‘Who’s she, mum?” my teenage son asked, peering at the large poster of Pamela Anderson resplendent in her second skin of a red swimming costume. “She was in Baywatch,” I reply, trying not to feel 175 years old. “What’s that?” he continues, his innocent question like a bash around the face with a Baywatch lifesaver. He was still in nappies when the residents of Malibu Beach were saved on a weekly basis by the best looking people on the planet. But that’s Atomic Pizza for you, pure nostalgia.

While Baywatch may have been lost on him, even he knows who Spiderman is, so having got over the last incident I braced myself for our family meal at its sister restaurant, the newly-opened Atomic Burger, which has vacated its legendary, tiny, cult, shed-like restaurant on Cowley Road with the white picket fence, to move over the road, literally.

Now in situ on the corner of Stockmore Street, where various Mediterranean restaurants have come and gone with increasing regularity over the years, the new gaff has more space, not just for its endlessly growing number of loyal customers, but to accommodate all the comic-book characters, toys, Lego, film memorabilia and anything else a small boy would have in his bedroom, and a grown man would hide in his loft.

And here it can all reign supreme, unleashed, unfettered, for all to see, and the food is no different. So while Spiderman hovers on the ceiling and Hans Solo is frozen in the wall, the menu is similarly excessive, like a kid’s birthday party dream menu.

What Atomic Burger has lost in atmosphere by moving, it has made up for with a more mainstream audience. No longer an exclusive domain, we can all pop in, which was presumably why the place was packed out when we arrived one Saturday afternoon, having to perch on the last table at the back as the students, kids and their grandparents, mouths agape, trailed in endlessly.

But a word of warning. If you want to play safe, don’t come here, go to one of the hundreds of other burger joints in town. Playing safe isn’t the point. You come here to venture out of your comfort zone and walk on the other side of the tracks. My sons got that and were instantly at home, immediately ordering the £4.25 Baconator milkshake (a caramelised bacon shake with cream that they swear by) and some seriously hot Buffalo Atomic wings (£4.75).

Never one to bail, and with a ridiculous sense of false bravado, I joined him with some £4.65 Thermal Detonators (breaded jalapeno peppers stuffed with cream cheese and served with a chipotle dip) and was soon so hot I was sweating, my jalapeno dippers nearly blowing my head off.

“Are you all right mum?” my son asked in alarm as I fanned myself and gulped down my butterscotch milkshake in one, while nodding. Hey, if you’re gonna play with the big boys, wade in. But boy they were good. My eldest son by this time had his tongue actually imm-ersed in a large glass of iced water, steam coming off, so I wasn’t alone.

Half the fun at Atomic Burger is the menu itself, the absurdity of it, the daring. Take my burger for example, the Frito Bandito topped with cheddar cheese, nachos, salsa, guacamole and sour cream (£8.95). It tasted great, the crispiness of the nachos working well against the dense softness of the meat.

There is no polite way to eat the burgers, of course, some coming with chilli, others with black beans, so abandon any sense of decorum, pack in the serviettes and get stuck in. Perhaps not the best first date venue, but at least it gives you something to talk about as the sauce dribbles down your chin and the meatballs plop on to your lap.

All Atomic Burgers come with a choice of fries, from sweet potato to sci-fi chilli, or a side order of choice. As coleslaw can make or break a place, I ordered some and was duly impressed. The chips were a bit thin and hard for me, but that was a small price to pay.

Oxford Mail:
One to relish: The Cajun burger

Meanwhile, back in foodie wonderland, the boys were chowing down on a Dolly Parton burger (£10.95) (double stack burger, double American cheese and double bacon with BBQ sauce) and the Bandit burger (£9.25) — a Cajun rubbed burger topped with smokey BBQ sauce, an onion ring and cheddar. Onion rings in a burger? “Yeah mum, get with the programme.”

How they managed dessert I will never know. By then I was slumped like a beached Malibu whale over the table trying hard to breathe, getting up and walking around to make some space. The boys, on the other hand, had no trouble in consuming a Wookie Cookie Sundae (£5.65), “the best I’ve ever had”, my teenage son told me in an uncharacterstically appreciative tone he never uses at home. The vanilla ice cream, chunks of grated Oreo, chocolate and butterscotch sauce and whipped cream obviously hit the spot. Teen 2 was busy troughing down on a sweet, sticky Butterkist popcorn sundae, stacked with vanilla ice cream, salted caramel, cream and popcorn (£4.25) before panting slightly and going a bit pale.

Carrying each other out of Atomic Burger afterwards, we resembled a rather battered three-legged team after a long pub crawl, but the entire meal had been a great experience.

And as we wound our way home with the windows open, it occurred to me that if Pamela Anderson had spent more time in Atomic Burgers things might have been very differ-ent. She certainly wouldn’t have fitted in that little red swimsuit! As for David Hasselhoff in those little red trunks, the mind boggles.

Atomic Burger 
92 Cowley Road, Oxford
OX4 1JE 
01865 790855

Opening times: Lunch Monday-Sunday 11.30-5pm; dinner 5pm-10.30pm
Parking: There’s a car park in St Clements
Key personnel: Martin Bunce — owner
Make sure you try the... Over 18s Fallout Challenge. A triple meal which costs £25 per challenge. If you finish the challenge in under 45 minutes then you get a free, Survivor T-Shirt. If you fail, you receive a free Victim T Shirt. The Fallout Challenge Burger consists of triple 6oz beef, chicken or veggie burger, triple American cheese, triple Onion Ring, triple Fallout Sauce (seriously hot) and a triple portion of chilli fries
In ten words: Oxford wouldn’t be the same without the almighty Atomic restaurants