Burger Monday @ The Draft House

My first burger Monday, and it will not be my last. I missed out on the last Burger Monday by a few hours. By the time I saw the email all the places had sold out. I was gutted and didn’t want to miss out again.

When the email came though at work, I was in pure panic for 30 minutes after I saw the email for the latest Burger Monday, which was going to be at the Draught House close to London Bridge.

I almost booked the 9pm sitting before the wife told me over skype to go for the 6.45pm sitting, by the time I read this it was on waitlist.  Noooooooooo.

Amazingly after much fretting and sweating the earlier sitting came available. Forget work, forget those clients who wanted to give me their credit card number and book a holiday. I didn’t care. I wanted to goto Burger Monday, and Burger Monday I was a going.

The first thing that hits you as you walk in to the draft House is the mammoth amount of beers on draft that they have on offer. Truly impressive. This was going to be a very good night. I pre ordered some of the house beers to get the night going.

This evening we were in for a real treat. 3 different burgers with 3 one third pints of beer from the Windsor and Eaton Brewery all matched to the different burgers.

We were introduced to the brewer by Daniel Young, the organiser and writer of the Young and Foodish, who amazingly along with the chef at the Draft House, Simon Noumar devised the burger menu for tonight.

OK let’s get straight down to business. First off was the Yolk Burger with the Conqueror Black IPA.

This was a perfect combination. The burger was juicy pink and the trimmed egg and runny yolk topped with a slightly burnt hollandaise, which almost gave you the impression it was cheese was sublime. Who says you cannot eat a juicy burger and live to tell the tale.

The Conqueror Black IPA looked heavy with its dark dark colour, but was surprisingly light but big on taste.

Next was the Smoke Burger (smoked cheddar and smoked streaky bacon) with the Guardsman Best Bitter.

The cheese and bacon were really good and had a wonderful but light smoky flavour to them. The burger was slightly more cooked than the first, and was slightly over powered by the cheese, but a damn fine burger it was.

The copper coloured Guardsman Best Bitter was a good match to this burger, as it allowed the smoked cheese and bacon to come through and take the glory, but still match them step by step.

And finally the Foie Burger, topped with a slab of foie gras and cherry lambic jelly with the Windsor Knot royal wedding Ale.

To be honest I was really quite disappointed by this. I think after two powerful burgers and beers, this one never really shone at all. Maybe it we’d had it at the beginning I would have been more able to taste all its nuances, but after what I’d just eaten, a battleship would have been hard to spot. Again the burger was slightly more cooked than the one before. The jelly was great on its own, but kinda got lost in with everything else, the foie gras, again never was able to shine as my taste buds were still reeling from the smoked cheese. I would like to try this again on its own, and then I’m sure I would appreciate it more.

The Windsor Knot, again paled in comparison by its predecessors. It was light and fresh and a really great beer to round off a fab night, but being a light beer it failed to shine at the finishing post.

We also had a plate of stringy fries per table and sauces to dunk into. I think everyone felt the same as we would normally just dunk the fries into the sauces, but as this was a communal table we really couldn’t do that. I wish we could though. We also had a lonely salad on the table, which no one except the girl next to me felt obliged to give it a try, as otherwise it would have felt neglected. She said it was a nice salad, and had a lovely mustardy vinaigrette dressing.

All in all it was a great night, ate some great food, drank some fantastic beers, met some nice people and found another good beer pub. Life is good.

My best burger was the first, somehow fried eggs make everything taste better, but combining the first juicy burger with the smoked cheese and bacon with a fried egg on top would have been heaven on earth. Then we could have called it the “Smoky Yokey.” I have now copyrighted this name by the way.

For the beers, I am a lover of real ales, and loved every single beer, but the Conqueror Black IPA tipped it for me over the Guardsman Best Bitter. I was expecting it to be really heavy with its dark colour, but thankfully it was pretty light and would be a great match for any burger or even a steak or roast on a tranquil Sunday afternoon in a country pub. Well that was just me day dreaming there, need to get out of the city.

I think Daniel with the al the folks of the Draft House, and the guys at the Windsor and Eaton Brewery put on a great night, one of the best I’ve had in a long while.

Daniel is doing some more events in September and October, so sign up for the emails, and I’ll see you there.