One Week, Two Burgers

This past week I have been lucky enough to have had lunch out twice (an unfortunately rare exercise) and strangely enough I ate a burger both times. However, neither of these was your average burger and I felt I should share them with you.

Around Preston Circus in Brighton there is an often overlooked eatery. In fact, until I was taken there by a friend of mine I had thought it was a head shop (one that sells naughty paraphernalia and such like) and had always passed it by. It is dubiously named ‘Cummin Up’ and the sign has such a lurid yellow background it is truly a wonder how the human mind can shut out things it doesn’t think it will like. Well, in this instance the human mind is wrong! This is an absolute gem and well worth pushing past your gut instinct. A Caribbean kitchen serving exotic wonders such as goat curry and the obligatory rice and peas. However, I must hang my head in shame and say I have only tried one thing on their menu, the Ja Burger. This repetition is not for lack of want to try other items, just that I know I like the Ja burger so much I don’t want to risk something else being a disappointment.

Now, the Ja Burger isn’t really a burger, it consists of a coco bread bun (slightly sweet, fairly dense and absolutely delicious) filled with mouth wateringly scrumptious (and messy) shredded jerk chicken. Maybe this doesn’t sound as good as it is, but seriously, this jerk chicken is incredible. The juices inevitably fall out, and where I would usually find this highly annoying the bread is just dense enough that none of it falls apart and there always is a dry bit to keep hold of. Just make sure you have lots of napkins (or preferably wet wipes) at hand!

My second burger of the week came after an afternoon of epic failure. Having planned to go for lunch with my friend on Thursday I had stupidly forgotten about an appointment at 1. So lunch was postponed until 2.30ish and we were to meet in East Grinstead. All well and good, except that on that particular morning I had woken up in a lot of pain and didn’t really fancy the 1.5 hour round trip. Never fear, we moved the venue to the Royal Oak in Henfield and off we went. Except that little did I realise he’d chosen a pub in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE that also happened to stop serving at 2.30, oh and we both arrived late! It’s ok though, we had a back-up plan that was just around the corner (and if I’m honest the one I actually wanted to try) the Ginger Fox. So off we went in our little motors down the road…to find that the Ginger Fox also had stopped serving food. Rather despondent to say the least (and annoyed that we were driving around on a beautiful sunny day) we ended up at the Devils Dyke Pub desperate for something, anything to eat!

If you don’t know what the Devils Dyke is it is a spectacular Iron Age hillfort with absolutely breath taking views of the downs. Unfortunately, the pub on the top of the hill is unable to make the most of those views and considering the position I would have expected it to be somewhat less dark inside. However, aesthetics aside I’m here to talk about the food. The menu was fairly standard with the usual array of pub food though it was nice to see a changing seasonal menu. However, after seeing the menu at the Ginger Fox I was a little disappointed, bar their one saving grace; the ‘Wild Boar and chorizo burger’. I rarely turn down the opportunity to have some chorizo on my plate and as everything else on the menu seemed rather standard we both ended up ordering this. 

It has to be one of the meatiest burgers I have ever tried. The flavours of the boar and chorizo worked nicely together, though I did find the boar somewhat overpowering and the chorizo ensured a rather oily outcome. That aside, it was damn tasty and came with some extremely delicious chips. However the fennel and apple slaw tasted merely of fennel and dressing, I was disappointed not to taste the apple in there. All in all it satisfied two very hungry customers with its meaty juiciness but I’m not sure I’d be running back here before trying out the other two.