Reviews
UK Burger Club Meeting 5, Hamburger Union, Small, but perfectly formed
It was a pared-down but strangely intrepid crew who glided into Hamburger Union on Garrick Street (The Heart Of London's Fashionable West End) last night. We had been deprived of Tarka-Our-Glorious-Leader by a brutal handbag incident, but were we downhearted? Of course not: there were red meat, chips and beer ahead.
And what can I say? (Particularly since I left the forms at home this morning so am having to make this up.) Hold onto your chairs, readers, here it comes:
This Burger Was Excellent.
I know! After so many knock-backs, after all the previous disappointments — we actually liked it! It averaged 76.5/100, and this would have been higher had we — grown men + women with several years university education between us — not been utterly flummoxed by how to score the seediness and toastiness of a bun which was neither seeded nor toasted. Moby gave it 74; Jon (Jon Tseng, the proud putter-away of a Bacon Double Cheese) rated it 67 with special marks to juiciness, and even the hard-to-please Fi (Curlywurlyfi) gave it 75. Maggie (Magnolia) gave up on the scoring entirely — “what the hell is molding” — and just said “look, I really liked this, I give it 45/50 overall”.
Presentation: pretty basic — oval burger, quite thin, but all cooked just as requested (hurray! rare burger!) and made with freshly chopped beef with good flavour — on fresh sourdough buns, with lettuce, thinly sliced red onion, ketchup + mayo. Nice ratio of cheese. Chips were fat and a little too soft. Pickles were extra (95p) and dauntingly large. Unusually for the crew there was not much menu off-roading, if you don't count the strawberry malted and Baileys shakes. Truly, we were focused! And they were really, properly, good burgers. I think Moby said at one point “this is so good it makes me want to rip off my clothes and sprint off into the streets screaming ‘I can't believe it! I can't believe it! Now God is with me!’” But I may have misheard him.
So there you have it. Burger Triumphant! Thank you, Hamburger Union! You my bitch fo' life!