Byron Hamburgers

I've commented before that I think that McDonald's do the best burger buns. Sorry, but I think it's true. The slight sweetness of the pappy bun, coupled with the sesame seeds is a tasty vehicle to deliver the patties of meat to my mouth without falling apart ashamedly in my hands. Happily, I am not alone in these feelings. Helen of Food Stories shares my view and it spurred her on to come up with the idea of putting a 'gourmet' burger patty in a fast food bun. She expressed this idea on Twitter, and Tom Byng of Byron Hamburgers stepped up to the plate to accomodate the experiment.

Not only did accomodate he the experiment, he went a little further and upped the game. Marcus Miller bakes all of Byron's buns, and they came up with eight different buns for us to test. Eight! When we were presented with the agenda, we were overwhelmed.

Of course, to get a fair playing field, Helen sourced some Burger King buns. Sadly, McDonald's flat out refused to give her any buns so they were not included in the experiment. Our very, very scientific methods involved a plain tasting of the bun, then a quarter of an assembled burger each. As there were five of us, another assembled burger was made up so that we could try the burger as a whole. Hand-feel and how well the bun conveys the patty is also a very important part of a burger, after all.

As there were 9 buns to test, I won't go through them all as I imagine that would be rather boring. Instead, my top three -

1. The Brioche Bun. It was amazing. Yes, the puffed dome was soon deflated once you got your fingers around it, but the sweet buttery bread complimented the patty perfectly. I made obscene comments about this.

2. The Burger King Bun. Sadly so. It held it's puffed shape well, it made for an extremely attractive burger. It had the sweetness of the brioche, but it did taste a little dry and synthetic. And it made me feel dirty.

3. The Byron Bun. It was slightly sweet, had a nice doughy texture and stood up to the burger patty well. It had no overwhelming flavours to detract from the meat and it did it's job nicely.

Other options included wholemeal (wrong, wrong, wrong), sourdough, sourdough with onion (which was rather too much of a lingering sour flavour) and sesame seed which almost pipped the Byron bun to the post.

And the worst?

The Ciabatta. It was horrid. I ate the meat and pushed the bun away. I don't think there's ever any need for a ciabatta burger bun. It was floury, stodgy and the slightly crispy crust upset me. It wasn't like other ciabattas I've seen with a more open crumb, but it was close enough. And if that wasn't bad enough, we turned it over to find bottom soaked through and falling apart. It was an insult to the beautifully seasoned and cooked beef.

So there we were, fit to bursting. How better to finish off the meal than with a Knickerbocker Glory?

Thanks to Byron Hamburgers for indulging us with this experiment. We had wondered if we'd have to do it on the sly and risk embarrassment and being chucked out. They themselves stood up to the test well; of the 18 burgers we sampled, all but one (which more like medium well) was cooked to a juicy pink and were all well seasoned. If that's not a true test of consistency, I don't know what is.

So there you have it. Others round the table rated the Burger King bun as tops, saying that it held it's structure better than the brioche. Now, if only we could make a more sturdy brioche...

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There has been much discussion and interest recently, on the internet and elsewhere, about whether or not food bloggers should subscribe to a Code of Ethics or suchlike when reviewing restaurants. The discussion was brought to my attention first by this site from the US, which has drawn up an incredibly pompous list of bullet points including such gems as "We will visit a restaurant more than once (more than twice, if possible) before passing a final judgment" (Oh really? Who's paying?) and "We will sample the full range of items on menu." (Remember to bring Mr. Creosote along with you). My initial reaction to this list was to draw up my own, containing just one guideline - "Nobody's paying you for it, and nobody's forced to read it, so do what the hell you want". However, despite my huge reservations concerning this particular site, the issue of bloggers remaining independent and impartial with regards to the places they eat in, particularly now our influence (and, to some extent, notoriety) is on the rise and the number of PR events and "tastings" we are invited to attend increases, is probably one worth addressing.

As I mention, food blogging is a hobby, and we are free, for the most part, from the ethical issues that may affect some paid journalists and food writers when posting. But this doesn't of course mean that we are somehow more impartial than the Jay Rayners or Matthew Normans. In fact, it is just as likely to work the other way - if Jay Rayner got taken out for a slap-up meal at a new restaurant, given a tour of the kitchens and plied with free booze and then had the bill comped at the end, and subsequently gave it 10/10 in the next Sunday's Observer, chances are he would be rumbled quickly and his readership would quite rightly be outraged. But if I was put in the same situation, given my largely anonymous public profile and much smaller but more targeted readership, there's every chance I would get away with it, and a glowing post on my website would stand for eternity, cropping up on Google Searches and social networking sites and more than repaying said institution's outlay on buttering up (if you'll excuse the expression) a pathetically grateful foodie for an evening.

I suppose the point I'm trying to make is that because it's so much easier for food bloggers to appear impartial, the temptation is that much greater not to be. And whether it's Australian bloggers being asked to go undercover and big up cat food, or the cult of celebrity blinding one hapless forum moderator to mediocre pizza, temptation is everywhere. So in fairness to foodethics.wordpress.com, although I could pick apart the hideous flaws in much of what they've written and have great fun into the bargain, instead I'll just repeat the one point that I believe they have spot on:

* If we receive an item for free or if we are recognized during our reviewing process, we will mention so in our review.

And with that in mind, let me tell you about a lovely evening I had eating free food at Byron Hamburger on Kings Road.

Tom Byng, the manager of Byron, had invited a small group of eager foodies along to their Chelsea branch to sample their menu and chat about burgers. The Quest for the Best Burger in London had brought me far and wide, but it's surprising it had taken so long to get here - after all, they are proud winners of the 2009 Observer Food Monthly Awards (Best Cheap Eat) and are the only really decent competitor to Haché in this price bracket. The Hawksmoor burger may be a work of genius, but at £15 it's a work of genius that comes with a corresponding price tag - the Byron burgers range from just under £6 to £8 for one with cheese and bacon, and so you can get away with a whole meal for around £10.

Much like the aforementioned Mr. Creosote, except of a much slimmer build, Tom started off the evening by instructing the waitress to bring us "one of everything". So along with our burgers arrived such treats as delicious Cerignola olives, a very impressive Caesar salad and a lovely pot of macaroni cheese, which at £2.75 was a very generous portion and counts as a bit of a bargain in my book.

All of which would have been to naught if the burgers were no good, but fortunately a great deal of care and attention has gone into the patty side of things too. Tom explained that they didn't have the luxury of resources to throw into burger production that places like Hawksmoor did, and so their formula for a successful restaurant was to carefully and intelligently source good beef (the precise mixture of rump, chuck and brisket is ground into patties at a special butchers off-site but still in London and then shipped to the restaurants) but keep the cooking method as easy and possible. I've made clear before my thoughts on Aberdeen Angus beef in steaks (mass-produced, inoffensive but dull), but it makes perfect sense to use a reliable breed in burgers to maintain consistency across a small chain of restaurants.

And these burgers were very good - cooked perfectly, dripping gorgeous bloody juices and not too thick. My one complaint was with the bread, which although apparently delivered daily by a small East-End baker, was too heavily floured and dry for my liking. It came, as well, with a lovely sweet and crunchy pickle (quite an interesting idea leaving it up to the customer whether to pop it in the bun or eat it separately) and good tangy cheese. My favourite of the array of sauces was the spicy BBQ sauce, which had a great note of liquid smoke and fresh tang of vinegar. They apparently make it themselves - it's not bought in. And you can tell.

After working our way through literally the whole menu, we reached the desserts, and found a little room to try an impressive Knickerbocker Glory, complete with Cherry On Top. I should probably also mention the wines, which are organised on the stripped-down menu into categories such as "Good", "Better" and "Best" and included a lovely Californian Pinot Noir called Jargon, and if beer's more your thing, they sell the peerless Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. The one section of the menu I didn't get a try of was the milkshakes - they do one with Oreo biscuits in for £3.75, so that has to be worth a pop.

I honestly believe that anyone would enjoy the burgers at Byron. Whether it's better than Haché, well, I'll leave that particular can of worms alone for now, but suffice to say I can think of worse burgers to be had in London for £10 and no better ones. So yes, it was a free meal and I'm bound to be quite well disposed to it after a chat with the owner and a bottle of Californian red, but, well, at least I've been honest and told you. My Food Ethics, for the moment, remain untarnished.

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Call me radical but I like a good old fashioned burger bun - sweet, seeded and soft. One of my favourite examples comes, somewhat controversially, from McDonald’s. Yes, really. When I saw this post about Haché back in June, I was reminded of my loathing for the trend of sandwiching a burger with an inappropriate bun. Ciabatta? For a burger? No.

I commented on the post that I thought it would be a rather interesting experiment to take a Maccy D’s bun and put it either side of a proper burger. I resolved to make it happen and put the idea out on Twitter where the lovely @byronhamburger jumped in and offered to make my dream a reality. So it was that I found myself in McDonald’s a few weeks later asking, “could I just have three plain buns please? No nothing in them, just plain.” “OK” the guy said, “but you’ll have to pay for the full sandwich.” “You what?” I countered, “but how can they be worth the same when there’s nothing in them, can’t you just charge me for one?” Apparently, there was nothing he could do. In fact, he was so resolute about it that he just kept repeating the same phrase in a slightly scary robotic fashion. “OK, thanks anyway,” I said. “I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do,” he replied.

Burger King on the other hand were more helpful. Three buns, toasted - £1.99, and I got a few funny looks thrown in for free. I stashed them in my bag and toddled off to meet Lizzie, Ollie and Chris for the bun-off. Tom Byng, the MD at Byron was waiting and oh my giddy aunt if he hadn’t had their bakers (Miller’s) make up a selection of buns for us to try! “Have you got the er, you know?” he asked me, referring to the BK buns. “The dark side has indeed passed the threshold,” I replied. He’d even made up tasting sheets. There were 9 buns in total and for each we first tried the bun au naturale before moving on to bread and burger combo. This was serious business.

Here’s the pick of the bunch. First, the BK bun. On its own, too dry and bready but with the burger? Great. Sweet flavour and the all important robust structure - there’s nothing worse than being reduced to eating a burger with a knife and fork. Shockingly good.

Next, the brioche, a strong contender for my favourite too; sweet, buttery goodness, which complemented the meat perfectly. I loved it at Hawksmoor and I love it still. The only problem here is structural - it tends to wrinkle up and deflate somewhat on top. Oh and it needs seeding.

The worst bun on the night (no surprises here people), was the ciabatta - just too much effort to eat. Ciabatta is an event in itself, it is hard work, has a strong, yeasty flavour and it hogs the limelight. I think I’m right in saying that none of our party even took another bite after dusting off our floury faces.

Others included a wholemeal version (just plain wrong), onion sour dough (too much sourness competing for attention), sesame seed (pretty damn good, more sweetness needed) and the plain white (the Byron standard, actually very good, simple, doughy but lacking seeds). So my dream bun then? Well, it would combine the structure and seeds of the BK offering with all the sweetness and fluffiness of the brioche. Operation bun - phase 1 complete. Now I just need to work out how to make this ‘ultimate’ version. Any tips will be hugely appreciated.

A massive thank you to Byron for making the whole thing happen in the first place and entering into it with such enthusiasm. I didn’t confess this on the night, but I’d actually never been to Byron before. I cannot tell you my relief when I bit into one of their burgers - perfectly pink and juicy with plenty of beefy oomph. Fresh, crisp salad and carefully considered saucing. An absolute pleasure to try, all nine of them. You can see what a good time I had by the state of my tasting sheet above. I can’t wait for phase 2 - recipe testing. I’m going to be eating a lot of burgers this summer

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