This is the second match in youngandfoodish's Burger Monday Championship (also known as the Wimbledon of Burgers) and, like the others, features two chefs going head-to-head in one-on-one competition.
Once again the venue was Climpson's Arch, a coffee roastery under some railway arches - with the railings surrounding the venue and lack of other establishments around you'd be forgiven for passing by without noticing it, particularly as it's down a side-street, but once you get through the gates you realise this is actually a very good venue for this sort of event, there's space to have two queues for burgers, a bar and a reasonable amount of table space - though a little more for the peak times wouldn't go amiss.
As usual, you're first issued with your stamp card and voting sticker, and then it's a matter of determining which burger to go for first.
This time we went for Disco Bistro first as it was clearly the shorter queue. Their Roller Disco Burger consisted of a 45-day-aged Highland beef (rib, chuck, brisket) & bone marrow patty. Over the patty we had treacle-cured cherry-wood-smoked Mangalitsa bacon - for those of you that were at the London Burger Bash you'll recognise this as coming from the same long-haired Hungarian pig breed as Patty & Bun used for their Piggy Rascal, but treated differently. In addition to that there was pineapple pickle jam - more on that later, and a beer, beef dripping & English truffle cheese. Finally this was rounded off with Carl’s bun sauce, lettuce and pickled onions before being lovingly nestled inside a potato brioche bun. All this made for a big burger, as was evident when one of the people in our group exclaimed "oh my god, how am I going to fit that into my mouth?" - but she managed ok, and it was worth the risk of a dislocated jaw to get it all in.
There was fantastic combination of flavours going on with this burger, making it my personal favourite of the entries in the championship thus far. The pineapple pickle jam was amazing, and is up there with the Burger Bear's Black Cherry Bacon Jam as something that should be added to more dishes, it was sweet, embraced the pineapple flavour and served to enhance the overall burger experience, even those with less of a sweet tooth than I found it a find addition. The cheese was soft, and gooey, and, while potentially a little more fluidic than some might like on a burger, once again provided a nice flavour sensation as you bit into the burger.
I confess, I had not sampled Disco Bistro before, but based on that burger, I will be seeking the out again in the future.
Elliot's cafe, like all the contestants in this competition, has a fine reputation, and today they made what they called the Skirtburger, consisting of a 42-day-aged Dexter beef (brisket fat, flank, chuck) patty, served with bone marrow onions, umami ketchup, a Raclette, Westcombe curd & pickle cheese "skirt" and an olive oil brioche bun.
This was a big, messy burger. It unfortunately passed through the realms of "good" messy and into the "difficult to eat" messy, the cheese skirt was a nice touch, and enjoyable, but caused some issues for eating as it far exceeded the borders of the burger. There were mixed approaches to this, some people attempted to eat it as-is, some attempted to fold over the cheese into the burger, and I opted for eating the excess while ensuring some remained within the burger. The burger was very juicy, and squeezing it led to a lot of liquid being visible. The bun was sturdy and maintained integrity throughout, but was a little too large and bready for one of our group.
The final voting was not as close as the previous round, and will leave us with Hawksmoor vs Disco Bistro in the semi-final.
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