The Best Burgers in Singapore: My Top 3

I recently had the opportunity to travel with work to Singapore, which meant I had a chance to hit up a few burgers joints in The Lion City - here's how it went down...

1. Burger Joint, Gemmill Ln

Burger: Bacon cheeseburger
Side: French fries

Hailing from New York where the original Burger Joint sits behind a curtain in the lobby of Le Parker Meridien Hotel on 56th Street, Singapore’s Burger Joint outpost is similarly hidden in plain sight. All you’ll see is a neon burger on the wall of a white building on Gemmill Lane (off Amoy St.). The set up is simple – order at the hatch from a small selection of classic American burgers (grab a side or one of the huge number of craft beers) and then wait for it to be ready a few minutes later. You can choose to have your burger cooked to order – so naturally med-rare is the way to go as they use some great quality USDA beef. I ordered it with ‘the works’ so came piled high with salad, pickles and condiments.

Lucky Chip Residency at The Camden Assembly

You all know that Lucky Chip has long been one of my favourite burgers in London, well now there's another place you can get some of their burger action, and it's not East London.

Welcome to the Lucky Chip residency at The Camden Assembly. Kicking off with a launch party on Tuesday 20 September you can eat (some of the best) burgers and listen to a load of great music. All part of the regeneration of Camden Market. Juicy.

Preview: UK National Burger Day 2016

The UK's National Burger Day should, in my view, be a national holiday. What better way to celebrate hundreds of thousands of people coming together in a celebration of juicy, coarsely ground beef in a bun? Well we're not getting a national holiday (boo) but instead we have a Bermondsey-based burger party, hosted by Street Feast at Hawker House, bringing together some of the UK's best burger talent.

So...here's your primer for National Burger Day 2016 and a selection of what you're going to get.


The menu:

Bill or Beak.

Filled bun specialists Bill or Beak will be serving up their ever popular rolls. Here's the "Bill" to whet your appetite - no preview shot of their Fried Chicken Biscuit!

Photo credit @mrjbarker

Bleecker St. Burger

Hailing from across the pond, Bleecker Burger founder Zan and the team have been experimenting on a special burger which includes a melted American cheese. Cheesy.

B.O.B's Lobster

The folks at Street Feast stalwart B.O.B.'s Lobster are once again kicking it at National Burger Day with their souped up special. The composition is a fried calamari butter burger, and here's their preview. Looking good! 

Burger & Beyond vs Burger Gang
One of a couple of collaborations going on at National Burger Day this year. This good looking beast from burger slingers Burger & Beyond and burger mad Burger Gang, brings together a 90-day aged patty, pancetta-style bacon, cold smoked American cheese and marrownaise....I know!

Busan BBQ
Korean street food specialists Busan BBQ are hitting up National Burger Day with a buzzing Asian special. It combines an aged patty from Quality Chop, charred kimchi, mustard pickled onions, ssamjang mayo and American cheese. Burger porn below!!

Chuck Burger

Starting life in Hatch End, Chuck Burger has come on the scene hard, serving up Cheeseburgers the way they taste stateside. At National Burger Day they're showcasing a special burger they're calling the Firestarter. It comprises a 28-day dry aged beef patty, grilled onions, diced gherkins, American cheese, pancetta bacon, fermented red chilli mayo, and a green jalapeno salsa. Spicy!

Dip & Flip

The perennial favourite from the guys in South West London - Dip & Flip is all about beef, gravy and runny cheese. And if it ain't broke, why fix it?! Their National Burger Day offering will therefore be familiar but with a hit of green chilli. Awesome.

Le Bun

The talented Le Bun folks appear in tantalisingly short residencies across London. And wherever Le Bun are, so too are great burgers. And yes, they're here for National Burger Day and sporting their take on that classic McDonalds Big Mac - Le Mac. Patriotic!

Lucky Chip
This has been one of my favourite burger joints since day dot when they started in Netil Market. Lucky Chip are going to be joining the party with their Dirk Diggler burger. An eye-poppingly meaty combination of 35-day aged longhorn beef topped with braised beef short rib, American cheese, pickled coleslaw, Sriracha Kewpie mayo & spicy BBQ sauce. Juicy.

MotherFlipper

Almost a guaranteed fixture at National Burger Day, the guys at MotherFlipper are going to be here again offering up two of their classics: the candy double bacon flipper; and a double up version with 28-day aged Angus chuck, glazed bun, ketchup, mustard, red onion, pickle, American cheese and a huge helping of bacon fried in maple syrup. Word.

Petare vs Temper

You know it's going to get awesome when chef Neil Rankin is involved, and so it is with his new restaurant, Temper, combining with Venezuelan street food outfit Petare. They're putting together a 50/50 chuck/mutton burger patty, grilled Provolone cheese and mustard pickles wrapped in a Venezuelan arapa. Boom.

No preview pic, so here's something outrageous from Bad Egg instead.

Smokestak are also going to be there, banging out the BBQ meat too, along with Crumbs and Dollies and Chin Chin Labs serving up desserts.

And as if you needed anything else to push your excitement levels through the roof, here's my video of National Burger Day at Battersea. Enjoy.

So that's what you'll get if you're able to make it to the party - otherwise you'll just have to keep an eye out on Twitter and Instagram for glorious, glorious burger porn. 

They are also discounts available from more than 900 restaurants across the UK - check out the official National Burger Day 2016 website and download your voucher for 20% off.

Burgers in Berlin

“Ich bin ein Berlin(burg)er.”

Having had the best laid plans for a romantic weekend in Venice scuppered by the French air traffic controllers strike (*shakes fist*) just three hours before we were supposed to fly out, it took another hour and a half to scramble around and find a last second replacement that didn’t involve flying over French air space. Cue a hastily booked trip to Germany’s capital, Berlin.

[Review] Jane Roe Kitchen Burger, Old Street

Coming up from the Barbican Centre, you pass the varied food stalls on Whitecross St. Market, which peter out as you approach Old Street. It's at this intersection where Jane Roe Kitchen lurks. It's suitably understated behind it's black-painted frontage, with a dark wood tables and exposed brickwork. It's been a couple of weeks since my last burger, and a while since I've written a review - so I'm looking forward to trying out somewhere new.

Let's see how we get on.

Bleecker St. Burger: Summer Sessions on the Southbank

Aside for some pretty British weather, summer MUST be on its way. I know this because Bleecker St. Burger (one of my top picks for the best burgers in London) have just kicked off their summer sessions under Hungerford Bridge on the Southbank.

This new, upgraded, and frankly brilliant, space consists of two containers framing a benched seating area. One of the containers is the burger slinger which serves their burgers, fries, shakes, canned beer and for the first time WINE! The other container serves Sierra Nevada in tap with four other rotating beers (currently Pale Ale, Torpedo, Tropical IPA, and Summerfest) as well as a selection of cans.

They are now officially open (Wednesday 25 May) from 11:30 with 50% off food all day today! Opening hours daily are 11:30-23:00.

Find them here.

[Review] Lucky Chip Burgers and Wine, Ridley Road

Pretty much five years on from my first visit to Lucky Chip - when the tunes were being blasted out from Ben's truck in Netil Market, and we sat around, BYOB in hand, eating great burgers and soaking up the vibes - I'm heading back to its latest East London incarnation in the heart of Ridley Road market.

If Netil Market was Lucky Chip's infancy, then The Seabright Arms was its adolescence - a high energy period of burger slinging fuelled by bourbon, beer, and live bands.

Suffice to say Lucky Chip Burgers and Wine has grown up. It's a more mature offering, with seats and a bar and everything. It has menus. Actual menus on tables. And a short but well curated wine list. It's graduated through university, moved out of the flat-share and, like a young professional, moved to it's own pad, and has made it its own.

There's still an edge, of course, and you'd expect nothing less from this cult burger icon with it's roots deeply laid down in the E postcodes. Looking out through the wall of glass that separates diners from Ridley Road market you can't miss the in-your-face neon strip lit butcher stalls where pigs trotters, ox tongue and goats neck vie for space.

Back inside the tables are waiter/ress served giving a far more american diner feel than to any of the previous (or indeed existing at the Old Queens Head) incarnations. The menu remains broadly the same, except there's a 40-day aged Galacian steak on the menu, and a selection of starters, including some rather good padron peppers.

You'll recognise some classic burgers from times gone by, The Royale wit Cheese, The Kevin Bacon etc. - this trip my dining partners in crime and I went for the Kevin Bacon and El Chappo.

The Kevin Bacon has long held top spot in my Top 10 London Burgers list - and there is absolutely no changing that. This burger, for me, is the perfect balance of everything a truly great burger should be.

Soft but toasted bun, bit hit of salty smoked bacon, the stickiness and rounded flavours of American cheese melted over a truly great piece of flat-top grilled caramelised beef. All sitting on a crunchy bed of chopped iceberg lettuce and rounded off with ketchup, mustard and sharp pickles. Guaranteed to put a smile on your face, and a big grin on mine.

Kevin Bacon cheeseburger at Lucky Chip

El Chappo is a real treat. For those who aren't sure about blue cheese in their burger (or a polarised against it) this will restore your faith. It's light and creamy, but with a hint of the classic blue 'bite' - but brilliantly offset by the chillies and bacon. It contains the same beef patty as the Kevin Bacon but with a glazed, sesame-seeded bun.

Lucky Chip has always put a smile on my face, and the venture in Ridley Road is no exception. It's just one of those unbeatable burger joints delivering a set of timeless classics in an utterly non-pretentious way. I love it. And so should you.

[Recipe] The Byron from the Byron Hamburgers cook book

As anyone who's a regular reader of this blog knows, I'm a long time fan of the burgers created by Fred Smith, Byron's Head of Food Development and hold a deep respect for the attention to detail and central philosophy that has helped him steer Byron from it's first restaurant in 2007 to the nationwide chain with more than 50 restaurants it's become today.

So when I was approached to get a sneak peek of the new Byron: The Cookbook and have a go at recreating their Byron burger (their classic bacon cheeseburger), I couldn't resist.



Bun, beef, bacon, cheese, salad, gherkins and sauce are all you need to recreate the Byron burger.



Prepped and ready to go.



Slather that bun with Byron sauce.



Beef, cheese, bacon - the dream combination.

All that hard work calls for a beer.

The recipe is simple, but effective - check out all the juicy details on Intu's Inspire Me Blog.

Bon Appetit.

[Review] Eat the Farm streetfood burgers

Relatively new on the street food scene, Eat the Farm are showing their pedigree by popping up alongside Street Kitchen in Broadgate Circle next to Liverpool street station. Selling out of a converted VW van, with a bun toaster in the cab and surfboards for menus, these guys can be found every Thursday in Broadgate Circle (next to Liverpool Street station).

Big Fernand in London - it was just à bientôt

Cripes, tempus fugit.

It seems like only yesterday (when in reality it was around about this time twelve months ago) when Big Fernand made its first foray into the London burger scene. Since then they've revised their pricing (on the back of this review and a pile of social feedback), got into the swing of things with their service, and are now able to serve their burgers blue - more about that later.

[Review] Honest Burgers vs The Rib Man

Q: What do you get when refined British burger slingers Honest go head to head with Brick Lane's infamous rib meat and fruitily-named Holy F*ck hot sauce purveyor?

A: The Ribman special.

[Meat Free January] Grilled Cheese from Grill My Cheese

To round off almost 30 days of no meat and no booze, what better news to hear than street food cheese porn purveyors Grill My Cheese are back on Leather Lane after a well deserved winter break.

It's a tough gig, eating all this grilled cheese, but I am a man who takes his art seriously. Let's see how these toasties stack up against the others in my meat free toasted cheese marathon.

[Meat Free January] Grilled Cheese from The Cheese Truck

With a name like 'The Cheese Truck' you're really leaving nowhere to hide, particularly when you're about to feed a hungry burger blogger who hasn't had meat, or a drop of booze, for almost a month.

Following in the footsteps of the imperious Kappacasein dairy cheese melt, the impressive Lundenwic grilled cheese sandwich, and the more functional toastie from the Melt Room as part of my meat free January series - The Cheese Truck in residency at King & Co in Clapham has some tough competition.

How tough? Well read on, oh lovers of grilled cheese sandwiches, read on...

[Meat Free January] Grilled cheese from Kappacasein in Borough Market

In the bustling centre of Borough Market's diverse set of stalls, cafes and eateries, Kappacasein dairy offers up a shrine to your guilty cheese worship.

Just look at what calls you from the glass-encased sandwich cupboard on their stall in the market. A pile of heavily filled, Poilâne bread wrapped joy. Read on for the taste test...

[Meat Free January] Grilled Cheese at Melt Room, Noel Street, Soho

Sounding like the title of an American psychological war film – or perhaps a workshop room at Madame Tussauds – this restaurant on Noel Street in Soho (just opposite BRGR.Co) is focused on delivering you melted cheese in a variety of different combinations.

Hot on the heels of my review of the Lundenwic grilled cheese, let's see what the Melt Room has to offer.

[Meat Free January] Grilled Cheese at Lundenwic, 45 Aldwych

Once again we find ourselves in January, 2015 seems to have flown by in a bit of a blur, with fewer new burger openings in London, a spattering of residencies, and of course the burger celebration of the year – National Burger Day.

But January means more austere times.

My meat-free, alcohol-free month has become a bit of a ritual, and a chance to give my body a rest from chowing down on pig and cow layered burgers. For the last couple of years I’ve reviewed the best veggie burgers in London, so this year I’m going to give you the definitive list of grilled cheese sandwiches, because – well, why the hell not.

And so my first visit is to Lundenwic. This is a Nordic-themed café at 45 Aldwych – not the beating heart of foodie London – although it's sandwiched between The Waldorf and The Delauney, so you could argue this is a more refined area, away from the hectic delights of Soho. And Nordic it is, with its sparse, industrial feel: clean lines; beige tiles; grey grouting; and bold block furniture.