Hello Burger / Sidcup

Cheeky Burger / Liverpool Street

Burgershack / Marylebone

Lucky Chip / Islington

Bad Egg / Moorgate

Mary Jane / Aldgate

Bill's / Borough Market

(new phone and new 15MP camera responsible for crisp photos!)

Hot Box / Spitalfields

The Crown and Shuttle / Shoreditch

Pop Up: The Karma Cola Special at Honest Burgers

In a collaboration with the Karma Cola Foundation, the bright sparks at Honest Burgers (home of my favourite London burger & chips for under a tenner) have been working on a limited edition burger to raise money for the charity.

From Honest's Website:

For each Karma Cola Burger sold we will donate £1 to the Karma Cola Foundation. We’ve been inspired by the extent these guys go to in order to look after the West African people who grow the Cola nut from which Karma Cola is made. We hope that the HB contribution will make an impact to these people who’ve had a rough ride lately in the wake of the Ebola crisis.

The premise for the Karma Cola is simple: take one of their standard Honest Burgers - in and of itself a classic of the form with beef sourced by the renowned Ginger Pig butchers - with added green chili coleslaw, applewood smoked cheese and some cola-infused braised beef on top. So it's double beef with an additional twist, a very special burger indeed and well worth taking the time out to go check out. 

Service at the Soho joint was typically speedy, as is the norm for Honest Burgers, and even on a Friday night when tables were turning faster than cards in a game of poker we got seated and served in under 15 minutes. If that's not amazing I don't know what is. The squidgy bun houses a nicely cooked patty, neither too dry nor too wet, with some lovely flavours coming off the cheese. The coleslaw is nice in and of itself, though it is unfortunately too easily overshadowed by the cola-soaked brisket. Very much the star of the whole show, the cola imparts a lovely sweet flavour that counterbalances the beef patty and the cheese.

Oh, and did I mention that this also comes with tons of the amazing triple cooked chips with rosemary salt that I love so much?

It ends Monday 3rd August 2015 and as this means that there are less than five meals to go before this expires, any self respecting burger junkie ought to get their socks on and get over to see them. Come on, it's for charity!

9.5 / 10

Karma Cola on Twitter
https://twitter.com/KarmaColaUK

Temple Brewhouse / Temple

Slug & Lettuce / St Mary Axe

Pop up: Borough Market

The Fourteenth Colonie / Farringdon

Bleecker Street Burger / Spitalfields

The Lord Tredegar / Bow

Chapters of Blackheath / Blackheath

Palmers / Bethnal Green

Marks & Spencer / Cheapside

Pop Up!: Pestaurant / New Change

Pop Up! is a new series of shorter reviews of popup restaurants and market stands to keep you going between burger restaurants and more permanent outlets.

Pestaurant is an unusual pop-up that I was alerted to in the local Time Out magazine that took place earlier today at the fancy New Change mall in the City of London. Organised as a promotional event for pest controllers Rentokill, Pestaurant is pretty much the antithesis of the swanky, posh restaurants that can be found close by. Simply put, they take bugs, crickets and worms that could be pretty gross if they weren't dead and serve them up as toasted snacks. Now while I'm not the sort of squeamish person, I'm also not the sort of person to see a dead bug on my kitchen floor as a possible snack  but for a laugh a few crunchy bugs make for a strangely compelling and fairly edible lunch.

But being that this is a burger blog, the most interesting thing they were serving up were quartered pigeon burger with a sweet chilli sauce, which were being barbecued wholesale and given out for for free. So far, so good - a free burger! Served in a brioche bun with a bed of lettuce and sweet chilli sauce (think the same stuff you get in Chinese food), the pigeon burger is a really juicy, gamey burger and I was surprised at how good pigeon and fowl (other than chicken) taste as a meat for making burgers with. As this photo shows, this gamey flavour is down to very spartan preparation and medium rare cooking with no onions or other ingredients in sight; just ground meat made into patties with the chilli sauce working to offset the strong taste of the meat. 

For a free burger I can't complain too much - it's something different and interesting to try as a change, but give me beef any time. 

6/10