[Review] Juicy Bastard Burgers, The Green Man, Edgware Road

Update 7 Jan 2014 - Juicy Bastard has rebranded to Burger Craft.

Tucked away just under the Westway flyover in the unfashionable part of Paddington is The Green Man, a rather incongruous place to launch a burger brand as potentially contentious as Juicy Bastard.

I'd received an invite to sample burgers from one of the team at Best Place Inns, the holding company for the pub, and as they were on my hit list anyway, I decided to head over on a Wednesday evening to see if they were any good.

Price: 

The Juicy Bastard Burger - £10

Presentation:

Excellent. Using the same blue enamelled crockery favoured by the likes of Honest Burgers, the burger arrives with impact. It's a tall, double patty burger, served lid-on, but it doesn't need spiking to hold it in place - the melted american cheese does that magnificently - this is a well constructed burger. It comes floating in a sea of french fries.

A juicy bastard of a burger, yesterday.

Toppings:

In spite of the size of the burger, it has relatively few toppings. They're constrained to four slices of american cheese (two for each patty), a slice of tomato and lambs lettuce on the heel of the bun, and 'JB sauce'. The cheese is thick, sticky and nicely melted - pretty much spot on. The JB sauce is a house created smokey BBQ sauce made using liquid smoke imported from the U.S.

Adding lamb's lettuce is a nice touch - it adds a clean, fresh bite against the serious juiciness of the burger. The tomato, as usual, didn't add anything - in fact I think it went some way to bun collapse later on.

Meat:

The beef used in the Juicy Bastard patties is a mix of 90% chuck and 10% rump. It's cooked medium (pink) but that's ok here, as the patties are quite thin so they retain the juice needed to keep them moist and juicy. They've got a decent amount of seasoning on them too, and show off a cracking caramelised crust - all of which make them deeply satisfying. These are good burgers.

Juicy Bastard burger cut-through.

Bun:

This is a soft, glazed, semi-brioche that doesn't *quite* make it to the end of the sitting without the heel disintegrating. It's a shame as it's a tasty piece of bread, but it get's a hammering from the sauce (and the tomato slice), and can't keep it together.

Accessories:

The onion rings were pretty good. They were thin, crispy and came with a great buffalo hot sauce for dipping. The fries, to be honest, were a disappointment. They looked slightly anaemic, were soggy, and luke warm. More time in the fryer, and less time under a heatlamp, would have helped - that and a more generous salting.

Juicy Bastard Onion Rings, and some hot, hot, hot sauce

Overall rating: 9/10

For a place as painfully dull as Edgware Road, this is a little gem of a burger. It looks great, is super juicy, and has great balance between the bbq sauce, cheese, beef and bun. A little birdie has told me that this concept is being refined, and will shortly be rolled out across the Best Place Inns network of pubs. So look out for a more convenient, and jolly Juicy Bastard burger, at a pub near you soon.