With a trip to Brighton planned for Saturday, my belly started doing a happy dance as I was yet to explore the world of burgers in this seaside town. After careful research, the joint with astoundingly good reviews, was Burger Brothers… In fact, it was even voted best burger place in the UK in 2014 by TripAdvisor.
After a rather tedious and long train journey, Clapham Junction via Wales, I was nearing on hangry – and I never get hangry. We eagerly stride off the train and make a beeline towards BB. There is a crowd of people milling about outside. I get hangrier as I think this is a queue. Thankfully, it is not. It’s just patrons waiting for their orders as space is limited inside, so most choose to take away.
They don’t do chips. Let me repeat, they don’t do chips. I am devastated. Sorry, but the burger experience just isn’t complete without those golden rods of happiness. Sigh. They do shakes though. Yahoo.
We manage to snag a coveted spot at the bar inside. I am absolutely salivating for what I have imagined to be burger perfection.
My triple chocolate shakes arrives. Triple. Chocolate. That’s what they call it. I would hate to see the single chocolate if this is the triple. Another pallid attempt at something vaguely chocolatey. My hanger increases. Grrrrr. My Partner in Crime lets me have his vanilla shake. It’s nothing special. Soooo, no chips, and a weak shake, this burger better deliver.
My standard control burger is a cheeseburger with bacon. As we wanted to fit in another burger after this, we were sharing, and My Partner in Crime had said yes to the question of “would you like chilli sauce on that?” – not that I don’t love chilli sauce, but it changes the game.
I am thankful, however, that he did say yes, as this burger needed something hot to drown out all of the other awfulness going on. My pet burger hate is when establishments put a dried green herb of some description through the patty. Why? A good burger doesn’t need this! I am a purist! I just want my ground chuck and salt and pepper. The quality of the meat was also not good. It was almost grey inside – cooked to buggery and the burger had piles of rocket on it. No. No. No.
I honestly do not know how so so so so many people can love this place. The burger was sloppy, poor quality and left both a literal and metaphorical bad taste in my mouth. I understand that everyone has different tastes, but there was nothing present, integral to a stellar burger: the smoke, the char, the pinkness… The most enjoyable part was the little slice of pickle on the side.
I leave having dropped the h, and am now just angry.
