Gourmet Burger Kitchen

"Nothing beats a free lunch." That is not even close to true. Winning the lottery, falling in love and Patrick Stewart are all better than a free lunch, but it's good nonetheless. When I was offered just such an opportunity as part of the wining and dining recruitment agents like to do these days, I seized the chance and directed us to Gourmet Burger Kitchen.

I will admit that at first I was skeptical. How special can you make a burger? I had taken a leap into the upmarket burger chain before in the form of a visit to The Ultimate Burger while in London, and had come out fairly nonplussed. However, I do very much enjoy a burger, so, with an open mind and an empty stomach, we ventured in.

The menu is pretty straight forward - a list of burgers categorised by the animal they came from. That is great. A number of restaurants now do a similar thing and it makes it nice and easy to pick which animal you would like to consume today.

I opted for the mint lamb burger. "How would you like it cooked?" It has been so long since I have been to a quality burger restaurant, I had forgotten that was even a question, but as I do not like my burgers the way I like my steak, I went for a somewhat conservative medium. I did not, however, add a milkshake to it. When my friend's arrived, I quickly regretted this decision - it looked like an actual milk bucket with a straw in it.

The food arrived quickly enough and hit the taste spot. Perhaps a little too much mint sauce in my burger as I lost a great deal of it due to spillage, but the burger itself was delicious. The chips were average, it is hard to go wrong with them, but they were not anything special, so that was perhaps a little disappointing. They did come alongside an interesting salt shaker though, and too many restaurants just do not put the effort in with their salt shakers anymore.

Overall it was a pleasant experience, a nice lunch and sound value for money.