>>3410

Nothing interesting agwarn, afaik. I don't work there but I know a bit about the situation - probably no more than yourself.

To clarify it went into administration in 2006 or 2007, some of them closed but most of them remained open by good old RCapital Group. They're plodding along, and there have been murmurings about redoing them all a bit.

Personally I like the way they look now (apart from that one) but I suppose if they want to make money they'll need to bend to demand.

I think they were only bought for about £10m, which is nothing considering they had over 200 restaurants - works out at less than £50k per restaurant...!

Most of the ones near me have turned into Starbucks now. There is also that one somewhere in Hampshire that was taken over by Heston Blumenthal - supposed to be actually quite good.

I know of one that was turned into a Subway and is right near a major pharamaceutical's factory. They must make a fucking killing ....

Shit food at daft prices. Not saddened or surprised they're going.

>>3422
We have one with a Burger King (at motorway prices) next to a Holiday Inn. It's cheaper for two people to eat at Burger King and it's not foul, microwaved crap :|.

Little Chef was a disgrace when I first went ~20 years ago and it still is. I don't think that bald cunt Blumenthal could even save such a shit hole.

I don't think I've set foot in one since my age was single figures. The stories I've heard about Little Chef since are not pleasant to say the least.

>>3424

>Burger King and it's not foul, microwaved crap

No, it's just foul crap. Pig disgusting. Also overpriced.

>>3431
I never found Burger King food to be that terrible. It's blandness incarnate, but that's about the worst charge I can levy against it.

>I never found Burger King food to be that terrible. It's blandness incarnate, but that's about the worst charge I can levy against it.
Ditto. I don't mind a BK, to be honest.

McDonalds is cheaper, but also nastier.

Yeah, lay off the Burger King. I will never voluntarily visit a McDonald's again as long as I live but a double Whopper every couple of months is my guilty treat.

>>3444

Urgh. Sounds like a food masochism fetish to me.

I've never seen any difference between BK and McD. they both seem to be the same sort of cheap mush. Hardly surprising, considering.

You can get a much nicer burger elsewhere.

>>3445

Each to their own. Some of us crave the grease and the flourescent lights of the fast food joint. I know where I can get a quality burger, but an XL double cheese is simply tasty as fuck. I prefer that to prime cut mince and batavia lettuce, I really do. You may disagree, you may not understand - but I pray, spare me your pity, your disgust - I like it this way, and I am not ashamed.

>>3446
I agree. Even Gordon Ramsay admits to visiting BK once in a while.

>>3449

True. I remember that in one BK in Dublin (I think) they actually had the article where he talks about them, framed on the wall, with the relevant bits highlighted. I seem to remember he was saying things like 'they're the best fast food place, but that's not saying much' and that he is ashamed of going there and literally hides going though the drive-thru.

Any publicity is good publicity though, right?

>>3446

You have my pity and disgust, regardless. Shame, I say! Shame on thee!

Maybe I'm wrong about BK then. At least for your local. I could have had a bad experience compared to you lot, but what I was served could barely be described as a burger. Better to describe it some kind of bland compressed leathery slime warmed up. Same sort of thing as McDonald's. They are the big two American burger places, so it seems likely that they'd copy each other to me. I also know someone that worked for them while they were at uni and that would put you off even if they served ambrosia.

McDonald's burgers are rank rotten though. I was given one for free once not long ago and even then I couldn't stomach it. The cheese was a disgusting greasy slime and the burgers were like no meat or meat product I have ever known.

>>3445
Like a food van with their < 20% meat economy burgers?

As far as this type of fast food goes, Burger King's are decent nowadays, especially compared to McDonalds. If you're on the road and/or don't have time to find somewhere decent to eat - at least you know to expect ~consistent (If you remove staff incompetency from it) quality from them.

Of course, all of these kind of places employ /anyone/ and employees are often left alone to fanny about, or if you're lucky - with an equally carefree supervisor so...

A bacon double cheese meal from BK is acceptable fare for nothing-else-available eating situations, if I'm hungry and have a four hour train ride ahead it's not a difficult decision to grab one. It costs a fiver, for which you'd expect actual food, but in a pinch it's savoury, fills a hole, and doesn't make the corners of my mouth turn downwards whilst eating it.

I think BK and McD's used to be quite comparable, but McD's these days really is nasty as fuck.

>>3453

You could get fish and chips for that money and that's a decent meal instead of a cent's worth of crappy patty. Spend your money on the local chip shop instead of supporting vile Yankee filth flingers.

I'm wondering if what has happened is that everyone's standards have simply lowered as they get used to crap. The McDonalds have slid down even lower with time (astonishing achievement), but the BK is just as bad as ever, but because of the standards lowering everywhere it looks better for it.

>>3455
Find a decent fish+chip shop though. That's open.

>>3452

You think the half cent slime from McD is better quality? BK and McDonalds are the very lowest and cheapest in economy burgers. Trying to use that as an argument is daft at best.

BK and McD's are crap. Don't fool yourself otherwise. Kids are weaned onto this stuff thanks to the toys and colourful packaging and adverts getting hooks in early when their parents got it for them. As young adults and teens they end up buying it themselves, so they will defend it and view it through rose-tinted glasses.

The lowest quality food possible dressed up with some brain-washing adverts can do wonders.

>>3456

Maybe I'm somehow luckier than you but I know of ones open at almost any time (including 4AM post-club hours) that range from good to fantastic. I'm not even in the most built up of areas, so others should have more shops.

Use your legs and head to find somewhere and support decent places or watch everything degrade into the cheapest, crappiest corporate blandness possible. It will be worth everyone's while.

Knowing where the good places to eat are is always in your best interest.

>You could get fish and chips for that money and that's a decent meal instead of a cent's worth of crappy patty. Spend your money on the local chip shop instead of supporting vile Yankee filth flingers.
I'd take a decent chippy over a BK meal any day. Fact is there isn't always a chippy around when you're in a rush, it's often BK vs KFC and so on.

>Kids are weaned onto this stuff
For what it's worth I never ate fast food as a kid, since my hippy parents were all about wholefood and refused to eat in any such places. I suppose you could make a case for my enjoyment of BK being an act of subconscious rebellion, but I think that'd be clutching at straws really. I find it serviceable food when nothing else is available.

A lot of people in this thread are failing to realise that low quality food can still taste good, and not everybody rejects it.

None of you have described, in your horror stories, anything different to my experiences. A big mac here is the same as a big mac in Timbuktu. I still like them. I know what goes on in these places, that doesn't put me off (I've worked in a very high-end kitchen, there is no difference)

You all seem incapable of acknowledging that people might actually like these burgers - as if they're literally brainwashed. IT smacks of snobbery more than anything else - like you've judged it before you've even eaten it. BK and MCD are too big to deny their perceived quality, and I don't think that is an argumentum ad populum situation either.

I love high quality food and buy nothing but fresh vegetables and meat from the butchers and fish from the quayside and freshly baked bread and I love a michelin star as much as the next person but you know what? I still think a quarter pounder with cheese tastes nice. BK and MCD burgers are made of actual real beef. It's a fucking burger, I want grease and salt and processed cheese, that is the entire point of the thing.

>>3461
We're certainly not shy of a few faux and genuine snobs, I'm sure a lot of it's just for show like most snobs do. I know exactly what you mean about the kitchens though, and in fact the consistency and common regulation of chains and franchises may make some of them slightly more hygienic than some restaurant and hotel kitchens I've seen.

As you said, they're burgers - not pretentious French cuisine, who the fuck wants a healthy, posh burger?

>>3462

Thank you. The hygiene thing is often overlooked - huge fast food chains have to be very careful - one person gets salmonella from a chicken nugget and the whole world hears about it, and their prejudices are all confirmed. Heston Blumenthal nearly kills half of his covers and they're still lining up out the door.

Also, consider this - if you drop a Macdonalds hamburger on the floor of your kitchen, cost price twenty pence (possibly less) are you going to panic and attempt to recover it? It's more likely you're going to kick it under the counter and get another patty from the thousands you get shipped to you every day. Drop a £40 foie gras on the floor, and you're going to dust it off and run it under the tap, aren't you? Fast food cooks don't wear your food in their trousers if you ask them to do you one with no mustard, either.

I agree that McD and BK are both shit, but at least BK is edible and, dare I say it, tastes nice. McD's is so slushy and sweet-tasting that I hate to eat them and only will if I am ridiculously hungry and nothing else within a 30min walk is open. I can eat a whopper meal fine, but I'll sometimes struggle to finish off a McD's cheeseburger on its own.

>>3462

A proper posh burger will give anybody a different perspective on that crap they serve in fast food places. A nice thick, juicy slab of meat which was ground on the premises and so can be cooked rare. Beautiful.

Is BK actually genuinely flame-grilled? That's part of the reason I go there and not somewhere they fry it i.e. McDonald's.

>>3469
I do make burgers at home, I suppose they're 'posh' compared to any fast food place's.

>>3470
I think they do use flame grills, rather than fashion-burgers made to look and taste like it.

>>3469

You assume I have never eaten a good burger - You assume I have not tried every burger I have ever seen. You assume, sir, that I have not paid £40 for a burger and chips.

I have done all those things. A high class burger is all well and good, and tastier than a Whopper, but it doesn't stop me enjoying the taste of the latter too. You assume a tarted up to the nines, mercilessly minced steak made into a fancy burger will make me see the light. There is no light - this is not what a burger is meant to be. A burger is not a spectacle. It is a satisfying greasy bastard. A posh burger is nothing but a ruined steak. A BK burger is a miraculous transformation of offcuts.

>>3473
Never spoken were truer words!

>>3473

The thing with stuff like Burger King, for me, is that the meat may as well not be there. The whole thing tastes of condiments. It feels like the burger itself is only there to pad it out and regulate the temperature.

That doesn't mean it can't taste nice or be satisfying, of course, but it's hard to think of it as food.

>A burger is not a spectacle. It is a satisfying greasy bastard.
Best line on the board.

>>3492
Agreed. Sheer poetry.

I'm going to make one final attempt to win over the masses to fancy burgers. This is my favourite recipe (for four burgers):

125g bone marrow (stored in the freezer), 400g rump steak, A chopped onion, some marjoram leaves, black peppercorns.

Fry the onion in butter for a couple of minutes until soft. Stir in the marjoram and take off the heat. Chop the steak by hand until it's like course mince - gives a much better texture than grinding it in a mincer. Cut a quarter of your bone marrow off and put it aside, then cut the remaining marrow into four slices and stick them in the fridge. Grate the reserved bone marrow over the steak, mix in the onion and season to high heaven.

Shape the mix gently into four burgers and shove in the fridge for an hour to firm up. When ready, crush the peppercorns and keep aside. Fry the burgers in vegetable oil for 3 minutes per side for medium-rare, and leave to rest, covered, in a warm place. Stick some butter and olive oil in the pan and get it hot. Take your bone marrow slices, dust them in pepper and fry them rapidly until caramelised on each side. Take whatever bread you are using and warm through in the pan to soak up the juices, then use whatever you want in the burger, topping each patty with a slice of bone marrow.

It's really quite good, you know. Much nicer than just eating plain old rump steak.

>>3502
You, fundamentally, don't get what "a burger" is all about. Is your recipe the pinnacle of burger making? Yes. Would such a burger be heavenly? Yes! Is such a heavenly experience what one is after when procuring a burger? You're 'aving a giraffe.

It's a base, primal drive. A carnal "Fyude!". An instinctual desire for (to borrow a phrase) "a bit of an animal".

Nice burgers are nice. That is, however, not what a McD or BK burger is about.

The debate raging here is becoming somewhat repetitious.

I don't see why both kinds of burgers can't coexist peacefully. When my dad makes homemade burgers they're great, but he doesn't make them at train stations so we're not comparing like with like. I also don't see anyone, even the BK apologists like myself, claiming that Yankish insta-burgers are real, decent food.

Let us put our differences aside and rejoice in all forms of this humble stalwart.

>>3505

Ah, it's all in jest really. That said, I did delete my last reply for exactly the reasons you state.

>>3505

I agree. I love burgers in all forms - I just felt the need to defend the ones that were being abused in this thread. I made my point several posts ago though, I suggest now we just all get along.

>>3508

>I love burgers in all forms

Even a veggieburger?

>>3509

Is that some kind of sick joke?

>>3509

I wouldn't say no to a beanburger, but I wouldn't choose it over beef.

>>3509
The Quorn Burgers actually taste reasonable (in a "cheap meat paste burger" kind of way).

I quite like quorn/beanburgers too. The vegetarian burgers to avoid are the cheap ones with copious sweetcorn. Ugh.

>>3513

A few years ago, a had a vegan girlfriend, and though, bless her, she didn't begrudge me being a filthy omnivore, I felt it only right to follow her ways when I was around her. She introduced me to the Burger King Spicy Bean Burger - don't ask me why a vegan still chose to eat at Burger King - and that was actually delicious. I'm not sure they still make them anymore, and I'm too lazy to check, but they were really nice.

>>3514
They still make them and I can confirm they are delicious. Vegans like junk food, too.

I don't mind Quorn burgers, and I often use Quorn pieces in meals when I don't have any chicken.

While we're speaking about alternatives, McDonalds in Thailand do a prawn burger with a sweet chilli dip which is quite nice.

>>3516
Same here. The Quorn "chicken style" pieces are simply cheaper than real chicken and work just as well in highly spiced meals such as curry.

Quorn is dirty crap and anyone who eats it is a dirty crap.

>>3515

>Vegans like junk food, too.

Of course...though I don't know how junky a burger made of vegetables is - I was just always confused about my girlfriends moral objection to meat and animal products, yet her desire to eat in a house of meat like BK.

>>3521

Moral objection to meat and animal products... surely then the best thing to do would be to eat organically farmed meat products rather than be veggie. Being veggie takes you out of the situation, choosing organic meat is a positive choice for animal welfare.

Quornburger? Oh no no no!
Beanburger? Oh nom nom nom!

As for vegans/vegetarians, I have no problem with them as long as they don't try to force upon me how I shouldn't eat meat for whatever reason they don't.
Though I do believe that everyone who eats meat ought to be prepared to hunt and kill an animal, should they have to. I quite enjoy watching the bbc3 programme 'Kill it, Cook it, Eat it' because quite often, the non meat-eaters are more willing to kill and butcher than the meat-eaters.

>Moral objection to meat and animal products... surely then the best thing to do would be to eat organically farmed meat products rather than be veggie.
Let me restate what you just said. People who have a moral objection to animals being slaughtered for their food should... have animals slaughtered for their food, rather than not eating animals at all?

I'm a happy organic-where-possible omnivore (got a knuckle of pork from a local farm soaking the salt out as I type this). I can't say I've ever thought that the morally and ideologically consistent course of action for a vegetarian would be to eat organic meat, though. It's a bit of an odd thing to say, really.

>>3521
Most militant vegans I know call it Murder King :|. I think PETA had a campaign years ago with posters and stickers for people to put around everywhere.

>>3526
>Most faggots I know call it Murder King

Fixed that for you, sir.

Sorry, I just wanted to post this image.

>>3529
I like that.

>>3526
Most vegans / vegetarians find the actions of PETA deeply distasteful and highly embarrassing. They make more people rage than they ever convert. Attentionwhores.

>>3529
The idea that any human is a carnivore should be restricted to stupid vegetarians who misuse the term often.

>There is also that one somewhere in Hampshire that was taken over by Heston Blumenthal - supposed to be actually quite good.
I've been to the Popham branch of LC, which is the one that was featured on the TV show. The food I've had is actually quite nice and I'd recommend going there if you ever driving in that area.

>>3532
I don't mind being called a 'carnivore'. It's just the natural opposite to a vegetarian. Don't be such a pedant/oversensitive.

>>3534
Carnivore means you only eat meat. You're an omnivore.

>>3535

And how do you know he actually is an omnivore?

>>3535

While I agree with you, my flatmate literally only eats meat - nothing else. He's like one of those fuckers you see on TV that eat nothing but chicken nuggets, except he doesn't even eat breadcrumbs. He lives on steak, bacon, chicken, and water, and admittedly, beer. I think he also eats eggs, but I still think he could be classed as a carnivore - though technically he still couldn't as it's a species classification.

Also, he's in better physical shape than I am. Far better. Bloody freak.

>>3527
Americuntism? Tut, tut.

Being /nom/, I'll let you off and assume you think balls of offal dislike Burger King.

Meanwhile, back on topic of Little Chef..

Sorry.

>>4509
Was it necessary to bump a six-month-old thread just because I linked to it in /job/?