It is a humbling moment to realize that I have been unfair in one of my reviews. Not this one, I should say, but in reviewing the Market Cafe, in which I once said that they served the worst sausages in the locality. I take it back. The prize in fact ought to go to this establishment, where the sausages match the faded greyness of the greasy off-white patches on the menus.
The first inkling that there is something wrong is indeed the menu. Simply to place it between one's fingers is to comprehend the nasty origins of the usually affectionate phrase 'greasy spoon'. The laminated menus of the Hamburger Grill are tacky with a gritty, greasy grime. Members of the Desert Rats who had not slept properly for days during the first Gulf War will recall, pulling down greasy goggles one more time and preparing for a day of dusty combat, hoping those smears were merely the smudges of Saddam's burning Kuwaiti oil fields and not an indicator of some nastier chemicals spitefully deployed. No romantic exigencies of war justify the tactile crime which awaits the customers of Hamburger grill, I'm afraid. The feeling is just dirty.
The tea, at 65p a mug is OK. I have no arguments with it, though it is nothing special. The contents of the menu are unimaginative: burgers, chips, burgers with onions, burgers without. (A basic hamburger with or without onions is £1.35.). Breakfasts are a variation of sausage, egg, bacon and chips. (That list with two sausages comes at £3.50; 2 sausages, egg and chips is £3.35). The sausages are dire.
The most expensive thing on the menu is a sirloin steak, chips and tomatoes at £5.95. They also offer chicken and chips at £3.35, plaice and chips for £3.80, a quarter pounder at £2.80 and a Spanish omelet at £2.60. Kids meals cost £2.00.
The Hamburger Grill ought to be a beacon of a place on the High Street, given its protuberant position, unmissable as it sticks out from all the other shops opposite Selbourne Walk and causes a choke point in the free passage of shoppers flowing through the market. It is between Calypso and Specsavers. Sadly, the current owners run the place like a 'how to' of how not to run a successful food outlet. There is a strange smell on entry and the chairs are uncomfortable, being welded into configurations of fours attached to white formica tables - reminiscent of a motorway service station from the 1970s.
The music which was playing on my visit today came from an out of tune radio, combining static, and two stations competing between the Beatles Sergeant Pepper album and Robbie Williams' cover of She's the One. If you are going to play music, play music. Clearly.
The teas, large at 65p can be had in a small size for 55p. Cappuccino sells for £1.00, a small espresso for 80p, a large for 90p.