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I was recently asked back to try out the burgers at Burger Theory at Kongs in Cardiff. I’d been a few times in the past and did a blog post after my second visit to the pop up kitchen on St Mary’s Street. I’m glad to say that things have improved quite a bit since then as it was still new on the scene and I did have a couple of issues on both my first two visits.

I decided to take my younger sister and her boyfriend to see how it faired against some of the other burger places a 16 year olds frequent in Cardiff these days and to get a younger persons perspective. I was offered a £35 voucher towards food so I paid extra for the rest of the food and drinks on the visit. Seeing as I wanted to compare against how they had progressed since the 18 months after they opened I thought I’d opt for the same burger I ordered on my first visit the Kimcheese featuring Beef patty, melted cheddar cheddar, kimchi, pulled beef rib with black pepper glaze, chipotle mayo (£11.95).

I was going to order the cola ham hock dirty fries I’d seen on the menu previously but they were a special and been replaed by the “You have goat to try these fries”, which were a Caribbean take on dirty fries, which consisted of Fries loaded with goat curry, melted cheese, lime and coriander aioli, pineapple and scotch bonnet sauce, coconut flakes.

My sister opted for the Cheese theory with Beef patty with crispy bacon, melted cheddar, house pickles, Dijonnaise, house ketchup (£8.75) and her boyfriend went for The Sherriff with Beef patty with crispy bacon, melted cheddar, onion rings, BBQ sauce (£9.25).

We fancied a chip fest so went for two standard fries (£2.95 each) and a side of halloumi chips (£6.50).

Soft drinks all round for the teens whilst I sipped on a pint of Tiny Rebel Cali till the food appeared out of the kitchen.

Kimcheese Burger at Burger Theory Cardiff

The Kimcheese burger had grown since my first visit and was an absolute whopper of a burger to be fair. I was close to doing a few tricep dips off the edge of the bun to allow my jaw to take it in for a bite. There was a lot of juice and I was glad I had my side of the table to myself so I didn’t drown the person next to me whilst I chomped away.

There was a decent amount of meat content with the patty, beef rib and combined with the other fillings it did taste really good. Again though there wasn’t much kimchi going on. I don’t think I had any of the advertised fermented Korean staple in my burger the first time I visited and I struggled to find much in it this time unless they had done a batch of their own quick pickled kimchi but there was none of the expected pungent condiment in my burger this time either. Apart from that I was pretty happy with the burger.

There was a bit of a mix up with the fries but probably due to me using the voucher to pay at the start for  part of the meal as the server wasn’t sure what to do with it. I ordered one portion of the goat curry dirty fries and two portions of the standard ones but two goat ones came out. They immediately gave us a serving of the standard and let us keep the other goat curry but wasn’t sure if I’d been charged for the two goat curries. I’d had £35 towards the food, which came to around £55 in the end so I wasn’t bothered too much about going back and checking with them or causing a fuss.

goat curry dirty fries at Burger Theory

The goat fries were amazing though and a great addition to the menu instead of the usual pulled pork or chilli beef you tend to find at most burger houses when opting for some dirty fries. They were a slow burner mind as the first couple of bites I thought oh, they aren’t too bad but a minute or two later I could of done with someone fanning me with a palm leaf whilst squirting my mouth with a super soaker 2000 filled with milk.

Not that I was complaining, I was expecting it to be hot spice wise but for me the meat could have been a tad warmer. They were pretty epic though.

halloumi fries at Burger Theory Cardiff

My sister has an obsession for halloumi fries and was very impressed with Burger Theory’s take on the deep fried slabs of cheese and so was I. Portion size was generous and they looked exactly like chips, I thought they had brought out two different thickness of potato kind at first until I bit into one.

She also smashed the Cheese Theory burger and gave it a massive thumbs up along with her partner who said it was the best burger he’s ever had. He attempted a stab at the goat dirty fries and like me thought they were fine at first but when the heat kicked in he bailed. They both enjoyed the standard fries, although they didn’t quite manage to finish them off. Not from lack of trying I might add, they were just stuffed from the burger and other bits and bobs.

The Verdict

I was a lot happier with my food compared to my first and second visit. The Kimcheese burger was still lacking on the Kimchi front though as I’ve always got a tub to hand in the fridge at home I was looking forward to a healthy portion in my burger.

The goat curry fries were a really nice change and if you like your spicy food, keep with them as they seem quite tame at first but they don’t take long to catch up with you when you’re least expecting.

I’ve heard rumours that Burger Theory will be opening up as a standalone restaurant in Cardiff in the near future so keep your eyes peeled on socials. I’m hoping they carry the bottomless burger brunch they do at the standalone Bristol venue to Cardiff too as that will be unreal.

If you’ve not been to Burger Theory before, it’s located at Kong’s Bar on St Mary Street, which is a basement bar next to Turtle Bay.

So we were invited to the launch of Cardiff’s latest arrival on the ever expanding burger scene recently on 156 City Road aptly named Meat at 156.

The burger joint is an independant set up by three friends and look like they are pitching at a hole in the market for good, no frills affordable grub just outside the city centre.

The food

Myself and Mwsh were joined by a whose who on the food blog scene in Cardiff to sample some of the menu items on offer. We saw the menu but they were just going to rustle up a few different items so we could have a nibble on a variety of different options between us rather than picking one item each off the menu.

I was suprised by the entry level prices of the burgers and were a lot more accomodating those looking to grab a bite to eat on a budget and was definitely family friendly compared to some of the well known burger places in town at the moment. Prices started around £6 for the Classic consisting of beer burger topped with american cheese and may to the Volcano at £6.95 consisting of beef patty cored with melted cheese and jalapeno.

Also on offer were a selection of steaks with a rump at £9.95 and a 14oz T-Bone setting you back £17.95 with all coming with a choice of sauces from the spicy one, shrooms, cracked pepper and garlic infusion.

southern cruncher burger

We got to share the Southern Crunch Burger containing beef patty topped with fried jalapenos and onion strings in a crispy southern coating with house fries. As it was a pre launch and didn’t get to choose the burgers were just being brought out to sample so wasn’t asked how we wanted it cooked and was a bit on the well done for my liking. I enjoyed the toppings that gave a nice crunch and texture with a little heat from the jalapenos but was missing a bit of moisture especially as it came with no sauce. A minute or two less on the grill and a dollop of ketchup, bbq sauce or mayo on the bun and it would of been on point. The fries though were lovely. Thin shoestring fries cooked to perfection.

Next up was the Volcano as described above and was the most expensive burger on the menu. This made up for the first burger as it was cooked a little less and retained that much needed beef juices and the molten spicy cheese helped deliver a juicy beefyness to my taste buds. I didn’t find it all that spicy considering the name but you do have the option to spice things up a bit and going mega hot with the chiptole chilli sauce but i’m not sure if ours already had it on as there was some kind of spicy red sauce but not what I would consider hot.

fried jalapeños

Out came a few sides to snack on such as the cajun onion rings and the hot crunch jalapenos we had on top of our first burger along with a small pot of slaw. I’d never tried deep fried jalapenos until now and they went down a treat I have to say and so did the onion rings and slaw which added a well anticipated hit of spicy greasiness I’d hoped for.

This is were most mere mortals would of paid up and been on their way but no, we were being slowly tortured with death by meat! Not that I was complaining as a big plate of ribeye steak and another portion of the freshly fried fries. Can’t beat a fresh batch of oil for fries as most the time in takeaways you don’t know when they’ve changed it from one year to the next and you can definitely taste the difference.

Steak and fries

No way were we expecting the third and final plate of meat but it was greatly received. Nice looking scorch marks on top but not sure if that was just for taking some pics for the social media pages as they didn’t do the moisture levels many flavours when we sampled the meat. The ribeye was an 8oz and although it looked quite big in circumference it wasn’t all that thick so it didn’t need much time on the grill and could of done with just 2 minutes each side but it came well done. Couldn’t complain as they were catering for everyone and we weren’t paying plus if we were paying dinners we would of got a choice of how we wanted it cooked and I have no doubt they would of delivered as requested.

At this point I was considering air ambulance rescue mission to winch me out of my seat just as they came out with a sample of some of the desserts. Luckily they were just bite sized pieces just to try and we cauciously nibbled on a small nugget of brownie topped with a little ice cream. There was a decent moisture content on the brownie and the ice cream was just a frozen ice cream van type ice cream but did the job. There was a bowl of tantalising golden toffee laden sticky toffee pudding doing the rounds but I thought I might of died had I eaten a single more morsel of food.

The Verdict

I think Meat at 156 definitely fills a hole in the market in Cardiff for people looking for a no noncence, unprotencious and affordable burger. They do a meal deal add on so you can top up your burger for £2 and get fries and a soft drink meaning you can get a burger, fries and drink for under £9. For a family of 4 that is much more economical compared to some of the burger making big guns like Got Beef and Time and Beef with a Burger, fries and drink probably costing you £15+ nearly double what Meat at 156 are offering.

Ok the burger concoctions aren’t as boundary pushing as Burger Theory @ Kongs but being alcohol free they appeal more to teenagers and families who don’t want to eat in a pub or bar and can make it much more cost fiendly to dine out in a group or family without having to put up with drunken punters.

I probably wouldn’t drive out of town to go there on an occasion but if I’m hungry and passing or up on City Road i’d consider calling in for a bite to eat rather than fire up the oven when I get in for the price factor.

So after two shakey starts I thought I’d give Burger Theory @ Kongs in Cardiff another try and was hoping for 3rd time lucky on Saturday.

I’d had an invite for the opening night back towards the end of last year but double booked myself and had a few things on being the run up to Christmas and judging by the instagram pics after it was a roaring success and had me salivating at my phone or might of been throthing at the mouth in anger at missing the succulent beef patties oozing with bubbling cheese and mountains of crisped fries!

I didn’t wait long (2 days) to give it a whirl after a few unssuccessful attempts to get a seat at a few other restaurants in town with a few of my mates after a few beers in Brewdog. Although we were taken back by the doormans rather odd welcome into the basement venue when he said “How many of you want to go in?” Bearing in mind this was about 5 o’clcok and pretty dead in St Mary street and only 4 of us, who’d consumed 2 or 3 pints prior to this.

“Ok lads, please don’t tip the place up it’s a low key kind of place”. We all looked at each other in bemusement as we’re not exactly roided up skip rats looking to smash someone’s head in but we gave a suprised reply of “ok no probs”.

Anyway onto the venue, well if you haven’t ventured into the place yet to sample it for yourself yet then shame on you but it’s got the ever popular industrial, weathered look with plenty of concrete, scaffholding and reclaimed wood with the odd metal cage to shield unsuspecting punters from a stray puck to the head from the air hockey tables.

The drinks

First on the cards before anything was a pint of something wet and cold before mulling over holy grail of seared beef concoctions.

I was hoping to have a few in house IPA’s but there were a few local beers from the likes of Tiny Rebel, a few European favourites and a few I’d never seen, couldn’t work out from the lonley branded icon with no writing and the clueless offerings from the person serving me. One thing that winds me up when going for a beer these days especially after the expert knowledge on hand from the givers of happiness behind the bar at the likes of Brewdog, Small bar or Bar 44 is people serving who have absolutely no idea about what it is they are serving. My first visit all 3 people didn’t have the fogiest idea about the beers, what they were, who brewed them or even the strength on them, which lastly should be a legal requirment at least I would of thought if I was driving. They were nice enough but a bit of prior training or even sampling of what’s on tap that week wouldn’t go a miss.

Anyway the first pint was good that’s all i can tell you as nobody could tell me what it was that’s all i know is it had a bee logo on the front. I had one or two more lucky dips and all unoffensive and drinkable.

There was a good selection of beers in the fridge but no menu to see what they were and I find it hardwork going through each of the bottles with the bartender so opted against trying my luck on any of them on my first couple of visits but would definitely like to tick a few off.

One thing I was dissapointed with though was the lack of any decent gins. I was hoping to get to try something I hadn’t seen before but there was just a few of the bog standard pub gins on offer. Being a Bristol based company I thought they might of shipped a few bottles of Psychopomp gin over to show us how they distill their Gin just over the bridge but sadly not. Just yet anyway, I might put a request in as I did get to try a couple at their pop up bar at The Old Bookshop in Bristol the last time I was up there before Christmas.

The food

So as I’ve visited 3 times it’s only right I give my feedback on all 3 visits.

Visit 1

My first attempt at the menu and anything with Kimchi or anything referencing Korean overides anything else on the menu so my mind was made up before I even finished the rest of the menu and jabbed delightedly at the Kimcheese option. Mounted on top of the beef patty was, bacon, cheese, pulled beef rib, chiptople mayo and what was supposed to be kimchi but what I had instead was a few strands of spring onion! No kimchi in sight I was gutted to say the least and even more pissed off because I had talked my mate into having the kimchi fries as he had never tried kimchi and his fries where the same just a few ribons of spring onion and no pungent fermented cabbage in sight and he was dissapointed saying “Well I still don’t know what Kimchi is”. I hate recommending something to someone when it turns out turns out wrong.

Don’t get me wrong the rest of the burger was really good but you can’t advertise a kimchi burger with the main bloody ingredient missing. I’m glad I didn’t pay extra for the kimchi fries now or I would of just ended up paying a few extra quid for spring onion fries.

Everyone else had positive feedback regarding the burgers and my one mate attempted the hairy beast with a whole souther fried chicken on top, which was an absolute beast of a burger to say the least. Not something I’d attempt on a mission for a few beers after it mind as i’d be keeled over with meat sweats but it did look good.

Burgers costing around the £9 mark with standard fries around £3 although I skipped them this time to save some room for beer.

Visit 2

My 2nd visit was about a week later and my last day in work before breaking up for Christmas as I noticed a deal on the Wriggle Cardiff App with 1 burger and 1 fries for just £3.50 at Burger Theory / Kongs and as my mate hadn’t been or used the app before I gave him my referral code of AUHPSS, which he added on buying the deal and got another discount and paid just £1.50 saving over £12. I’m not sure as I can’t remember the last time i bought one but i’m pretty sure you can’t get much change from £1.50 after buying a pot noodle, so off we stormed in the rain after the clock struck 4 and we were done for the day in work.

Blue Cow burger from Burger Theory at Kongs Cardiff

The wriggle deal meant we could only choose a selection of burgers and not the full range but my next option would probably have been the Blue Cow anyway with Beef and jalapeño patty, crispy bacon, blue cheese, chipotle mayo, homemade ketchup.and my mate from work ordered the same.

Service was pretty quick and only had a few gulps of my beer before the order came out. The burger didn’t look quite as impressive as the first visit with mounds of the topping bursting out and looked a bit flat in comparisson. It was ok taste wise, nothing to write home about just ok really. Better than some of the other garbage like 5 guys and Grazing shed saying that mind but pretty uninspiring but for £1.50 we were impressed.

The fries on the other hand where something else and not in a good way. I’m not sure if because we had the wriggle deal we were just getting the scraps of what was left before opening a fresh bag of salad or fries but the fries looked like they had been plunged into the fryer more than once. They were either reheated or just heated and not taken off said heat for an hour because there was nothing left inside the crisp exterior. The inside of the fry was completely hollow so trying to jab a fork in was nye on impossible as it send carb laden, glass like shards flying everywhere. They were probably the worst fries I’ve ever attempted to eat and both of us left more than half the bag or whatever it was they came in and that must be a first for me.

To finish off a slightly dissapointing visit the guy coming to collect the trays / plates etc bashed the tray into my brand new (well 2 week old) iphone 7 placed visibly in the middle of the table sending it hurtling off the 1.5 metre high tables onto the concrete floor below leaving me with a look of horror and too afraid to investigate.

I didn’t have a case for the thing yet but luckily for me i’d just bought a laminate screen protector for it the day before so just left me with a few scratches on it. The guy was apologetic for the mishap and said I’ll buy you a new one if it’s broke but I just wanted to get out of there to assess the damage in the dimly Amsterdam esque red lit corner I was sat in.

Visit 3

Ok so both visits were within a week of opening so I thought I’d give the kitchen guys a bit of time to settle in and hone their skills behind the griddle or fryer I was hoping too as the burgers weren’t too bad the last time apart from lack of main ingredient.

I’d just sampled my first Bwyta Bwyd Bombai about 5 minutes prior to walking past Kongs last Saturday and Mwsh still hadn’t tried the place plus I only got a child portion in 3B’s so I suggested a pint and sharesies on something from Burger Theory, which she happily obliged.

Korean Fried Chicken burger from Burger Theory at Kongs Cardiff

After trying or at least seeing a few of the contendors on the menu previously I hadn’t noticed the KFC, otherwise known as Korean Fried Chicken. I’d seen some pics flying around of the coca cola ham hock dirty fries on insta recently and would of jumped at the chance of sampling those too if I hadn’t just had a biryani and 2 potato like side dishes less than 15 minutes ago.

I ordered a pint of Tiny Rebel on tap, a new one on me i’d not seen this one before and was pleased to see someone behind the bar who had a bit more knowledge of what they had to offer behind the bar, beer wise this time too. I’d just got the impression they’d plucked people from the streets walking past on my first visit just to open the place but they’ve either managed to find someone whose at least tried then before being able to give advice or they’d managed to give the bar tenders a little bit of training now. Either way it was a great improvement and just gives you a bit more confidence ordering from them compared to someone just shrugging their shoulders and giving you a blank look as before.

It was a Saturday and noticed they had the door open to a corridor to what I found out was a TV room showing the rugby but there were less than 10 people in the main bar area so was quite suprised with the wait we had till the chicken burger came compared to the last 2 visits.

Onto the KFC chicken burger and neither of us could fault it. The chicken was crisp to perfection, slathered in a sticky, sweet and spicy chilli sauce, ample amounts of salad although the burger wasn’t quite as big as I could remember my mate Morgan having on the first visit but the taste more than made up for it. We had a fight over the last few bites that’s for sure. We didn’t opt for the fries this time so couldn’t comment on whether they had improved but I will be ordering the coca cola dirty fries if they’re still on the menu next time.

So all in all a few teething problems and a few good experiences from myself and a few friends. I’m hoping they’ve sorted out the kimchi as I’d like to try the kimchi fries I just hope as they’ve been open a bit longer now they’ve had time to ferment the cabbage, which they couldn’t have done properly in 2 days on my first visit but saying that there wasn’t any cabbage on the burger so they must of just completely missed it out.

I will be back though to work my way through the menu as the burgers and combo of toppings do send the taste buds into an anticiapted frenzy so if the guys in the kitchen are on the ball you are sure to have an awesome meal. I wouldn’t mind givng the Korean fried chicken side a go too so there’s still lots i havent got around to yet.