DEBORAH ROSS
So, off to another restaurant, as I've nothing better to do and I'm still not having sex with anyone at The Spectator. Just to keep you updated. I am not having sex with Charles Moore, Stephen Glover, Paul Johnson or Simon Heifer. Come on, boys, I'm here for the taking! And no one need know about it unless I happen to be offered a highly paid column in the Daily Mail, in which case they almost certainly will.
But enough of all that, as my theme this week is actually hamburgers, proper hamburgers, the thing the hamburger used to be before McDonald's and the like turned them into slimy grey pucks and the white trash of the food world. The real hamburger is making a massive comeback, what with restaurants like the Gourmet Burger Kitchen, Hamburger Union and the Fine Burger Company popping up all the over the place. In fact, I can't think of anything that's popping up all over the place as much as the proper burger joint, unless of course you count older men dating younger women and taking Viagra, but who among us knows or works with anyone like that? I certainly don't.
Anyway. I go to the Fine Burger Company, which operates two restaurants, one in south London and one in north London. Of course, I go to the north London one because, just as I do not do outside London, I do not do south London, a place of such utter pointlessness that I really think it should be nuked so that north London can be extended. The north London one is in Muswell Hill, on the roundabout, with a fine view of the KFC over the road so that all evening we are treated to the sight of really, really fat people coming out on their really, really fat legs with their big bargain buckets of greasy irradiated crap. It seems to me that if you took all the really fat people and put them in south London and then you nuked it, you'd be killing two birds with one stone. There goes obesity, there goes suburbs like Norwood. Some might say I should have nothing against Norwood as I have never been there. This is true, but then the reason I have never been there is: why would I? And that is my point.
We go with our son and two of his schoolfriends, who would remain nameless if only they weren't so keen to see themselves in print, so they are called Calum and Manu. They are also keen to
have their thoughts recorded, so at various intervals they hijack my notebook for the purpose of writing down their own observations. These include, I later discover, 'nicely shaped menus', 'a good variety of waittrresses [sici', 'coke floats ... classy!' and `skanIcy mums'. I believe this last might have been my son, which is terribly odd, as he loves me very much, particularly when I make to kiss him in front of his mates or put little love Post-its in his packed lunch, which he doesn't find embarrassing or shaming at all. I reckon that Calum or Manu must have imitated his handwriting, the pesky, evil devils. I shall include twice as many love Post-its in his lunch tomorrow, just to make up for their bad behaviour and to cheer my son up. I might even pick him up from school, blowing big kisses from the car, which he likes a lot as well.
The restaurant itself is perfectly pleasant: airy, spacious, with an open kitchen, dark purple walls on one side, cream-painted bricks on the other. The menu, aside from being nicely shaped, is, well, a burger menu, offering beef (100 per cent Scottish Highland Aberdeen Angus), lamb (100 per cent ground leg of English lamb), chicken (chargrilled breast), fish (battered haddock, chargrilled tuna) and veggie, the details of which I can't be bothered to go into because vegetarians are tiresome and if I have my way will all be shifted to Norwood just before we nuke it, just as all branches of Holland and Barrett will be.
There is a good variety of waittrresses, by the way, including a rather beautiful skinhead who is very friendly and cheerful, possibly because, hey, she's got a job with burgers and doesn't have to wear a polyester tabard or paper hat or say 'have a nice day' when she doesn't give a toss.
We all, in the end, go for beef, as you should if you want a proper burger, although with different toppings. I order the one that comes with Stilton, tomato relish, mayo and lettuce, and find I am immensely looking forward to it. In fact, I can't remember the last time I went out for a real burger, and a real burger can be utterly delicious. A good burger can be as good as a good steak, especially if it's crunchy on the outside, juicily pink on the inside and sandwiched in a tip-top bun. Ah, here it comes. . .. It is presented alone on a big white plate, so looks a little friendless. It is certainly high, though. All the bread here is said to be ciabatta but it's not like any ciabatta I've ever had, as it is horribly pappy and powdery and dry. Oh, the disappointment. The bun is crucial. The bun is the stage on which the burger is allowed to act, and if both are right it can come together as a great performance. But the bun is rubbish. And the burger? Overcooked and a grim dark brown throughout. As for the Stilton, the flavour failed to make it, largely because it was the size of a postage stamp. My partner, who has the one with the garlic mushrooms on top, agrees that it's all nothing special. He adds he's not even sure a burger is actually worth going out to a restaurant for. 'It's like taking a small car on to the motorway. You realise its limitations. It's still just a burger.. The hand-cut chips, by the way, which you order separately, are as soft and droopy as
. I don't know. The older man dating a young girl and not taking Viagra?
However, in the restaurant's defence, the service is good: the tables are good, solid, chunky wood; it's not that expensive — on average, seven quid a burger: the boys love it; and the puddings — particularly the baked cheesecake — are excellent. And that's about it, except to say I am also not having sex with Boris or Taki or even Petronella or Dear Mary, because I'm not that way inclined, unless the Daily Mail offers me a lot of money for a column, in which case I very well could be. Ditto when it comes to Bruce Anderson. Toodlepip!
The Fine Burger Company, 256 Muswell Hill Broadway, NIO, 0208 815 9292, or 37 Bedford Hill, Balham, SW12, 0208 772 0266. Balham? SWI2? Never been there. Never will. Nuke it!
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