Another Week, Another Burger

On the way to checking out Meatballs last month, I discovered that Exmouth Market is close enough to my office to make lunchtime trips a definite possibility. There are plenty of nice-looking restaurants, cafes and shops, including Morito (a runner up in Time Out's recent food and drink awards), Caravan, the excellent indie book shop Clerkenwell Tales, and the purveyor of pretty but not entirely practical bags Bagman and Robin.

There is also a cool little restaurant called Medcalf, a former butcher's, which serves a daily-changing menu of comfort food with plenty of good-quality meat options. After our trip to Meatballs, we had a wander up Exmouth Market and spotted a sign outside Medcalf announcing that the next Burger Smith would take place on 30 September. A little bit of online investigation suggested that this would involve BBQed burgers served out the back of Medcalf, next to the Spa Fields park. As I can never resist the temptation of a good burger, we went down to give it a try on Friday.

They certainly picked a great week for a BBQ as Friday was hot and sunny and Spa Fields was filled with students, presumably from City University, making the most of the sunshine. The BBQ itself was set up in the tiny outdoor section of Medcalf (which would be a lovely place to eat on a warm day) and the menu was: beef rib burger £4.50; cheese 50p. We ate our burgers in the park and they were good. Perhaps a little more well done than I would usually go for but the meat was tasty and juicy and then cheese--large chunks of very mature cheddar--was also delicious. And as you could add your own salad, mayo and sauces, I didn't have my usual problem of trying to explain that I really like my burger very plain (just the bun, cheese and a tiny bit of mayo).

The only problem was that the burger was so filling that I was too full to try one of the many gorgeous-looking cakes and pastries that were on sale on the market proper. Ah well; there is always next time. Well, unless there is another Burger Smith that day...