Honest Burgers – Ealing Broadway, London

Honest Burgers is a well established burger brand with the vast majority of its restaurants located in London.

Of the 27 based in the Capital, four currently cater for Halal chicken, namely Baker Street, Bond Street, Ealing and Tooting.

As you can imagine, therefore, we were looking forward to giving their burgers a try given their reputation.

The branch we opted for was the one in Ealing Broadway, west London, which has a display sign “Halal options available” clearly visible on the window outside.

The place itself has a seating capacity of around 65, which includes tables for 10 outside, and is nicely decked out, with a minimalistic feel that borders on the rustic.

Although pork is served, the chicken burger itself is prepped and cooked separately so as to ensure zero cross-contamination.

Otherwise Honest Burgers has a varied menu with plenty of options to choose from including vegan.

It’s also worth noting that this branch does not take bookings, operating instead on a “leave your name and number and we’ll call you when your table’s ready” policy.

Gingerella Ginger Ale (330ml) £2.75

With the ginger nice and strong, this was refreshingly cool and quite addictive.

Salted Caramel Shake £7.00; Milk £5.00

The salted caramel was more on the milky side, with the caramel dominating over the salt more than anything. The milk was decent enough.

Milk Chocolate Shake £5.00

Not a bad chocolate shake. Room for improvement, particularly at that price!

BBQ Chicken Wings £5.00

Reasonably sized wings that were based in quite a strong, pungent and impressively tasty sticky barbecue sauce, which had a good smoky kick we all enjoyed.

Onion Rings £4.00

Okay; how to describe these without being crude? Nope; not possible! So in short, these were the worst onions rings we’ve ever had!

Not sure what went wrong here. Whatever the reason, and while assuming that this was probably an extreme exception to the rule, even the manager recognised the obvious when we brought these to her good attention.

Just look at em! The batter on the outside simply fell apart between our fingers, leaving a horrible oily-cum-powdery residue.

Perhaps it’s not part of the restaurant’s policy, or maybe it simply slipped her mind to ask, but we would have happily given these another go had the choice been presented to us.

Rosemary Salted Chips £3.50

Was the oil used in cooking our dishes too hot or something? What else might explain the ultra crispy, wet oily texture of these Rosemary Salted Chips?

These came out glistening, and not in the pleasant sense of the word; were overcooked in parts; and though decently seasoned, were just poorly executed. More on this below…

Cheddar Deli – Beef, bacon, Dambuster cheddar, Dorset Red, spring onion, rocket, tomato, mustard mayo and pickles with homemade rosemary salted chips, £12.50

This Cheddar Deli was store specific at the time of the review and, thus, may no longer be available.

Of course, we opted for the removal of the bacon and the replacement of the beef for chicken.

On first impressions, the appearance of the thin, coarsely cut fillet didn’t inspire much confidence.

It appeared to us, given our experience, that its exterior would probably be erring on the crunchy rather than the crispy side. And so it turned out.

While the two types of the cheese used therein – the Dambuster cheddar and the Dorset Red – was nice enough, both were overwhelmed by the extreme crusty texture of the chicken’s panko-style herby batter.

And though the pickles offered a nice tangy contrast to the piquancy of the cheeses, with a touch of pepper courtesy of the rocket leaves lingering in the background, ultimately, we were left sorely disappointed.

And a word again on those rosemary chips. From the accompanying image, you’ll notice a portion on the left and another to the right.

The latter represented those chips we felt were edible; the former, however, was far too greasy to justify edibility.

Chicken – free range chicken breast, lettuce, tomato and mustard mayonnaise with rosemary salted chips, £10.50

The same shortcomings we confronted with the above were again repeated in this far simpler chicken burger.

While the palpably narrow, heavy breaded, and overly crispy chicken fillet may not have been as bad as the above, it was definitely less flavourous, especially covered in a rather insipid mustard mayonnaise.

And though the accompanying veggie condiments didn’t bring much to the table, the chips were, again, equally as bad as the above.

Plant – Vegan burgers from Beyond Meat with vegan smoked Gouda, Rubies in the Rubble Chipotle ‘Mayo’, mustard, red onion, pickles, lettuce, £11.50

This vegan burger didn’t exactly look the part, given how it was surrounded by those horribly saturated chips, but it was certainly full of flavour and quite superb.

A quick glance at the cross-section will confirm that not only was it busy-looking, but proportionally layered, and quite appetising.

Indeed, the big, thick patty was compact, yet gorgeously soft, and covered in plenty of that sweet-mustardy sauce, which combined really well with the tartness of the pickles.

And there was enough cheese and red onions contained within a light fluffy bun to leave us a little more cheered up!