[PREVIEW] The 1/3lb Bacon Cheeseburger from Kua’Aina, Soho

Yes, that is quite a char isn’t it…

Superbowl Sunday Essentials

1. Bacon double cheeseburgers, with brioche buns handcrafted by Rob.

2. Nacho cheese. Recipe

3. Double-fried Buffalo wings. [OMG it really works]

4. Momofuku Milk Bar Cornflake Chocolate-Chip Marshmallow cookies

Cheeseburger Macaroni Cheese from the MacBar, New York.

[PREVIEW] An Honest Burger / Honest Burgers / Brixton, London

Divisive. We’ll give it that.

[PREVIEW] The Mother Flipper Cheeseburger / Brockley Market, London

Full mutha-flippin’ report coming soon, but we had to share some of the pretty.

@MotherFlipperUK

The Cheeseburger from The Ship, Wandsworth.

Check back tomorrow for our take on Burger & Lobster

[FIELD REPORT] New Year's Eve Burger Swarm at the Admiral Codrington

Dude. Amazing. Dude.

A rallying cry from the head chef of the Admiral Codrington in Chelsea, site of our favourite London burger of 2011:

Who would be interested in a new years eve burger night? All the burgers I’ve done this year available. Please RT

— Fred Smith (@FredSmith_) November 18, 2011

Knowing our reputation, we were all over it like Lindsay Lohan on a Playboy cover.

After a pre-game round or two of Champagne with PBR chasers, we zoomed over to The Cod to get our celebration on.

Fred served up a masterful array of top notch gastro fare. We nearly over-did the starter platter, the highlight of which is definitely the calamari and mini sausages.

The bacon cheeseburger was incredible. The perfectly formed 8oz patty was a appropriately sizable chunk of soft, tender beef with a neatly seared outside, with cheese melted beautifuly on top. The bacon was crispy, but sweet and flavourful. Indeed, Rob was already half cut, but we’re pretty sure his incessant ramblings about how “fucking amazing” the burger was were mostly due to the quality of what he was eating.

Probably.

The Double Stack was a beauty of a Big Mac tribute. A nicely toasted bun with two thinner patties, a bevy of pickles and plenty of house special sauce. This needs to be a permanent menu fixture. It’s such a classic sandwich in the hearts of us all, and Fred has made it look better than the McDonald’s food stylists could ever hope to in a laboratory.

If these two were amazing, then the Ox Cheek Chilli burgers that came out, compliments of the chef, were other worldly.

This is a historic sandwich. He’s pulled the Double Beef out the bag. The Ox cheek chilli brought a second wave of meatiness to the table, flavouring the burger with a deeply rich beef ‘n umami flavour. At the same time, the crunchy chilli slaw provided a constant pleasurably gentle heat to the whole affair.

It was brilliant. Inspired. Fucking brilliant. There are no more superlatives. If you get the opportunity to get one of these from Fred, then take it.

After the meal, Fred came over for our verdict. Cue intoxicated shouts of “Dude” and “Amazing” and a few more “Dude”s, and thanking him in the best way we could think possible: buying him a Jagerbomb.

Dude. Amazing. Dude.

He tells us the next release of the Admiral Codrington Cheeseburger v2.1 arrives towards the end of January, and everyone should try it.

Not many other London kitchens are capable of nailing the classics and bringing us such assured, confident innovations like the Ox Cheek.

A fitting start to 2012. As you were.

• Simon and Rob.

“The cheeseburger couldn’t have existed until nearly a century ago as, indeed, it did not.”

—

On the impracticality of a cheeseburger.

This is great.

A short visual precursor to the full Admiral Codrington review…

The Steve Buscemi from @Lucky_Chip. I wish it was an In ‘n Out tribute, turns out it was a cheeseburger with thousand island on it. Sad times.

[PREVIEW] MeatLIQUOR / London / The Hangover Is Still Not Over

Hang on, let’s rewind a little bit…

“The other question mark with the Meateasy will be what happens when it shuts down in March. Between now and then, a back-of-fag-packet calculation suggests the MeatEmpire will have served way, way more covers than it ever has done before. With that comes the next difficult sequel.

How do you go from having created such a special place, with a full menu, table service, a bigger kitchen, electronic ordering systems and all the other elements that add up to their slickest project yet, to then shutting it down and going back to a little van again?

And what of the pubs? Surely, Yianni is in the completely unique position of being able to say to any pub in London, from zone 1 to 6, that he can show up with his team and guarantee a horde of big eating, big drinking punters. Most of whom will post about it online. And then bring in even more punters. That surely has to factor in to his long term strategy.”

• from our #MEATEASY review, nine months ago.

The sequel

Technically, this is the third act. #MEATEASY was very much the sequel to the little burger van that could.

Others would probably disagree with us, but we were underwhelmed by the Meatwagon’s residency at the Rye in Peckham. A great deal of the urgency and energy generated by the #MEATEASY waned over the summer, and able competition sprang up around town, both on the street and pubs getting their act together.

But sure enough, there was a plan. Bricks and mortar. And here we are, a skip and a jump away from Oxford Street.

The things you need to know:

• opening hours will be 12pm until midnight (and there was a mention of 2am) Tuesday to Saturday.
• it exhibits the dark, red-stained, neon feel of a Proper Good Dive Bar. An American one, obviously.
• you will once again be regularly cursing Soulshakers for giving you that whopping hangover. The jam jars and ice blocks are in full effect.
• there are some new menu items we’ve never seen from the Meatwagon before. The desserts are a big one, but we’re into the Buffalo Chicken burger.
• the kitchen is ‘massive’.
• there’s a restaurant bit out the back, but we didn’t get to look at it
• we lost the ability to focus within 45 minutes of arrival

We didn’t eat much, so a review would be fruitless. We shared a mini burger (pretty sure it wasn’t a slider). It was excellent. It had special sauce in it and that amazing salty crust you only get with a Meatwagon burger. The buffalo wings have improved from their #MEATEASY outings - properly quartered and Frank’s’ed.

Be excited.

It’s gonna be big. Super, crazy big.

Sneak peek: testing the buns.

(brioche on the left, potato roll on the right)

Finally had it.

(Yes, that’s the Hawksmoor burger. It’s going to be a Hawksmoor-heavy week.)

The cheeseburger from Elliot’s cafe in London’s Borough Market.

Full review forthcoming.

But she looks pretty good, right?

[ON TOUR] Rob went to Hodad's / San Diego

R:In Tivoli bar in San Diego. Playing country music. It's changed man, it's changed.
S:Whut, no skatepunk? Rubbish! Did you go to Hodad's?
R:Yup, it was good, but not mind blowing. Huge burgers. The bacon in the burger was as big as the patty. And was American bacon chopped up and was brilliant. Best bit.

[ON TOUR] Cheeseburger / Gott’s Roadside / San Francisco

“Great buns with sadly average thousand island sauce”

• Rob.

The Raymond at Avignon TGV station in France.

It was excellent.

On Byron Hamburger's Uncle Sam

S:We need to do that Uncle Sam burger. Stat. I think he's made proper potato rolls for it.
R:I know! Looks good.
R:But still. £7.50 for a cheeseburger. Sheesh.
S:Well yeah.
S:Those new sites don't open themselves.

[LINK] In-n-Out Hangover Remedy

And I still haven’t tried the chopped chillies yet, dammit.

• Simon.