Founders Arms - Tower 42

Tower 42 - double burger w/ bacon, monterey jack cheese, lettuce, tomato, pickles, mayo, chips and bbq relish £14

Burger type: Pub/Gourmet/Inbetween/Dirty

Served with chips and a sea of lettuce, this is a hefty burger. I never have particularly high hopes for pub burgers - their menus are generally too varied to excel at one thing in particular, so I guess this burger didn't disappoint too much. The positives are the bun which was a solid GBK/Byron standard - good choice Founders Arms. The fillings weren't bad either - nothing overly exciting but monterey jack is an upgrade from stock cheese and there's a couple of decent rashers of bacon in there. The moot point is the meat - not particularly surprising. There's certainly plenty of it, but as it is cooked well done (mine was also slightly burnt) it's dry and somewhat tasteless. The problem lies in the fact that most pubs use cheap cuts of meat in their burgers which prohibits them from cooking medium rare - and the taste seriously suffers for it. Pubs can't compete with the true burger joints, and yet the prices aren't wildly different. So in summary don't come for the burger, come for the views over the Thames and the Meantime/Camden Hells on tap (kudos to Youngs for adding these to the menial standard beers) and if you're going to have a burger whilst in residence keep those expectations in check.

Rating: 

Meat 0.5/3

Bun 2/2

Fillings 1/2

Package 1/2

Extra point? No

Overall 4.5/10