Its the final ‘cow-down’ for Laying The Beef To Rest.
Solita, McDonalds and Burger King, Byron and Almost Famous have all been appraised, and now its time to get down and dirty. Step up to the chopping board, ‘Filthy Cow‘ but maybe wipe your feet first, we don’t like things too dirty.
Filthy Cow – Filthy Cheese
They Say
We’re serving up well-hung, prime, beef burgers, all sourced from the finest local suppliers.
Beef patty, cheese, filthy sauce, pickled gherkin, beef tomato & lettuce
Price
A flat £7 pounds for a burger with all the dirt, but no cheeky sides.
First Impressions
Theres a beauty in the simplicity of the presentation here. Choosing to load up on the carbs, but not too much, a shared fries nestles perfectly between the 2 burgers. The cow obviously follows the rule of “Why buy the cow, when you get the milk for free” and choses to tease us by keeping its meat under wraps.
Tops Off
You eat nothing but burgers for a month, and you think you aren’t going to be surprised when the moment you’ve been waiting for happens. You pull the top off, and theres the salad, and here we go again. But wait, whats this, no obvious salad here at all. Instead we have figure hugging cheese, with a saucy finish. Underneath we can see the rest of the burger struggling to contain itself, with sauce dripping out one end, and a pickle peaking out the other.
The Dissection
The filthy cow has revealed all now. Its juicy pink centre on display to the whole world. And theres that all import garnish, all sitting under its bottom. We’ve seen the pickle earlier, but now we have tomato and shredded lettuce, another first this month. But no onion, the cow has let itself down slightly. Its stayed together pretty well though, despite a heavy covering of sauce in most of its nooks and some crannies.
The Final Verdict
The Filthy Cheese is a great example of a burger done well, apart from the meat, which was a pleasing medium. Possibly the best we’ve seen if you like a touch of pink in your cow. No fuss presentation, apart from the slightly troubling sexualization of cows, means its all about the taste of the burger. The patty is very strong on this front, if we could give more than 5 I think it would be topping all other patties we have seen.
The cheese offers a different texture to the usual, with it being more well done and hugging the patty. Its pretty tasty, although misses out on top marks, mostly because Byron set the standard very high.
Garnish is of a high standard with the rare bottom heavy approach, the horizontally sliced pickles making it stand out from the rest. If only there was a bit of onion it would be top marks again.
Its the filthy element that actually lets the cow down in many ways. We scored low on usabilty, as heavy sauce despoits mean things start to slip around as you get stuck in, ending in a bit of a sloppy mess at the end of it. Unfortunately, more sauce does not a tasty sauce make, and its a fairly average sauce.
For 7 quid its an excellent burger, and if you like to get down and dirty with your meat, which even the El Food Brothers will admit is fun once in a while, then your going to want to book a date with this cow as soon as you can. Looking back at the pictures, it was a very sexy burger.
The Scores
| El Food One | El Food Two | |
|---|---|---|
| Bun | 3 | 5 |
| Patty | 5 | 5 |
| Garnish | 4 | 4 |
| Cheese | 4 | 4 |
| Usability | 2 | 3 |
| Sauce | 3 | 2 |
| Value | 5 | 5 |
| Totals | 26 | 28 |
El Food 7th Heaven Burger Score
54/70
As the month is coming to an end, the El Food Brothers will have to call it a day on the hunt for the best burger in Manchester. We didn’t do them all of course, and a special shoutout to one of favourite early hits Common is due. I feel they would have scored very well, who knows if they would have been a winner.
TOP COW – ALMOST FAMOUS
With a score of 55 Almost Famous just take the top spot, with only a point separating our 2nd and 3rd place spots, Filthy Cow and Byron.
An excellent burger, scoring high in all categories, and just about living up to the huge hype, but not perfect in all ways.
Bonus Awards
TOP PATTY
Filthy Cow with a perfect patty score of 10
TOP CHEESE
Byron with a perfect cheese score of 10
Theres only one thing to do now for the El Food Brothers, and thats to see if we can do any better. Watch out for the final instalment of Laying The Beef To Rest, where we go patty-to-patty, bun-to-bun in the Ultimate Burger Show Down.