Curious.Lucious

It’s Friday and the thought of cooking and eating in our cramped apartment was not enticing. So A and I decided to meet up at Angel.

One of the annoying things about London is that everytime you walk into a restaurant, you’re effectively gambling away roughly £25. You really just never know if your coke is going to be lukewarm or your steak is going to be rubbery. Its easy to doubt the reviewers too because – well really, do they even know what they’re talking about if they grew up eating London food??

We decided to go out on a limb today and thought we’d splurge on a place called Byron. We’d heard from a few sources that the burgers there were well worth the money; and it really isn’t good to walk past it every week without putting their word to the test.

So we strolled in at about half past seven. The place had some people but plenty of seats upstairs for two. We sat down and was promptly presented with two menus each. Burgers/ salads/ sides/ drinks and desserts.

It was a quick affair with the simple and uncrowded menu. A ordered a Byron Burger (patty with bacon and cheese), I ordered a cheese burger (I chose blue cheese from a small gourmet selection), courgette chips cought my eye and A didn’t need much convincing to agree. Drinks and food were ordered and we sat back with a sudoku each until the food arrived.

First up – icy frosted glasses. This alone is going to bring me back again. Ever since we arrived in London we’ve been complaining about how bad refrigeration seems to be – because our drinks are never cold enough. Most of the time the ice is already in a puddle before it reaches my table.

Not only was my lemonade fresh, it came in a ice frosted glass with chunks of ice (that were still there at the end of my meal) topped with a slice of lemon and sprig of mint.

Not long after, our food arrived. Bowl of extremely crunchy looking courgette (zucchini) chips and wholesome burgers with half a pickle on the side.

True to London fashion, the chips were not salted. But the crunchy outside with the melting middle more than made up for it. We sprinkled some salt and pepper on top. And it was perfect.

Our burgers were cooked medium, just like they promised. My giant chunk of blue cheese slice was slowly melting into the crevices of my meat patty; with my new found favorite hot sauce on top, this truly was a great burger.

A’s Byron Burger had a special Byron sauce that was reminiscent of thousand island dressing but with a zing.

All in all we decided our meal was excellent. The only thing we could think of to improve was the bun and we promptly wrote this down on the feedback card and handed it back with our £23 of payment. We left the now crowded restaurant with a smile on our faces, smug that we’d come at the right time and arn’t one of the fools lining up by the door.

Hopefully they send us discount vouchers for my birthday. Why else would they ask for a birth date on the feedback card right???