Red Dog Saloon: The Bad, The Bad and The Ugly.

Red Dog Saloon is perched on the corner of Hoxton Square, but its faded faux western facade, and brightly lit interior feels out of place amongst the low lit counter culture bars that surround it.

I was out for a couple of drinks on a Monday night and happened to be around the corner from Red Dog Saloon. I'd heard some mixed reviews of the burgers so it was a great opportunity to give it a Burger Me! once over.

Price:

Bacon cheeseburger £8.50
Blue cheese and bacon cheeseburger £8.50
Fries £2.75
Onion rings £2.75

Presentation:

All the burgers came lid-on, plated with garnishes of coleslaw, a thick finger of pickle, beef tomato, and a leaf of romaine lettuce. This is a burger where ALL the salad is out of the burger, which seems to me a bit of a cop out, or maybe a way to make the plate the burger is served on look less empty.

Toppings:

The bacon cheeseburger was topped with a miserly attempt at a topping. This consisted several pieces of dry and curly streaky bacon plonked on top. The American cheese wasn't much better being barely melted onto the meat. 

Meat:

A 6oz chuck patty apparently cooked medium rare is the core of this burger. It wasn't. In fact it's barely pink in the middle. It is seasoned, but the ground beef feels overworked and slightly sludgy.

Bun:

Godawful. What could have been a dense squidgy bun on first glance turns out to be a dry, untoasted gag-fest. What moisture might have been left feels like it's been leached out by a combination of heat lamp and old age. The only redeeming factor was my pint of Camden Meantime IPA.

Accessories:

Fries were fine, actually not bad at all, but the onion rings were massively disappointing. The breadcrumb exterior is dry, like the bun, and almost cold with a slimy, half cooked thick ring of onion inside. Unappetising. Coupled with a thousand-island style sauce that had been out so long it had formed a firm skin. Almost unpalatable.

Overall rating: 4/10

This burger scores a dismal 4/10 - the sludgy meat, the offensively dry, untoasted bun and unsauced toppings being bad enough crimes in themselves - coupled with a complete lack of interest in making a half decent attempt at palatable food. I visited on a Monday night, around 8.30pm, and the place was packed, so I doubt this review will do much to deter the hordes. 

The most interesting thing about Red Dog Saloon is I've had fans of the blog beg me to add this joint to my list, and others tell me to avoid it like the plague. I've also had their chef in charge of their Twitter account respond to my disappointed comments from the evening letting me know 'something must have gone wrong'. It may well have done, but when a place divides opinion like this (50% of the time it works every time...) there's a consistency issue that needs sorting.