Tucked away on an unassuming street, set back from the Holborn/Chancery Lane 'strip' sits one of the most tongue-in-cheek pub/restaurants I've been to in London. The Bountiful Cow.
The Baby Bountiful burger ticks a lot of boxes when it arrives in front of us. Shiny brioche bun - tick. Well proportioned beef and toppings - tick. Visible melted cheese and tongue of bacon peeking out from under the bun - tick. Bountiful (go figure) portion of chips filling up the rest of the plate - tick. All is in order for a classic pub burger.
Mild melted cheese merges seamlessly with the beef patty, and the super thin bacon packs a punch of salt and charcoal from its char grilling. Slightly less harmonious are the chopped onions (too much of them and massively overpowering), and the inexplicable curl of iceburg lettuce (which caused stability issues with everything sliding around). The whole experience is finished off with a generic 'burger sauce' which adds a creamy acidity into the mix.
The meat in this burger is a real throwback to the 'gourmet' burgers of old - lean, ground beef mixed with herbs - I know, it sounds like something out of the twilight zone BUT* and I caveat this heavily, it actually tastes quite good.
There are three reasons for this:
1) it's freshly (and coarsely) ground so the salt hasn't had time to draw out the moisture in the beef i.e. it's juicy.
2) There is no binding agent, so the texture is unadulterated.
3) It's cooked a perfect medium-rare.
*There are, however, some cardinal sins which I find it hard to overlook. Firstly the beef is un-aged so the flavour profile is sharp and tinny - like supermarket steak - rather than the mellow beefiness of aged meat. Then there is no discernible crust formed on the outside of the patty as it's been char-grilled. This also means that where the meat has come into contact with the hot metal it is charred and acrid. So it's a bit of a mixed bag.
On paper, and on sight, the brioche bun used for the Baby Bountiful burger looks to be the ideal wrapper for this burger, but the reality is a big fat Bun Fail. The same char-grilling which leaves the meat acrid has been deployed to toast the bun, but it's a cursory press onto the char-grill which leaves deep, burnt marks in the bun but does little to stop it pulling apart and collapsing after just a couple of bites.
Price:
Baby Bountiful Burger (don't be fooled by the name, this is still 9oz beef, and includes chips) - £10.50. Extra bacon - £1.70.Presentation:
The Baby Bountiful burger ticks a lot of boxes when it arrives in front of us. Shiny brioche bun - tick. Well proportioned beef and toppings - tick. Visible melted cheese and tongue of bacon peeking out from under the bun - tick. Bountiful (go figure) portion of chips filling up the rest of the plate - tick. All is in order for a classic pub burger.
Toppings:
Mild melted cheese merges seamlessly with the beef patty, and the super thin bacon packs a punch of salt and charcoal from its char grilling. Slightly less harmonious are the chopped onions (too much of them and massively overpowering), and the inexplicable curl of iceburg lettuce (which caused stability issues with everything sliding around). The whole experience is finished off with a generic 'burger sauce' which adds a creamy acidity into the mix.
Meat:
The meat in this burger is a real throwback to the 'gourmet' burgers of old - lean, ground beef mixed with herbs - I know, it sounds like something out of the twilight zone BUT* and I caveat this heavily, it actually tastes quite good.
1) it's freshly (and coarsely) ground so the salt hasn't had time to draw out the moisture in the beef i.e. it's juicy.
2) There is no binding agent, so the texture is unadulterated.
3) It's cooked a perfect medium-rare.
*There are, however, some cardinal sins which I find it hard to overlook. Firstly the beef is un-aged so the flavour profile is sharp and tinny - like supermarket steak - rather than the mellow beefiness of aged meat. Then there is no discernible crust formed on the outside of the patty as it's been char-grilled. This also means that where the meat has come into contact with the hot metal it is charred and acrid. So it's a bit of a mixed bag.
Bun:
On paper, and on sight, the brioche bun used for the Baby Bountiful burger looks to be the ideal wrapper for this burger, but the reality is a big fat Bun Fail. The same char-grilling which leaves the meat acrid has been deployed to toast the bun, but it's a cursory press onto the char-grill which leaves deep, burnt marks in the bun but does little to stop it pulling apart and collapsing after just a couple of bites.
Overall rating: 6/10
If you can get over the adulteration of the beef, and the chargrilled cooking method, and the stale bun - all big barriers to burger enjoyment - then this isn't too shabby. But I can't.
"Then there is no discernible crust formed on the outside of the patty as it's been char-grilled. This also means that where the meat has come into contact with the hot metal it is charred and acrid." I thought burgers are char-grilled, or is char-grilling something else? In which case, how are / should burgers be cooked?
ReplyDeleteThat's a good question - cast iron and chrome flat-top grills give a great crust as more of the surface area is on the metal. The char-grill is like a bbq so cooks the burger differently - as per the description in the post. Hope that helps.
ReplyDeleteThank you, another mystery solved!
ReplyDeletevery yummy burgers you have shared..
ReplyDeleteburger restaurant
Thank you, the Burger King in Amritsar is next on my list. Yeah, right.
ReplyDelete