Brew Dog Bar Bad Ass Burgers, Camden

The lack of interest in the burgers at London’s Brew Dog bar surprises me, if only because their menu – which also features a small selection of pizzas – was designed by Tim Anderson. Tim was the slightly nutty, totally loveable American Japanophile and craft beer fiend who triumphed on last year’s edition of Masterchef. With sliders. You read that correctly: he won the most prestigious amateur cooking competition in the United Kingdom with mini-burgers.

They were hardly ordinary sliders, mind, with his tribute to Los Angeles including a German smoked beer to invoke the city’s smog on the palate. It was his ability to create this kind of bizarre gastronomic nostalgia and his madcap but genius deployment of unusual ingredients in even quirkier ways that helped him on his way to becoming the show’s youngest ever winner. So you would think that the prospect of burgers conceived and endorsed by the wacky Wisconsiner, accompanied by some of the finest brews in the land, would have London’s burgerholics flocking to Camden Town faster than the Great Red Donkey Andy Carroll would rewind to last season's January transfer window if he was able to.

Yet to date, only Burger Anarchy seems to have launched an investigation into the state of affairs in NW1. Are bloggers and beef patties falling out of love? Hardly. One needs only to witness the success of new arrivals like Brockley Market’s Motherflipper and Street Kitchen’s recent pop-up venture, Patty and Bun, to know that this is a gluttonous liaison with some serious shelf life. The blogospheric neglect is even more surprising because, in more ways than one, it’s a pretty decent burger. 

  

I’ve munched Brew Dog’s ‘Bad Ass’ burger on two occasions now. The first was following a lunchtime knees-up at the new Camden Brewery bar not long ago and was not the most instructive experience to judge by. Not only was I was I gradually becoming over-refreshed, but it’s kind of cruel to pronounce on food after yamming down two Big Apple Hot Dog’s in the sun. So a second bit of ‘research’ was clearly in order and while somewhat surprisingly I hadn’t missed anything too important, I was able to clarify a number of points. The three main ones were: it’s extraordinarily good value, the patty and its accompaniments – especially the sauce - are better than fine, and the bun is absolutely fucking awful. 

Mushu, Warren St.

During my brief spell under the tutelage of Time Out’s Guy Dimond at City University, I remember writing up a little place called Wagamama, my first ever review. Either London’s dining scene circa 2004 was at an all-time low, or my recently relocated teenage self was overly excitable when it came to flavours not commonly found in chicken wings or clam chowder. I was reminded of this wide-eyed Massachusetts yokel moment the other day whilst on a lunch date with Al. Chowing down on dumplings and other assorted pan-Asian goodies at Mushu, I remembered how eye-opening a Japanese meal that didn’t feature raw fish seemed back then. As is often the case, this sense of nostalgia existed solely in my over-fed mind – the only tangible resemblances it bore to Alan Yau’s 21^st century Japanese Wimpy Bar was the communal seating and the availability of karaage. 

For Mushu is far superior to the large room above Urban Outfitters on Kensington High Street where I had my first encounter with katsu curry and gyoza – not that that’s saying much. It’s not fine dining by any stretch of the imagination, but it is some of the better fast food I’ve had in this or any other city, the sort of place I wish was on every street corner and in every neighbourhood. The dumplings arrived in less time than it takes McDonalds to accommodate a ‘hold the tomatoes’ request and they were very good dumplings indeed. Possibly not quite on a par with Silk Road but still better than many a dim sum joint in this town. Classic pork and cabbage (top) were reassuringly simple and pillow soft, while beef and kimchi pot-stickers (bottom) had developed the right, slightly chewy texture on the underside and the filling was rich enough to hold its own against their special Szechuan hot sauce. Though the sauce wasn’t as authentically spiced as I would have liked, it was a pleasant, light brow-mopping heat that complemented the fuller-flavoured dumplings whilst not overpowering the more delicate ones.