J D Wetherspoon Original Gourmet Chicken Burger

Review of J D Wetherspoon Original Gourmet Chicken Burger

Website: http://www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk/

What they say:

Not much.

Price: £6.99 including drink, chips and onion rings.

Calories: 672kcal for the burger, 398kcal for the chips and 285kcal for the onion rings.

Welcome to the very latest Burger Lad® review where our Principal Burger Critic Andrew decided to check out the J D Wetherspoon Original Gourmet Chicken Burger.

Now we’ve had a few hate crimes thrown our way recently, by some junkie-looking individual trying to manufacture news by eating nothing but McDonald’s and seeing what impact it has on their Renton-esque body.

Original… in fact coming soon to your favourite burger review website is our next project – “Supersize Moi”. With that let’s pass you over to Andrew…

It’s Friday lunchtime and Wetherspoon’s is absolutely packed to the gunnels. Little wonder the UK is no longer the economic powerhouse it was a long time ago.

Anyway, backtrack a bit, and last night I was looking at Wetherspoon’s menu online. Or menus, I should say.

They have four, one for each part of our great country.

The Welsh menu includes a section of Welsh classics. The Scottish one, Scottish classics. The Northern Irish one, Irish classics. The English one, well, oddly, it doesn’t include English classics. I don’t understand that at all – there must surely be some to choose from.

I’m here for a burger though, and they seem to be fairly consistent from Wick to Falmouth.

After my recent dabbles with behemoth secret menu hacks, I need something more ordinary. I’m sorry beef, I’ll be back to you next time.

So, chicken it is. The Original Gourmet Chicken Burger to be precise.

Before I noticed the ingredients, I noticed the little logo beside it – “Includes a drink”. Get In!

I order my burger at the packed bar. It’s not all retired people like me, I’m sure. I do wonder. It is the middle of a working day.

Anyway, I’m given my pint (whatever happened to the dimpled pint glasses with handles?) and told to wait about 20 minutes for my food.

My drink will be finished by then, I start to complain, before realising that’s not a bad thing. If I want another free one though, I’ll need to order another burger.

So I find a table. Literally the only one left available, and I sit down to start writing, and drinking,

There are quite a few burgers on Wetherspoon’s menu(s), and frighteningly all the calories are set out. My chicken burger is 160 calories fewer than the gourmet beef burger, but that’ll be cancelled out by the beer.

It includes bacon and a spicy Jack and pepper sauce. It seems to come with chips and onion rings, all of which bump up the number of calories. I’m going to stop reading about calories.

As I realise I should stop waffling until the burger comes, I start wiping away the salt all over my table.

And then I suddenly remember something that had been annoying me yesterday. Why is it only Londoners who know you stand on the right and walk on the left?

Escalators in Derby, Dundee and Swansea, and everywhere else not served by Oyster cards, are always full of people blocking the way. Out of the way! I have burgers to work off!

At £6.99 including a pint that would be £2.99 on its own. That’s pretty good.

J D Weatherspoon Original Gourmet Chicken Burger
Weatherspoon Original Gourmet Chicken Burger…

It arrives. First impression – the six onion rings appear to be only three. The thick chips smell of typical pub fayre. The bacon in the burger is massive and the other three onion rings are hiding in there too.

There’s a lot of lettuce as well, and some red onions and oh yes, a bloody tomato.

Tomato removal completed, I tuck in. The chips are nice. Lovely and crispy on the outside. And hot. The bun looks nicely glazed with some seeds on top, although any toasting is minimal.

I pick it up for a bite and it’s almost too thick to manage. The chicken in there is substantial, although really it’s a big piece of chicken rather than what I might think of as a chicken burger (i.e. breaded and round).

The spicy cheese sauce glooped all over is fantastic. After two bits, the bottom bun gives up and crumbles, meaning this is fork and knife burgery from this point on.

Halfway in, and I notice the lettuce is really fresh and crunchy, the chicken is great and I’m enjoying this. The bacon is pretty weak despite its size, which is surprising, but the sauce is brilliant and there’s a very oniony hinterland, courtesy of the onion rings and red onions.

J D Weatherspoon Original Gourmet Chicken Burger
Inside the Original Gourmet Chicken Burger…

I must admit I wasn’t expecting to enjoy this much. I haven’t had food at a Wetherspoon’s for something close to 20 years. But I was very pleasantly surprised.

It was well crafted. The only improvements I would suggest are a more robust bun bottom and perhaps a bit more generosity with the cheese sauce.

It was neatly presented on a rectangular plate with many of the traditional pub trimmings. Onion rings, fat chips, HP sauce on the side.

J D Weatherspoon Original Gourmet Chicken Burger
At £6.99 this is unbeatable value…

All in all, this was good. The free pint is what swung it for me initially, but the burger more than held its own.

There are quite a few burgers to choose from, and if this one is anything to go by, the others will be worth checking out. There’s almost certainly a Wetherspoon’s near you.

It was big and I couldn’t finish the chips and onion rings. The beer is probably partly to blame for that, along with the three martinis I had at breakfast.

Thanks Andrew for taking a look at the J D Wetherspoon Original Gourmet Chicken Burger. If you would like to contribute to our popular website please get in touch!

Burger Lad®