A well known Einstein (a rather clever chap by all accounts) quote was “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler“. This rather resonates with me as a man of simple tastes (or in Mrs.  SF’s opinion just plain “simple”) and this is particularly the case in terms of my views on the humble burger.

To me, the art is in the cooking and flavour of the patty. A simple thing, a disc of cooked ground meat, but not that simple to get right if you want the required (complex) flavour profile. Quality meat, the right proportion of lean and fat, a good level of seasoning, properly fierce heat and a deft hand on the grill are all required.

I find the fad for putting 1 bazillion disparate topping in between the patty and the bun generally both confusing and unnecessary. When people go wow they put “x” (things like frazzles) in the burgers, my immediate reaction is why, with a suspicion that it is to hide the taste of an inferior meat patty. A culinary case of ” Oh look! A squirrel!”.

Now with the BSE burger vans of my youth, only vaguely approachable after 10 pints, this was not necessarily a bad thing as the patties were of dubious quality (and that is being more than a little charitable) and hiding the flavour was a necessity for survival of the van operators.

These days the quality of meat patties in burgers has increased immeasurable from those of my youth (I dread to think what was in some of them back in my days of yore) and to me with a burger it is the patty you want to taste rather than a bloody quaver/frazzle/niknak stuffed under the lid.

I also like a burger that I can actually eat with my hands, without rear end (patty slippage out the back) carnage or the need to unhinge my jaw to get the thing in my (albeit gaping) maw.  I mean, what is the point of the bun if you can’t eat a burger with your hands?!

As the title suggests, to me the best burgers keep it simple and this brings me to Burger Boyz (originally from Port Talbot) in the Cardiff burb of Victoria Park (a pleasant stroll from my gaff), who have taken over the site of the much loved Ansh.

The menu raised my hackles a bit,

with frazzles in the Baconator and a burger in the form of “The El Chapo” (why the extra ‘ The”,  are they  Matt Johnson fans-  admirable, if so) seemingly named after a chap who is responsible for the murder of about 34,000 people (and misery for million more via the drugs trade). As he is a certified psychopath, I fail to get the strange veneration.

I mean a place that called their burgers the Fred West (build your burger one patty(o) at a time) or the Jimmy Saville (now then, now then who wants a cheeky extra pat(ty) on their bun) would be rightly vilified, so what is different about a Mexican mass murdering monster. Bit more distant, I suppose, but arguably actually higher on the demonic scale. 

OK, that particular burger has jalapeños and “Mexican” cheese in it so it is ever so vaguely kind of Mexican, but that is a bit like a restaurant in Mexico City calling a roast beef dinner the  “Rose(t) West beef dinner” or a sausage and mash dish the “Jimmy Saveloy“.

Surely there must be an upstanding Mexican figurehead who is a better representive of Mexico ((Benito Juárez perhaps – not so edgelordy I suppose)?

There are also pictures on Itsagramaaaaazing of infeasibly large burgers and time challenges regarding eating the same that no sane person would attempt.

I just don’t get food challenges. I mean why would you want to

• eat an obscene volume of food rather than simply sate yourself other than to get it free (and then probably promptly puke it up); and
• eat it all  within a ridiculously short delineate time frame.

All sounds like a great way to get gall stones and I can tell you, from bitter experience, you don’t want them!

Personally, I like to taste and savoury what I am eating rather than shovel it down without touching the sides, although Mrs. SF thinks I eat ridiculously quickly (actually it is that she eats at a pace where glacial and interglacial periods come and go between bites).

Having discounted frazzle filled burgers, Mexican mass murderers and food challenges, I spied a burger seemingly more to my taste (and the cheapest one to boot – always a bonus) on the menu in the form of the “Simple One” (£7.50), a burger that Mrs. SF would say is one truly made for me.

With just the patty, cheese and a bun this fitted my burger requirements very well it seemed. I was asked if I wanted to double up on the patties (extra £3, so if a patty is £3 them the bun and cheese are £4.50, which is more than the price of the meat!), but I declined.

What arrived looked promising, with a old school sesame topped bun (nothing wrong with that at all and I prefer them to brioche ones),

with plenty of patty skirt.

Inside, there was plastic American cheese (again nothing wrong with that, but one slice is a bit mean).

The patty was of the smashed variety and to me was just a bit lacking in flavour. Whilst there seemed to be lots of gnarly bits, which brought the promised of a flavour bomb from the fabled malliard reaction, the actual flavour (I was looking for that buttery, nutty, gaminess you get from dry aged beef) was curiously muted. Nothing intrinsically wrong with it, but for a burger style where the beef needs to do all the talking this was quite muted flavour wise. Lack of seasoning or a lack of fat in the blend or both, maybe?

I didn’t dislike it, with it more a case of me being a bit underwhelmed by it. I am glad I didn’t double up on the patties to be honest and maybe, flavour wise, it would have actually benefited from a frazzle!

Keeping with my simple is as simple does theme, I order the bog standard seasoned fries (rather than peri seasoning or the loaded variety).

Decent crispy chips these, with a nice level of seasoning. Good portion sized, I thought, for the £3.75 price tag

I ordered a pot of blue cheese dip , for the fries, for a seemingly a very reasonable £1.

I actively disliked this, with it having a weirdly chemical tang to it. Bar from a couple of exploratory chip dips, I left it pretty much untouched.

On the drinks front, there is a shortish selection, with soft drinks and booze (beer and cider only)

I thought £5.50 for a pint of Tiny Rebel 313 lager not bad at all (a friend recently sent me a picture of bar list from a place he was in in Helsinki and less than a pint of dish water aka Heineken was priced at €13.90😱)

The 313 was a simple, uncomplicated, easy drinking beer. Seemed quite apt in the circumstances.

A word on the decor, 

with me initially assuming they had been broken into overnight and the place vandalised by said intruders. After being shocked at the breakdown in law and order, such that someone could stoop so low as to have broken into and done this to a new business so quickly after it had opened, it slowly dawned on me that it was part of the decor and thus had all been done intentionally 🙄. Each to their own, I suppose, but it is not exactly easy on the eye in my opinion.

The verdict

I know I asked for and got a simple burger, but this was just a bit too plain for me. The patty should, in a simple cheese burger, shine through in terms of flavour and you should get the pleasure of unadulterated beef. This just didn’t cut the mustard (the addition of which may have helped, as would have a few pickles) flavour wise for me.

Based on my burger, perhaps there is a rationale to adding a frazzle or two? The fact that the patty seemingly cost less than the bun and cheese was in hindsight less surprisingly than I initially thought.

I have had a lot better burgers in South Wales (Tom’s Smashed Burgers beats these hands down in my limited experience, as did the Hench‘s straight up – still looking for new site –  and  even Honest to be honest). Further afield, Bleecker’s basic cheese burger may be £2.25 more pricey, but it is easily worth the extra and more.

All in all a bit underwhelming,  but they seem to be doing a roaring trade so what do I know.

It is a canny location, certainly for the summer, with plenty of people enjoying the sun with the kids in Vicky Park as potential customers. As a result, the takeaway trade was pretty brisk whilst I was in situ.

The details

Address: 589 Cowbridge Road East, Canton/Victoria Park, Cardiff, CF5 1BE

Website: https://burgerboyzzz.co.uk/