Gourmet Burger Kitchen or Great Big Knock-off? (Gourmet Burger Kitchen in General)

Member Name: Rook252

Product:	Gourmet Burger Kitchen in General
Date:	29/10/09 (42 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easily available discount vouchers, milkshakes

Disadvantages: Quality, price, taste, most things really!

When you search google for GBK part of the text reads "The name speaks for itself" and Time Out Magazine have claimed that they make "The most gorgeous burgers in town". The last time I read such a pack of lies I was looking at an article which told me I couldn't possibly loose money on property, and we all know how accurate that is.

I went to GBK in Edinburgh with my fiance, as I had never been before and I LOVE burgers. I could consider myself to be a burger connoisseur and thought I was in for quite the treat. Alarm bells started to ring when I saw they didn't do a bacon cheese burger as a full burger set menu item, as I consider it to be a staple of the burger world I was dissapointed I would have to pay extra to get both of these items on the same burger. I let it go thinking to myself "Well it likes to think its a posh chain so they do 'Avocado and Bacon' instead, lets give them a chance anyway".

We had a voucher with us for 2 burgers, a portion of chips and 2 drinks for £15 so we used it. We also ordered 2 dips and the OH got an extra topping on the burger. This made our order come to just shy of £20, quite an expensive lunch. There always seems to be a voucher available for GBK, so you an usually get a discount.

The alarm bells went off good and proper when the chips arrived with the dips and I should have known then that the place was going to be a massive let down. I have seen chunky salsas which were smoother than the BBQ dip which tasted more like salsa than BBQ. Clearly this was supposed to be upmarket BBQ, but it tasted like something else entirely. The sour cream dip was average which is difficult to get wrong, then again I would have said the same for BBQ dip until I went here.

The chips were fine, cooked through and a bit crispy, although quite greasy. They didn't come salted which is good as my fiance hates salt and won't eat most fast food chips.

Even so I was optimistic that the burger wouldn't let me down, but I was bitterly dissapointed. I felt the burger was a very poor example of a barbeque burger. Normally to make one of these you marinate the burger in the sauce for several hours if not a day so that the meat absorbs all of the flavour. But no this was just a normal burger with BBQ dip on the top. There was a lot more dip on the burger than anyone could want, so most of it was scraped off. The burgers are quite large, but I was still hungry at the end as the meat is very thin and most of he bulk is bread.

The pesterella again had a lot of pesto on it which was scraped off, no one needs 1/2 an inch of the stuff! The mozerella on the burger was not melted, which we had assumed it would be.

The food was truly disappointing here but there was one saving grace. The milkshakes here are actually quite good, this really shocked me. They come in a big metal tub which makes about 3 glasses of milkshake, which is excellent.

So if I may be so bold as to make a suggestion to the owners of GBK, give up the burgers and go into the milkshake business...its the only way I'd ever go back.

Summary: Couldn't pay me enough to go back.