'I'm off to try the new Windsor Burger at GBK,' I told my friend. 'I've heard it's very good.' 'All burgers are good,' My friend replied dismissively. I almost agree, but I didn't have the time to discuss the intricacies of relative merit, so I hung up. (I mean, I said goodbye and so on- I wasn't furiously rude).
But I arrived at GBK rather more critically attuned than I otherwise would have been- thinking about how I didn't fully agree, as my friend said, that 'all burgers are good'. The service at GBK is always good- mostly because they've almost entirely done away with it. You are seated, receive a menu and then walk, unaided, to the till to order and pay. You give your table number, and when your food is ready, they bring it to you. There are two obvious flaws to this system. One, you cannot move tables. Two, if you want more food, you have to leave the table to get it. But I personally like that- a sort of extra-tax for fatties. Though I suppose dyed-in-the-wool, highly committed fatties would never make the rookie mistake I did, and only order one portion of rosemary fries.
The Windsor burger has been launched to celebrate the Jubilee, and the meat comes from The Royal Farms in Windsor.
My dinner companion was annoyed that GBK won't serve their burgers rare, but I told her to consider herself lucky we weren't eating in NY, where they like their customers to sign away their rights-to-sue before eating any meat that is less than well-done. Anyway, the Windsor burger is excellent. It's a slab of hung Sussex cattle between exceptionally soft toasted brioche, and it's moist and flavoursome and really everything one would want from a burger. (Except, obviously, for my companion- who wanted it to be rare).
Order their rosemary skinny fries, which are some of the best fries I've eaten this year, and follow with a chocolate milkshake (it comes in those enormous silver American-style containers, frosty with condensation. I felt like Tom Cruise- but when he was in Top Gun or Jerry Maguire- not during the Oprah couch-jumping stage). Sit and digest, and then pop back to the till to order another helping of rosemary fries.
I left GBK delightfully happy. I called my friend who thinks 'all burgers are good' and told her, without preamble: 'All burgers are good, but some burgers are more good than others.' GBK's Windsor Burger is one of those.