That ham and cheese fritter, though

Yesterday was a SUCCESS, youguys. We put two Christmas burgers in us, watched some football, and fell into bed exhausted by . . . well, eleven. Not as early as I needed, but as late as I liked. Tonight, though - tonight is blissfully free and I'm making venison steak and risotto for dinner then crawling into bed with my book.

Now about yesterday's Christmas burgers. Chick'n Sours was the first up, for lunch. (Note about this burger: they only make a limited number a day, so if you want to make sure you don't miss out, ask them to save you one when you're making your reservation.) It's worth the effort, though, because like all Chick'n Sours chicken burgers, it was terrific. This year's burger is different from last year's, which I appreciated because so many on my list are duplicates and who's got time for that?? This year, their burger is a fried chicken fillet, 'Christmas' ham and cheese fritter, kewpie mayo, lettuce, and pineapple kimchi.

I've always wanted to spend Christmas in Hawaii.

Its only demerit was how impossible it was to eat: my mouth simply isn't big enough to get all the layers in one bite. I had to tackle it with a knife and fork after my first attempt scattered its contents all over my plate. It was a burger that wanted to be shovelled, and so I obliged. 

Then, after a snow-filled, romantic* jaunt around Covent Garden, we headed east to Red's True BBQ.  Their Christmas burger, called The Great Uniter, was a turkey patty with ham, bacon, Monterey jack cheese and cranberry sauce, tucked into a custard-soaked fried brioche bun:

Yep. Exactly as described. 

I'm not gonna lie: I liked it. The turkey patty was really flavourful - I thought for a moment I was actually eating stuffing, they must've put buckets of sage in it - and you can never go wrong with two different kinds of pork. The custard-soaked bun - the riskiest guest at the party - was not overpoweringly sweet, and kept the overall affair from dryness. Despite its appearance, it was also remarkably contained and easy to eat: 

I love a good burger cross-section. It reminds me of studying the earth's layers in science. "See the mantle? That's the tastiest bit."

And all that was for the best, because the rest of the food we ordered was not great. The restaurant was understaffed and perhaps because of this - the delayed service that plagued us all night - the pulled pork platter came out cold. The cornbread accompaniment was so dry you had to choke it down and so hard it could've been used as a missile if it didn't crumble into a thousand pieces just looking at it, and the mac and cheese - which might've been nice, if it were warm and bubbly - had become goopy and bland. The jalapeno and cheese sausage was the only dish that didn't suffer from cooling.

The best part of the night, though, was the company: we got to see our old friend Marcos, a world-travelling Brazilian who works as a freelance travel guide. He's seen more corners of the world than anyone I know, and always has great stories when we catch him. We were entertained well into the evening.

Today is work work work: I'm going to try to get through a quarter of this book edit and that requires a media and laptop blackout. Time to turn off phone and wifi, and dive in.

Wish me luck, and see you tomorrow.

Hugs,
Essss



*If by 'romantic,' we mean 'cold, wet and crowded'