I was recently invited, with a couple of fellow burgerites, to preview a burger concept put together by the executive chef for The Diner's upcoming seasonal halloween menu.The Diablo burger is an 8oz USDA beef patty, coarsely ground and consisting of a combination of cuts from the rib, sirloin, fillet and chuck. It is topped with pepperjack cheese, rashers of streaky bacon, and comes with fries. On the side sits a pot of blood-red (clearly highly oxygenated) devilish relish.
The Diner recommend this burger served medium-rare, so that's what we went for, and here's the low down:
My previous review of double decker burger in The Diner, Soho, covers the bun which is a custom creation (tested to its juice-bursting limits in the lab of a North London bakery). The Diablo burger bun is the same part-brioche, milk-glazed bun but it ditches the sesame seeds.
The Diablo burger is a good looking package, shamelessly flouting the three-finger rule of burger size.
The combination of cuts inside The Diner's Diablo burger means this patty is seriously juicy. The fat from the rib and chuck mixed with the melt in the mouth qualities of fillet and sirloin combine to form a beefy yet creamy patty - and I'm happy to report the beef was perfectly seasoned.
Whilst the bacon put in a strong show with an excellent charring that enhanced the whole burger, the pepperjack cheese didn't show its true colours, with only glimpses of it's spicy flavour showing through. Salad was fresh and didn't clash with the burger, but the tomato was a bit slidey on the base, although not enough to deliver topping tsunami fail.
Overall rating: 8.5/10
The Diner 'gets' burgers, and this proves that something is going right in test kitchen. A great, well executed burger that is really only needing a couple of minor tweaks to score even higher. And with a £9 price point, I think it's spot on.
One final note, if you are eating at The Diner there is a 'secret shakes' menu available, and the picture below is of the Oreo shake. It's blooming brilliant.
That does look delicious!
ReplyDeleteI know you've probably got a backlog of burgers to try but me and the husband went for lunch on Saturday here:http://www.theprincessofshoreditch.com/ and had this:
8oz shin of Aberdeen Angus beef burger, with white truffle mayo, foie gras & plum tomato chutney & hand cut chips which you might be interested in trying?
He loved it (although you may need to ask for more chips), quite the accompaniments no?
I've only had really terrible burgers served to me at Diner establishments (the one on Essex road in my experience serves some of the blandest burgers in London). In fact, I've had so many bad experiences at various Diner joints that I'd pretty much sworn never to return. This, however, looks promising. I'm intrigued...
ReplyDeleteClaire - that sounds great, intrigued as to the flavour of the angus shin burger! I walked past the princess the other day on my way to the Rivington Grill - I'll definitely have to add it to the list!
ReplyDeleteBurgerac - thanks for the comment! I've had a lot of comments about the Diner burgers and wanted to try it for myself - the normal double decker was under seasoned, but the rest of the package was pretty good. This Diablo, however, comes highly MEAT WIN recommended. Try it out if you get the chance!
Hi - we went on the basis of this review and it was fantastic!
ReplyDeletehttp://bbqfanatic.blogspot.com/2011/10/diablo-burger-diner-in-soho.html
In fact we're keen to find out what a 10/10 burger tastes like if you think this is 8.5/10.
Thanks for the recommendation.
Ben
Update for you folks - the Diablo has had such good feedback that it is now being added to the Diner menu in earnest.
ReplyDeleteIf the quality remains the same, this is GOOD NEWS!