Patty & Bun, Mentmore Terrace, London Fields

If Peak Burger was three years ago, are we at Peak Fancy Burger Chain Expansion now? There's a Byron Burger on every third street in Zone 1, and Honest Burger has transposed from Brixton to every gentrified high street in London, MeatLiquor Inc no longer attracts such massive the queues because it has seven branches - one in SINGAPORE - and one more to open soon in edgy Islington. Patty & Bun, opening at a similar time just off Oxford Street, has expanded more slowly: first to Liverpool Street and now to London Fields.

I'm willing to travel for a good meal, but happier when it travels to me. The new Patty & Bun under the arches on Mentmore Terrace, London Fields, is next to the esteemed E5 Bakehouse, and so my weekly trip for a large loaf of Hackney Wild will now involve some serious burger temptation. Patty & Bun is a cut above the other excellent burgers I listed above, and I'm going to say it's up there with Hackney's other best burger joint, Lucky Chip, about to open their first permanent restaurant on Ridley Road in Dalston.

Patty &Bun is open all from 11.30am to 10pm Tuesday to Friday and from 9.30am on both Saturday and Sundays. That's right. It's now possible to have a burger for breakfast every weekend.

The core menu has a concise selection of their classic burgers, which have all the classic components of a good burger, but prepared with a brush of creativity. The Ari Gold (think Big Mac equiv) comes with all the usual trimmings but delicate, fragrant mexican style pink pickled onions and their own smoky mayonnaise. The Smokey Robinson burger smoky barbecue sauce and sweet caramelised onions are so heavily packed in that it's basically like lava. And so very good.



Chips come as they are in rosemary salt (very good), or with a chicken salt and roast chicken mayonnaise. It's like a mini roast dinner. Inspired.



Alongside sides of coleslaw, wings and salad, there are also regular specials. We enjoyed moist duck nuggets with a sweet, smoky Mexican chilli sauce. A smoked tomato salad features robust, sweet and lightly smoked San Marzano tomatoes, thins of raw courgette and crunch baby gem. My salad dodging other half savoured every bite.



But wait...there's more. Patty & Bun's London Fields outpost does brunch burgers. They swap the demi-brioche for a sourdough bun, and fill it with eggs and other goodness. I order a smoked ox cheek bun, which comes with cheesy scrambled eggs and sweet pickled chilli. The ox cheek is rich in flavour and spice from slow and low cooking. It's a bit intense for 9.30, but by 11.30 it hit the spot.



Other options include harissa fried egg with avocado, lime relish and bacon mayo, and cheesy scrambled egg with smoked guacamole, slow roast tomatoes and wild garlic creme fraiche. You get the picture.

They're still waiting for an alcohol license, so it's just soft drinks for now (including unlimited refill Allpress filter coffee for £1.50). Expect a short selection of wines, beers and mixed drinks when they get it. The service is quick, and it's communal tables - so it's walk-ins and relatively fast turnover, but you won't feel hurried by the professional, friendly staff. Prices are very reasonable too - you can go wild with the sides and still come in around £20. Burgers are all £7.50 - £8.50.

It's easy enough to get a perch now, it's early days and they deliberately launched under the radar. But once the word gets out, Patty & Bun London Fields will be just as rammed as the others.

Eat17 burger bar in a Spar, Chatsworth Road, Clapton

We're used to being at the vanguard of 'stuff' in Hackney, but when I heard that a luxury mini-supermarket would be opening on Chatsworth Road, with a burger bar, modern British restaurant and fancy pop up flower shop imported from Broadway Market...well, I could hardly believe it.

But it's opened. Clapton has gone meta. Our fancypants supermarket with a burger bar is in a former cinema which later became a snooker hall. It is just down the road from the public toilets converted into a multi-generational social enterprise cafe-bar with roof terrace, a lifestyle flower boutique, four vintage furniture shops, two Italian restuarants, a creperie, a deli, a French bakery, a Swedish cafe, a cycle cafe, a fancy jam shop, and that's not even mentioning Lower Clapton Road.

In an interesting example of gentrification creeping inward, back to the places from which it originated. There is a net outward flow of middle incomes families from Clapton, moving to Walthamstow and Leyton as they struggle to afford the jump in price to a family size home from their starter flat. Walthamstow Village, a couple of miles down the road is home to Eat17 - the brand that brought you (and folk all around the world) bacon jam, but also a fancy Spar supermarket and upscale bistro. It's been such a success that they've rolled it out to Clapton.

As you might expect, it's a funny setting. There's no separation between burger bar and supermarket. From your table at the burger bar you can see people going about their evening's shopping, mulling over cheese, olives and beer, and getting their fags and lottery tickets. It's also cold. REAL cold. Because, of course, supermarkets are full of open fridges, and a lot of open fridges makes for cold air. I bumped into my neighbour on the way in: said exactly the same.



But that aside, it's a fun experience. You get a neat snapshot of who lives in this (estate agent language) vibrant, ever-changing neighbourhood, and what they're having for dinner. They also get a snapshot of who eats burgers in a supermarket *waves*. There's a decent playlist, which included Belle and Sebastian, Blur, The Police. And the food is really quite good.

The menu includes a beef burger, a buttermilk fried chicken burger, a pork and chorizo jam burger, panko crusted haloumi wrap, some suitably fried sides, Gelupo ice cream and a small selection of drinks, including Crate beers, Borough wines and a negroni. All very London mini-brand.

My beef burger (with added bacon) was sublime: quality beef, cooked perfectly medium rare, lathered with 'special sauce' (e.g. their own version of the Big Mac sauce), stuffed with salad and served in a glossy brioche bun. Just the right size for picking up in its Eat17 branded wrapper and fitting into your mouth...just.



The buttermilk chicken burger was tender and nicely coated, but it was all about the smoky chutney and almost rataouille-like sauce, which was full of punch.



Portions of chips were big, and the chips were chunky. We overestimated our hunger and ordered them plain and with truffle and goats cheese. I was expecting slithers of truffle and molten goats cheese, like an upscale chilli cheese fries. Alas, both came in a dusty form, applied to the chips before frying. I suppose that's what you expect for £3.90. They were nice, subtly flavoured, but I'd say charge a bit more and make them more of a blowout.



We also had tempura fried tender stem broccoli, which came doused in soy-tinged pomegranate molasses. These were good - nicely charred, still green and fresh tasting, and the molasses worked well.



The food was great and I'll be back. Notably, more people (men, mostly) were getting takeaways on their way home from work, and I suspect that may be more popular than eating in the bar itself unless they find a way of warming it up a bit. But if you're in the area, it's worth a punt for a slightly surreal and completely delicious, well-priced experience.

Eat17 will soon be opening a gastro British restaurant upstairs, under the arched roof of the former cinema. With 50+ covers, it could well be a bit of a game-changer for eating and evening entertainment on the road. I will report back once it's open.

On the road in California

Driving all around California you realise how much local life and food culture revolves around the road. A whole discipline of marketing and architecture developed around luring drivers in off the road, and new iterations sit alongside original Googies all along the roads.

Household name chains - like Denny's, Wendy's, Taco Bell - all seem to mostly exist out in the middle of nowhere, on a cross-section, where its convenient for people to meet and, crucially, parking is free. Nobody likes to pay for parking.

The ultimate Californian roadside eating experience is the cult SW chain In-n-Out, serving up affordable and delicious burgers, fries and shakes decades before muppets like us were standing in the cold, queuing to get into MeatEasy. This is the real deal, and there's not a carefully-crafted beard in sight. Just regular families getting served by super efficient, politely scripted staff in pristine uniforms.

The official menu is short and simple - one burger or two (their Double-Double is the inspiration for MeatLiquor's Double Bubble), cheese or not, fries.

But their cult status rests on the loyalty of their customers who know about their "not so" secret menu. It's basically the same core ingredients, but varied up. You could have a triple burger, a grilled cheese (extra cheese, no meat - their veggie option), grilled onions instead of fried, or their Animal Fries - which is fries with their sachet sauce, topped with melted cheese and grilled onions.

We ate twice on the road, and once, late at night, we drove through the In-n-Out in central Hollywood for a surreal LA experience. It was packed at 1.30am, and we enjoyed their faultlessly polite and efficient service while teens hung by their cars slurping down milkshakes.



Motels are a big part of the scene too - outside the big cities and picturesque lodges in the countryside, tourist accommodation is centred on the idea that you're just passing through on your way between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The same chintzy accommodation could cost you £200 a night in ritzy-parochial Carmel-by-the-Sea but £60 100 miles down the coast in San Simeon. But the most famous of all lodgings is the incredibly kitschy Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo, midway between California's most famous cities.

It's like something from a Disney-drenched dream of fibreglass seashells, grottos and caves, swirly carpets, winding staircases, turrets and lots and lots of parking for people coming in off the motorway roaring past outside.



We stopped for lunch and had fittingly kitschy pineapple and chicken sandwiches, prawn salad with copious volumes of thousand island dressing, and pink champagne cake.





Fellow diners were retro roadtrip fans, local ladies doing birthday lunch, all served by vintage tattooed ladies. One of those "only in California" places.

Our final roadtrippin' destination was Santa Barbara, which is a well-heeled university town 100 miles north of LA. We shunned its fancy seafood, yachty seafood restaurants, for Los Agaves,  the city's top Mexican taqueira, by the coastal highway.



We had the best Mexican food we've ever ever ever had - mine was a shrimp and halibut enchilada, topped with pineapple, served with a mango salsa, red rice and local cheese. All for $13. Venture a little bit off the highway and you can avoid the dull chains and have some really good food at a very good price.

Hawksmoor Spitalfields Bar

I'm always tempted by the 'soft launch' offer, but rarely free enough to take advantage. So when Hakwsmoor Spitalfields had a 50% off food for the entirety of June, how could I miss that? They were launching the bar section of their easternmost outpost, and wanted to make sure they had their operation absolutely nailed by charging full price. A noble thing to do, and I suspect a luxury for restaurants with big names like theirs.

The offer, of course, was completely oversubscribed. We arrived at 6 and were promised a table at 7. People arriving at 6.30 were turned away – by then the bar was all booked up for the evening. We supped on delicious cocktails (mine: a marmalade cocktail with marmalade, campari and gin - tangy) and enjoyed the surrounds. The interior is incredible: a 20s speakeasy palace, rich turquoises, golds, peacock motifs, metalwork straight out of an art deco cruise ship.

At 7, as expertly advised by the front of house, we were taken to our table. I was really impressed that she remembered our faces from just 5 seconds of interaction an hour beforehand.

The bar menu is relatively short – some meaty things in buns, some sticky things as sides, some fresh tasting things to counter-balance all the sticky, greasy things. We had a bit of everything, obviously.

I had the Ox Cheek French Dip – a brioche roll, filled with slow cooked, melt in your mouth ox cheek. There was some cheese inside the roll, and a hint of kimchi. The best bit was pouring a small gravy boat's contents over the entire thing, the bread getting moist and making the meat moister still. Eating that was an incredibly rich treat. I had a bit of Pete's burger, and can confirm that Hawksmoor is up there with London's best.

Ox cheeks' made another more appearances in our meal. We had ox cheeks and cheese nuggets, lovely molten cheese blending perfectly with the dreamy ox cheek, and complimented perfectly by the fiery kimchi dip. XO chicken wings were perfectly fried, and deliciously sticky. We rated the chips very highly too, especially the lime pickle mayo they came with.

And then there was the pig's head poutine, which could well be the richest thing I've ever eaten. Poutine, in case you didn't know, is the Quebec national dish, comprising hand-cut skin on fries, a chicken gravy and curded cheese (somewhere between mozzarella and haloumi). It's becoming a bit trendy in London, and I should now declare that I had in Montreal back in 2006. So there. Hawksmoor's version didn't use curd cheese as far as I could tell, but the intense juices from the pig's head mixing with the gravy in the cast iron skillet made for the stickiest, most delicious sauces you could imagine.



I should stress that we were pretty full by this stage. I mean, achingly so. But with such a good deal, and with such a nice table, how could we not soldier on? We shared a chocolate caramel cup and their homemade salted caramel rolos. As delicious and decadent as they sound.

The soft launch offer seems to be a very effective tool. Not only are we – and probably everyone else who benefited from the offer – gushing about it, the service, food and experience were so positive that we'd be willing to pay full price for the bar and consider eating in the (more formal) restaurant upstairs too. The soft launch, if done well, can be about much more than sorting out your processes; it can build loyalty and spread 'worth of mouth' buzz. Just like this.

Street food down South

I've lived in London for almost ten years now, and all of that has been north of the river. South London was always been a bit inconvenient - never hated or frowned upon, just further away and harder to get to. Lots has changed since then - better north-south connections with the Overground, the second advent of the bicycle, and of course, the pull factors of good foodie stuff happening south of the river.

I've tried out Honest Burger in Brixton Market, I've stocked up on Persian goodies from the wonderful Persepolis in Peckham, and more recently I've been checking out their street food markets in Brockley and at Maltby Street.

I went to Brockley Market in the middle of our prolonged winter. It isn't in Brockley proper - more on the fringes of Lewisham and Deptford, in a car park next to Lewisham Way. It drew in all the hip kids from across SE London - lots of late 20s/early 30s couples with beards and small dogs, trendy families, groups of students. I thought I was in Hackney for a second.

It was barely even noon before I was in the queue for Mother Flipper - famed for it's delicious burgers. They cooked it from scratch, but before long it was ready. I went for a double candy burger - you don't cycle all the way from Hackney for just one patty! - and it was one of the best I've eaten in London. Really juicy, pinkish meat, with candied bacon, perfect brioche bun, great condiments.



We also stopped off at the Fish Dogs stall, where fresh, warm doughnuts, or Dog Nuts) were being fried up (in separate oil, importantly) alongside fish sandwiches. Sadly our savoury compartments were full (their fish sandwiches are becoming legendary), but we did have enough space for the doughnuts. They were shaped like mini churros, coated in cinnamon sugar and served with a salted  caramel nutty dip.



Absolutely perfect. I love a good cinnamon coating on doughnuts - it reminds me of holidays in Spain or Portugal and getting sweet fried goods from roadside vans.

A few weeks ago we finally made it down to Maltby Street, which is at the Borough/London Bridge end of Bermondsey. It's a fascinating area: sleepy, residential with lots of council estates and new build blocks, but urban and very central - Maltby Street takes place in railway arches. Nearby Bermondsey Street is going through (or coming out of ) a very high end process of gentrification, with lots of foodie destination restaurants and Zandra Rhodes' fashion and textile museum. Maltby Street feels very much part of that, and the vibe was power-professionals having weekend downtime.

Our first stop was St John's Bakery, which is one of the best known units there. Enormous loafs of sourdough of more varieties than you could ever imagine are sold, alongside their legendary custard doughnuts. That's what we went for. The custard filling comes in plain vanilla, chocolate and lemon. I went for the classic vanilla. The doughnuts are light, fluffy and perfectly formed, but the real treat is the custard inside - it's very light and airy, with visible vanilla seeds inside. I tried so hard to make it last more than a few dozen metres, but failed miserably. It was worth the trip alone.



We started with doughnuts because I'd heard scare stories about them selling out. There were still a fair few left at midday, but don't chance it.

Our next call was Monty's Deli for their famous reuben sandwich. The queue was long, but this is generally a good sign when it comes to street food. It turns out the queue was disproportionately long because one of their hot plates wasn't working, so they were at half capacity. And you don't rush good food (luckily there were some samples of their chicken liver pate to nibble on - so luscious).



The fillings were piled high between the two slices of rye - pastrami (home made, really juicy, lots of proper fatty bits), sauerkraut, thinly sliced 'swiss', mustard, sauerkraut and russian dressing. We sat on a wall just outside the market area, and guzzled our sandwiches in silence, with intermittent happy groans. It really was excellent; a really great combination of salty and tangy and fiery and wholesome. 100% soul food.



At both Brockley and Maltby Street markets had a lot of really great looking stalls. I went for the greatest hits first time around, but will be back to try out the other stalls. Both have a good range of produce in addition to street food, so worth going for a top up on 'nice things' too.

Eating Paris: in other languages

When people think of eating in Paris, they think of the epicentre of French cuisine, of fine dining, menus. But Paris is a cosmopolitan world city, which has seen waves of immigration from its former colonies, all of whom have their own cultural relationships with French cuisine. The French influence on Vietnam influenced the Banh Mi - the delicious vietnamese baguette, and cous cous from the former colonies of north Africa is wildy popular in France.

We chose to stay in Belleville, eastern Paris, because - like the east end of London - it is a melting pot of lots of different cultures who've settled in Paris over the years. There are Tunisian Jewish, Vietnamese, Chinese, Laotian, Thai and Congolese restaurants, and everyone seems to rub along quite nicely. Like London's east, it's also becoming increasingly popular with artists and creatives, attracted by relatively cheap rents and inspiring street life.

I would definitely recommend staying around there - beautiful views, affordable restaurants, winding streets, down to earth vibe, and a good collection of authentic boulangeries, boucheries, fromageries etc. Our airbnb was tres affordable and well located too.

With only a few days to play with, we didn't get to check out as many places as we'd have liked (there's definitely going to be a next time!) so here are a few highlights:

Lao Siam
Lao Siam is an incredibly popular Laotian/Thai restaurant on the Rue de Belleville, we arrived at about 9.30pm after a full-on day's sightseeing and the place was full. We got a table in a few minutes, and were surrounded by lots of laid back locals eating their favourite dishes from the menu covering the two countries.

We tried to mix it up, so had Laotian sausages and Thai papaya salad for starters (we were warned against the Laotian papaya salad for being too spicy!). The sausages were incredibly fragrant - the intense aromaticness of fishcakes x 2, working deliciously with pork. An odd number of them and we fought over the largest share of the fifth piece! The papaya salad was one of the best I'd had but definitely could have handled a bit more spice!



We shared a beef, bamboo shoot and coconut curry and a crab and vermicelli noodles for mains. The beef in the curry was certainly a cut above the frozen crap you often get in London - properly delicious and a bit rare, giving off so much more flavour. The crab came in its shell, so it was a messy job cracking claws and other bits to get that beautiful meat - it was utterly delicious, with a caramelised coconut and green bean sauce.





We shared an interesting dessert: green tea flavoured glutinous rice blobs floating in sweetened coconut milk. Really quite tasty!




Hawaienne
Despite its name, Hawaienne is a Vietnamese restaurant, and one of the best rated in Belleville. We arrived just before 8.30 and by 9 it was full of a mix of Vietnamese and bobo 20-somethings.

To start we had summer rolls (standard but delicious) and a pork ravioli. The ravioli was exceptional, it had a herby nutty inner mix, was served with those Vietnamese processed pork slice things, and lots of crispy onions and shredded mint. The flavours combined beautifully and were surprisingly easy to eat with chopsticks.





I had a Pho for main, but was playing Russian roulette with the menu and decided on one at random (for lack of understanding), so main was offally offally. It had all kinds of offally things that I couldn't identify, including offally meatballs. I'm not the biggest fan of straight up offal, but there were loads of other fillings (tender tender beef strips, copious herbs and beansprouts) that I was able to create lots of mixed chopstick fulls to get through it. It was a great pho tho: great stock, very fresh and warming; I'd recommend trying to understand what the different options were before ordering next time.



Pete's thin chicken coconut curry was exceptional - very light, and with big bits of potato and carrot slow cooked in it. I tried a bit of the potato: extravagantly I might say it was the best potato I'd ever eaten, so soft, buttery and flavoursome all the way through.



We ate for under €20 per person, and ate well. No wonder it's so popular!

Blend
Ok, so not multi-cultural in the sense you were imagining, but trendy hamburger joint Blend is Paris' strongest nod to the global trend for really good burgers. This was another of Rachel Khoo's tips, and another one on the money.

Blend opened quite recently, and has proven very popular. On a cold Monday lunchtime there was a queue of trendy types waiting outside for a table. In the evenings it's meant to be bonkers; bit like some of the walk in burger/fancy junk food joints in London. The couple at the table next to us spotted me plotting my next move with the guidebook and asked if Blend had made it in already; a glimmer of surprise when tourists find the 'real' places!



The menu is simple: there are burgers, sides, snacks and a small selection of cakes. There's a distinctively French twist to the burger toppings - good provenance cheeses, lots and lots of cheese, and the quality of the mince in the burger. I ordered a 'cheesy' which had, as promised, lots and lots of cheese, some nice relish and shredded lettuce. The bun was really soft and bouncy - not sweet like the demi brioche that are standard in London.

It came with really good crispy fries and homemade ketchup, which had a rich, deep taste like it had been made with sundried tomatoes. We liked Blend - definitely worth the short wait.

Burgers: down south

The search for London's best burger continued, and took me to the South. To Brixton, where a Victorian arcade has seen a new lease of life after years of decline. A community management company has started looking after the arcade, and leasing out the dinky units to small, independenty food outlets.

Over the last year or so, a number of them have had the Jay Rayner treatment – a glowing review from their locally residing national restaurant critic at large. Walking around the arcade on a chilly winter Friday evening, it was clear that his is the golden touch. Kaosan thai restaurant, and Honest Burger, where we were headed, both reviewed by Jay, were completely packed, with clusters of young urbanites gathered outside, waiting for a table to come up. Many of the other restaurants were empty or had just a few diners - but this may rectified now that Jay has done his greatest hits!

The early bird catches the worm, and my friend turning up at 6.20 was enough to bag us a table at Honest Burger. We kept our coats on and didn't drink too much to allow for the lack of heating and toilets. The menu was simple and limited – a couple of regular burger combinations, a special, and a small selection of sides. We both opted for the special – that week, a burger with chorizo and manchego and a spicy salsa of chili, garlic and parsley. They came with a side of rosemary salt hand cut fries, and we ordered a red cabbage and apple slaw to accompany.

The burgers were small, but perfectly formed. They came in a fantastic brioche bun, a good, thick slab of top quality manchego and a thick piece of meaty, smoky chorizo. The patty itself was small compared to the likes of Lucky Chip and MeatLiquor, and not as greasy – a good or bad thing depending on your perspective. It tasted more wholesome, and the references on the walls were about the sourcing of the beef. Quality and er...honesty dominate.  

I think I was most impressed by the fries – the rosemary worked brilliantly, and you could tell that the potatoes were good'uns. The slaw was tasty, but again, more on the wholesome side than the badass greasy diner side. So it's a question of what you want fom yout burger. If you're looking for an honest, wholesome, fancy burger, this is as good as it gets. If you are after the greasy American experience, you're better off with Lucky Chip, Meat Liquor and possibly Byron.

****

While we're on the subject of burgers, I've blogged about Meat Liquor before, but went again with a big group of friends recently. We went off peak, knowing that a table for ten in such a popular eaterie could be hard to come by. We didn't have to wait long for a table, and were well accommodated, and went all out on sides and starters.

The chili cheese fries were beyond amazing, in their entirety, although the regular fries we had as a side didn't compare with those from Honest Burger. The slaw was closer to my ideal – creamier and fattier, and deep fried pickles were a revelation – I even managed to eat blue cheese in the form of the dip that came with them.

I need to square the circle again and visit Lucky Chip before too long. Burgers or bust.

Back. This time properly.

So I'm actually back this time. Having spent the summer turning out an epic dissertation for my Masters and working on the policy report for a major campaign for Shelter, both of which culminated last week. So the summer of writing about policy is over, and it's time to do other things and write about them again. I did spend a lot of time eating nice food - it was my reward for every epic day in the office or the library, and so have many food stories to tell.

Let's start with the burgers. Because 2011 has been the summer of the burger. But it's not the first burger renaissance in recent foodie memory. About 5 years ago, 'gourmet' burgers were all the rage. A rash of new mid-market chains popped up in middle-class high street locations, including the Fine Burger company, gourmet burger kitchen and Ultimate Burger, all with largely similar menues putting a 'spin' on the traditional burger - sweet chilli sauce, portabello mushrooms, thick cut fries, served in sanitised settings. The message was think again: burgers can be posh, don't you know. When the recession hit, many stores shut up and people were inundated with 2 for 1s (a personal hate) to get them to buy up the ailing brands. These chains are still going, but relegated to the naff of the O2 and shopping centres.

The arrival of Byron Burger a few years ago re-ignited the burger debate. But this time it was more about how simple you could make your burger and how well you could do those few simple components, with a paired down menu consisting of a few classic variations of the burger - cheese, bacon, cheese and bacon - and classic sides, fries, onion rings and courgette fries. Tasty. Byron has quickly expanded across central and yummy London and their restaurants are always busy.

The 2011 twist is even more back to basics, taking the Byron simplicity, but ditching the chic interior design. Well, just ditching interiors altogether. It's all about the BURGER VAN.

Meatwagon have arguably been at the vanguard, developing a cult following with their van dishing out amazing burgers to South East Londoners for the best part of last year til it got stolen. Their stint in the upstairs room while the Goldsmiths Tavern was being renovated whipped the kids up into a frenzy, with bright young things journeying to New Cross from all over to sample the #Meateasy speakeasy burger dining. It was literally amazing. We turned up at 6pm on the dot and already a sizeable queue was lined up. By the time we left at 8pm, the queue snaked right down the stairs, out the door and halfway round the block. Some of those people would be waiting for 3 hours for their burger.

I ordered a Dead Hippy Burger, which is The Meatwagon's spin on a Big Mac. Two juicy, meaty burgers, still light pink inside, smothered in mustard, served in perfectly light buns with cheese and gherkins. Boyf ordered one with cheese and bacon. And we had sides of fries and onion rings, which it turns out was a bit on the conservative side. City boy types sitting next to us ordered buffalo wings, chilli cheese fries and hot dogs in addition to their burgers.



Truly amazing though. The Meatwagon is coming to the end of a summer residency in Peckham Rye, as well as doing a number of festivals and one offs, including a night at Dalston Roof Park. Nothing quite like a burger and a pale ale, sat on synthetic grass, gazing over the rooftops of Dalston. Oh yes.






Last week I finally tried got to go to Lucky Chip, a slightly less well-known and hyped burger van that has been stationed just off London Fields this summer. Open from about 6pm in Netil Market, a goods yard with a bike workshop in an old bus parked there too, Lucky Chip just does burgers, hot dogs, fries and onion rings. No satay sauce or raita and lamb burgers, but classic ingredients, piled copiously together between buns. Oh my. Pete ordered a Selleck, which had burger, cheese, a colossal beetroot dipped onion ring and a hefty pineapple ring. Now try fitting that in your mouth in one:



I opted for a slightly more classic Sheen - cream cheese, smoked bacon, mature cheddar and caramelised red onions. Still absolutely massive, and utterly artery clogging, but an absolutely perfect combination of ingredients. We munched silently, apart from sporadic groans of pleasure and sighs of eating exhaustion.



The sides were also delicious. The beetroot flavoured onion rings were...huge. And maybe a little on the salty side, but you could ask for them to hold the sea salt if you were concerned. The chips were tasty too - hand-cut, skins on, and organic, apparently. Our chosen combination of dips weren't available, so the kind guys gave us little pots of home-made BBQ sauce (hickorylicious), deep garlic aioli, wasabi sauce and sweet chilli sauce. Just wow.





We cycled back to Newington Green, worrying that the frames of our bikes may crumple underneath us. But intensely happy.

It's not just vans that are in the burger market - posh restaurants are also spinning a good line of burgers, and Young and Foodish has just updated their Top 10 burgers in London list. Many burger opportunities await. Anyone fancy a burger odyssey?