I know what you're thinking: why the hell are they putting Patty & Bun on the blog (again)? Not only was Patty & Bun an established feature of the burger scene when we stopped blogging four years ago, but P&B had featured twice on the blog by then also. So what gives?
While this blog has never been shy to feature a Michelin starred restaurant or two, we also love a good burger and we recognise that each has a time and a place. So the answer is this: in the four years we have been away, we still haven't found a burger we enjoy more, we simply adore Patty & Bun.
Now, we need to expand on our explanation a little more. First off, in our absentee years, P&B went from one site to, it seems from their website, 13. In word association games, when I hear the word 'expansion', my immediate comeback is 'reduction in quality,' yet somehow P&B seem to have avoided this trap. In the past year, I have eaten at the original (James St), but also regularly enjoyed Liverpool St (where this post came to life) and their Soho branch also. Not only is there no discernible difference that we've noticed between branches, but nor has there been any drop in standards over time. The consistency is fabulous.
Now, granted, we have not been chasing burgers these past four years, but in a crowded market place, we still feel that nobody does it better. To us, it is the gold standard of burgers, or might we say, the Ari-Gold standard of burgers! For us, a burger, like an M-star meal, is a treat not a staple and we have no wish to waste a treat on a bad burger and in that respect, P&B never lets us down. And that must be true because I underlined the word never, and I never underline words in blog posts.
We recognise that there are many burger-blogs out there, and that is great. We do not seek to be that however, so we will never offer you an ultimate guide to burgers, but, we do expect burgers to be an ongoing feature of this blog in its phoenix like rejuvenation, and it is here that we nail our colours to the mast: for us, P&B remains the burger to beat. That is the challenge, and in our future burger blog posts, P&B will feature as our benchmark reference point. I think I am going to enjoy this.
Feel free to send us suggestions of where you think does a better burger and over time, we will seek to try them (all) out.
While this blog has never been shy to feature a Michelin starred restaurant or two, we also love a good burger and we recognise that each has a time and a place. So the answer is this: in the four years we have been away, we still haven't found a burger we enjoy more, we simply adore Patty & Bun.
Now, we need to expand on our explanation a little more. First off, in our absentee years, P&B went from one site to, it seems from their website, 13. In word association games, when I hear the word 'expansion', my immediate comeback is 'reduction in quality,' yet somehow P&B seem to have avoided this trap. In the past year, I have eaten at the original (James St), but also regularly enjoyed Liverpool St (where this post came to life) and their Soho branch also. Not only is there no discernible difference that we've noticed between branches, but nor has there been any drop in standards over time. The consistency is fabulous.
Now, granted, we have not been chasing burgers these past four years, but in a crowded market place, we still feel that nobody does it better. To us, it is the gold standard of burgers, or might we say, the Ari-Gold standard of burgers! For us, a burger, like an M-star meal, is a treat not a staple and we have no wish to waste a treat on a bad burger and in that respect, P&B never lets us down. And that must be true because I underlined the word never, and I never underline words in blog posts.
We recognise that there are many burger-blogs out there, and that is great. We do not seek to be that however, so we will never offer you an ultimate guide to burgers, but, we do expect burgers to be an ongoing feature of this blog in its phoenix like rejuvenation, and it is here that we nail our colours to the mast: for us, P&B remains the burger to beat. That is the challenge, and in our future burger blog posts, P&B will feature as our benchmark reference point. I think I am going to enjoy this.
Feel free to send us suggestions of where you think does a better burger and over time, we will seek to try them (all) out.
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Sitting in my seat at the Liverpool Street branch of P&B, as I look out the window, across the road is the golden arches. While I recognise that McDonald's have a very different proposition, their global daily traffic is estimated at 62 million people, I still want to scream 'why' at the people going there instead of here. On the plus side, if 62 million people tried to visit P&B in a day, the queues would be horrendous, so a little part of me is also secretly happy.