Burger Crawl - Spuntino & Mishkin's

Saturday evening, me and the missus have not had a burger in a while. We could make our own, but we are lazy. We go into central London for a burger crawl.

        Spuntino, Soho. Its busy, cool, loud, dark. And fun. A queue forms behind us after we are seated – we judge them. They are have-nots, we are haves. We are better, if only for a moment. The bar is sleek and appealing. There are jugs of water, and lots of bourbon. 4 sliders from the short, stylish menu, with fries on the side and some fried chicken. The food is great – crispy chicken, salty fries, good burgers. I want to order more things but no, this is a burger crawl. Burger 1 is smoked mackerel. It’s decent but too firm, and underwhelming 6/10. Burger 2 is pulled pork. It’s very good, rich, chewy and meaty 7.5/10. Burger 3 is spiced lamb and cucumber relish. It is well seasoned and soft 7/10. Burger 4 is beef and bone marrow. Yum 8/10. Everything is seasoned heavily and served quickly. The brown paper menus are ruined with oil and mustard. I like it here. My gin and tonic is better than any of the beers on offer, but has a cucumber in it. Bastards. We leave before anyone notices we aren’t wearing skinny jeans and don’t know who Jessie J is.

       Mishkins is owned by the same people. We go there to finish our ‘crawl’. It claims to be a Jewish deli, so we order one of several non-kosher items on the menu. Burger 5 is lamb and pistachio. It is under-seasoned and does not taste of pistachios 5/10. Burgers 6 & 7 are steamed patties with onion and cheese. They are delicious, soft and sweet 8.5/10. Onion rings are crisp and light, the fries lack texture and are dull. The cocktails are expensive and all contain gin. My missus has gin. They put cucumber in it. Bastards.

The place is odd, I’m not sure I get it. The gin list has Tesco Value as an option. This is funny. The beer list is canned Carlsberg, at £3.50. This is abhorrent. People involved in this decision should be made to wear signs with rude words on. The staff is friendly and prices are reasonable. We sat, ordered, ate and drank at the bar and were charged 12.5% service. Hmm.

    Seven burgers and gin on the breath. We stumble to a Tesco and buy easter eggs for desert. I wait for the missus to fall asleep and watch highlights of the FA cup. I love Saturdays.

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