I really must talk about the burgers in England.

THEY’RE SO GOOD.

No, I don’t mean Big Macs, although those are good, too. I’m talking thick, juicy beef patties that completely overwhelm your taste buds as the succulent meat languishes on your tongue, making your buds think they’ve died and gone to heaven.

 

 

Can you see the juice almost dripping off the lettuce? The beef burger at LeBateau Bar & Bistro in Poole is amazing even plain. It’s £9.50 for the basic burger, plus £1 for each extra ingredient, like cheese or bacon.

A little pricey, I suppose, but totally worth it if you like beef burgers.

 

 

I’ve eaten many beef burgers here and they’re all good but LeBateau’s my favourite.

There are two other places where I enjoy the beef burgers (The Slug and Lettuce and The Print Room.) Unfortunately, I haven’t got photos of them because of random mishaps. They would have been nice photos, too, because those burgers were massive, with loads of stuff in them besides the beef.

OMG beef burgers.

I’m really happy to have found a fast food / junk food soulmate in Piers. He loves fast food as much as I do. We would walk past an empty McDonald’s french fry container on the road and we would simultaneously go, “Oooh McDonald’s!”

We try to limit our Mac intake to not more than once a week, but we keep driving each other crazy by just randomly saying, “McDonald’s!” and watching the other’s ecstatic, then tortured, expression.

Because we had already hit our McDonald’s quota one week, Pizza Hut was a very natural alternative. Anything with pepperoni = best, so we ordered two medium pizzas with loads of pepperoni. We managed to finish all of that plus a bowl of DIY salad.

 

 

 

 

I never liked Pizza Hut in the past because I hated the thick crusts, but after discovering pepperoni, I decided that Pizza Hut is the place to go to for pizza because nobody does pepperoni pizzas like Pizza Hut. Really!

 

 

Haha, Piers made his sulky face at me again. I was trying to take a photo of the pepperoni juice running down his fingers.

Anyway, he’s been complaining about me putting his photos on my blog, saying that it’s my blog so there should be photos of me instead of him. Haiyah. I just prefer taking photos of food and other people. It’s such a hassle taking my own.

But I suppose he’s a bit right. So here’s one..

 

 

Okay, done. Now that we’re all happy, let’s go back to talking about food.

We had dinner one night with the Wing Chun guys at an Indian restaurant called Taj Mahal. (I’ll bet there’s an Indian restaurant with that name in every city.)

The food wasn’t really good so I won’t recommend it. But the ambience is nice, although that meant the place was too dark for photos, especially of food, so I’ll try and distract you with people photos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Very nice people, all of them. Hardly any chat about Wing Chun at my side of the table. We talked about life and travels and parties and stuff. So, I was thinking, if you just knew these people at a party or at work or whatever, you’d never guess they were all deadly martial artists who could incapacitate you within seconds if you tried to mug them in the streets.

I feel so very safe hanging out with them.

Okay that wasn’t really about food. Sorry.

Next!

I finally found good fish and chips here. Not that I’ve been trying, really. I discovered Chez Fred when googling Bournemouth attractions some time back. It had won a “Best Fish and Chip Shop in Great Britain” award once, so I thought it was worth a try.

It was, indeed, good. I’ve had it twice so far. There are always long queues at the restaurant, in both the takeaway and eat-in sections.

 

 

 

I don’t really know how to describe the difference between good and bad fish and chips because I’m not so much into fish. I like going to Fish & Co and Manhattan Fish Market but mostly because of butter cream mussels and garlic rice.

So I can only say that Chez Fred is really good because it’s always so crowded and because after eating it twice, I find myself wanting to eat it again.

I usually choose the cod (cheapest one) because the meat is so good, just the right balance between meaty and flaky. And the batter is tasty and doesn’t make you sick from being too oily. And the homemade tartar sauce is yummy.

Only downside is the chips are not that tasty, and soggy by the time we bring the food home. Maybe eat in next time. I imagine everything would taste better hot!

Okay, last item for this installment.

Irish food!

I tweeted about being in an Irish pub called O’niell’s where people were dressed in funny costumes (maybe celebrating St Patrick’s Day early). I had to take photos of them illicitly because Piers said I’d better not walk up to them and request for photos cos they all looked drunk and rowdy.

 

 

 

We had originally planned to only have drinks there, then go for dinner at an Italian restaurant across the street. But then we looked at the interesting menu and started having second thoughts. And they had a promotion of £8 for two meals so that sold us totally.

I wanted to try the Steak and Guinness Pie because it sounded Irish and I think it’s fun eating cultural food. It was okay. No taste of Guninness whatsoever. Not fantastic but nice enough. A steal for £4.

It was too dark in there so I used my mini torchlight on the food.

That’s why the photos look like they have torchlights shone on them.

 

 

 

Piers had a burger and we shared honey mustard sausages. They were all not bad at all.

 

 

 

It was quite enjoyable having dinner in a noisy Irish pub. I want to try dinner at a noisy English pub, next.

Well, so many things I want to try, or eat again. So sad we have limited stomach capacity and bank balances!

Anyway, Piers, if you’re reading this, McDonald’s!

=P