The Patate, Kerb, Camden Market, London NW1

The next step on our hunt for London’s best burger led us once again to Camden Market. This time we went on a dreary damp Monday in December, and still the place was mobbed. We had friends visiting from Ireland, who combined the trip with some light Christmas shopping. On a side note, the market appears to be a very good venue if you are searching for unusual and funky gifts. The Patate is unit 215, the centre of a bank of three purpose built food stalls facing into the square. The main sign says French Burger with The Patate in smaller letters underneath.

 

The have a pot of boeuf bourguignon heating on the griddle and it is this that they make their burgers from. They are very specialised, that is all they do. You can have it with or without cheese and with or without fries. They do have three different types of cheese, and they do have béarnaise sauce to go on the chips, which you can have with added chilli. When you order, they take the beef bourguignon and make it into a patty on the griddle and cook for about five minutes drizzling the gravy over as it cooks.

We had one with Raclette cheese and one with a Camembert Blue. The hamburgers were beautifully moist and the meat was incredibly tender. This burger is probably not for you if you do not like your meat to be well done, but there is still a lot of taste in this meal because it has been cooked in the gravy from the stew. The cheeses were both delicious and creamy, unusual for a hamburger, but they set off this particular one very well. The chips were nice and crisp and the béarnaise was divine.

Once again, being from a street food stall, there was no knife and fork, but I guess we knew this would be the case when we came. The burger was delicious but if you are a person who chooses to have their meat rare, or even medium, you will not have that option here. A great meal, lovely friendly service and for a tasty variation, I would certainly recommend it. If we were looking for the best burger in Paris it might be the one, but its a bit too sophisticated for the best burger in London.

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Burger and Beyond, Unit 62 West Yard, Camden Market, London NW1

The hunt for London’s best burgers in unlikely places has brought us to a petite market stall, hidden deep inside Camden Market. When we arrive, we find that it is not quite as strange as it sounds, there is a street food section of the market, nicely situated just by the canal, which has lots of very trendy stalls and vehicles selling quirky upmarket indie food. Even at four o’clock on a Friday afternoon this place was packed to the gills and finding a seat at which to eat our burger in comfort involved some sharp elbow use.

Burger and Beyond occupies an internal corner of this little enclave. The menu is tiny and your food is cooked to order. It basically does a hand pressed burger, you can have it with cheese, bacon, onion, jalapenos and mayo or any combination of the above. It does fries and something called Tater Tots, which seem to be like griddled or fried rosti potatoes. There is also a choice between one or two beef patties.

They sell their fare well, we don’t just have a beef burger here – we have hand pressed patties made with 45 day aged beef from rare breed cattle. According to their marketing, the same people who own the stall are the ones who run the farm, so there is no ambiguity in the provenance of their food.

Whatever the publicity says, the truth of the quality of their burger is in the taste, and this is good. The beef is succulent and tasty, you can tell that the meat is good quality. The toppings are good too, the bacon is crispy and slightly smoked, the cheese has that just on the edge of runny condition. They obviously train their people to cook their burgers just so. In terms of their menu, the adage small is good, works very nicely here. The Tater Tots were satisfying too, an interesting change from regular fries.

My one quibble is that they are difficult to eat. They are not served with a knife and fork, it is a street market stall, so I did know what I was getting in to. They are too large to fit in your mouth without dripping bits everywhere – the double patty ones must be truly messy. I managed to procure a knife and fork from a different stall nearby, but it would have been nicer to be able to get one from Burger and Beyond itself.

Obviously, word of the quality of their food is spreading, because I believe that they are about to open their first permanent restaurant, in fashionable Shoreditch no less. Their burgers really are good, so if this restaurant has cutlery, they will certainly be in the running for the best burger in London!

The Donkey Show, Proud Camden, London 2016

In this version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the forest outside Athens has become a 1970s disco. Oberon, the king of the fairies, is the nightclub owner, Titania is his main squeeze and the fairies are a troop of Muscle Mary disco dancers strutting their stuff on raised plinths and around poles.

Puck is a roller-skating drag queen narrator and the 4 star crossed lovers are punters in various states of alcohol and drug fuelled confusion. I was amazed at how well the setting fitted the original play.

All of them sing their parts (no lip synching here) to classic 1970s disco tunes while interacting with the audience and getting increasingly out of it as the night goes on.

It’s camp, it’s brash, it’s rude and crude, its funny and it is great fun. London needs a camp, frothy, boisterous night out as a tourist attraction and this could be it!  After all,  “Beach Blanket Babylon” has run in San Francisco for over 40 years now and is still going strong.

Leave your inhibitions at the door and be prepared to party.

This is the best rowdy, rollicking night out in London this summer!

The Comedy Loft, Camden, London

The Comedy Loft in Camden has got lots of things going for it.

It serves food; burgers, nachos, chicken wings, falafels – we ate and it was good quality.

The drinks are reasonably priced for central London – and you can pre-order them and have them delivered to your table during the intervals. Very sophisticated!

The show starts at 8pm, which is enough time to get a couple of drinks and chat before the start.

The 8 o’clock start means that the crowd is still restrained enough for the performers to deliver their acts without having to shout over drunks and sober enough that if there is a heckler there is a chance that they might be funny.

The reception and service were the best I’ve ever had in a comedy club.

The comedians were funny – that’s always good in a comedy show.

Finally, if after all this, you still haven’t had good night; it’s in Camden, so you are very likely to get offered drugs on your way back to the tube!

 

A walk along Regent’s Canal

https://www.endomondo.com/routes/725067575

A walk from Warwick Avenue tube to Angel tube along the Regent’s Canal is a fine way to spend a summer day.

It starts off in leafy Little Venice with houseboats all along the canal. It skirts the edges of Regents Park where grand houses have manicured gardens that run down to the water’s edge.

The canal cuts through London zoo – you can look up to see the birds in the Snowdon aviary and see animal enclosures on the far side. Soon after you will come to busy, buzzy Camden Lock – you can walk through a door in the wall of a building on the side of the canal if you fancy a detour into Camden market.

Next up is urban King’s Cross, where it is interesting to see the inventive rejuvenation, for example the new circular apartment blocks being built inside the frames of 19th century gas holders.

Finally, Chapel Street Market is one of the few remaining old fashioned London street markets. It still has a wet fish stall and even a ribbon and haberdashery stall.

The walk is almost 10k; so expect to spend a few hours but it is varied, interesting and well worth the time.