Adventures in eating out, part I in an occasional series.

A few days ago, by my computer, I found a hastily-scrawled note. Nothing unusual there. It was a reminder that I intended to depart briefly from tradition, and offer up a restaurant review. Fair enough. I don't do it very often, I'm going to do it now and then, and I'd probably have forgotten - I'm full of plagues at the moment. Except that this was not what it actually said. What it said was:

“Fucking jam!”

and thereby hangs a tale.

The Gourmet Burger Kitchen, (located in this particular case on Regent St, Cambridge) is a shithole. Were it called The Shithole, it would still be over-selling itself. Now, it's a chain, and a concept chain, so you steel yourself a little. But really. Absolutely fucking dire.If, when you arrive at an eatery, you are asked whether you have been there before, it’s often a bad sign. It means they’re doing something kooky with the service. It’s annoying at Wagamama, but only because the population is by and large conversant with noodle bars. It’s annoying at Yo Sushi, but only because the system is blindingly (indeed, marvellously) visually obvious. They, as chains go, are reasonable. At the Gourmet Burger Kitchen it means acerbic, pub-grub styled counter service. Order, quote your table number, and pay up front. This is a bit of a fail for any venue elevated aspirations, and a disquieting one for somewhere with this kind of self-conscious attempt at zeitgeist-y modernity going on. Panelled walls, a seating gimmick lifted from a Gordon Ramsay venture, Ikea-a-like furniture, and black and white pop culture canvas prints. And you pay at the counter. Doesn't quite work.Even if you strip out my service neuroses (and what service there was happened to be generally competent) the food is a let-down, and an overpriced let down to boot. Eight and nine pounds each way – plus the very un-restaurant ninety-fives – bought a Blue Cheese Burger and a Wild Boar special. It did not buy fries, sides, salads, sauces, garnishes, or fillings extending beyond a single forlorn leaf of flat green lettuce. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a vegetable look like it was whimpering before. The buns were off the peg boring, and thus a gross missed opportunity to be funky-pretentious-cool. Foccacia? Sourdough? Anything? No, not really. Sesame seeds, though – and a cocktail stick.The burgers themselves were perfectly acceptable. Though as Mr C put it “We could shit on this place with supermarket beef and an iron grille on a burning bucket.” He’s not wrong. When you only cook one thing there aren’t a whole lot of excuses. No, the burgers were fine, and although that still isn’t quite good enough in the context, I’m not going to be a princess about it. About the “sauces” however, I’m going to scream and scream until I’m sick. The garlic mayonnaise arrived in a disposable plastic cup, and I’m fairly sure was ordinary Helmans, stirred through with rather a lot of lemon juice. The hint of garlic was shyly peeking out from between the whorl of wholly-redundant coriander leaves. Mr C, pithy as ever observed the following day “I can still taste that fucking mayonnaise. And I’ve had six espressos today.” He was also half way through his second pint of Hop Back’s excellent Entire Stout, so tasting anything else was an achievement. Frankly I believed him.And then there’s the jam. It was called cranberry relish, it resembled inexpensive strawberry jam, and it was smeared all over my burger. Now, I’m fairly sure I had stipulated that it should not be; but again, bitching at chain-restaurant staff is a little like kicking a puppy, a droopy-eared, tear-jerker advert, haemophiliac puppy. I’ve done my time in food service – I’m not going to be that tosser. No, I sucked it up and ate my pig and jam sandwich like a good little boy. Cloying and overabundant, the jam squatted there on the leaf of lettuce, mocking at the lack even of a few slices of onion, a sliver of pickle. It was a triumph of sickly malignity, and it took the mayonnaise to kill it.Do not eat at this place, its condiments mean you harm.