the extra hit of savouriness often found in Asian cooking. Looking at the Umami Burger menu, it obviously also means putting as many weird concoctions on top of a slab of beef as possible in the hope that some of them might actually work. On the evidence of the two burgers we tried, they don’t. Lord they really don’t. The rest wasn’t much cop either, but I’ll get to that.

The branch of Umami Burger on La Brea has valet parking, which probably tells you all you need to know about where they position themselves in the wide church that is the L.A burger market. The room is small but pleasant enough and, despite warnings to the contrary, the service was very friendly as we were shown to two bar stools in a small space off the main dining room.

Umami Burger’s upmarket aspirations are confirmed by both the ingredients and the prices on the short two-sided menu. Prices for burgers range between $9 and $11, which may not seem over the top when you make the conversion to wounded Sterling, but very much sets the place at the gourmet end of things Stateside. So too do the ingredients, with truffle oil, oven dried tomatoes, ricotta and edemame making a thankfully rare appearance on a burger menu.

Sybil chose the eponymous burger, while I went for the pleasant sounding if slightly oddly named “Manly” Burger (not too manly I hoped. That was one extra salty taste I really didn’t want to try) along with sides of “Malt Liquor Tempura Onion Rings” and fries, which came with a selection of condiments.

The dips arrived first served in small, white spoons and the food followed moments afterwards. At first glance, they looked the part and came in a glistening brown bun that had been lightly toasted. However, lifting the lid, we found that the light of what I am sure is excellent, carefully sourced beef has been hidden under a bushel of caramelised onions, roasted tomatoes and slivers of slightly stewed mushrooms. Oh, and there was a slice of over salty fried cheese in there as well, just to make sure you couldn’t taste much else. The Manly Burger didn’t look a whole heap better. What elegance the layer of onion strings may have added was spoiled by the fact the beer cheddar cheese had been placed on only half the burger, leaving the rest to dribble towards the plate where it had congealed like a Dali clock.

We stared at them for a while and then took a bite. Now here’s the thing. If you are a burger a joint and you tell folk that you will cook their pattys medium rare unless asked otherwise, you should be able to serve them medium rare on a pretty consistent basis. Obviously that is not the case here as both of ours were well (over) done and we saw other tables returning their own meals. We also pondered on sending them back, but by now the place was heaving and we suspected the wait might be a long one. We also suspected that, given all the odd little toppings, it probably wouldn’t make much difference in any case.

I was pleased to see that Heston Blumenthal’s greatest contribution to cuisine, the triple cooked chip continues its move towards global dominance by appearing on US menus. I am not so sure he would have been so glad to see the wretched specimens we were served, which made up for lack of crunch with an extra helping of grease. The onion rings were better and, although the coating looked like no tempura batter I have ever encountered, the insides were sweet and retained a nice bite.

Twenty or so minutes after we arrived, we paid the pretty hefty bill. It knocked on the door of $40 when they included our drinks and tax and we included a decent tip. A lot to pay to prove that not all is happy go lightly in Burgerland USA and enough to make me declare to Sybil, as we left, “I am glad we found street parking”

In truth, however, they could offer to send a cab around to collect us and I would refuse the kind offer. I am afraid Umami offers lots of tastes, but that of a great burger just isn’t one of them