Blue Frog partly redeemed?

I finally managed to round up a posse to test the burgers at Blue Frog this week, and.....

Well, they might just be the best burgers in Beijing.

My companions were all American, and thus apt to be hyper-critical in the matter of burgers: they restrained their enthusiasm, and would only concede that the burgers were very good "for China". Me, I thought they were way the best I've had here - or anywhere, for quite a long time. (I was throwing up much of the rest of that night, but - since my friends were all fine - I must assume that was down to a bug I picked up somewhere else... or perhaps just the blowback from the cumulative gluttony of the last few days.)

There are still problems with the place. It is now attracting a decent crowd (though perhaps only on Mondays?), at least, but.... the music was slightly less dreadful than on my last visit, but still crashingly inappropriate for that sort of venue (rather '80s disco-ey) and way too loud. It's still a fucking stupid name. The recurring blue theme in the decor is tacky and tedious. The draught beer was undrinkably foul. The cocktails are severely uninspiring. And the service is still a bit haphazard (although it looks as though they may have canned all the people I encountered there last time; and they now have a friendly and attentive English manager doing his best to keep things on track): we must have been served by 3 or 4 different people in all; and it really should not take 20 minutes to deliver a burger at the fairly rare end of the spectrum (they weren't that busy).

As for the burgers themselves, they're pretty darned big, the meat and consistency are excellent, and it's nice that they offer you a choice of how you want them cooked - and do it right (unique for Beijing, in my experience). On the other hand, the salads and relishes are a bit disappointing, and the buns (as seems to be inevitable in Beijing) have that nasty hint of sweetness about them.

The allure of a fine burger might possibly tempt me there just occasionally on a Monday night. But it will be a trial to endure all the other irritations just for sake of a slab of good ground beef.

And I shall feel ashamed of myself. This place really does not deserve to prosper - the prices are just ridiculous. A bog-standard burger ought to be priced at around 30-40 kuai. A really good 'gourmet' burger might be worth 50 or 60 kuai. 80 kuai is just preposterous! Their prices across the board are 1.5 to 2 times higher than most of their competition. In these meltdowny times, surely that can't be viable?

And, as the standard-bearer of the accursed Shanghai-ification of our city, Blue Frog should be boycotted by all decent, right-thinking people. (Except on Mondays, maybe......) Are you with me, brothers and sisters??

The final part of my Burger Review Of Beijing will have to wait until the New Year....