After watching Tweenie train in the rain for her netty, I decided she needed a treat. A Cheeseburger and fries kinda treat. A work colleague had mentioned the other day that she’d had dinner with her hubby at The London Burgers and Beers joint in Tuggeranong. I didn’t even know it existed! I still thought it was that awful La Porchetta place. Whilst waiting for training to finish, I sat warm and snug in my car on my iPad and looked up the London and read the reviews. Not so good. Oh well, we’ll still give them a shot. And I felt like a proper hamburger, so The London it was.

I’m really, really pleased we did. Tweenie and I had a ball. Most of the photo’s for this review are courtesy of Tweenie, she decided she wanted to get in on the review action. The staff were more than happy for her to wander around and take photo’s. We even have a smiling chef behind the pass. Actually, all the staff were happy and helpful and looked pleased to be there. The service was efficient and cheerful. I read a reviewer who commented that they were constantly asked if they wanted drinks, ie a big sales pitch. I found this to be proactive service, not detrimental to our experience at all. We were asked twice throughout our meal if we needed anything else and then left to finish our meals.

The place was pumpin for a drizzly Wednesday night in Tuggeranong, I was surprised. Obviously I don’t get out much. And a good mix of customers too, young, old, middle aged. It’s somewhere I’d take my 3 yr old son, no hesitation. It was bright and had plenty of tv screens which added to the buzzy atmosphere, it’s no fine dining establishment after all. This is where the Tunes part of the title comes in. MTV Top 40 stuff was playing, Tweenie knew it all, then it moved onto MTV classics, which even I knew the words to. Took me right back to my Private Bin days.

On to the food. Tweenie ordered the baby cheeseburger with chips and a coke. I ordered the Beef Caramel – beef burger, sweet caramelized onion, roast peppers, garlic aioli, signature sauce, lettuce, and tomato and a glass of cab sav. Beef goes with red wine. The burgers come on a sourdough type roll and all meals are served with beer battered chips. We ordered an extra pot of garlic aioli for our chips, as we like to dip.

It came out quite quickly, considering the place was pretty busy. And when it did come out, Whoa Nelly! My burger was massive! A good amount of chips on both plates too. The chips were perfect. Hot, crunchy, fluffy, salty. Perfect.

My first bite into the burger and it practically exploded onto my plate. I’m not a burger connoisseur and quite clearly, I don’t know how to handle a burger of that burgeoning size. I had to move my chips out of the way, lest they became all soggy in the juices dripping down my hands and chin. Yummo! I can’t quite pick what it was that made it taste that good, whether it be the juicy beef patty, or the two different sauces, or the onions or the roasted peppers? Probably all the ingredients smooshed into one, I’m thinking. Anyway, damn it was good. I dropped the second half on to my plate, got rid of the bun bit and resorted to knife and fork to finish off the remaining bits n pieces. It was sloppy towards the second half, but it was a divine sloppy. I recently lamented that the burger buns run to the overly crunchy these days. This one was not. I don’t suggest you go there on a first date, unless you want to be thought of as a slobbering pig, and I knew I shouldn’t have taken my baby wipes out of my handbag, I needed them!

We sat there, finished our chips and dip, rocked out to a few more classic tunes, then happily made our way home. The bill came to $35 and I thought that was quite reasonable.

Midweek treat indeed. I’d recommend giving The London Burgers and Beers a go for a tasty burger, great chips, cheerful atmosphere and a casual place to hang out with the kids.