PORKY'S — Restaurant in England

My wife has been here a few times and always enjoyed the food, so we decided to eat here on Monday as we were passing by on our way home.

I got the "Bacon Royale" burger which was excellent. Meat cooked nicely. Thin and crispy at the edges but also still juicy. Had a really lovely taste (although maybe a bit too much pepper in my opinion?) The brioche bun was really nice and soft and went perfectly with the meat. Definitely one of the better smash burgers I've had recently and I would happily have it again!

I got the Mac & Cheese as my side and this was amazing. Was a big portion for a side (not complaining!), and it was really cheesy with a crusty top and a lovely taste. Their fries are fine but nothing special, but I highly recommend getting the mac & cheese!

I'm giving this review an excellent rating based on the food, however there were also some issues:

1. My wife ordered the same burger as me, but without the bacon jam. When the food arrived, the person who gave it to us asked who wasn't having the sauce and the plates were put down on the table. However, we quickly realised that neither of the burgers had the bacon jam in! I went to ask if I could get a pot of bacon jam to add to my burger and was told that they didn't have any left. This was the main reason for me choosing the royale burger, so it would have been nice to have been told in advance if they had run out of an ingredient for the item I had ordered (and it made no sense when they put the burgers down on the table to say which one had sauce if neither of them had sauce!)

2. They have 2 menus, a regular menu and a "Pig out" menu. The "Pig out" menu is a deal for £13 which includes drink, main and side. I used this menu so that I could have the mac & cheese as my side. But my wife just wanted the bacon royale burger with fries (which on the normal menu is only £12.50 and comes with coleslaw) When we got the bill, they had charged us 2 x pig out £13 even though we both only drank tap water (which also explains why my wife never got her coleslaw).

I questioned why they charged one of us £13 instead of £12.50 and they apologised and amended the bill, but I know as my wife has been here multiple times that they often charge the higher amount for the "Pig out" menu even if you order from the regular menu. In this case it was only 50p difference but based on what you order from the main menu you could end up paying £'s more. Their till system clearly needs to be updated to ensure that they don't charge more just because the person serving enters the wrong menu into the till, as it's not fair to customers to try and charge them more.

Hopefully they will fix the overcharging issue, but I would still highly recommend the food here (especially the burgers and the...

I so wanted to love this place and some of it was great.

We had potato skins and nachos for a starter. The nachos were great with cheese sauce a plenty and a generous portion, not sure about the bits of meat in there though. The skins were actually just potatoes cut in half, they seemed cooked but we're hard in the middle and not crispy, there was more cheese sauce when cheese would have been much better.

For our mains we ordered a dirty dog, chicken burger, pulled pork and ribs. The dog was nice but was completely overwhelmed by more cheese sauce(bit of a theme here), i would advise no cheese would make it a very nice hot dog.

We didn't like the coating on the chicken burger, it was reminiscent of stuffing.

The pulled pork was nice but that was It, a board with loads of pulled pork and a bit of bread, I would suggest a few small brioche buns and some apple slaw would go great here but on its own it gets boring fast.

The ribs were the toughest I've ever had, very hard to cut with a steak knife, no fall off the bone meat here. They did take it off the bill and apologised but it's something the pit master should have known and stopped. I didn't like the glaze it was like a sharp tomato sauce when I would have preferred sweet smoky and sticky but thats a personal taste.

I didn't like the fries but the kids did, pretty sure they are just frozen, would have liked to have seen some nice home made chips. We got some cheese and bacon fries but by now we were sick of the cheese sauce making it's fourth appearance.

The salted caramel shake at £5 was the highlight for me, delicious!

The deserts were also lovely and everything was presented well with nice staff and a good vibe.

We all agreed at the end when we come back we will skip starters try the burgers and have desert. If the burgers are good we will have found a new fav local spot, if not then tbh there would a struggle to find a main we like.

Not tried a steak but if they allow the ribs to go out like that I personally would bother.

Love the place, the vibe, staff and presentation(and the milkshakes), looks like it rests on what the burgers are like for us.

To be...

So we’re killing time driving around the NE coast into Blyth and come across Porky’s BBQ next to the Fat Butcher. Had to stop. First off, the place deffo has a US vibe if a little all over the place. Secondly it’s 3 degrees C outside and maybe 5 inside except for a roaring wood fire by the front door giving the atmosphere a smokey tinge. The young friendly servers were very eager to please and were very careful about my partner’s gluten intolerance. We had a glass of ‘coke’ (not sure what it was) and one of their Dr Pepper dupes, both were flat but we didn’t complain. We never quite understand why BBQ brisket is served ‘pulled’ rather than sliced in the UK? We think it’s because it’s much leaner. No pickles or onion ‘fixins’ is served either, but that’s OK. Our expectations were pretty low but the pulled pork was well-seasoned and wasn’t drowned in the usual sickly-sweet BBQ sauce. Rather good except for the almost complete absence of smoke. The jalapeño/manchego sausage was frankly quite badly overcooked and nary a green fleck of green chilli in sight, nor cheese which had melted out. It tasted like the sausages from a Tesco hot food bar which had sat out all day. You can see from the picture. However, the slaw was good and mustardy, the smash burger charred, well-constructed and quite satisfying. The fries were crispy and seasoned well. All in all, apart from the weird, long banger passing itself off as sausage, we had a satisfying BBQ meal a long way from our Texas home. The staff were lovely, the food much better than expected and very reasonable; a huge portion of meat. We would go again if in the area ever again, but it did make us miss our...