Shake steals the show after visit to burger joint

EATING on an early start is a hard thing to get right. Trying to eat at 5.30am is a fool’s errand and a fool with far more time on their hands than me.

Once you’re into the swing of a shift it can be hard to find time to eat and when you’re in an office with slim pickings for breakfast food nearby, it sometimes comes down to either preparing the night before ( unlikely) or waiting until lunchtime ( the path of least resistance and lowest levels of blood sugar).

Which is how I found myself having a hot peri- peri chicken burger, with cheese, seasoned fries and a Ben and Jerry’s chocolate milkshake for my first meal of the day.

The burger was fine, tasty enough, but their peri- peri sauce lacks the robustness of flavour you get from superior competitor “Portuguese” chicken joints.

I went with Chilo- salted fries, which on the menu were distinct from peri- salted fries. To human tastebuds, they are indistinguishable.

Putting salt on fries ruins what should be a neutral anchor for the standout flavours in a meal.

But that is my fault, not the fault of the good people at Chilo’s, who delivered down the road to the office in impressively sharp time.

What really stood out and what dragged me out of my glucosedepleted stupor, was the Ben and Jerry’s shake.

This shake is among the best you can get. It’s thick, chocolatey and sweet. It tastes like cutting ten years off your life and kissing goodbye to half a mouthful of teeth.

It’s wonderful and best of all ( don’t tell the Extinction Rebellion mob) it comes with a planet- destroying but usable plastic straw, so you can actually drink it. This wasn’t worth the fairly substantial cost of

£ 12.50 ( with free delivery) but in a competition between deadeyed starvation and being slightly ripped off for a dry burger and rubbish fries it’s no contest.

Going to work in the rain and lining your stomach with three coffees isn’t the best way to start your day and I won’t be giving up a packed lunch for Chilo’s any time soon but I might pop along for another one of those shakes.