local eats :: the purple pig

A couple of weeks ago, O came home from work raving about a burger joint that his colleague had recommended and surprisingly, it was pretty nearby! Usually we have to go mooching into the city for a decent burger, so we were pretty excited to give The Purple Pig a try. They have restaurants in both Yarm and Middlesbrough, but Yarm being closest, we hopped in the car and off we went!
I loved the style of the restaurant, it felt like we were in the city, rather than the little town of Yarm. The communal seating wasn't great, but luckily it was really quiet when we went in, so we had the whole bench to ourselves.

First port of call of course...cocktails! O was driving so he ordered one of the milkshakes, but the blender was broken (he was gutted at this!), so he went with a coke. I chose a PIG Mistake...HUGE cocktail (typical Scot) which had gin, fresh lemon juice, sugar, apple juice, elderflower cordial, grapes and mint. Oh my days, it was so so good! Everyone loves a cocktail in a jam jar and it came complete with a glow stick! I even ate the grapes!

There's plenty to choose from on the menu and after about 10 minutes of changing my mind, I went for their namesake burger The Purple Pig, which came with a double beef patty, bacon, sugary onions, BBQ sauce, baconnaise, purple slaw and piggy smalls. O went for The Notorious P.I.G., which came with a triple beef patty, pulled pork, flat iron, shrooms, Purple Pig mustard mayo, jack cheese and strings. I'm seriously drooling whilst typing this! We also ordered a couple of sides to go along with our burgers (fatties), the Bad Boy fries (a mixtures of normal and sweet potato fries) and deep fried gherkins.

We were actually pleasantly surprised with the burgers. They didn't look awesome, but they tasted amazing! The beef patties were so well cooked and the fries with baconnaise were pretty standard. The pickled gherkins were a bit strange, but none-the-less quite tasty. For some reason I was expecting sliced gherkins not these little cornichons! The blue cheese dip was tasty, but could do with being a little thicker. Overall, we were pretty impressed with the Purple Pig. The staff were really attentive and the food was drool-worthy! It's not the best burger I've ever had, but having this place just down the road means that we will definitely be back!