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How do you explain the drab colour and odd texture of the burger patty at MEATMission, the latest from London burger legend Yianni Papoutsis?
If you know and love Yianni burgers from The Meatwagon, MEATLiquor or MEATMarket you tolerate his heavy hand with the ground black pepper shaker. You accept that with long queues and thousands to serve not every patty can be cooked to a pink ideal.
But nothing in your experience fully prepares you for a dense patty with so little colour, juice and crumble.
So what’s going on? Â Is it:
A) The MEAT empire is growing too fast.
B) The truck dude who knew only two ways to cook a burger, juicy and very juicy, is concerned about food safety. To protect us from E. coli infection his kitchens will no longer take requests for rare and medium-rare burgers unless we are really really insistent.
C)Â It’s not so much that MEATMission burgers are inferior. It’s that new competition is raising the bar and, with it, our expectations.
D) MEATMission is only two weeks old. Give it time.
E) It’s true, grey IS the new pink.
MEATMission, 14-15 Hoxton Market, London N1 6HG
Were these places ever any good?
Always found them to be woefully overrated and overpriced personally.
The £3 for sub-mcdonalds level fries is the biggest joke of the whole deal.
skip it and just head to Honest, Byron or Patty + Bun
The last two I’ve had from MeatMarket have been the same. I never made it to the original van, but of late the MM burgers are nowhere near the quality of Meateasy at New Cross. (Also, am I alone in thinking that everything at MM is £1 too expensive?)
Agree. I was a huge fan when the van was manageable. By the time of New Cross things started to get out of control, the queues, the amount of people, and that obviously affected quality.
Been in Meatliquor and Meatmarket and I’m sad to say I have Meatenough. There are too many better places these days I don’t bother anymore
What is important here is to recognise how a quality product when it was Meateasy (Yianni at the Van time) and the push of social media (bloggers, twitters, etc) created this cult like passion for Yanni’s burgers to a point that even respected bloggers (friends) are still praising a burger that they would criticise without compassion if served in any other venture
Daniel I applaud you for flagging the issue, I have seen many others avoiding the fact!
Light discussions with Meat/Mission staff divulge that this is apparently a response to the Council’s ‘under-cooked’ meat fiasco. At which we’re all naturally appalled at but I would think Yianni n’ Co. would be the last to bow to such lame-ass pressure- stick it to the man and so forth.
Of course this could also be a way to cover-up bad burger practices… cooked to medium well- blame the council, cooked to Medium Rare- Meaty goodness. Either way Meat/Mission is the good guy/victim.
I agree with your patty scrutinizing- the burger patty I had there was cooked medium-well, dense and dry with no trademark juices dripping down to my elbow, just some sad drops on the tray. I’m a fan of Meat/[blah] and all their groundbreaking work on the London Burger scene so would like to think this is a blip on the radar of more good things to come from these kids.
This discussion is definitely worth having given the detriment this could have on the London Burger scene as a whole. Are we all going to slag off P&B, Honest Burger and the likes if they all dish out medium-well?
Tim – If the overcooked burgers are indeed MEATMission’s response to Westminster Council’s red scare then that is cause for great concern. I can only hope Yianni and his partners come to their senses and start standing up to the ominous forces who would deny us our rare and medium-rare burgers. We need their leadership, in words and by example.
Not surprised at all. Won’t be trying the new location as I’ve always found their burgers at other locations are average-good, which is not good enough to justify charging £10 for a small cheeseburger and fries.
London really needs a good kick in the butt when it comes to this. Someone just needs to open an awesome burger place where you get a great average-sized burger, fries, and a non-alcoholic drink for £7.50 to put the rest to shame. Let’s be honest – most of that is sugar water, wheat bread, and potatoes – so expecting a complete meal in this realm isn’t ridiculous.