Norwich – Fupburger @ Ten Bells

I’ve been to Fupburger when they were located at the Dog House, but they’ve since moved to the Ten Bells and it’s the first time I’ve tried their food there. Monday night is certainly the best evening to pick as they have buy one get one free on the burgers, which is most agreeable. The chunky menu is available on large clipboards although customers need to order food separately from drink at the bar as the bar and kitchen operations are separate.

There’s arguably a slight element here of trying too hard with the decor, I’m personally not in the need of being bathed in neon lights but it was all clean and comfortable so no complaints. The set-up seems to be a good partnership as the Ten Bells isn’t usually that busy outside of weekend evenings, meaning they might as well use the empty space.

Unlike Brewdog’s generous burger deal, the arrangement here is that the buy one get one free only applies to the burger itself and so the add-ons have to be paid for on each burger. That’s fair enough, but to be thrifty we just went for the burger on this occasion.

To get the deal it’s necessary to order the same burger, even though they’re all the same price. After a very quick debate between us, the option of the Thug Lyfe with blue cheese, black pudding, streaky pancetta bacon and double American cheese seemed to be the one to go for. The burger is served in a demi brioche bun, which I think is a brioche with a glossy and firmer edge to it, but I liked its taste and texture. I couldn’t taste the blue cheese element as the black pudding element seemed to overpower it, but that was no bad thing. The firmness of the pieces of black pudding added texture and gave it a rich depth of taste, complementing the burger itself well. This was a very agreeable burger and the bacon added a final bit of extra flavour, meaning it was all meaty and tasty.

For completeness, I ordered half a pint of the Jester Brew 4, a well-kept pale ale made in Winchcombe from New Zealand hops.

At £5.50 each for the burger I was suitably impressed. The dining environment was clean and comfortable, without being too harsh and it was possible to escape from the neon. It wasn’t that busy, but we were there early evening and there was a steady flow of customers looking for their burger fix. The venue is struggling a little with their on-line reviews at the moment, but they seem to have been a bit unlikely and some of the reviewers have been seemingly just angry. An example is the:

“Run by jumped up entitled millennials that can’t ever admit to being in the wrong, even when that extends to loyal customers. Avoid.”

And the response from Fupburger is on point as far as I’m concerned:

“Thank you Karen”.

All told, I enjoyed this and it’s one of the best burgers that I’ve had in terms of the richness and depth of taste. It’s not cheap, but the prices are also not unreasonable and given the quality of the food it’s hard to be too disappointed. I suspect that I’ll be visiting again soon and I might treat myself to a side to go with the burger. Incidentally, James was the star of the show when he spent like what seemed about thirty minutes positioning his food and drink for his photo on Untappd…..