The most overhyped & overrated burgers since Meatliqour

There’s been an explosion in the number of burger restaurants in London over the past couple of years and I’ve been to a lot of them. If you’re feeling burger fatigue, then that’s tough – the Americans have arrived. Two of the biggest US posh burger chains have opened their first branches in London to a deafening amount of hype, so I just had to try them out. My criteria for what constitutes a good burger is fairly straightforward, but sadly one of these newbies to the capital screwed it up badly.

Five Guys

Five Guys is a franchise that originally started out in Alexandria, Virginia close to Washington DC. The London branch is in Covent Garden on Long Acre, a mere stone’s throw away from Leicester Square. A big draw is that you can order online – at least in theory. Online ordering has been suspended at the time of writing due to massive demand. I managed to sneak an order in before it closed, allowing me to skip the one hour-long line that had formed on the evening of the branch’s opening day.

Not realising that the standard Five Guys burger comes with two patties, I foolishly added another patty creating a tottering three patty monster. Even with only two patties, I doubt this burger would’ve tasted any better. The limp, flat, smoothly ground and slightly chewy patties were cooked well-done. The dry meat was at best very mildly tangy but was certainly too salty and ultimately very bland. The limp tomatoes, pickles and bits of diced grilled onions added little, while the small and excessively soft buns soaked up a little too much grease and did a poor job of holding everything together. It’s little better than a McDonald’s burger.

Triple patty insult.

Either these guys have been taken out of context or they’re getting a far better burger on the other side of the Pond. I refuse to believe they have such appalling taste.

The ‘Cajun-style’ fries weren’t nearly as bad as the burger and bore a resemblance to proper chips – soft and made from whole slices of potato rather than reconstituted mash. They were also dusted with salt and some sort of muted paprika, but the massive portion – even in the regular size – meant that the cumulative saltiness was overwhelming and hugely thirst-inducing.

Do Cajuns really eat fries this way? Really?

The food at Five Guys is overhyped dross that can’t possibly compare to London’s best burgers. It’s little better than McDonald’s, but at over twice the price it’s not merely barely disguised junk but an overpriced insult too.

Total price: £13

Star rating: ★☆☆☆☆

Kua’aina

Kua’aina isn’t new, with its branch just off Carnaby Street operating for a couple of years now, but a revisit was in order following the arrival of its two bigger rivals. The small restaurant has had a slight revamp since my first visit with the addition of a cramped downstairs dining area and table service that ranges from surly to nauseatingly buddy-buddy.

The Classic burger is now much improved, probably due in large part to the fact that you can now order it medium rare rather than the previous default of well done. The patty had a moderately coarse grind that was moist, pink and tangy. The vegetables are still just as forgettable as before, but the mildly nutty poppy seed bun does a good job of holding the sandwich together. The bottom bun did become a little soggy from the meat juices, but not disastrously so.

Kua’aina is allegedly a favourite of Barack Obama’s.

Both potato and sweet potato fries are available. Naturally, I went for the sweet potato fries which were crisp and distinctly sweet. The insides were a little too dry, but nothing a touch of ketchup couldn’t remedy.

Even the regular portion is a little too big.

Kua’aina has improved from serving up a merely passable burger to serving up a surprisingly good one that’s far better value than the similarly priced landfill served up at Five Guys.

Total price: £15 approx.

Star rating: ★★★★☆

Shake Shack

Shake Shack is a small chain from New York and its opening in London attracted just as much fanfare as Five Guys’, if not more. The branch’s location in the South Hall of the covered market/shopping centre in the middle of Covent Garden, largely avoided by Londoners and now overrun with slow-moving tourists, raised alarm bells but the food wasn’t nearly as bad as it was at Five Guys.

Tourist land.

There are worse views to behold when eating.

The small patty in the Single Shack Burger had a smooth grind and was cooked medium-to-well done. It was moist, mildly tangy and a little sweet with the latter enhanced by the Shack Sauce which tasted similar to the rose sauce you get in prawn cocktail.

Shacked up.

The small crinkle-cut fries were crisp on the outside, but very bitty on the inside. They were at least free from excess oil.

Meh.

Shake Shack has a range of desserts based on frozen custard, which is basically ice cream made with the addition of eggs as far as I can tell. The Concrete Jungle combines vanilla custard, banana and both peanut butter and marshmallow sauces. The smooth, taut and slippery white mass of the dessert tasted mildly of vanilla. There were occasional strongly-flavoured hits of tangy, viscous peanut butter and sweet tangy banana but these were relatively sparse and I would have liked more. Not bad overall.

London’s Concrete Jungle.

Total price: £15 approx.

Star rating: ★★★☆☆

The Winner

The burger from Five Guys was so monstrously bad that the place should be stormed by pitchfork-wielding villagers and put out of its misery. Shake Shack’s burger was decent, but far from exceptional and should be left to teary-eyed expats and tourists. Kua’aina is my favourite of the Yankee chains here. Its burger was easily superior to the publicity-hogging patties from the other two. However, Kua’aina isn’t as good as the three winners of my burger round-up who serve up some of the best burgers in London. They’re far more deserving of your custom.

Small plates near BBC Broadcasting House

Grabbing a reasonably quick but good quality sit-down meal in London can be tricky. Whether you want to treat yourself during your lunch break or need to catch a show or the last train home, it’s often necessary to resort to pre/post-theatre set menus or cheap and nasty chains. Picture shows that doesn’t have to be the case though. On both of my quiet weekday visits I was in and out in an hour, with dishes coming out in quick succession. If the kitchen can maintain that level of performance when the place is packed out, then they deserve kudos just for that.

That is a real fire exit right?

What’s with the trend in trying to look worn and reclaimed anyway?

Service was enthusiastic and friendly, while the dining room is sparsely furnished and filled with handsome wooden tables and what look like reclaimed chairs. The front opens out onto the pavement, although the smoggy bustle of Great Portland Street doesn’t create the best atmosphere for alfresco summer dining.

I had high hopes for Picture as it was founded by refugees from the Arbutus group of restaurants. The food comes in tapas-sized portions designed for sharing and has an eclectic style, with influences from North Africa, South East Asia and more.

First things first

My first visit started off with a bang. Poached eggs with mushrooms may sound dull, but the warm, soft, rich and runny egg melded beautifully with the firm mushrooms on a thin crisp wafer. Even better were the bed of mushrooms sitting underneath. These squidgy, silky and mildly salty mushrooms were lip-smackingly good when mixed in with a bit of yolk.

The mushrooms are described on the menu as a ‘marmalade’. I have no idea why.

The Picky Glutton is listening to London Grammar.

Soused silver darlings sound like a species of bird, but it’s actually just pickled herring. Paired with crisp pickled vegetables, the fish was tart and sharp. It was pleasing enough, but it’s not far removed from the pickled herring you’d find from a street vendor in Amsterdam.

The name is almost a red herring.

The Lebanese fried chicken on the menu instantly caught my eye. The small chunks of moist poultry were coated in a crisp, crumb-free, oil-free coating. Served on the side was a lightly-spiced sauce which I think was made largely from cumin. It was a good match for the chicken, although it could’ve been more boldly flavoured. The tart, pomegranate-flecked yoghurt was pleasant enough, but didn’t really match the rest of the dish. Overall, it wasn’t bad just a little unremarkable and it felt like it should be a street food or takeaway dish that you can just grab with your fingers rather than cutting at fruitlessly with a knife and fork.

Finger lickin’ good?

For some reason restaurants left, right and centre are making dishes with peaches as one of the ingredients. Here, it’s a spiced lamb meatloaf with peaches and tomatoes. Neither of those fruits complimented the meatloaf though, which was dense and coarsely textured but also a little too dry. It did have a strong taste of lamb to it though and reminded me of a seekh kebab.

Bat out of hell.

I’m a big fan of cherries and honeycomb, so I had to have the dessert that combined both with a chocolate mousse. The dark, slightly bitter mousse was soft, fluffy and airy which contrasted well with the squidgy cherries and the honeycomb’s crisp bite and chewy finish. The contrasting textures were nicely done, but the muted flavours of all three components was disappointing.

I can never be what you want me to be.

Going back for seconds

I had mixed feelings about my first meal at Picture, so I had to return for a second time. I started off my second visit with the beef cooked rare. The small slices of steak were a little tough and chewy in places, but they were also juicy and nutty with occasional hits of salty umami-esque flavour. Accompanying the beef was some sharp, tenderised celery and some earthy beetroot and mushrooms. All three complimented not only each other, but the beef too.

Perhaps celery isn’t a waste of space after all.

The peach turned up again, this time with smoked eel and chickpeas. The eel was very bony, but also very meaty with a consistently strong smokiness to it. The juicy sharp sweetness of the peach slices helped cut through the smokiness, but while the firm chickpeas were pleasant enough I failed to see what they added to the dish.

No jellied eels here.

The pea salad turned out to be the perfect dish for a balmy summer’s day. The firm peas, the sharp, creamy goat’s curd and the crisp, sweet watermelon proved to be a refreshing and tasty combination of contrasting tastes and textures.

Sweet pea.

A heartier but not heavier dish was the tripe casserole. The thick squidgy slices of tripe were served in a thin but moreishly meaty sauce along with squidgy tomatoes and wrinkly, mildly salty pieces of cavolo nero. Simple but delicious.

Better than the tripe casserole I had in Madrid.

The dessert of coconut rice and mango has been disparaged by some, but I lapped it up. It probably helps that I’m a fan of the similar Thai dessert from which this one presumably derives inspiration. The lumpy appearance and mildly coarse texture probably doesn’t help win over the dull and unadventurous, but I was fond of the creamy, boldly flavoured rice and the squidgy, sweet slivers of fruit. A very satisfying end to a meal.

More please.

The Verdict

My rather hit-and-miss first meal at Picture was followed up by a stonking second that was a triumph of well-chosen flavours and textures from beginning to end. The kitchen is successfully ironing out the kinks in its menu and it’ll be interesting to watch how it changes over the coming seasons. Picture deserves to succeed due to its combination of great food, friendly service and reasonable prices. My nearby safe house means that I’m in great danger of growing fat on their food while I line their coffers. Recommended.

Name: Picture

Branch tried: 110 Great Portland Street, London W1W 6PQ

Phone: 0207 637 7892

Web: http://www.picturerestaurant.co.uk

Opening Hours: Monday-Saturday noon-15.00 and 17.00-23.00.

Reservations: probably a good idea

Total cost for one person including soft drinks: £30-35 approx.

Rating: ★★★★☆

This review is in partnership with Match.com. That means they reimbursed me for the cost of the first meal in this review, but apart from asking me to include an evaluation of how romantic this restaurant was, they had no say over the content of this review.

Finding a romantic but affordable place to have dinner in London is tricky. There are the obvious silver service options such as Clos Maggiore, but for most people the high prices rules them out for all but the most special of occasions – engagement proposals and anniversaries rather than first dates. I decided to try out The Grain Store, the newest restaurant in Granary Square near King’s Cross and right next door to Caravan. To help me out, I brought along The Flame Haired Squelchie who was the perfect choice as she’s my go-to sensei when it comes to the wooing arts.

Grain Store is an informal place, letting in scruffy sods like myself and the Squelchie. Given the building’s heritage as a warehouse/granary, it has a suitably post-industrial look with the now pre-requisite exposed brick walls, ventilation ducts, worn-looking furniture and funky lighting. The open-view kitchen spills out into the dining room, fulfilling another restaurant design cliché.

If love is a game, then why is it no fun?

The high ceilings and big open windows, which let in lots of light during daylight hours, give it a very airy feel. However the high ceilings, along with the bare floors, means it can be quite a loud, bustling place which doesn’t lend itself to whispering sweet nothings. The Squelchie and I had to raise our voices when discussing gonad-pleasing tongue tricks, which elicited disapproving stares and bewildered gawping from the provincial housewives at the next table.

A slightly quieter alternative are the handful of tables for two sequestered away in ‘booths’. These small brick alcoves contain three tables for two on the east side of the restaurant and provide a little more privacy. At least the deeply undignified table of shame as spotted by Cheese and Biscuits has been seemingly decommissioned, although the libido-killing stool seating near the entrance to the toilets remain.

All in all, the atmosphere at Grain Store isn’t terribly romantic, but it’s not completely devoid of charm either. It’s best suited for a third or subsequent date when you’re just out for a laugh, rather than a first date when you’re trying to get to know someone. Still, the illuminated fountains outside and the nearby stretch of Regent’s Canal with waterside seating do provide some potential for some post-meal canoodling.

This spurting fountain isn’t some kind of coded metaphor. I swear.

First things first

The Flame Haired Squelchie is a vegetarian which often poses problems when we eat out, but that wasn’t an issue at Grain Store. Although the eclectic menu is not exclusively veggie, more than half of the small plates and a third of the large plates are vegetarian. A handful of them are suitable for vegans too. Between the both of us, we managed to order all but one of the vegetarian dishes on the menu.

Onion bread doesn’t sound like an exciting dish, but it is when the fluffy bread tastes very strongly of sweet, caramelised onions. It was far more interesting than the focaccia, although that bland bread was made palatable by its accompanying dukkah dip – a dry mixture of what Squelchie thinks was ground coriander and fennel seeds among others, although she wouldn’t bet on it.

I want to know what love is.

Mighty White? Is that you?

Crudités at most restaurants usually consist of a few derisory stalks of celery and carrot sticks, but here an interesting gaggle of vegetables was charmingly presented in a small plant pot. The fresh spring onions, asparagus, broad beans, cherry tomatoes, fennel and radishes were great for dipping in the tahini-like dip which apparently was made from cashews and yeast. I wasn’t sure what to make of the dried, crushed, mildly salty olives though.

Without love, I’m all machine.

Yin and yang.

Squelchie is a big fan of beetroot, while I’m more cool on the earthy vegetable which only works for me in some dishes. The beetroot served here with the goat labneh was rather muted, as was the labneh itself. A sort of goat’s milk yoghurt, it lacked the bold earthy muskiness I usually expect from goat’s milk products. At least the accompanying pickled onions were tart and sharp.

Take a look at me now.

The seared asparagus was tender and made even more delicious by the sweet, herby moreish sauce. I’d happily chow down on a bowl of the sauce with some onion bread, although I’d never have guessed that it was based on gazpacho. I wasn’t a fan of the melba toast layered on top though – the thin, stale, soggy bits of cardboard were totally unnecessary.

That’s what you need on a date – funky smelling bodily fluids.

The endive, pear, green bean and roquefort salad served with smoked pepper jelly and toasted hazelnuts sounds like an unholy mish-mash, but it all came together very nicely to form a crisp and refreshing dish. The roquefort was surprisingly mild though and I could’ve done without the sweet chilli sauce-like smoked pepper jelly in favour of more crunchy hazelnuts.

I kissed a girl.

One of the best dishes of the evening was the butternut squash ravioli. The thick, supple skins were filled with a distinctly sweet and nutty filling. I could happily have scoffed whole cauldrons of them, but the accompanying apricots didn’t leave much of an impression.

You’re only sorry you got caught.

One of the very few ersatz meat dishes, so typical of less imaginative vegetarian-friendly restaurants, were the vegetarian merguez sausages. The chickpea and bean-based sausages managed to recreate the initial coarseness of a meat merguez, but they were ultimately fluffy rather than dense and hearty. Instead of creating a chilli or spice-based accompaniment to the sausages, the kitchen went for a milder, sweeter creation instead pairing the merguez with sweet, nutty and fluffy cubes of butternut squash and buttery courgettes which also had a zesty hint to them. It sounds a bit scattershot, but it was a very tasty dish indeed.

Dream a little dream of me.

Moving on to dessert, the Squelchie and I shared two scoops of salted caramel ice cream. The tangy taste was more reminiscent of toffee than salted caramel, but the two are closely related and it was still a smooth, creamy, chilly treat.

You are all I need to get by.

Neither of us were quite satiated, so I moved onto the goat’s milk panna cotta served with spiced, candied tomatoes. The soft, wispy and milky panna cotta was perfectly decent, although I’d be hard pressed to tell it apart from a standard cow’s milk panna cotta. Far more interesting were the small, wrinkled little tomatoes which had a sharp, tangy sweetness that was reminiscent of both ketchup and balsamic vinegar. It sounds bizarre and although the two halves of this dessert never really came together, I enjoyed it nonetheless.

My baby just cares for me.

Squelchie opted for the apricot tart. The sharp, sweet, juicy, fleshy squidges of apricot were almost like candied fruit in their yumminess. The hard, cardboard-like pastry was almost inedible though – it was as if the kitchen had steamrolled a few layers of filo pastry together which is just as unappetising as it sounds. A dessert of two halves.

You never called me tonight.

I don’t drink booze, but the Squelchie does and she noted the dominance of whites over reds on the wine menu, all of which are available by the glass, carafe or bottle. She chose a 500ml carafe of Viognier, a French white wine from Domaine La Bastide, and found it dry and refreshing.

There’s no time for us, there’s no place for us…

Going back for seconds

I hadn’t intended to return to Grain Store, but the need for a late night feed meant that I found myself back all by lonesome. This gave me the opportunity to try out some of the meat dishes, but these turned out to be far less impressive than the vegetarian ones.

Duck confit is a staple of many French and European restaurants, but Grain Store serves up a salmon confit instead. Salmon confit is a new one on me, but this dish left me cold. The fish had the appearance of hot smoked salmon, but it tasted utterly bland. Even the soft, flaky texture was uninteresting. The salad of crisp salted watermelon and sweet peaches was the most interesting part of this dish, but it couldn’t make up for the tasteless salmon.

If the stars were mine…

The pork belly served with a corn and quinoa tamales was better, but still flawed. The pig was the best part of this dish – tender, moist and oozing with partially melted fat, while the exterior had been brushed with a sweet, sticky marinade. The tamales consisted of a mixture of large corn kernels and quinoa seeds steamed inside a corn husk, but the corn and quinoa was largely a tasteless mush making it a poor compliment to the pork. A more traditional tamales filling of polenta-like corn meal would probably have worked far better.

Some people wanna fill the world with silly love songs.
And what’s wrong with that?

My one and only thrill?

Pretend I don’t exist.

Horseradish ice cream with strawberry and balsamic jam sounds like the results of an industrial accident rather than a dessert, but it was the most interesting and successful dish of this second meal. The distinctive spicy heat of horseradish in a cool ice cream with sprigs of rocket-like nasturtium leaves on top was an odd, but ultimately pleasing delight. Even better was the mildly thick but intensely sweet jam generously studded with squidgy bits of preserved strawberries, although any hint of balsamic vinegar was very muted at best. The chilled heat of the ice cream and the intense sweetness of the jam didn’t really compliment each other, but each half of this dessert was enjoyable on its own.

Talk of the town?

The Verdict

Grain Store won’t ever be known as one of London’s most romantic restaurants, but it does serve up some sterling vegetarian dishes that throw down the gauntlet to other restaurants. If this newcomer can come up with meat-free dishes that are interesting, varied and accomplished, then other eateries have no excuse for failing to do so too. Grain Store’s menu isn’t perfect though – it’s hit and miss with some dishes far better than others, but if you choose carefully then an excellent meal can be had by all. Go now, whether you’re dating or not.

Name: Grain Store

Branch tried: Granary Square, 1-3 Stable Street, King’s Cross, London N1C 4AB

Phone: 020 7324 4466

Web: http://www.grainstore.com/

Kitchen Hours: Monday-Friday noon-14.30 and 18.00-22.30. Saturday 11.00-15.00 and 18.00-22.30. Sunday 11.00-16.00.

Reservations: highly recommended

Total cost for one person including soft drinks: £30-40 approx. (add at least £15 if you’re drinking wine)

Rating: ★★★★☆

Is bigger always better?

There are more pizza restaurants in London then there are slow-moving convoys of exchange students, so any new pizza place has to try hard to stand out from the crowd. Homeslice, a new restaurant in Neal’s Yard of Covent Garden, relies on two hooks – huge 20in pizzas topped with unusual ingredients, available whole for £20 or by the slice for £4. Neither of these will please puritanical fans of traditional Neapolitan-style pizzas, so Homeslice has to get both the quality of the base and the combination of toppings spot-on to avoid being nothing more than a gimmick restaurant for tourists and other novelty-seekers with short attention spans.

The short menu changes occasionally with only nine or so different topping combinations available at any given time. A 20in pizza is a massive undertaking, but only the margarita, the courgette and artichokes and the salami and rocket are also available by the slice as well as a whole pizza. Even a well-chosen selection of toppings would get tiresome on a honking 20in pie, so you can also have a half-and-half pizza – one selection of toppings on one side, with another selection on the other. All of the pizzas I tasted had a crust that was soft and delightfully fluffy, but the base drooped under the weight of the toppings which wasn’t surprising given both its thinness and the huge overall diameter of the pizza.

First things first

Reservations are only taken at Homeslice for groups of five to ten people, so if you’re part of a smaller posse then be prepared to wait or get take out. The Euro Hedgie and I opted for a take away, especially as Homeslice’s dining room was unbearably hot on our weekday summer’s evening visit. We opted for a half-and-half with courgette and artichoke on one side.

That’s an Oyster card holder in the corner for size comparison.

The courgette and artichoke is a bianca-style pizza, which means it’s made without tomato sauce. Bianca pizzas can often be excessively greasy, but that wasn’t the case here. The thin, buttery courgette slices went beautifully with the sweet, juicy artichokes. The Euro Hedgie would’ve preferred slices of courgette with differing levels of thickness to provide more variation in texture, but that’s nitpicking of the highest order.

The yellowishness is due to the street lighting in Neal’s Yard. It was originally a lot worse before I toned it down in Photoshop, so stop complaining.

The other side of our half-and-half was ox tail with horseradish cream. The earthy, musky strands of ox tail were moreishly meaty, but there wasn’t a lot of it – the Hedgie estimated there was little more than 100g on our half. The ox tail was complimented surprisingly well by the large helping of fresh basil and the heat and the milkiness of the distinctly flavoured horseradish cream, although a little more spicy heat would’ve been even better.

That’s a bit of oxtail on the left.

Big peg, small hole.

Going back for seconds

I returned to Homeslice with Templeton Peck and managed to snag a table this time around. For one side of our half-and-half, we opted for the mushroom, ricotta and pumpkin seeds which turned out to be our favourite. The earthy mushrooms, which surprisingly included some taut and firm enoki shrooms or something similar, was complimented very well by the coarse yet fluffy and creamy ricotta. The pumpkin seeds didn’t taste of much, instead providing a variation in texture with their crunchiness. The spicy hint provided by the chilli flakes rounded off a nicely balanced pizza.

£20 doesn’t buy you proper crockery, just paper plates. But I can live with that.

Enoki! More likely to be clamshell or cinnamon cap mushrooms, but I’ll pretend they’re enoki.

The other side of our half-and-half, bone marrow with watercress and spring onion, wasn’t as accomplished. The flecks of bone marrow were few and far between and, as expected, were drowned out by the peppery watercress and the punchy sweetness of the tomato sauce. The taut firmness of the spring onions was a pleasant surprise; the muted mozzarella was not.

Can you see any bone marrow? No, neither can I.

The Verdict

The massive pizzas at Homeslice are great for sharing, but the quality of the topping combinations aren’t consistently excellent which is worrying given the small size of the menu. Surprisingly, the vegetarian pizzas I tried were better and more accomplished than the meat ones. A great meal can be had, but only by pot luck or if you choose carefully which limits Homeslice to a three star rating and a cautious recommendation rather than a more enthusiastic one.

Name: Homeslice

Address: 13 Neal’s Yard, Seven Dials, London WC2H 9DP

Phone: 020 7836 4604

Web: http://www.homeslicepizza.co.uk

Opening Hours: Monday – Saturday noon-23.00. Sunday noon-18.00.

Reservations: essential but only taken for groups of five to ten people.

Average cost for one person including soft drinks and service: £25 approx. 

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Updated 22 July 2012 – clarified pricing details

A cosy North London neighbourhood restaurant

Until recently I’d largely become bored of Italian restaurants in London. They were either underwhelming, needlessly fussy or old-fashioned and just plain awful. What restored my faith wasn’t a glitzy haute cuisine restaurant in Mayfair or Chelsea, but a small bistro near Finsbury Park called Osteria Tufo.

Osteria Tufo is located on a quiet residential street and is a small place with room for just three dozen covers or so. This number includes the outdoor al fresco dining patio which is a very pleasant place to wile away a balmy summer evening. This is just as well as the service was slow on on my first two visits, but by the third it was much more efficient. Nonetheless, the service was always very friendly and chatty. The small menu changes almost daily, but is Osteria Tufo currently only open for dinner.

First things first

Osteria Tufo is one of the few Italian restaurants in London I know of that serves porchetta. This Italian roast pork dish is, at its best, ridiculously addictive. The version here consisted of crisp slices of back bacon with a sweet, caramelised edge and hints of rosemary. The herby porkiness went very well with the earthy leaves dressed lightly in vinegar. It’s a good version of porchetta and it could easily be a main dish in its own right if other, different cuts of pork were included in the mix along with some crackling.

Pork-etta.

Seafood tagliolini could easily have been a massive disappointment, but I needn’t have worried. The generous helping of thin, flat egg pasta had a firm bite and was topped with prawns, clams, squid and swordfish. The squidgy clams had occasional hits of earthiness, while the prawns provided a delightfully salty, juicy hit. The real highlight were the meaty chicken-like pieces of swordfish which had a sweet, lemon-like flavour to them.

Fruits of the sea.

The affogato was let down by the bland vanilla ice cream, but it was livened up by the bitter, chocolatey espresso which is served on the side but meant to be drizzled all over the ice cream.

Bermuda, Bahama, come on pretty mama

Going back for seconds

On my second visit I started off with the mussels served in a white white, chilli, garlic and tomato sauce. Although the chilli and garlic were very muted, the punchy sweetness of the tomatoes and the occasional boozy hits made the thin sauce an excellent compliment for the salty, zingy freshness of the small mussels.

Exercise your mussels.

PUNY MUSSEL. NOW I NOM YOU.

The smooth, processed porcini filling of my ravioli main course didn’t look like much, but its buttery, nutty flavour was rich and satisfying. The punchy sweetness of the tomato sauce tended to obscure it though, especially when taken with a mouthful of fresh, zingy basil. It seems churlish to resent a well-made pasta sauce, but its presence here really was a distraction from the ravioli and its superb filling.

Fluffy fun pillows.

Although polenta isn’t a traditional accompaniment to pasta, my ravenous appetite demanded a side dish. The fried slices of corn meal had a firm bite and a fluffy, if also slightly bitty interior. A topping of fresh parsley was a nice touch, but I couldn’t help but wish for polenta in the form of a creamy, fluffy mash.

Discus thrower.

Sadly, my second meal ended on a sour note. Judging from the time it took to reach my table, the kitchen had clearly botched my raspberry creme brûlée and had to start again producing a weird chocolate creme brûlée instead. The thin, chewy film that passed for a crust was odd and unpleasant, as was the flat flavour and the inconsistent texture of the custard base which ranged from lumpy to smooth. It was frankly rubbish, but I was too embarrassed for the kitchen to send it back.

What the hell happened?

Three is the magic number

Prawns and artichokes sounds like an odd pairing and while the two didn’t compliment each other exceedingly well, they were still well prepared. The prawns were fresh, plump and firm, while the artichoke pieces were tender with a hint of zestiness. I could’ve done with less leaves and more artichoke, but even so this was a good starter.

The Picky Glutton is listening to The Beach Boys.

Pigeon wrapped in pancetta and served with mashed potato was an oddly wintery dish for the muggy Mediterranean-style weather on my weekday evening visit, but it wasn’t too heavy. The small but dense bits of pigeon were tough, but their offally, woody taste was an excellent coupling with the smoky pancetta. The excessively soft broccoli and thick, stodgy mash accompanying the meat were disappointing though.

The only good pigeon is a dead pigeon.

Following the disastrous creme brûlée from last time, I wasn’t expecting much from my panna cotta but it was surprisingly pleasant. The firm, milky gelatin was topped with a well-chosen thin, dark, slightly bitter chocolate sauce. The flavours of this light dessert were a little muted, but the successful contrasting of different textures worked well.

It’s difficult to capture the colour brown under street lighting.

The Verdict

Despite a few missteps, some small and one serious, I’m very fond of Osteria Tufo. The simple, but generally elegant and tasty dishes make it a delight worth savouring. It’s not quite compelling enough to make it a destination worth travelling over town for, but if you’re in the neighbourhood then it’s well worth a visit.

Name: Osteria Tufo

Address: 67 Fonthill Road, Finsbury Park, London N4 3HZ

Phone: 020 7272 2911

Web: http://www.osteriatufo.co.uk

Kitchen Hours: Tuesday-Sunday 17.30-23.00. Closed Mondays.

Reservations: probably a good idea

Total cost for one person including soft drinks: £30 approx.

Rating: ★★★★☆

This review is in partnership with JUST EAT - that means they reimbursed me for this meal. But they had no foreknowledge of, or say over the content of this review

I rarely eat take aways anymore, mainly because the choice often comes down to which one of the three Ps I want to subject myself to – a piss poor pizza, poppadom or prawn roll. This partnership with JUST EAT gave me the opportunity to try a Lebanese take away from West End restaurant Maroush V, just off Oxford Street. Why Lebanese? Apart from not being one of the three Ps, Lebanese food is vegetarian-friendly and gluten-light – essential for my delicate veggie dining companion the Flame Haired Squelchie. Plus, it also has the benefit of being light – a bonus during the balmy, tropical weather in London at the time of dining.

Joining the Squelchie and I was Templeton Peck, a fellow carnivore. Maroush’s takeaway and eat-in prices are identical and delivery requires a minimum order of £25. Our order arrived within 45 minutes of ordering which was impressive, but then again our West End safe house is a mere six minute drive or 13 minute walk away from the restaurant. Thrown in for free with our order was a large supply of rather chewy kobez flatbread and a tzatziki that was far too watery which did not impress the Squelchie who has roots in the Near East.

At the risk of being patronising, that’s a Roman numeral five, not a ‘vee’.

Wait, someone screwed up yoghurt?

Templeton and I shared the Lisanat, or lamb’s tongue. The plain, coarse, offaly bits of meat tasted strongly of lamb and resembled liver. Not awful, but not especially remarkable either.

I will cut out your tongue.

Speak in tongues.

Templeton and I also shared the Kibbeh Saynieh. I was expecting small, crisp rugby ball-shaped parcels of deep fried minced lamb and cracked bulgur wheat. What we got instead was an odd pie-shaped dish. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t terribly impressive either. The grainy mince looked and tasted like subpar haggis filling.

I can make a tin foil hat out of that tray!

I should have washed my new tin foil hat before wearing it.

The quality of the vegetarian dishes was extremely variable. Squelchie was unimpressed with the okra stew which curiously had the addition of pickled silverskin onions. The small baby okra used was too slimy, which some may prefer but the Squelchie doesn’t. The thin tomato-ish sauce did little to redeem this rather disappointing dish.

Comes with rice flecked with small pasta shells.

Both Templeton and Squelchie were turned off by the Fattet Hummus B’laban, a mixture of boiled chickpeas, fried bread, garlic, yoghurt and pine kernels. Templeton likened it to cat vomit which I think is a bit harsh (plus I’m fairly certain Templeton has never willingly eaten feline sick). The stodgy bits of oily fried bread were unpleasant as was the slightly squidgy texture of the chickpeas, but the tart yoghurt mixture made it all kind of palatable.

Damning with faint praise?

The fried flatbread turned up again in the fattoush, a salad of lettuce, tomato, cucumber, mint, onion, radish and summac all dressed in lemon juice and olive oil. Squelchie and Templeton were more fond of the fried bread than I was, but we all liked the fresh, light and zesty vegetables.

The endless series of combinations that is the salad.

The most successful dishes of our meal were a trio of Lebanese classics. The Hummus Beiruty sounds comical, but the layering of hummus and tahini was flavourful and packed with a surprising amount of chilli heat and lots of fresh parsley.

Hummus beiruty? That’s a name? Really?

The falafel wasn’t the best we’ve had in London, but it was crisp on the outside, reasonably fluffy on the inside, free from excess oil and had a reasonably strong taste of chickpea.

Four by four.

Bite me.

I’m a big fan of mutabbal/baba ghanoush, a puree of aubergines, tahini and lemon juice. The version here was a little muted in flavour, but it was still creamy with a light smokiness to it.

All your eggplants in one basket.

The Verdict

Our takeaway meal from Maroush V was unimpressive with the food varying from poor to middling. This would’ve been easier to swallow at low cost, but the overpriced bill was just too much for such a disappointing level of cooking. Should’ve had one of the three Ps instead.

Name: Maroush V

Address: 4 Vere Street, London W1G 0DH

Phone: 020 7493 3030

Web: http://www.maroush.com/vere-street-restaurant

Opening Hours: Sunday – Wednesday noon-02.00 and Thursday – Saturday noon-05.00

Reservations: yeah, if you want

Total cost for one person excluding drinks and tip when shared between three: £22 approx.

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

A new culture of beef eating?

Note from The Picky Glutton: this is a guest post from The Flame Haired Squelchie, a trusted dining companion and also a wilting vegetarian oenophile who occasionally acts as my pseudo-romantic interest when we’re checking out restaurants for romantic ambience

As a journalist who has abandoned the consumption of meat in favour of vegetarianism, I had the opportunity to attend the launch of Professor Mark Post’s much-hyped and highly publicised cultured beef, a form of artificially grown meat funded by Google co-founder Sergei Brin. I’d actually agreed to taste the stuff, but the public tasting turned out to involve a gallery of journalists watching Post and only two invited guests – food scientist Hanni Rützler and author Josh Schonwald – eat the stuff.

What is it?

The meat is cultured from a cell taken from a biopsy of muscle from a slaughtered cow. It’s grown into short, fine strips in doughnut shaped trays about 1cm in circumference. These are designed to replicate the tendons along which muscle cells would form in nature. These are bathed in a growing medium which includes bovine foetal plasma and antibiotics.

A petri dish of lab grown beef.
Independent photography was prohibited at the public tasting, so all shots have been provided by a PR company with a press website designed by an incompetent moron.

To make the burger, the fragments of muscle are blended with breadcrumbs for stability and then turmeric and beet juice for colour. Photos of the lab-grown meat in its – for want of a better word –  natural state show that it’s almost colourless. The coloured end result looks… well, like a beef burger patty.

Blackadder was somewhat dubious about Baldrick’s offer of mozzarella

Cultured beef grown in the lab compared to traditionally farmed beef.

Professor Post’s team at the University of Maastricht isn’t yet able to culture animal fat in a way that’s suitable for human consumption, so the meat content is pure muscle. This is a notable problem as fat is, of course,  one of the characteristics that gives meat its flavour.

Cooking & Serving

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more carefully cooked burger than this one. The duties were done by Chef Richard McGeown. The burger was slowly cooked over a medium flame in a skillet of sunflower oil and was also basted in butter – an attempt to compensate for the lack of fat in the cultured beef. No seasoning was added, not even salt.

While I wasn’t able to taste the burger, I was close enough to catch the odd whiff as it cooked, and went to loiter nearer to the cooking area afterwards to pick up on any residual odour. It smelled faintly meaty, but nowhere near as intense as a typical beef burger, which I find produces a particularly distinctive odour. The chef described the smell as ‘subtle but natural’ as he cooked.

Once cooked, the five-ounce patty looked just like a normal burger with a somewhat crisp, browned exterior. There was something of the Tesco Value Burger about it, but nothing that you’d spot as out of the ordinary if it turned up on your plate at a diner. Although the beef burger has been photographed in a bun, it wasn’t eaten that way.

Tasting

The three tasters tried the patty without salt, pepper, bun, ketchup or seasoning of any sort, even though a bun and sliced tomato were provided. While I can see how this is important for the sake of actually getting to grips with the actual flavour of the cultured beef, it’s very rare burger indeed that doesn’t even have a trace of salt in its makeup.

It’s somewhat telling that they left the burger only half-eaten, and while they said that it might be improved by adding salt or ketchup, no one attempted to actually add any. No one recoiled in horror at tasting, but there wasn’t any particular enthusiasm, either.

Still better than a Five Guys burger.

Schonwald described it as being somewhere between a McDonald’s and a veggie burger, emphasising the burger’s realistic mouth feel, but noting that it tasted very bland, with a neutral flavour akin to cake or pasta. He eventually concluded that it was ‘not that bad’ – faint praise indeed.

Hanni Rützler placed more emphasis on the texture, which she said was surprisingly ‘intense’. While she discussed this at length, she had less to offer when it came to her thoughts on the burger’s taste, eventually concluding that its taste reminded her of meat but was less intense.

The tasting done, about half the burger was put aside, to be left uneaten.

Would I?

Although I attended the public unveiling on the basis that I was prepared to eat the burger, and would have taken one for the team (and for science) were I given the opportunity to taste it, it’s absolutely not something I’d eat for fun in real life – even if it didn’t cost £250,000 to make. It looks like cheap meat and the lack of fat means that it won’t taste of anything much at all.

Although sacrificing a cow so one of its cells can be used to culture 20,000 tons of artificially grown beef and therefore save countless other cows is something I could probably live with, the growth medium made from the blood of unborn calves is definitely well past any flexibility my somewhat pragmatic vegetarianism might allow. Post claims he is working on an alternative growth medium, but that seems like a half-hearted promise given his next point.

Professor Post also points out that cultured beef isn’t aimed at vegetarians, whom he encourages to continue abstaining from meat, but at committed carnivores who can’t be convinced to become vegetarians. Cultured beef also isn’t a consumer-ready product for now: it’s one for the future, when the pressure on global food production may make traditional farming of meat environmentally unsustainable. It’ll probably be a more than adequate replacement for whatever they put in cheap meatballs and lasagnas at the moment. However, given the choice between eating lab-grown meat and remaining vegetarian… at the moment vegetarianism seems far more appetising.

Eat like a student on Stroud Green Road

121 Stroud Green Road has been a cursed address for eateries. Over the past three years or so, the site has been home to a caff, a noodle bar, a fried chicken take away joint and a Turkish restaurant (where I once spied one of the owners crying into her hands). The long-windedly named Rub Slow Food Diner and Milk Bar is the latest tenant and offers a simple menu: Caribbean-style meat, milkshakes and New York-style cheesecakes.

Rub feels like a cross between a student union bar and a Shoreditch squat. The threads strung between the bare lightbulbs look a little silly, while reprints of old movie posters line the walls and the tables are all decorated with musical themes (there are Bob Marley and Nine Inch Nails tables, for example).

Rather than table service, you fill out a checkbox order form and hand it in at the till with your payment. Take a seat and wait for the food to arrive. The staff still need a lot of breaking in though – misreading order forms and bringing incorrect dishes was annoyingly common.

First things first

I wasn’t expecting much from the pulled pork given that even dedicated barbecue restaurants in London have trouble producing an edible version. Rub’s version was far too dry and bland and the tame ‘extra hot’ sauce did little to revive it. At least the accompaniments of malty, lightly spiced rice and earthy, zesty leaves were pleasing.

Pull the other one…

Far better than the tasteless pulled pork was the side dish of jerked beans. The soft, creamy beans came in a surprisingly hot and peppery scotch bonnet-based sauce.

For a ‘slow food’ diner, the dishes come out at a rapid pace.

Despite the lengthy list of cheesecakes on the menu, typically only one or two are available on any given evening. The raspberry cheesecake was thick, dense and very creamy with a soft, crumbly biscuit base but the raspberry flavour was barely detectable. The accompanying vanilla ice cream was very muted too.

Why is this metal plate so small?

Although the chocolate milkshake was a bit on the small side and its thin milkiness won’t suit everyone, I did like the dark chocolatey taste.

Rub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the grub?

Going back for seconds

The limp pulled pork from my first visit has a poultry counterpart in the form of the jerked chicken. The bone-dry breast meat was only very lightly spiced. Lame.

Why is the meat accompanied by nachos?

Once again it was the side dish that was far more tasty than the meaty main. The roasted plantain slices were sweet and tender.

Jerkmerica? What kind of email address portmanteau is that?

The peanut butter milkshake didn’t manage to replicate the viscosity of peanut butter, but its distinctly sweet and nutty taste was correct and present.

I’m not satisfied until I hold you tight.

The rum and raisin cheesecake was very similar to the raspberry cheesecake from my first visit, except the muted raspberry flavour was replaced by a light hint of rum and the almost complete absence of raisin.

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.

Third time’s the charm?

The most successful meat dish I had at Rub was the pulled lamb. The tender strands of reasonably moist meat actually tasted of lamb which also had a mild fruity spiciness to it. The portion size was noticeably larger this time around, with the small but acceptable servings replaced by a heap of meat almost twice the previous size.

The black sheep of the family.

Although I had ordered sauerkraut and pickle, I was served coleslaw by accident instead. It was reasonably good as coleslaw goes – the heap of cabbage and carrot strips was sharp and not excessively creamy.

Coleslaw does not count as one of your five a day.

The only cheesecake available was once again raspberry, but it was a little different from its previous incarnation. It was lighter and less densely packed, but with a stronger taste of raspberries with a slight grittiness to it reminiscent of the actual texture of the fruit itself. The bolder taste of fruit was welcome, although it was a shame it came at the expense of the delightfully thick creaminess of the rest of the cheesecake.

Blow a raspberry.

Washing it all down was the vanilla and toffee milkshake. The combined taste was addictive and reminiscent of caramel and malt.

Voffee.

The Verdict

Stroud Green Road needs more good restaurants to serve the inhabitants of Hornsey, Crouch End and beyond, but Rub just isn’t good enough. The low prices, quality side dishes and milkshakes aren’t enough to make up for the generally substandard meat dishes and inconsistent cheesecakes.

Name: Rub Slow Food Diner & Milk Bar

Address: 121 Stroud Green Road, London N4 3PX

Phone: not listed

Web: https://www.facebook.com/RubDiner/info

Opening Hours: Tuesday – Friday 18.00-22.00 and Saturday noon-22.00. Closed Sunday-Monday.

Reservations: not necessary

Average cost for one person including soft drinks: £16 approx.

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

BBQ, Barbecue, Bar-B-Q, Barbeque. A rose by any other name is just as sweet.

The British summer inevitably means that groups of men all across the country will be huddled around a heap of coals, trying to light and stoke a barbecue grill. While there’s a lot of joy to be had in a backyard grill at home (especially if Ginger Pig sausages are involved), it’s hard to beat a proper American-style barbecue. Although it’s entirely possible to cook up an American-style barbecue at home, it’s difficult, expensive and takes a lot of time and space.

This is why, I suspect, there are so few American-style barbecue restaurants in London and so few of them can do it well – attempting to smoke enough meat to a sufficiently high standard, satisfy customer demand and without any wastage is a serious logistical undertaking. Over the past two months I’ve endeavoured to visit every American-style barbecue restaurant and market stall in London to find the best pulled pork, ribs and beef brisket.

For an introduction to what I consider to be a good American-style barbecue, then keep reading. Otherwise, feel free to scroll down to the Table of Contents and the reviews themselves.

This is local barbecue… for local people.

American-style barbecue isn’t about slapping something on a grill and then removing it a few minutes later. It involves smoking meat over heat from a wood-burning fire for long periods of time – sometimes as long as 18 or even 24 hours. The woods used are a seasoning onto themselves, giving the meat a certain flavour, so the use of charcoal-based fires is a matter of some controversy. I strongly suspect most (but not all) of the barbecue eateries covered here use charcoal-based fires and while it’s much more practical, and the results are probably indistinguishable in some cases, some character is lost by switching away from a wood fire.

There are a lot of regional variations in American barbecue and it’s difficult to summarise it all without going into excruciatingly parochial detail or without making crude regional generalisations. At risk of doing the latter, here’s a very, very brief overview of the six main styles. If I’ve made any gross inaccuracies, let me know.

• Memphis – pork ribs prepared either dry or wet. Dry ribs are rubbed in a mixture of salt, sugar and spices before smoking. Wet ribs are brushed with a sauce both before and after smoking. The two main varieties of pork ribs are:
  • Spare ribs come from the bellyside of the pig, have more fat than meat and can be comically huge. Spare ribs trimmed of their tips and other bits are known as St. Louis-style ribs for some reason that may or may not involve the city of St. Louis.
  • Baby back ribs come from the spinal area of relatively young pigs. Much smaller than spare ribs. The meat here tends to be ‘wedged’ in between the bones, rather than hanging off the bone as with spare ribs.
• Carolinas – pork cooked slowly so that the meat becomes very tender, but still with a firm bite on the caramelised exterior, so that the meat can be pulled off the bone. Pulled pork is usually made from pork shoulder (also known as Boston butt for some reason), but sometimes from cuts across the entire pig. Often served in a vinegar and/or tomato-based sauce.
• Texas – beef brisket and beef ribs. Beef brisket comes from the area of the cow above the forelegs (roughly) and is usually served sliced or chopped into smaller pieces. Marbled with connective tissue and fat, it’s damn difficult to cook brisket so that it’s tender yet moist and flavoursome.
  Beef ribs tend to have much more meat on them than their pork counterparts. The two main types of beef ribs are:
  • Short ribs which come from the bellyside of the cow and tend to have a lot of lean meat (much more so than pork spare ribs) as well as fat attached to them. Also known as a Jacob’s Ladder.
  • Back ribs come from the spinal area of the cow and have a thin layer of meat between each bone.
• Kansas City – various meats hot smoked with a dry rub and then served with a tomato and molasses-based sauce. Also known for the pointed tips of beef brisket, known as burnt ends. If not cooked for long enough, these can be very hard and chewy. If cooked for too long, these can be far too dry.
• Kentucky – mutton served with a Worcestershire sauce-based dip.
• Atlanta – some of sources are adamant that Atlanta doesn’t have its own home grown-style of barbecue, while others disagree just as vehemently. According to the latter camp, Atlanta-style cue consists of whole hogs smoked over Georgia peachtree wood.

Carolina-style pulled pork, Texan-style beef ribs and Memphis-style pork ribs (both dry and wet) tend to be the most common forms of American barbecue in London. Texan-style beef brisket and Kansas City-style dishes do pop up from time-to-time, but they’re very rare.

For me, pulled pork should have an exterior that’s caramelised and a little firm, giving way to a smoky, tender and moderately moist interior. Although some swear blind by pork ribs, I think beef short ribs are far superior. A thick chunk of moist, smoky beef that’s tender enough to be pulled off the bone with ease and is layered with soft, oozing connective tissue and fat is a beautiful thing.

I’ve concentrated here on dedicated barbecue restaurants and eateries. I’ve also included some restaurants that serve both barbecue and non-barbecue dishes, but still allegedly focus on food from the American Deep South and Midwest. Please don’t write in complaining that I’ve excluded your favourite Wetherspoon’s and its oven-heated rack of baby back ribs. I don’t care and neither should you.

Table of Contents

Barbecoa
Bare Bones Cue
BBQ Lab
BBQ Whiskey Beer at The Wargrave Arms
Big Easy
The Big Smoke at The Elk Bar
Blue Boar
The Blues Kitchen
Bodean’s
Duke’s
Joe’s Southern Kitchen
The Joint
Last Summer Swine
Lazybones
Meat Lover
Miss P’s Barbecue
Pitt Cue
Porky’s
Prairie Fire
The Rib Man
Red Dog Saloon
Rotary Bar and Diner
Smokestak
Smokey Tails
Texas Joe’s

Barbecoa

I first visited Jamie Oliver’s Barbecoa shortly after it first opened and found the experience to be, at best, a rather mixed one. I revisited Barbecoa with the help of The Euro Hedgie and found that the food had devolved to a shockingly bad state.

We started off with the deep-fried pickles, but these were no match for the excellent version available at Meatliqour. The slices of pickle were juicy, but they were also far too thick and firm. They were coated in a coarsely textured and crispy coating that was also far too bland.

deep fried pickles at Barbecoa

The meat on the baby back ribs was far too firm and completely lacking in tenderness – so much so that I suspect they had been cooked in an oven rather than on a barbecue. The ribs were prepared wet with the sauce tasting strongly of spring onion and mildly spicy chillies. Although not traditionally American, it was still quite pleasing. It’s just a shame the rib meat was so bad.

Barbecoa baby back ribs

The Hedgie found his bourbon chicken wings to be very bland and uninteresting. At best, they were subtly sweet. The sweet, moist and refreshingly crisp watermelon accompaniment, which had a strangely spicy tinge to it, was far more interesting.

bourbon chicken wings at Barbecoa

Barbecoa’s pulled pork is apparently made from pork shoulder and served on a waffle along with coleslaw. The texture was neither too firm nor too soft, but the meat was also very sweet. Although not noticeable in small bites, the cumulative effect once the entire plate had been devoured was one of overpowering and excessive sweetness. If it wasn’t for the creamy coleslaw acting as counterpoint to the sweetness, the pulled pork would have been inedible.

Sugar bomb.

Even worse than the pulled pork was the beef short rib. The beef was far too firm and waxy with an unpleasantly bitter taste to it, while the collagen stubbornly stuck to the bone and required real effort to pry off.

beef short rib at Barbecoa

Jacob’s Ladder beef ribs at Barbecoa

There was no escape from the bad cooking, even in the side dishes. The sweet potatoes were so bland and tasteless, we almost thought the kitchen was attempting to pass off some butternut squash that had gone past its sell-by date as sweet potato.

sweet potato at Barbecoa

The food at Barbecoa is irredeemably awful and the only good thing about the place are the night time views of St Paul’s. Leave this place to the tourists and portly, bellicose City boys and head somewhere else instead.

St Paul’s as seen from Barbecoa

Average cost per person: £30-35 approx.

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

Bare Bones Cue

Bare Bones Cue is a market stall that makes appearances at various markets, mostly those south of the river. Bare Bones lives by its name, selling only one dish – pulled pork, either in a bun or on a bed of lettuce as a carb-free option. Although the hide of the pork was lightly charred and smoky, the meat itself was too dry and tough. A choice of sauces is available, but it was hard to get a feel for my choice of hot and spicy from the minimal squirt given.

pulled pork from Bare Bones

Average cost per person: £5

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

BBQ Lab

At the moment BBQ Lab is a one meat-only food truck, serving up pulled pork either in a bun or in a box with a selection of sides. The boxes sold out in an hour on my weekday lunchtime visit to BBQ Lab’s pitch at Kerb King’s Cross, so I had to settle for the bun instead. The pork was a little dry and a bit too soft, but not disastrously so.

pulled pork bun from BBQ Lab

It was on the bland side though with most of the flavour and character coming instead from the sticky, sweet and sharp bourbon-infused sauce. The sharp pickles were a tart touch, while the candied bacon stuck out like a sore thumb – very sweet with a hard, crackling-like texture. The brioche bun was muted in its butteriness, which is a good thing as this meant it didn’t take too much attention away from the sauce.

Average cost per person: £7

Rating: ★★★☆☆

BBQ Whiskey Beer at The Wargrave Arms

This residency at an Edgware Road pub gets an award for the most unoriginal name here. The kitchen is open every day and starts serving at noon.

The pulled pork is available in a sandwich, in a burger or on top of a bed of chips. I opted for the latter which is charmingly called Fryer Trash on the menu. The pork was a little too tender, but not excessively so. The pork wasn’t very smoky, but it was moist and had a mildly sweet, smoky, boozy, tangy sauce mixed in. The chips were thickly cut, but they were too chewy and each chip also tended to be too bitty on the inside. Not bad.

pulled pork fryer trash at BBQ Whiskey Beer

While the pulled pork was merely satisfactory, the beef short rib was very good indeed. The meat was tender, moist and a little pink with rich rivulets of fat and connective tissue running through it, while the collagen peeled off the bone without any effort. Although the beef was not especially smoky, it did have a mildly sweet and tangy taste to it.

beef short rib at BBQ Whiskey Beer

Jacob’s Ladder beef rib at BBQ Whiskey Beer

I was expecting the cornflake sundae to be a visceral pleasure in the vein of Hawksmoor’s cornflake milkshake which was perhaps unrealistic, but by any measure this dessert was underwhelming. Hard and crunchy cornflakes were drizzled over a milky, vaguely cornflake-flavoured dollop of ice cream. Beneath that were scoops of mediocre chocolate and caramel flavoured ice creams drizzled in caramel. Meh.

cornflake sundae at BBQ Whiskey Beer

Despite my preference for beef ribs over pork ribs, I had to return to BBQ Whiskey Beer to try out to their St Louis cut ribs and I was glad I did. The pork was very tender, a little pink and surprisingly light despite the amount of fat and connective tissue running through it. The sticky glaze had an odd, but pleasingly sweet tanginess to it. Like the beef ribs, it was accompanied by some bog standard pickles and coleslaw spiced up by the addition of parsley.

St Louis cut pork spare ribs at BBQ Whiskey Beer

Given the excellence of the ribs, the flawed triple cooked chips were especially disappointing. Although crisp, they were also far too oily. Each chip was also bitty or hollow on the inside instead of being a recognisably thick cut slice of potato.

triple cooked chips at BBQ Whiskey Beer

Although not every dish was perfect, BBQ Whiskey Beer deserve a permanent home based purely on the quality of their excellent ribs.

Average cost per person: £20-30 approx.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Big Easy

Big Easy is something of a Chelsea institution, mostly due to its all-you-can-eat specials and other deals. The kitschy decor, meant to resemble a Gulf coast crab shack, is an acquired taste though as is the food.

Although not a barbecue dish, the crab claws is one of Big Easy’s signature dishes so I had to try them. Served chilled and on ice, the claw meat had an oddly musky and earthy yet still pleasing flavour. The excessively sweet honey-based dipping sauce is best avoided though.

crab claws at Big Easy

The ‘prime belly’ ribs are nothing if not generously proportioned. Each rib had a thick slab of meat and solid, unrendered fat attached to the bone. The smoky, tangy flavour was very weak and was at its strongest in the strip of meat closest to the bone. Overall each rib was bland and uninteresting, which made eating each one a dull, monotonous and unsatisfying experience. Ironically, the side dish of soft, smoky beans dotted with bits of pork was a tastier and more interesting dish.

‘prime belly’ ribs at Big Easy

barbecue beans at Big Easy

A second branch of Big Easy is due to open in Covent Garden sometime during the summer of 2013, but they’re clearly aiming for the indiscriminate tourist crowd if this is the standard of barbecue that they’ll be offering.

Average cost per person: £20-30 approx.

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

The Big Smoke at The Elk Bar

Located within spitting distance of the Fulham branch of Bodean’s, The Big Smoke is one of very few barbecue eateries in London to serve beef brisket. However, the thin slices of dry, tough, cardboard-like of beef were repulsive and inedible.

Cardboard.

Even worse was the pulled pork. The texture of the bland-tasting pork was inconsistent, with some strands too firm and others excessively soft. The worst part was the puddle of grease at the bottom of the plate which gave much of the pork a slick, runny sliminess that ended up trickling down my chin. Disgusting.

Disgusting.

The least offensive parts of my meal were the side dishes, but this is a back handed compliment as the coleslaw and sweet potato fries were so bland as to be utterly forgettable.

coleslaw at The Big Smoke

sweet potato fries at The Big Smoke

My meal at The Big Smoke was so vile that I couldn’t bring myself to return and try out the pork ribs. I can only assume The Big Smoke is some kind of cruel joke at my expense.

Average cost per person: £20-25 approx.

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

Blue Boar

A lot of American barbecue restaurants in London look like a pastiche of actual barbecue restaurants in the US. Wood-panelled walls, random Americana dotted all over the place, gingham table cloths, grease-proof paper and food served in enamel tin plates. All that’s missing are faux Southern accents.

Blue Boar in Westminster couldn’t be more different – a snooty maître d’, plush carpets, white linen table cloths, an expensive wine list, finger bowls, silver service and abstract paintings of prime ministers on the walls. It was all rather puzzling until I realised that Blue Boar is the in-house restaurant of the InterContinental Westminster hotel.

A Westminster hotel restaurant. Imagine all the backhanders, dodgy deals, corrupt chortling and broken promises these walls have seen.

I’m not quite sure which ribs were used in the pork ribs starter. The shape resembled St. Louis cut spare ribs, but the relatively sparse amount of meat on the bones and lack of fat was more reminiscent of baby back ribs. In any case the meat was reasonably firm – neither too soft nor too tough. The charred crust gave way to meat that was mildly smoky, moist and a little pink. The most intriguing thing about these ribs was the marinade –  its mild heat, zestiness and fruitiness was distinctively moreish.

pork ribs at Blue Boar

The ribs were a good starter, which made the underwhelming pulled pork all the more disappointing. Although the texture was just right, the pork was bland and greasy enough to soak through the grease-proof paper underneath. The accompanying beans were far more interesting – tangy, tart and smoky. The sage and onion rolls were tough and chewy though and there’s little to be said about the unremarkable pickles and coleslaw.

pulled pork at Blue Boar

coleslaw and beans at Blue Boar

Although the skin-on chips were free from excess oil, the promised sea salt was almost entirely absent. Each chip was so ridiculously big and thick, eating one required a knife and fork. The chips were undercooked though – they either needed to be thinner or have more time in the fryer.

chips at Blue Boar

Desserts at most barbecue restaurants usually involve brownies or sundaes, but Blue Boar’s desserts have a more British feel to them. The chocolate and orange dish was effectively a de-constructed Terry’s chocolate orange. A creamy, soft and intensely tangy chocolate fondant was paired with sharp, candy sweet slices of orange. The combination was almost overpoweringly sweet, so the icy palate-cleansing sorbet was a welcome relief.

It’s not Terry’s, it’s Blue Boar’s.

Blue Boar is perhaps worth going to once for the novelty of silver service barbecue, but the generally satisfactory food isn’t worth returning regularly for.

Average cost per person: £45

Rating: ★★★☆☆

The Blues Kitchen

Situated halfway between Camden Town and Mornington Crescent Tube stations, The Blues Kitchen was surprisingly full of yummy mummies lunching on my late afternoon weekend visit. Perhaps they found the deliberately worn-around-the-edges, Deep South blues-themed decor less cheesy than I did.

The pulled pork and the St. Louis cut pork ribs can be had as a combo dinner dish. The pulled pork was quite dry and would’ve been tough eating if it wasn’t for the fruity sauce mixed into it. The pork generally came in chunks rather than strands and was a little too firm and dense as a result.

pulled pork at Blues Kitchen

The pork spare ribs weren’t any better. Apart from a slight hint of smokiness, they were rather bland. The thick slab of meat and fat wasn’t tender at all and eating my way through that firm block of pork was more like eating a grilled pork chop than proper smoked ribs.

pork spare ribs at Blues Kitchen

There wasn’t any need for dessert with the Oreo milkshake to hand. Uncrushed halves of Oreo cookies were dotted throughout the icy, moderately thick milkshake. It was refreshing and filling, but it was little more than a bland vanilla milkshake decorated with Oreos rather than a true Oreo milkshake.

Oreo milkshake at Blues Kitchen

Blues Kitchen is a very below-average barbecue restaurant. If you can’t drag yourself out of Camden to find good quality BBQ elsewhere, the nearby Porky’s is a better alternative.

Average cost per person: £20 approx.

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Bodean’s

The Soho branch of Bodean’s is packed day and night. Unless you’re part of a group of six or more, you can’t book. But if you are part of such a large group, you have to order from the limited group menu. It’s better to simply avoid the crush of tourists and Soho media types and go to the Fulham and Tower Hill branches as I did.

The Fulham restaurant is rather cramped. Like all the other branches, it serves up burnt ends, either on their own or as part of a combo dinner with the other meats available, such as the pulled pork.

Fulham’s burnt ends were a little too tough, dry and dense for my liking. One chunk was very moist and fatty, but that was as interesting as they got. The thin, mildly sweet and tangy sauce made it all a little more bearable, but I was glad to move on to the pulled pork.

burnt ends at Bodean’s Fulham

bite-size burnt end at Bodean’s Fulham

The pulled pork started out well with a firm, bouncy texture and a strong hit of smokiness, but the latter faded quickly leaving behind a bland tasting greasy mess. The coleslaw was unremarkable, but the salty fries were decent enough and had a dusting of mild chilli that helped them stand out.

pulled pork at Bodean’s Fulham

Most of the dining space at the Tower Hill branch is downstairs in the rather musty basement. The best seats in the house, for single diners and couples at least, are the window-side stools with views of Tower Bridge.

The spare ribs were surprisingly good. The moist meat had a thin layer of fat and connective tissue basted in a mildly sweet and smoky marinade.

spare rib starter at Bodean’s Tower Hill

Although far from bad, the beef ribs couldn’t match the standard set by BBQ Whiskey Beer and Miss P’s Barbecue. Although the meat was thick and moist, it was also rather bland with only very occasional hints of tanginess and smokiness.

beef short rib at Bodean’s Tower Hill

I doubt anything I say will dent the popularity of Bodean’s, but the middling standard of the food is hardly deserving of the blind, ardent devotion shown by its fans (cough, NyanMaru, cough). Especially when there is far better barbecue to be had in London.

Average cost per person: £25-30 approx.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Duke’s

The menu at Duke’s has changed since I first visited the Haggerston restaurant last year and for the better too. The Greatest Hits platter allowed me to sample the pulled pork, beef short rib and pork spare ribs all in one sitting.

The pulled pork was moist and firm with a fruity, smoky flavour. Its smokiness was far more pronounced than it was in the pulled porks at both Bodean’s and Pitt Cue and helped make it more satisfying.

pulled pork at Duke’s

The blackened bark on the beef rib was tough chewing. The meat underneath was moist, but it was a little too firm and didn’t have quite enough extant fat or connective tissue. It tasted slightly sweet with salty, tangy, umami-esque hints, but it was all a little too subtle for its own good.

Jacob’s Ladder at Duke’s

beef short rib at Duke’s

There was a fair amount of fat and connective tissue on the pork spare ribs which helped make the pork moist. The meat had a noticeable smokiness to it as well as more subtle sweet and salty hints but, as with the beef short rib, you’d have to be looking for them to notice them.

pork spare rib at Duke’s

The accompanying coleslaw and pickled onions were limp and unremarkable. Far more interesting was the garlic toast, a thick slab of white toasted bread slathered with garlic butter and parmesan but it was the unmistakable taste of garlic that was predominant. As cheap stomach liners go, it’s an addictive one.

garlic toast at Duke’s

The kitchen has also revamped the desserts menu since my last visit with intriguing options such as the shoofly pie. The syrupy filling of this treacle tart was thick, viscous and very sweet while the densely crumbed pastry had a salty tang to it that was brought out by the vanilla ice cream rather than obscured by it. The sweet and salty elements complimented each other very well.

shoofly pie with ice cream at Duke’s

shoofly pie at Duke’s

Duke’s ribs aren’t as good as the ribs available elsewhere, but they’re not bad. The pulled pork was a success though, as was the dessert, which makes it just about worthwhile trekking out to Haggerston.

Average cost per person: £30-40 approx.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Joe’s Southern Kitchen

Formerly known as Navajo Joe, both the menu and the decor at Joe’s Southern Kitchen has been revamped. The menu is still a sprawl though, taking in burgers and a couple of seafood dishes as well as barbecue. The high ceiling dining room has a mezzanine level which gives a good view of the bustling bar, but the overpolished Americana and thumping music make the place feel like a Las Vegas tourist trap. This feeling was only reinforced by the cheesy pre-recorded Southern voices in the toilets complaining about the Civil War. Needless racial insensitivity is surely grounds for firing soft-in-the-head restaurant designers.

I was almost as baffled by the excessively strong lemon taste to my iced tea, so much so that I was convinced that I’d accidentally been served lemonade until I detected a small hint of tea swirling amongst all the citrus.

iced tea at Joe’s Southern Kitchen

The corn bread arrived in a completely unexpected form. The soft, quivering slices, probably steamed rather than baked, were more like a pudding than the muffin/loaf-like corn breads I’d had elsewhere. The fragile slivers consisted of large but bland kernels. Attempting to spread the accompanying paprika butter or the tomato chutney onto the bread was an exercise in futility due to the unabsorbent texture of the bread, the blandness of the butter and the wateriness of the chutney.

corn bread at Joe’s Southern Kitchen

The pulled pork was an improvement, but it was a case of two steps forward and one step back. The pork was firm and served in a thin but sharp and fruity sauce. The meat was tasteless though and could’ve been almost any meat.

pulled pork at Joe’s Southern Kitchen

A similar problem afflicted the beef short rib. Although the exceedingly moist meat was so tender that it fell off the bone, it was also devoid of taste. Eating it was a chore akin to holding down the bland boiled meat stews my parents insisted on feeding me as a child. Only the collagen tasted of anything, with a very mild hint of peppery tanginess.

beef short rib at at Joe’s Southern Kitchen

I couldn’t bring myself to order dessert at Joe’s Southern Kitchen. The texture of the meat dishes may be just right, but the utter lack of flavour makes for a tedious, joyless dining experience.

Average cost per person: £30-35 approx.

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

The Joint

Eating at The Joint (or The Food Joint as it’s also known) requires careful scheduling and the ability to put up with furniture that would make most chiropractors blanch. This Brixton Market operation shares premises with The Burnt Toast Cafe so it only serves lunch on Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday while dinner is only served on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The tables and seats consist of nothing more than upturned crates, with some seats facing back onto other store fronts.

It’s worth putting up with though as the pulled pork buns are excellent. The pork is tender, moist and smoky with great depth of flavour ranging from sweet to tangy. The fruity, milky notes in the bun compliment the meat rather than obscure it. The crisp, smoky bacon isn’t really necessary, but at least it’s executed well.

pulled pork bun at The Joint

An alternate, ‘Asian’ version of the pulled pork is just as tender and porky, but with the smoky, sweet tanginess entirely absent. Instead there’s a hearty helping of ginger and crisp vegetables such as carrots, giving this version a banh mi feel. A lighter, but less flavoursome alternative to the buns are wheat flour tortillas.

Asian-style pulled pork wrap at The Joint

The baby back ribs are available in small and large portions. Although the meat was tender and came off the bone easily, they were coated in mildly sweet sauce that tended to stick to my fingers rather than to the meat. A more interesting alternate version has the ribs slathered in a scotch bonet-based sauce and dressed in crisp spring onions. It packs quite a wallop.

ribs at The Joint

barbecue baby back ribs at The Joint

chilli ribs at The Joint

The Joint may be a bare bones experience, but the quality of the pulled pork makes it all worthwhile.

Average cost per person: £14 approx.

Rating: ★★★★★

Last Summer Swine

If nothing else, Last Summer Swine deserves an award for the most pun-fully amusing, if slightly overwrought, market stall name here. Established by a pair of advertising sales executives in their spare time (don’t run away, really), this stall only makes very rare appearances at special events but they’re well worth catching.

Although a bit dry, the pulled pork did have a firm bite giving way to tender strands of meat with a gently sharp and fruity flavour. The chewy, floury supermarket bap got in the way of appreciating the pork though.

A pulled pork bun that’s better without the bun.

Although the chicken wings aren’t a match for the confit chicken wings available from Patty and Bun, they were still very good in their own right – moist, sweet and slightly tangy.

chicken wing from Last Summer Swine

Average cost per person: £8 approx.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Lazybones

Located a short jaunt away from Farringdon Tube station, this diner-bar mash up serves up a handful of barbecue staples alongside a few other booze-appropriate dishes. The menu is a little too indiscriminate, so much so that I almost didn’t include Lazybones in this round-up.

The chicken wings were smothered in a thick, deep-fried coating and a tomato-based marinade that was moderately smoky and had a very mild amount of garlickiness and spiciness to it. The sauce stuck to my fingers rather than the meat though which made for a very messy, if finger lickin’ experience. If it wasn’t for the garlic, it’d be easy to mistake these wings for a kung pao chicken Chinese takeaway.

chicken wings at Lazybones

Lazybones’ pulled pork is only available in a bun. The pork was juicy and tender, but not too soft, and served topped with a sauce that was mildly fruity, subtly woody and packed a mild chilli heat. The oddly pickled coleslaw added a touch of sharp tartness. Although I’d have preferred the flavours of the sauce to be bolder, it was still satisfying.

pulled pork bun at Lazybones

Average cost per person: £14-20 approx.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Meat Lover

This pop-up inside various pubs sounds like a dodgy porn flick rather than a barbecue eatery, but Meat Lover is worth seeking out.

The eponymous Meat Lover platter allowed me to sample the pulled pork, beef brisket, fried chicken and baby back ribs all in one sitting. That much meat could do some serious harm, but luckily it’s available in both small and large sizes. The large is big enough to feed two people, so I sensibly went for the small so I could have room for dessert too.

The Meatlover platter.

The platter started off with a whimper rather than a bang. The pulled pork was fruity, but a little too soft for my liking. I wasn’t expecting much from the fried chicken so I was pleasantly surprised by the crunchy, grease-free coating and its mildly sharp, fennel-like flavour, while the meat underneath was firm and milky.

fried chicken and pulled pork at Meatlover

Although the brisket had a smoky, woody flavour reminiscent of chipotle, it was also too dry which was disappointing. It’s still far better than the brisket at The Big Smoke though.

beef brisket at Meatlover

closeup of the beef brisket at Meatlover

A similar mildly smoky and spicy chipotle-style flavour also turned up on the pork baby back ribs. The moist rib meat was tender enough to fall off the bone. The well-chosen combination of texture and flavour made these sublime ribs the highlight of the platter.

baby back ribs at Meatlover

The biscuit base of the salted caramel cheesecake was unremarkable, but the smooth and creamy filling had a salty tang that was complimented nicely by the sweet tang of the caramel sauce. The soured cream providing a counterpoint to those strong flavours and helped cleanse the palate.

salted caramel cheesecake at Meatlover

I had to return to Meat Lover for the Jacob’s Ladder beef short rib and I wasn’t disappointed. The tender beef came off the bone easily and had the same smoky and mildly spicy chipotle-style flavour as the brisket and baby back ribs. It’s not quite as good as the very best beef short ribs here, but it’s not far off.

Jacob’s Ladder beef rib at Meatlover

The bone marrow mash should’ve been the perfect accompaniment to the Jacob’s Ladder. While it was light and managed to be both creamy and lightly coarse, its fatty unctuousness was too subdued so it was ultimately a disappointment.

bone marrow mashed potato at Meatlover

I couldn’t help but be reminded of an Eton mess when chowing down on a dessert of strawberry shortbread biscuits served with cream and mint. Although the thick, mint-flecked cream was enjoyable, the muted shortbread biscuits were underwhelming even when taken with the slices of fresh strawberry.

strawberry shortbread biscuits with cream and mint at Meatlover

The menu can be hit and miss, but the quality beef and pork ribs are more than enough to make me wish that Meat Lover would find a permanent home.

Average cost per person: £26-30 approx.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Miss P’s Barbecue

This market stall serves up Atlanta-style barbecue and turns up quite frequently at street food markets such as Kerb and the West Norwood Feast. Although there are some occasional specials, at the time of writing there are just two main staples: pulled pork and beef ribs.

The tender pulled pork had just the right texture – neither too soft nor too firm. The sweet and slightly fennel-esque flavour was enhanced by the tingly, spicy heat of the scotch bonnet-based hot sauce. The only accompaniment is the coleslaw which is firm and not too heavy or excessively cream. Its moistness added a much needed change of pace.

pulled pork from Miss P’s Barbecue

As good as the pulled pork was, it paled into comparison next to the beef ribs. The charred crust of the massive slab gives way to tender and moist layers of meat, connective tissue and fat. The depth of flavour is exceptional, going from sweet to tangy and moreish in a few mouthfuls. The spicy scotch bonnet sauce is a little too strong when taken with the rib meat, but the bold flavours of the rib meat more than make up for this. Simply outstanding.

beef short rib from Miss P’s Barbecue

Average cost per person: £5-8

Rating: ★★★★★

Pitt Cue

Pitt Cue has become the byword for quality barbecue in London since it opened. The menu has changed since my first visit with the disappearance of the beef brisket and the head chef, Neil Rankin, has left too. The pulled pork was flavoursome with fruity sweet and sharp, fennel-ish hints to it, but the texture was a bit off. Some strands were a little too soft, while others were a little too firm.

pulled pork at Pitt Cue

The beef ribs had a charred crust, but underneath that they were a little waxy in places which was a disappointment. The lean meat tore away from the bone in thin but hearty strands and were a little sweet. They weren’t bad beef ribs, but these back ribs were not as good as their short rib counterparts at either BBQ Whiskey Beer or Miss P’s Barbecue.

beef ribs at Pitt Cue

The mashed potatoes proved to be a good side dish to both the rib and the pulled pork. The thick and creamy mash was made all the better by the unctuous and meaty gravy.

mashed potatoes at Pitt Cue

The tart and mildly creamy lemon posset was topped with a crunchy biscuit crumb. This would’ve been a perfectly good, simple dessert in its own right, but for some reason the kitchen also added some rather lacklustre and frankly unnecessary strawberries.

lemon posset at Pitt Cue

The real highlights at Pitt Cue aren’t the pulled pork and beef ribs, but its specials where the kitchen gets to show off its creative side – no doubt a legacy of its now departed head chef. The pig’s head sausage may sound off-putting, but the addition of pig’s head and cheek gives this otherwise smooth and light beef and pork sausage an occasional bit of coarseness. The sharp taste of fennel mixed with a light paprika heat and a gentle smokiness was very satisfying.

pig’s head sausage at Pitt Cue

Even better was the smoked and cured pork jowl. The deliciously fatty and tender meat with its bold smokiness was a simple but visceral delight.

smoked and cured jowl at Pitt Cue

The deceptively simple name of the strawberries and cream disguised a far less conventional dessert. The creamy, eggy custard base resembled a creme brûlée and was the best part of this dish. The topping of small meringue and strawberry pieces was unimpressively forgettable. More custard please.

strawberries and cream at Pitt Cue

It’s a shame that main barbecue staples at Pitt Cue aren’t as good as they once were, but the specials are more than good enough to be an attraction in their own right.

Average cost per person: £16-25 approx.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Porky’s

This newcomer serves up Memphis-style barbecue and is located a 10 minute walk north of Blues Kitchen in Camden. It’s a relatively small joint with space for a few dozen covers and doesn’t take reservations, but Baron Greenback and I didn’t have any trouble snagging a table on our weekday evening visit.

We were both ravenous and ordered a dangerous amount of meat. While waiting for it to arrive we snacked on the BBQ popcorn. The fluffy kernels had a cumulative spiciness that packed a fair amount of heat as well as a buttery undertone. The combination sounds odd, but it worked quite well.

bbq popcorn at Porky’s

The first meat to arrive was the pulled pork which proved to be a bit odd. Although the pork was moist and firm with a mildly sweet and peppery taste, the bitty pieces were nothing like the pulled strands I was expecting.

Porky’s pulled pork

Although the St Louis cut pork ribs were streaked with fat, the meat actually tasted bland with only a hint of smokiness in the thin strip of pork closest to the bone. The sauce was especially unimpressive. Although mildly sweet, it had the consistency of uncooked pasta sauce and didn’t stick to the meat, clinging instead to my fingers.

St Louis cut pork spare ribs at Porky’s

The chicken quarter was underwhelming too. The moist poultry had a slight hint of aniseed, but that was it.

Porky’s chicken

Of our two sides the barbecue beans were the more satisfying – firm beans in a tomato-ish sauce with a hint of Tabasco. By comparison, the mac and cheese was a bland and unremarkable concoction – soft with barely any discernible cheesy goodness to it.

bbq beans at Porky’s

mac and cheese at Porky’s

Baron Greenback’s dessert choice of a chocolate brownie sundae will please undiscerning kiddies and drunks, but no one else. Under all those layers of soft, icy, monotonous sweetness was a bit of crunchiness and a hint of dark chocolate, but that was all the joy to be had from it.

brownie sundae at Porky’s

The soft, flimsy pastry used in the cherry pie was uninspiring, as was the bland accompanying vanilla ice cream. The sweet and sour taste of the squidgy fruity filling made up for this though.

cherry pie at Porky’s

Although a few dishes at Porky’s did have their charms, overall it was a lacklustre and disappointing experience that just can’t compare to the best of the rest here.

Average cost per person when shared between two: £26 approx.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Prairie Fire

If Miss P’s Barbecue is a little tricky to track down, then finding Prairie Fire is even harder. Previously limited to Thursday-only appearances at the Merchant Square market near Paddington, this market stall is starting to make more regular appearances at the easier to reach Kerb market near King’s Cross. Prairie Fire serves just pulled pork and beef brisket, but if you’re willing to hire them for private catering, then you could sample their St Louis cut pork ribs and other dishes too.

Prairie Fire’s pulled pork had a soft, caramelised skin with moist, tender meat underneath. It was a touch too greasy, but not unpleasantly so and certainly not nearly as greasy as the slimy effort from The Big Smoke. Most of the taste here came from the sauce squirted on top which had a tangy sharpness to it.

pulled pork from Prairie Fire

The beef brisket was excellent. While it didn’t have the visceral salty, fattiness as the best Stateside briskets, it was still very good. The firm bite of the exterior gives way to a moist, tender interior blessed with an occasional hit of fatty goodness and a woody flavour. It’s enhanced rather than overwhelmed by the tangy, mildly sweet sauce squirted on top. My only complaint is that the brisket portion, served in a bun, is a touch on the small side. I’d happily pay more for a larger helping.

beef brisket bun from Prairie Fire

The accompaniment of barbecue beans was no afterthought or, if it was, then it certainly doesn’t seem like it. The mixture of pork, kidney and turtle beans in a thin but deliciously meaty and moreish sauce hit the spot. Finishing it all off was a small helping of pickled vegetables for cleansing the palate.

barbecue beans from Prairie Fire

Prairie Fire’s pulled pork is satisfactory, but the real star of the show is the brisket. If only the ribs were available too.

Average cost per person: £6 approx.

Rating: ★★★★☆

The Rib Man

The Ribman is a market stall that only occasionally serves up pork ribs in their traditional form on the bone. A far more regular offering is rib meat in a bun. Although this makes these ribs completely different from the others here, I had to include them given the Ribman’s towering reputation.

close up of rib meat from The Rib Man

It’s a reputation that’s well deserved – the moist, tender rib meat was unctous and complimented nicely by the tangy, lightly smoky sauce. My only complaint was the chewy and oddly bulbous bun. With the meat stuffed into a small slit in middle of the bread, it was not only ungainly to eat but looked like a comical jacket potato.

rib meat bun from The Rib Man

Average cost per person: £6 approx.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Red Dog Saloon

I was underwhelmed, at best, following my first visit to Red Dog Saloon when it first opened two years ago. The place is ragingly popular with Hoxtonites, but I’m at a loss as to why.

The pulled pork was tender with a firm bite, but it was very bland.

pulled pork at Red Dog Saloon

The same pulled pork turned up again, this time heaped on top of dreadfully average baked beans.

meaty beans at Red Dog Saloon

The St Louis cut pork ribs didn’t make a good first impression with the tough, chewy bark of an exterior. There wasn’t a lot of meat on the bone, nor was there much fat or connective tissue. What meat there was did have a sweet smokiness, but it was very subdued.

St Louis cut pork ribs at Red Dog Saloon

If I were a culinary reductionist, I could describe the burnt end pie as an Americanised cottage pie but I’m not so I won’t. I’m not sure which was more forgettable – the top layer of mashed potato or the bottom layer of dry, limp and tasteless burnt ends.

burnt end pie at Red Dog Saloon

Things improved on my next visit. The meat on the beef short rib was moist and pink, but there wasn’t quite enough of it and there was a little too much fat and connective tissue instead. It was all mildly smoky, the collagen peeled off the bone easily and the crust was pleasingly charred. Not a bad attempt at a Jacob’s Ladder, but not an exemplary one either.

beef short rib at Red Dog Saloon

Jacob’s Ladder beef ribs at Red Dog Saloon

It’s a sad state of affairs when the best meat dish I had at Red Dog Saloon was the side of hot links, a large and smooth beefy sausage with a mild smokiness.

hot link sausage at Red Dog Saloon

The food at Red Dog Saloon was dreadfully mediocre, but that’s unlikely to dent its appeal with the locals. If you insist on going, then at least avoid the tables squeezed into the passageway between the main dining area and the bar. Getting elbowed in the head by drunken boors became old very quickly.

Average cost per person: £20-25 approx.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Rotary Bar and Diner

Rotary is a pop-up located inside the premises formerly occupied by Meter and will only be open until December. I’m not sure if Rotary’s transient nature explains the retro feel of the decor from the cheap wood-pannelled walls to the plastic school hall chairs or whether this is a deliberate attempt at irony, but I don’t like it either way.

The baby back ribs are only available as occasional specials, but the pulled pork is a permanent fixture of the menu. The meat was tender but could have done with more of a bite. It could also have done with a little more character – most of the taste came from the very sweet and tangy sauce. The chewy bits of fried onion was an odd addition, but not an unpleasant one.

Pickles and corn bread accompany all the barbecued mains. While the sweet pickles and tart pickled onion were a reasonably good palate cleanser, the jalapeño corn bread was a disappointment. The muffin-shaped bread far too dry, but it did at least have a bit of heat from the jalapeño flecks.

pulled pork at Rotary

The beef dripping chips aren’t really chips, but fries. The thin, bitty sticks of fried potato were only moderately crispy and their mild beefiness subsides quickly.

beef dripping chips at Rotary

Even though they were a little too oily, the devilled pig skins were far more satisfying. Like armadillos, they were crispy on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside. Unsurprisingly, they tasted like a poor man’s crackling or a rich man’s pork scratchings – but without the potential to break your teeth. The sour apple sauce could’ve been a touch sweeter, but it was still a tasty accompaniment for the pig skins.

devilled pig skin at Rotary

I’m not sure if the strawberry and buttermilk sundae is brought in from elsewhere like the other desserts. In any case the icy, crisp dairy dollops were too sharp and sour to be enjoyable, while the white chocolate crumble scattered on top tasted mostly of sugar. Thanks, but no thanks.

strawberry and buttermilk sundae at Rotary

To my surprise the hot chicken wings had a surprising amount of heat. The tabasco-based sauce was only moderately spicy at first, but the cumulative effect of scoffing an entire plateful of wings was quite potent. The wings didn’t rely entirely on the sauce – the thick, crisp batter and moist meat was pretty good too. It’s no match for Patty and Bun’s confit chicken wings, but they’re certainly scoffable in their own right.

hot chicken wings at Rotary

The smoky flavour of the smooth pork sausage was surprisingly strong, even though it wasn’t really complimented well by either the mildly tart pickled peppers or the same sweet and tangy sauce that accompanied the pulled pork.

smoked sausage at Rotary

The barbecue beans weren’t too bad, although the tangy sauce didn’t have the same moreishness as the sauce used in Prairie Fire’s beans. The beans themselves were also a little too soft for my liking and needlessly topped with chewy fried onion bits.

onion topped beans at Rotary

barbecue beans at Rotary

Sorbitium is the supplier behind Rotary’s choc ices and while they’re certainly not bad, they’re not that remarkable either. The sour cherry version didn’t taste of anything at all, while the hazelnut version tasted more of caramel – so much so, that I’m pretty certain I was served the caramel one by mistake.

Sorbitium choc ices at Rotary

Sorbitium choc ices at Rotary Bar and Diner

The food at Rotary isn’t bad, but I won’t be shedding any tears when they shut up shop at the end of the year.

Average cost per person: £35 approx.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Smokestak

Smokestak is nothing if not visually captivating. The staff at this market stall are all ridiculously attractive and the massive steam engine-shaped smoker immediately catches the eye. The gargantuan ‘Flintstone’ beef rib is meant for sharing and would probably damage me if I attempted to eat it on my own. Thankfully, a much more manageable beef short rib is also available and it was utterly marvellous. Underneath the slightly chewy, peppery bark was beef that’s moist all the way through and blessed with incredible depth of flavour. The tender beef was smoky with hints of sweetness and tanginess that was immensely satisfying.

Yours for just £20. Wilma!!!!

beef short rib from Smokestak

The pulled pork wasn’t as spectacular, but was still reasonably good. It was a bit dry, but not disastrously so. The firm bite gave way to reasonably tender strands of pork, but most of the flavour came from the sweet, sticky and tangy sauce.

pulled pork from Smokestak

Smokestak’s pork spare ribs were just as good as the Jacob’s Ladder. The firm bite gave way to very tender meat tinged with a pink smoke ring, streaked with fat and connective tissue and was deliciously but not overpoweringly sweet.

pork spare ribs from Smokestak

close up of St Louis cut spare ribs from Smokestak

My only quibble with Smokestak is that the portion sizes are a touch small, but that’s merely the perfect excuse to have all three meats. At £6 a portion, it’s not an outlandish thing to do and the combined cost is far better value than a similarly priced main course at dreck shovellers Barbecoa or The Big Smoke.

Average cost per person: £6-18 approx.

Rating: ★★★★★

Smokey Tails

An disused industrial yard by a canal in Hackney doesn’t sound very glamorous, but this proved to be a surprisingly picturesque setting when kitted out with decking, picnic benches, recliners and an eye-catching wooden arch welcoming you to the pop-up outdoor barbecue restaurant that is Smokey Tails. The only thing missing are some sinks, or at least some hand wipes, for the inevitable post-meal sticky fingers.

All meats come with your choice of two salads. Some may scoff at the very idea of a salad at any barbecue, never mind an American-style one (Veal Smasher, I’m looking at you), but the ones here are no afterthought. The tomato and basil salad was a refreshing combination of sweet, sharp fruit, punchy, flavoursome herb and even a squidgy and nutty pickled walnut. Even better was the chargrilled sprouting broccoli – crunchy and flecked with some chilli providing a mild heat.

The salads almost outshine the meat. The rack of baby back ribs was a little dry, but the charred bark and peppery flavour were pleasing enough.

baby back ribs from Smokey Tails

The pulled pork served in a bun was far better. The firm strands of meat were doused in a sharp, tomato-based sauce with the sharpness enhanced by the pickled cabbage. It was all more than flavoursome enough to outweigh the brioche bun it was served in.

pulled pork bun from Smokey Tails

Average cost per person: £12-15 approx.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Texas Joe’s

I couldn’t tell if the laconic Texan proprietor of this market stall was brusque and unfriendly or merely drained from his appearance on Dragon’s Den, but in any case his beef brisket is something to behold. It’s chopped and served in a bun, either by itself or with other meats such as pulled pork and sausage. I went for the plain version to get a better idea of how good the brisket is and it’s very good indeed – moist, fatty, sharp and lightly smoky. The coleslaw isn’t really necessary and the construction of the entire structure is somewhat wobbly, but the bun is pleasingly crisp.

Texas Joe’s chopped beef brisket sandwich

Texas Joe’s beef brisket is excellent and the good news is that the stetson-wearing smoker will soon have a residency at Brewdog Shoreditch, starting in September with a duration that has yet to be determined.

Average cost per person: £7 approx.

Rating: ★★★★★

The Winners

When I started my American barbecue journey through London, I fully expected some places to be significantly better than others. However, even my jaded sensibilities were shocked at the appalling quality of food at Barbecoa and The Big Smoke. Those two restaurants should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

Long time London favourite Bodean’s was, as expected, merely average. Surprisingly, the vaunted Pitt Cue was merely okay when it came to the barbecue staples of pulled pork and beef ribs, but they were at least in a class of their own when it came to their specials.

If you want the best American-style barbecue in London then you have to get off your arse and get out to the capital’s street food vendors and pop-up eateries to get it. Smokestak, Prairie Fire and Miss P’s Barbecue were worthy runners-up when it came to pulled pork, but my personal favourite here has to be The Joint which deserves a slap on the back and a firm handshake.

Prairie Fire almost clinched it when it came to beef brisket, but Texas Joe’s edged ahead here with its chopped and served in a bun version. When it comes to pork ribs, it’s no contest – Smokestak is heads and shoulders above the rest.

Finally, when it comes to beef ribs the undisputed champions were joint victors Miss P’s Barbecue and Smokestak. While the versions available at Meat Lover and BBQ Whiskey Beer are very good, they simply can’t match Miss P or Smokestak for texture, moistness and depth of flavour.

American-style barbecue in London still has a long way to go, especially if you want to sit in an actual restaurant with tables and reservations, but the situation has vastly improved over the way it was a mere year ago. Here’s to the future!

Hirata buns or gua bao – by any other name they would be as sweet

Updated 8/11/13 – removed incorrect information about the term ‘hirata buns’, added new background

When a new dish or cuisine is introduced to the UK, it’s inevitably given an analogous description that’s humorously inaccurate and ultimately unnecessary. The Taiwanese dish of gua bao is a case in point. Known by the Japanese as hirata buns due to Japan’s colonial occupation of Taiwan, Gua bao are simply steamed rice flour buns sliced open, filled with roasted or grilled meat and garnished with crushed peanuts and coriander. Despite this simplicity, they’ve been described as ‘Taiwanese tacos’, ‘Chinese burgers’ and, most laughably of all, ‘Taiwanese mini-kebabs’. New Yorkers will doubtless find such nonsense laughable, since they’ve had quality gua bao for years now. Gua bao sometimes show up on the menus of Japanese restaurants in the West under the name ‘hirata buns’ – a name apparently coined by Masashi Hirata, a chef at Ippudo in New York (thanks to Bao London and reader Jman for pointing this out, although at the time of updating I’m still waiting for Ippudo New York’s press office to confirm or deny this).

Gua bao, or hirata buns if you will, have received a lot of attention due to the launch of Flesh and Buns. This Covent Garden restaurant is from the people behind ramen joint Bone Daddies, but it isn’t the first London eatery to serve gua bao; nor is it the best either.  I’ve spent the past couple weeks hunting down every gua bao in London searching for the perfect combination of soft, fluffy, slightly chewy buns filled with moist, fatty, flavoursome meat.

This blog post from The Wall Street Journal is well worth reading for a little more background on gua bao. Otherwise, without further ado, here are the reviews:

Table of Contents

Bao London
Bintang
Flesh and Buns
Japanese Canteen (Middlesex Street branch)
Jubo
Leong’s Legend Continues
Shoryu
Yum Bun

Bao London

The simply-named Bao London has a small six-seater bar and a market stall that makes regular appearances at markets such as Kerb Kings Cross. It’s well worth seeking out as it easily has the most authentic Taiwanese-style gua bao here. The fluffy, soft rice bun was filled with a small but moist and fatty chunk of tender pork along with juicy, jelly-like tendons. Some of the pork was shredded, while the rest was thickly sliced. The entire thing was garnished with crushed peanuts and coriander which only enhanced the savoury goodness.

Take a bao.

My only complaint is that the gua bao is a bit on the small side, but that just gives you good reason to order another one or to enjoy the side dishes. The pomelo crunch is the best coleslaw I’ve had in a long time, largely because it bears little resemblance to the sickly, overly creamy slop we’re all familiar with. The shredded carrots and cabbage were dressed in sesame seeds, coriander and mildly sour morsels of pomelo fruit, an ancestor of the grapefruit. It was a very refreshing counterpart to the soy milk fried chicken bites.

pomelo crunch from Bao London

The moist chunks of fried chicken were free from excess oil and battered in a light, crisp and exceedingly moreish coating flecked with occasional hints of ginger. Even better than the gua bao itself.

Colonel, you’re demoted.

Bao London easily serves up one of the best gua bao in the capital. It’s not quite as good as the best American examples, but it’s not far off either.

Average cost per bun: £3.50

Rating: ★★★★★

Bintang

I didn’t have high hopes for the gua bao from Bintang. Not only are the steamed buns described on the menu as ‘Taiwanese tacos’, but Bintang itself is a pan-Asian restaurant. I find the very idea of such a thing disagreeable – attempting to master dishes from half a dozen different and distinct culinary traditions is often a recipe for disaster.

Although Bintang’s buns weren’t as bad as the ones from the Japanese Canteen, the flat, stodgy buns were distinctly lacking in bounciness and fluffiness. The meat used in the duck version was almost unrecognisable – characterless flecks of bitty meat served in an overpowering plum sauce.

duck gua bao from Bintang

A pork option was conspicuously missing from the menu, with a beef variant taking its place instead. I was unimpressed with the takeaway-quality well-done, stir fried slices of cow, but at least they were reasonably tender and not too chewy.

Considering my only source of illumination was a strip of fairy lights, I’m happy with how these photos have turned out.

The tofu gua bao was the worst of the lot. Small chewy, bitty pieces of tofu bathed in a messy, sticky, salty sauce. There was so much sauce that it caused the bottom half of the bao to become soggy. It threatened to break apart, but thankfully held together just long enough for me to eat it.

Overstuffed.

I feel a little bad about dissing Bintang’s gua bao. The service was warm and friendly, if painfully slow, while the backyard, with its fairy lights and two massive trees, is easily the most pleasant and picturesque place I’ve been to in Camden so far. Still, that makes the dire gua bao all the more regrettable.

Average cost per bun: £4 (minimum order of two though)

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Flesh and Buns

Flesh and Buns is unapologetically a restaurant for the young or at least those with supple, forgiving bodies. The boisterous, noisy atmosphere and the long, semi-communal bench in the middle of the dining room paired with backless stools won’t suit everyone. This subterranean Seven Dials restaurant serves up not only its eponymous hirata buns, but also a sprawling selection of starters and side dishes including sushi, sashimi and tataki.

On our first visit The Euro Hedgie and I gorged on a trio of meaty main courses – braised pork belly, crispy duck leg and grilled sea bass buns. Each serving of meat comes with just two buns which seems a little miserly – not only are they relatively cheap things to make, but two is just woefully inadequate for some of the larger servings of meat such as the pork belly. At least the buns themselves are soft and fluffy. There is also an accompanying bowl of crudites with each meat, including lettuce if you feel like having a carb-free option.

Although expecting a carb-free option in a place called ‘Flesh and Buns’ is moronic.

All the meats are served with the buns on the side – it’s up to you to shred and divvy up the meat as you see fit. Depending on your point of view, this either encourages conviviality or is a cheeky outsourcing of labour to the diner. The braised pork belly was the best of our meat triple – the pork had a sweet and sticky glaze that gave way to tender and mildly fatty flesh. I prefer my belly with a little more fat, but it was still the best meat we had on this visit – it was especially well complimented by thin slices of sharp and sweet pickled apples as well as the wasabi and mustard-based sauce.

pork belly from Flesh and Buns

The sea bass was pretty good, but it won’t surprise anyone who’s ever had a grilled sea bass in any half-decent Chinese restaurant. The taut, crisp skin and flaky fish flesh flavoured with ginger and a light soy sauce is perfectly fine on its own with little need for the accompanying coriander miso dip and tomato salsa, which were frankly rather dull and limp. The sea bass worked better on its own rather than being eaten in a bun which tended to obscure its character.

sea bass from Flesh and Buns

We weren’t terribly impressed with the crispy duck. The meat was too dry for our liking and was also rather bland since the leg meat was, as one would expect, desperately lacking in fat. It was livened up to an extent by the sour and fruity sweet dipping sauce (apparently a mixture of plum and soy), but there’s only so much make-up you can put on a corpse. A more flavoursome and fatty Beijing or Cantonese-style roast duck would’ve worked far better.

Sins of the flesh.

Despite gorging ourselves on meat, the Hedgie and I still had room for dessert. The Hedgie opted for kinako donuts, where the pastry was apparently made from soybean flour. Each spherical donut was free from excess oil, but surprisingly thick and somewhat stodgy. The best part of each donut was the filling of thin, sweet, caramel-like custard.

kinako donuts from Flesh and Buns

Balls to the wall.

The Bone Daddies sundae did little to dissuade me from the view that sundaes are desserts for children, even if it did include some ingredients that would make most spoilt, suburban Western kiddie-winks blanch in disgust. The matcha green tea ice cream was reasonably flavoursome and dotted with small bits of chewy, almost viscous honeycomb and small cubes of black grass jelly, but these elements were hard to appreciate smothered as they were under a mass of cream.

Why is this sundae named after Flesh and Buns’ sister restaurant?

The intriguing-sounding shiso and tarragon soda tasted much like a mint julep, which isn’t surprising since shiso is related to mint.

It is… green.

On our second visit with Rodan and Gamera in tow, we opted for a different trio of meaty bao-fillings – flat iron steak, chicken and salmon teriyaki. The flat iron steak cooked medium rare was tender, but bland – especially when compared to the quality of the same cut of steak from Flat Iron.

flat iron steak from Flesh and Buns

The spatchcocked baby chicken was better – charred yet moist with zesty hints. These flavours easily stood out when eaten as part of a bun, but the it was the soft, tart accompaniment of pickled celery that stole the show here.

Spatchcock.

The salmon teriyaki was light with skin that managed to be both slightly chewy and crispy at the same time. However, the marinade of mirin, sugar and soy sauce was too faint to be detectable and the pickled cucumber left me cold too.

salmon teriyaki from Flesh and Buns

salmon teriyaki hirata bun from Flesh and Buns

Our sides varied in quality. The chicken yakitori skewers were a bit dry, but their charred muskiness made up for this. The salmon kimchi roll was wholly misjudged though – what little kimchi present was still potent enough to drown out the raw salmon.

chicken yakitori from Flesh and Buns

kimchi salmon roll from Flesh and Buns

kimchee salmon rolls from Flesh and Buns

The sashimi was pretty good though – the buttery salmon and supple, meaty tuna were particular highlights (sorry folks, no photo of this one).

The Bone Daddies sundae was much the same as it was before, but even that dessert would’ve been preferable to the yuzu meringue pie. Despite the name, there weren’t enough meringue pieces with the dessert dominated instead by the overwhelming sourness coming from the lemonish yuzu custard and the overbearing tartness of the raspberry sorbet. Digging through all that lip pursing sourness to get to the loosely-packed biscuit crumb base was tough going. A shallower or a more layered construction allowing an easier mouthful of all these elements may have made for a more palatable dessert. As it was, I couldn’t finish it and that’s a rare thing indeed.

Why so serious?

Pie. Pffff.

The hirata buns at Flesh and Buns aren’t bad, but they’re a little overpriced and largely forgettable with the possible exception of the pork belly variant. The main attraction here is the central location and easily bookable tables.

Average cost per bun: £8 (you’ll inevitably order extra buns for the excess meat at £2.50 for another two)

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Japanese Canteen (Middlesex Street branch)

Hirata buns are only available at a select few branches of this Japanese fast food chain, such as the City location a few steps away from Liverpool Street station. Oddly, the steamed buns are named as gua bao online, but as hirata buns in-store. In any case, the buns themselves were unimpressive – flat, dry, stodgy and far too bread-like.

The best filling was, surprisingly, the soft shell crab. The battered crustacean, which no doubt had seen the inside of a freezer recently, was reasonably crisp and zingy if a little small. The ‘chilli’ mayo had about as much heat as a Siberian winter though.

Krang, is that you?

The pork belly was nothing of the sort. The thin slices of pub carvery-quality pork was severely lacking in porky fattiness and the coriander crushed peanuts didn’t taste of much either. Not even the moderately salty hoisin sauce was enough to rescue this rather drab affair.

pork hirata bun from Japanese Canteen

The poultry option consisted of shreds of chicken that were slightly too dry, but was rescued from dull inedibility by the spicy sesame sauce – its tart spiciness did a passable and edible impersonation of Sichuanese pepper.

chicken hirata bun from Japanese Canteen

The chicken and soft shell crab fillings weren’t too bad as long as you keep your expectations in check, but the malformed buns make the Japanese Canteen a restaurant you can safely pass over when it comes to hirata buns.

Average cost per bun: £3.50-4.50

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Jubo

This residency inside the Bedroom Bar on Shoreditch’s Rivington Street is easy to miss if you’re not looking for it. Heck, it’s easy to miss even if you are looking for it. Although a Korean-style canteen, Korea’s past as a Japanese colony means there are hirata buns on the menu. Although a bit flat-looking, the buns are top-notch – soft, fluffy and slightly tangy.

Although the beef brisket was sadly off on my Saturday evening visit, the savoury earthiness of the shiitake mushroom variant was greatly enhanced by some punchy hoisin sauce.

mushroom hirata bun at Jubo

The pork belly was a delight too – thick strips of mildly fatty, intensely porky fillet in a moderately spicy sriracha-based sauce.

pork hirata bun at Jubo

My only complaint about Jubo’s hirata buns is that they’re small, but that gave me a good excuse to try out some of the other dishes. The fried chicken wings and strips were lacking in their promised soy garlic and hot and sweet flavours, but the incredibly crispy batter coating and moist chunks of milky flesh more than made up for this.

fried chicken wings at Jubo

fried chicken strips at Jubo

The kitchen was so worried about the potential dryness of my steak bulogogi sub that the chef, unprompted by me, offered to replace it for free. Although the strips of beef were a tad dry, they were still perfectly edible – especially as they were coated in a earthy, lightly spicy sauce and then topped with cheese curds. The buttery brioche-esque bun was a perfect serving mechanism for this moreish Korean take on a Philly cheese steak sub.

beef bulogogi sandwich at Jubo

Although Jubo’s splendid hirata buns are on the small side, think of them as a gateway drug to this diner’s other fine dishes and you’ll be on the right track.

Average cost per bun: £3.50

Rating: ★★★★☆

Leong’s Legend Continues

Chinatown’s once-flagship Taiwanese restaurant continues its long, slow decline into mediocrity if its gua bao is any indication. The pork filling consisted entirely of a large, solid block of dull, unrendered pork fat. Even the peanut shavings and coriander were limp. Only the fluffy bun and the tart preserved vegetables made this cheeky piss-take of a dish edible.

Fat pig.

Average cost per bun: £3.50-4.50

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Shoryu

I’m not a fan of Shoryu’s ramen, so I wasn’t expecting much from the hirata buns at the new Soho branch. The large buns were surprisingly well made – soft, light, slightly chewy and a little tangy. However, the dominant tastes of the fillings tended to be of a spicy bean paste-like sauce and kewpie mayonnaise.

I’m a big fan of spice and kewpie mayonnaise, but the flavours of both were too strong here and overpowered both the thin sliver of lean, moreish pork masquerading as pork belly and the lightly battered chunk of flaky salmon.

If you squint, you can just about see the pork.

Why does almost everything have to be battered and deep fried in some way?

Only the very lightly battered, but thankfully oil-free, chicken karaage and mediocre prawn tempura fillings were resistant to the charms of spice and umami-esque kewpie. This was due to their sheer size though and not any standout flavours or textures of their own.

It’s Japanese food pic’n'mix!

chicken karaage hirata bun at Shoryu

There are glimmers of some good hirata buns at Shoryu, but the fillings need to be rebalanced in favour of quality, flavour-packed meat rather than cheap sauces.

Average cost per bun: £4 (or £6 for a pair)

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Yum Bun

This market stall has settled down in a small takeaway premises next door to Rotary. If eating on the grim streets of Shoreditch is unappealing, there is a small counter inside, a bench outside and Rotary will let you eat your steamed buns at their tables. Yum Bun also continues to make occasional appearances at various street markets.

All this may sound a little inconvenient, but it’s worth putting up with. The buns are exceeding fluffy and soft, with the thick, taut, slippery and tangy mushroom filling complimented nicely by walnuts and hints of ginger.

mushroom gua bao from Yum Bun

The pork was a little too dry, but reasonably tender and pepped up by a mildly spicy bean paste and sriracha-based sauce.

I keep mistyping ‘Yum Bun’ as ‘Yum Bum’. Freudian slip?

The fried chicken filling was crispy and free from excess oil, if rather bitty. The meat’s moistness, the moreish batter and the lightly spiced mayo more than made up for this though.

chicken gua bao from Yum Bun

As good as the chicken and mushroom gua bao buns were, my favourite had to be the pollock special. The crispy, battered slices of flaky, salty pollock was complimented exceedingly well by the tart, lightly spicy and herby mayo. It was less like a standard mayonnaise and more like a well-crafted tartar sauce.

They tried to rename pollock as ‘colin’.

There were a couple of misses at Yum Bun, but the quality of the hits makes up for ‘em.

Average cost per bun: £3.50

Rating: ★★★★☆

The Winners

Flesh and Buns isn’t bad, but it can’t hold a candle to either of the two winners here. As with my recent round-up of American-style barbecue eateries, street food vendors continue to show how it’s really done. Yum Bun shows the way forward for gua bao fillings with a modern twist, while Bao London is the current champion of more traditional gua bao. I say ‘current’ as there’s room for improvement and I wouldn’t be surprised if gua bao/hirata buns eateries continue to flower across London.

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire?

When I surveyed the state of American-style barbecue in London, one of the most commonly queries was ‘what about Smokehouse?’. However, despite its name Smokehouse isn’t devoted purely to barbecue. This joint venture between Neil Rankin, former head chef at Pitt Cue, and the people behind the nearby Pig and Butcher, has a more varied menu but it’s still meat-focussed.

Unlike other gastropubs which are restaurants in all but name, Smokehouse has a full bar and space for drinking – most notably the attractive and genteel beer garden decorated in fairy lights. The drinking space will shrink in winter though once the weather precludes outdoor drinking for all but the most hardy. The dining area is decorated in a spartan manner reminiscent of Pig and Butcher – there’s even a row of what I think are deer skulls along one wall.

First things first

My first visit to Smokehouse was with Baron Greenback who is now back in my good books despite his crimes of cutting out the fat from pork belly and never having seen, or even heard of, The Thick of It. The evening didn’t begin well. My starter of foie gras, duck egg and apple pie was misjudged and underwhelming. The almost-solid egg was muted, while the crisp, crumb coating of the ‘pie’ concealed the sharp taste of the apple filling. The jelly-like foie gras had a surprising offal-like quality to it. None of the drab elements came together as a coherent, cohesive whole which made for a disappointing start.

This goose died for nothing.

Baron Greenback’s choice of the simpler chopped brisket roll was far more successful. Although not quite as delectable as Texas Joe’s more traditional version, the chopped brisket here was still very moreish – tender, earthy and lightly smoky and encased in a crisp crumb coating. The meaty strands almost resembled a form of pulled beef rather than the small, chopped slices I was expecting, but it was of little consequence.

It’s not a weird cross between a Scotch egg and a sausage roll…

…but a brisket roll.

Beef bourguignon is a classic French dish where beef is braised in broth and red wine, so I was intrigued by Smokehouse’s short rib bourguignon. The tender rib meat, served on the bone of course, had a firm bite, a lightly charred bark and a tangy moreishness that was enhanced by the earthy mushrooms. Baron Greenback made the serious faux pas of discarding the mushrooms which puts him back in the doghouse.

This fire is out of control.

Short rib close-up.

My own main course of peppered ox cheek with cauliflower and cheese was a triumph. The exceedingly tender, unctuous meat was complimented very nicely by two differing versions of cauliflower – a bitter, tart, pickled variety and a charred, smoky version. The smooth, viscous dollops of thick cheese enhanced this warm, comforting dish even further.

Turn the other cheek.

We shared a side of corn on the cob – the tender sliced cobettes had a smooth, slick, meaty, fatty sheen on them. We also shared the lamb stovies, a roughly hash-like mixture of tender, just-cooked lamb and smooth, creamy mashed potatoes.

Not suitable for vegetarians.

Much, much better than a munchy box.

For dessert Baron Greenback went for the oddly-named Friday Pie. Although he enjoyed it, I found this combination of dark chocolate and honeycomb to be too chewy and bitter.

Thursdays are the new Fridays. Except that doesn’t make any sense.

My own dessert was far better. The zabaglione, an Italian custard of sorts, was light, creamy and more than a little boozy. It wasn’t a complete alky-fest though and was dotted with delicate, lightly sweet slices of white peach as well as a scattering of almond-flavoured biscuits. The combination of sweetness, creaminess and booziness was a highly effective one.

Custard’s last stand.

Going back for seconds

I returned to Smokehouse for a second helping with the aid of The Euro Hedgie. His starter of squid with romesco sauce caught him off guard – the squid arrived coated in a deep fried batter so it resembled a helping of cheap and nasty calamari. It was thankfully far better than that staple of bad Italian restaurants – firm, fresh squid was used rather than the usual defrosted, excessively soft rubber. It proved to be a good way of shovelling the punchy, lightly spicy and earthy sauce into one’s gob.

Better than it looks.

My own starter of smoked mullet with pickled clams went down a treat. The vaguely sashimi-style slices of meaty fish were lightly smoky and complimented well by the dill-like flavour of the sea purslane and the tartness of the pickled clams. The clean aftertaste and refreshing lightness made it a great summertime dish.

You can clearly see a pickled clam in this photo, but not a slice of mullet. Oh well.

The Euro Hedgie continued the nautical theme with his main course of monkfish served with razor clams and tomatoes. Although he enjoyed the fish’s firm, bouncy texture, the seasoning tended to overpower its taste.

The poor man’s lobster isn’t really that cheap anymore.

The mutton chops unsurprisingly resembled lamb, but a little tougher. The meat was still reasonably tender and moist though, but most of the flavour come from the caponata, an aubgerine stew of sorts that was surprisingly thick, salty and fatty – presumably due to the addition of nduja and anchovies.

Mutton chops. The good kind.

The Hedgie and I shared the Smokehouse salad which, surprisingly, turned out to be one of the hits of the evening. The sweet, punchy and tangy tomatoes were reminiscent of the Thai-style tomato soups my parents insisted on cooking for me as a child, while the rest of the vegetables were charred, crisp and occasionally bitter. It’s a salad that will appeal to dedicated carnivores and perhaps even other steadfast salad dodgers.

Dodge this.

I was almost overwhelmed by the surprisingly strong booziness of the Vanilla Vanilla Vanilla. The booziness was due to the inclusion of Licor 43, a potent Spanish liqueur that’s made in part from vanilla. The other two vanillas were a crumbly flavoursome shortbread and a reasonably creamy ice cream. It’s a decent dessert, if you can cope with the boozy potency, but I had a distinct case of dessert envy as I gazed upon the Hedgie’s puddin’.

Vanilla ice.

The Krun Chee Nut was effectively a bowl of Kellogg’s Crunchy Nut cornflakes in dessert form. A sweet, milky ice cream and a creme brulee-esque custard were served in a nutty, crunchy biscuit shell. It was easily the best dessert here.

The trouble is they taste too good.

The Verdict

Islington has no shortage of gastropubs and while I ultimately enjoyed the homely, comforting grub of Pig and Butcher more, Smokehouse is still a fine place to fill your belly with well-cooked meat and fish. Although there were a few notable misses, I can only hope Neil Rankin sticks around long enough to not only overcome these problems but develop and hone the menu further as the seasons change. His previous tenures at Pitt Cue and John Salt have been surprisingly brief, but hopefully the meaty goodness of Smokehouse won’t be similarly short-lived.

Name: Smokehouse

Address: 63–69 Canonbury Road, Islington, London N1 2DG

Phone: 020 7354 1144

Web: http://smokehouseislington.co.uk

Kitchen Hours: Monday-Friday 18.00-22.00, Saturday 11.00-16.00 and 18.00-22.00. Sundays and Bank Holidays noon-21.00.

Reservations: highly recommended.

Total cost for one person including soft drinks when shared between two: £36 approx.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Dinner time baguettes, ciabattas and buns

Having a sandwich for dinner sounds like something only a slummy student might do, but having a steak sandwich from Mamita Que Chorizo is no second-best option. This small Shoreditch restaurant is only open in the evenings from Thursday to Saturday (perfect for chucking out time) and serves up South American-inspired sandwiches.

Upstairs at Mamita Que Chorizo.

The bare caff-style surroundings are distinctly lacking in ambience, but the quality of the steak sandwich alone more than makes up for this. The tender and slightly chewy strips of bavette steak were cooked medium rare and had a woody, earthy and lightly smoky taste. I was afraid that the tangy, slightly chewy ciabatta would obscure the steak’s character, but I needn’t have worried – the beef’s flavour came through beautifully. The delicious qualities of the steak were enhanced by the tangy mayo and sweet roasted peppers, although I’d happily trade the peppery rocket for more steak. Superb.

You can scribble on the paper tablecloths using the supplied markers if you so wish.

The Picky Glutton is listening to The Hives.

Sometimes cheap cuts of steak can be just as good as the expensive ones.

There aren’t a huge number of sides or starters, but the empanadas are worth having. The thin, but hearty and oil-free pastry gave way to reveal a small dollop of meaty chorizo and hot, fluffy, creamy cheese.

Think of it as an odd Cornish pasty if that helps you.

The chorizo used in the chorizo baguette was mildly corase and surprisingly lean. I’m pretty sure it was made out of beef rather than pork which, combined with its lack of fat, made it resemble a mild Turkish sucuk more than the chorizo I’m familiar with. It wasn’t bad, especially when taken in combination with the same sweet roasted peppers and rocket as used in the steak ciabatta, but it wasn’t as satisfying as that sandwich.

There are baguettes and then there are baguettes.

Tongueface.

Thin, moist, moderately flavoursome slices of pork were used in the pork bun. As with the chorizo, it wasn’t bad but it wasn’t that remarkable either and was outshone by the exceedingly buttery brioche bun and the tartness of the pickled red cabbage. The raw spinach didn’t add much to the bun, but I’m never going to turn down an easy way of getting one of my five a day.

Expect Eat to jump on this bandwagon in about a year’s time.

Surprisingly, the veggie option turned out to be far better than either the chorizo or pork sandwiches. A buttery brioche bun was filled with a large meaty portobello mushroom, but the real stars were the strong garlicky chimichurri sauce and the tang of goat’s cheese which melded together to form a tart, punchy, flavoursome combination.

I’m getting hungry just looking at this.

The Verdict

Not all of the sandwiches at Mama Que Chorizo are winners, but both the steak and mushroom sandwiches are absolute corkers. They’re so good that I’m willing to travel to Shoreditch to eat them and you should too.

Name: Mamita Que Chorizo

Address: 22 Rivington Street, Shoreditch, London EC2A 3DY

Phone: none listed

Web: http://www.mamitaquechorizo.co.uk

Kitchen Hours: Thursday-Saturday 18.00-23.00.

Reservations: not taken.

Average cost for one person including soft drinks: £8-9 approx.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Fitzrovia Chinese reaches new highs and lows

Restaurants in London’s Chinatown are renowned for their brusque, hurried service, but this culture of surly indifference has no geographical boundaries. Oriental Dragon on Cleveland Street in Fitzrovia is a classic example. Although the service wasn’t completely charmless, overall it was hilariously unhelpful and it reached the apex of its calculated disrespect during my first visit on a weekday evening with The Jolly Giant, The Lensman, Kangaroo Face and The Randy Northerner.

Despite the unpleasant drizzle peppering the street outside, we were seated against an open window – and since the table was higher than the window sill, closing the window ourselves was ultimately unachievable yet no one offered to help. We ended up shuffling up to avoid being covered in nature’s spittle. Despite the card processing machine breaking down early in the evening, we weren’t told about it until we asked for the bill which to a frantic exchange of IOUs. Finally, and most insultingly of all, our repeated requests for tap water for the table were finally met with one tea cup of water. One.

Good thing we had already ordered a bunch of beers and soft drinks, because this would not be enough to go around.

It’s a good thing the food was up to snuff, otherwise there would be little reason to put up with such atrocious service. One of the best things about Oriental Dragon’s sprawling menu (apologies for the 11MB PDF, but the damn menu is 12 pages long) are the assorted skewers of barbecued meat. As The Jolly Giant wisely opined, it’d be criminal to eat here without having at least one of them – unless you’re here at lunch time when they’re sadly unavailable. The lamb, beef and pig kidneys were all smoky and tender, but my favourite had to be the kidneys. The flavoursome bits of offal managed to be both tender and crisp simultaneously.

If you eat at Oriental Dragon and don’t order at least one barbecue skewer, then you are a fool.

Conch (hilariously misspelled as ‘couch’ on the dictionary-challenged menu) is a shellfish that only appears on British menus infrequently and that’s a real shame. The sauteed conch was smooth and tender with a firm bite. The accompanying slices of preserved egg weren’t quite as tangy and salty as I was expecting, which was probably a good thing for The Randy Northerner’s delicate stomach.

Conch, not couch.

The Randy Northerner was very pleased with his rabbit served with cayenne pepper. The Lensman wouldn’t touch the stuff due to his love of fluffy bunnies, but I was reasonably pleased by the firm if slightly bland meat. The slices of pepper livened things up a bit, but were surprisingly tame for cayenne.

This rabbit needs a pep rally.

Poor wabbit.

The Randy Northerner insisted on ordering the siu mai, one of a few Dim Sum dishes on the menu. As I expected, this was ill-advised – the little dumplings of beef and pork were far too salty.

Salt of the earth.

Kangaroo Face has a disappointingly low tolerance for spiciness and requested that the double-cooked pork be toned down in heat despite my objections. The cheap cuts of fatty, slightly caramelised pork came in a mildly moreish sauce of Sichuanese pepper, but it didn’t pack as much flavour or as much of a punch as it could have.

Kangaroo Face, it’s time to grow a pair.

A serving fork is needed to pry the scallops out of their shells, although the scallops here were so tender that they were easily pulled apart into strands. Although this won’t suit those who like their scallops firm and squidgy, they were still tasty, especially when bathed in their light sauce of soy and ginger, despite lacking the buttery zing I’d normally expect from scallops.

Saucy special scallop supper.

The highlight of our meal, in size if nothing else, had to be the braised pork hock in brown sauce. The massive hunk of animal plonked down on our table was mostly bone, but there was still a lot of tender meat and jelly-like tendon to go around. The mysteriously and ominously named brown sauce was a little muted, but still moreish. For The Lensman and I, it brought back happy memories of ingesting dangerous amounts of hock in Bavaria.

It’s hard to appreciate just how big this hock was from the crappy angle in this photo.

So here’s a photo of The Jolly Giant gnawing on the hock bone. Yes, he has terrible table manners.

Although I lambasted the service earlier on this review, I also mentioned that it wasn’t entirely without its charms either. The waiters do have plenty of recommendations and the pea sprouts were a good shout. Firm with a slight crunch, slightly bitter and stir fried with a bit of garlic, these greens hit the spot.

Dragons like vegetables, it’s true.

Going back for seconds

I returned to Oriental Dragon with the Flame Haired Squelchie and one of our business associates. Squelchie was taken aback by the presence of minced lamb in the supposedly vegetarian mapo tofu. Having already eaten a mouthful, she decided to temporarily abandon her vegetarianism for this one meal and dived into our other meat-based dishes with wild gusto. The mapo tofu itself was pretty good – a mild spicy kick and lots of squidgy cubes of tofu.

Definitely not vegetarian-friendly.

The sautéed slices of duck in brown sauce was a rather limp effort. The anonymous slices of meat could’ve been almost any meat.

Duck and cover.

Far better were the stir fried pig intestines. The initially pungent earthy aroma subsided quickly, allowing us to appreciate the soft, wrinkly, moreish intestines. Of all the accompanying vegetables, the wrinkly and earthy slices of fungus were easily the best and went down a treat with the intestines.

Don’t turn up your snout.

The stir fried conch was smooth and tender with a firm bite. The crisp garlicky greens were a good compliment as was the thin moreish sauce which was light with a clean after taste.

I don’t usually conch my words.

The ‘stewed’ assorted seafood consisted of prawns, scallops and conch in a light soy sauce and garnished with spring onions, enoki mushrooms and chillis. Both the mushrooms and chilli were muted, while the scallops and prawns were a little too soft for my liking. The firm and supple conch, once again, hit the spot and went nicely with the crisp julienned spring onions.

Has this really been stewed? Seems steamed to me. Hmmm.

It’d be best not to leave the azuki beans bao for too long if you order them along with everything else. We made the mistake of doing just that and then saving them as a dessert, but by then both the rice flour bun and the bean paste centre had become too hard. The sweet plum-like bean paste should be a good ‘un when warm though.

Bean and gone.

Three is the magic number

Given my trouble-free second visit, I was beginning to wonder if the gaffe-prone service of my first visit was a one-off. Eating at Oriental Dragon for a third meal, this time with some business associates, dispelled this silly notion. One of my associates attempted to order, but momentarily had second thoughts. This split-second hesitation was enough for our waitress to turn on her heel and take another table’s order instead. Moving onto myself or my other associate would’ve been fine – literally turning your back on us is just rude. Having said, it is but a mere slight in the grand scheme of things and did make me laugh out loud at the time.

My timid associates were scared off by the chilled tofu served with slices of preserved egg but I enjoyed it greatly. The combination of cool, milky tofu and sour, salty pickled eggs is definitely an acquired taste.

Curd your enthusiasm.

Given that my provincial associates were turned off by tofu and egg, there was no way in seven hells that they’d touch duck tongues in XO sauce. Although bony, the small slivers of flesh were very tender and slid off the bone easily. The ‘XO’ sauce was nothing of the sort though – it’s similar if not identical to the brown sauce daubed over some of the other dishes reviewed here. It wasn’t bad, but I had been looking forward to a hearty helping of rich, savoury XO sauce.

XO SOS.

The most underwhelming dish of this third and final meal had to be the noodles served with soy bean paste.  The soft, thin ramen-style egg noodles were too limp for my liking, while the nutty flavour of the soy bean paste had been heavily toned down.

Stir.

The Verdict

Despite a few misses and an unwieldy menu, the food at Oriental Dragon was a definite step up from many of the places I’ve been to in Chinatown. The barbecue skewers, pork hock, conch dishes, tofu dishes and pea sprouts were particular highlights. While the prices are low, you pay in another way – if you can’t put up with laughably bad service then Oriental Dragon isn’t the restaurant for you. If quality of the food was the only consideration, then this restaurant would easily get a hearty recommendation. As things stand, it’s a cautious, more qualified recommendation.

Name: Oriental Dragon

Address: 100 Cleveland Street, Fitzrovia, London W1T 6NS

Phone: 0207 387 7878

Web: http://www.orientaldragoncuisine.com

Opening Hours: seven days a week noon-23.00.

Reservations: highly recommended.

Average cost for one person including boiled rice, drinks and service: £25-30 approx. 

Rating: ★★★★☆

Soho’s cheeky upstart pizza parlour

Soho isn’t short of pizza restaurants, but Pizza Pilgrims has a leg up on its competition. Having started out as a street market van that’s still touring London’s street food markets, Pizza Pilgrims has already built up a legion of fans. Even more importantly it has a traditional hand-built pizza oven. The van serves up an impressive range of pizzas, but both the generosity of the toppings and the size of the pie itself is limited by the logistics of cooking from the back of a converted van. That shouldn’t be a problem with a bigger and better stocked kitchen, so I eagerly sat down for a weekday lunch with Porn Master, Socialist Worker, Chip Butty, Resume and Sloane Ranger.

The restaurant is split over two levels with a couple of stools on the ground floor and a larger, if still slightly cramped main dining room in the basement. Service was friendly if a tad on the slow side.

All of the pizzas had a delightfully soft and fluffy base with a slightly chewy crust. The floppy base won’t suit everyone, but the creamy mozzarella and sweet, punchy tomato sauce are definite crowd pleasers. I opted for a pizza topped with ricotta, artichokes and smoked garlic oil. The latter was hard to make out, but the hearty helping of juicy, tender artichoke hearts went down a treat when paired with the the light, milky and subtly musky ricotta cheese.

The pizzas are a little bigger than the ones from the street van. Unless my gammy eyes are betraying me once again.

Both Socialist Worker and Chip Butty opted for the pizza topped with thin slices of Napoli salami. The meaty, fatty strips of salty meat pleased both the notoriously unadventurous Chip Butty and the studiously indecisive Socialist Worker, who usually covets other people’s food no matter how good his own is. That wasn’t the case here.

Meat slithers.

Porn Master isn’t as timid as Chip Butty, but he did require a little cajoling to try the nduja. He was glad he did though – the soft, spreadable dotted smudges of tangy, mildly peppery sausage were just as good as ever, although a slightly more generous serving wouldn’t go amiss.

Woulda nduja?

Resume was the only one of my dining companions to join me in opting for a meat free pizza. She was generally happy with her tomato sauce-free portobello mushroom pizza, although the fior di latte was a little muted and there wasn’t a lot of the promised truffle oil. It wasn’t chewy or excessively greasy which can happen with tomato-free pizzas for some reason.

‘Grubby hipster food’ has never looked better.

Sloane Ranger likes her food spicy and added a fair sprinkling of chilli slices to her tomato sauce-free fennel sausage and wild broccoli pizza. The milky creaminess of the fior di latte was a little stronger here, but the real stars of the show were the chunky helpings of sausage and broccoli. The coarse, meaty, slightly bitter sausage was a perfect match for the slightly bitter, leafy broccoli. The pleasingly mild levels of bitterness were enhanced and complimented well by the basil and Sloane Ranger’s chilli. Easily one of the best pizzas here.

Salsiccia e Friarielli

I was the only one to opt for a dessert and I had to go for the intriguing ricotta and nutella pizza ring. Half of the soft and slightly chewy ring of crust-like pizza dough was filled with nutella; the other half was filled with ricotta. The latter was very tame, leaving the unmistakable taste of nutella to steal the show. Although it’s not quite the boldly flavoursome dessert I was hoping for, it is a warm, comforting one and that’s good enough.

Think of it as weird Italian-inspired doughnut. If that helps you.

The Verdict

Pizza Pilgrims wasn’t perfect. The kitchen could’ve been a touch more generous with the toppings and some of the topping combinations weren’t quite as flavoursome as I had hoped for. When things came together though, they came together very beautifully indeed and the soft, fluffy bases are second only to Franco Manca’s. Pizza Pilgrims may not be perfect, but it’s still easily my favourite pizza place in Soho.

Name: Pizza Pilgrims

Address: 11 Dean Street, Soho, London W1D 3RP 

Phone: 07780 667258

Web: http://pizzapilgrims.co.uk

Opening Hours: Monday-Saturday noon-15:00 and 18.00-22:30. Closed Sundays.

Reservations: only taken for groups of 8-16 people.

Average cost for one person including tip: £13-15 approx.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Dean Street’s upmarket curry house

There are more than a few upmarket Indian restaurants in London, although what your extra money usually gets you compared to a bog standard curry house is better service and more polished, comfortable surroundings. The Red Fort on Soho’s Dean Street certainly has a plush interior, moody lighting and efficient service, although warmth and friendliness was somewhat lacking on both of my weekday visits. Despite its polished decor, The Red Fort isn’t always a quiet place for a romantic rendezvous or a calm, considered business meeting. It can be surprisingly noisy, with giggling gaggles of girlies and a dull thump of music from the downstairs bar disturbing the peace.

First things first

Red Fort has many of the usual curry house staple starters on its menu, such as the tender and smooth, if rather flavourless seekh kebabs. The sauceless chunks of tandoor-cooked chicken were a little better – although tender, they were only lightly smoky.

Red meat at The Red Fort.

Murgh malai.

The tandoor-cooked king prawns were better – firm and smoky with a light hint of garlic. The broccoli florets was the standout starter here, topped with a flavoursome, mildly bitter paste made from cumin and fenugreek.

No shell games here.

Broccoli rarely tastes better than this.

The business associates with whom I was dining were clearly a soft-headed, gullible lot as they were far more fond of the forgettable meat dish than they were of the superior vegetable dishes. The chunks of chicken were certainly meaty and tender, but the coriander, saffron and chilli sauce in which they were served was anonymous and forgettable.

Don’t be chicken.

I was far more impressed with nutty and soft lentils served in a rich cumin sauce. The aubergine curry wasn’t quite as good as the lentils, mainly due to the fact that the fleshy vegetable pieces were a little tough and served with the skins still on, but the rich, exceedingly creamy sauce went down a treat and was dotted with whole peppers which were surprisingly and powerfully spicy.

Dal.

The cherry tomato is just for show.

Because without it, this dish would lose all its good looks.

The only disappointing vegetable dish was the sauteed spinach. The kitchen was clearly treading water here. The basket of soft and gently spiced roti breads were a good way of mopping up the excess sauce though.

Phoning it in.

I wasn’t expecting much from the mango ice cream, so I was pleasantly surprised by its creaminess and its distinctive, unmistakable taste of mango.

For some reason The Lensman doesn’t like mangoes. Odd.

Going back for seconds

My first meal at The Red Fort was a mixed bag, but my second was far better. Dining alone this time, I started off with the scallops marinated in mint, curry leaf and coriander. The firm, meaty and zingy quartet of scallops were complimented well by the mild heat and the strong taste of coriander, although the odd topping of julienned apples was unnecessary. The dish was accompanied by a trio of chutneys, the best of which was the banana chutney – the sweet tang of which went surprisingly well with the scallops.

Surprisingly scrumptious scallop starter in my subcontinental Soho supper.

The texture of the meat used in my rabbit curry was a touch inconsistent, with some chunks a little too soft but enough of the chunks were firm enough for me to overlook this. The sauce may have been mild, but the punchy taste of fennel with a hint of mustard seed did make the sauce irresistibly moreish and a good match for both the firm chunks of bunny and mopping up with the scrumptious bread selection.

Don’t rabbit on.

A good accompaniment to the rabbit was the vegetable dumplings. This trio of soft, slightly doughy dumplings dotted with tenderised cashews was served in a sauce that was creamy, but not excessively so. My sauces got mixed up at some point during the meal, so I’m not sure if it was the rabbit or the dumpling sauce that had a mild, but piercingly palate cleansing freshness to it.

Hello my little dumplings.

Despite the rich heritage of Indian desserts, The Red Fort’s menu is surprisingly devoid of them concentrating instead on ice creams. One exception is the gulab jamun – small, soft doughnuts made from curdled milk solids. Although pleasingly soft, the thin syrup was rather bland when it should’ve tasted of rosewater and saffron.

Sweet endings?

The Verdict

The food at The Red Fort can be hit and miss, but when the kitchen gets it right it can be quite splendid. It’s certainly not cheap though which is something I could live with if it wasn’t for the soulless service and the less than serene atmosphere. If you can live with these caveats, then it’s worth visiting The Red Fort.

Name: The Red Fort

Address: 77 Dean Street, Soho, London W1D 3SH

Phone: 020 7437 2525

Web: http://www.redfort.co.uk

Opening Hours: Monday – Friday noon-15:00 and 17:30-23:30. Saturday 17:30-23:30. Sunday and Bank Holidays 17:30-22:30.

Reservations: highly recommended.

Average cost for one person including soft drinks and service: £65 approx. 

Rating: ★★★☆☆

This travelogue about Jordan is a break from The Picky Glutton’s usual London-based coverage

Telling people that I was going on holiday to Jordan elicited two responses. The first involved concerns about my safety which was charming but unnecessary – Jordan is a haven of stability by any measure, but especially compared to its neighbours in the region. I’ve felt far more threatened by drunken yobs at chucking out time in the West End and the suburbs on a Friday night than by anyone I encountered in Jordan. The second involved blank stares of barely veiled incomprehension and inane small talk as the other person quickly tried to hide their geographical ignorance – ‘it’ll be warm then, won’t it?’

Sadly I never got the chance to taste camel.

I managed to get a week-long glimpse of this heartbreakingly beautiful country through a week-long tour organised through KE Adventure Travel. This relatively short jaunt meant that I barely scratched the surface of Jordanian cuisine, but there were still some definite highlights as well as some definite lows too. As with my broad Taiwan travelogue, I won’t be assigning any star ratings here and my comments should be taken as a general guide rather than a stricter, more formal review. Unlike my Taiwan travelogue, there won’t be any accompanying full restaurant reviews.

By any other name…

A lot of Jordanian mezze are similar or identical to those found in Lebanese and other Levantine cuisines which is no surprise given the close cultural and geographical links. Madaba is a town that’s home to a host of Byzantine-era mosaics as well as Haret Jdoudna, which is nothing if not an attractive restaurant. The covered courtyard area is very atmospheric, although I was inevitably shown upstairs to a plainer dining room strangely cornered on three sides by souvenir shops. Sadly, the English-speaking staff wouldn’t take my order for lamb brains despite its presence on the menu.

Shadows and dust.

Haret Jdoudna’s mezze wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t outstanding either. The fattoush salad was refreshing with tomatoes, onions, lettuce and more mixed in with crisp bits of fried bread and a slightly acidic dressing.

Crisp.

The kibbeh wasn’t bad with a moderately crisp exterior, but the anonymous minced meat filling was underwhelming with the addition of pine nuts the only saving grace.

Balls.

Bears a slight and superficial visual resemblance to haggis.

The moutabbel, a puree of smoked aubergine, is one of my favourite mezze dishes but the version here was only moderately creamy and not smoky at all. It had clearly been bulked out with a lot of tahini filler.

It’s not lamb brains, but it’ll do.

The makdous was a damp squib too. The thin hollowed out aubergine was very tart which, combined with its thinness, almost made it resemble an onion. Even more disappointingly, the filling of pickled walnuts and chilli was surprisingly bland.

Pickle my nuts.

At around 18JD (£15 approx. at the time of writing), Haret Jdoudna was inexpensive by London standards, but the quality of the food was hit and miss. I sincerely hope this isn’t the best that Madaba has to offer.

Eat with your hands

One of Jordan’s most distinctive dishes is mansaf, a dish of stewed lamb originally served with bulgur wheat, but now more commonly served with rice and then garnished with pine nuts. Poured on top is jameed, a sauce made from dried, salted goat’s yoghurt. I shared a huge party plate of mansaf with my guide and four other fellow travellers at Deeritna, a restaurant in Wadi Musa near Petra superficially made up to look like a bedouin tent.

Time to get your hands dirty. Or not as the case may be.

Go easy on the goat’s cheese sauce. But not too easy.

Mansaf is traditionally eaten using your hands, although I couldn’t bring myself to do it and chickened out with a spoon instead. Apparently the trick is roll some rice and meat into a ball and then flick it into your mouth. The chunks of lamb, served on the bone, was tender and occasionally earthy, but most of the flavour came from the creamy and mildly tart jameed. It was a warming and very hearty dish.

Spooning.

Saucy.

Deeritna also does a decent selection of mezze. The hummus garnished with slightly acidic summac was satisfyingly nutty and creamy, but the muttabal wasn’t as smoky as I would’ve liked.

Smoke and mirrors.

The chopped parsley and tabbouleh salad left me cold, but the salad topped with light, fluffy and salty goat’s cheese was a winner as was the surprisingly spicy salsa-like concoction.

Fluffy goat.

I have no idea what the red salsa thing is really called.

A mixture of mint and lemon juice proved to a good way of washing everything down. This green-coloured drink somewhat resembled a mint julep. Like Haret Jdoudna, the meal at Deeritna cost around £15 a head, but was far better value and more satisfying too. Plus the proprietor has ribald sense of humour.

It is… green.

Sweet tooth

Shamefully, I didn’t try nearly as much of the local fruit as I should have. I did manage to try some freshly squeezed pomegranate juice, although it would be very hard not to as there’s seemingly a fresh juice stand on at least one street corner in every reasonably-sized Jordanian town. I’ve never had pomegranate juice before and it has a complex taste that’s also very much an acquired taste – a intense hit of sweetness followed by a sharp, sour tang as it hits the back of the throat.

I also didn’t try nearly as many of the local pastries and desserts as I would’ve liked. I did sample some baklava from Sanabel Bakeries in Wadi Musa near Petra and while suitably flaky and flecked with nutty pistachio, which is found growing in the wild in Jordan, it wasn’t that different from Turkish baklava. Lightly crunchy sesame seed biscuits are found throughout Jordan and they’re a good nutty accompaniment to the bitter Turkish-style brew that’s the dominant form of coffee.

Moses allegedly stopped at Wadi Musa during the Israelites’ years in the wilderness. He probably didn’t have baklava.

Sorry for the iffy picture folks.

Open sesame!

No dessert in the desert

Visitors to Jordan often say that Petra is the highlight of the country. While the monumental city is certainly a wonder, it’s the stunning desert landscapes of Wadi Rum in the south of the country that have left an indelible impression in my mind. Staying for a couple of nights in a bedouin-run camp is the best way to appreciate the serene silence and stillness of the desert.

The walled off corral of stones near the bottom right hand corner is actually a graveyard for the local bedouin.

A fascinating way of cooking used by the bedouin is the zarb. Put simply, this consists of a tiered metal canister into which food its placed. The canister is then buried in an underground pit in the sand and the contents cooked for several hours over charcoal. Chicken wings and thighs cooked this way were tender and had a light smokiness, although vegetables cooked this way, such as potatoes, didn’t taste that different from those cooked in a more mundane oven.

Zarb garb.

Heat of the night.

Tier 2.

Of course not all of my meals in the desert were cooked this way. Most were much simpler affairs with lunches consisting of a simple bean stew served alongside a thick, smooth almost Philadelphia-like cow’s milk cheese. Breakfasts were plain yet satisfying – thick labneh yoghurt flavoured with thyme was an unusual yet flavoursome combination. I’m more used to having soft, crumbly, nutty halva as a snack or dessert after encountering it in Turkey, but it also works as a breakfast dish.

Breakfast.

Lunch.

Under the sea

Aqaba is both Jordan’s southernmost town and its only seaside resort. Despite this, seafood had a remarkably low profile and a lot of it is apparently not the local catch but frozen imports from the Gulf instead. The fish served at Floka, which I’m fairly certain was grouper, was either fresh or did a very good impersonation of being fresh. The charred, smoky and slightly oily skin easily gave way to meaty, milky flesh.

Floka, not Fokker

The accompanying french fries felt like an unnecessary sop to my Western sensibilities. The mezze was decent good though – the tart pickled cucumbers were pleasing as was the exceedingly nutty hummus, although the muttabal had a little too much tahini in it. The spicy salsa thing popped up again, but was a little muted this time around. As with the other restaurants here, prices were around £15 a head – there doesn’t seem to be that much variation in pricing.

Wallies.

How do you spell hummus?

There are far too many different English spellings of ‘mutabbal’.

Seriously, what is this?

Buffets

A large number of my meals were included as part of my tour, but all of these involved eating at buffet restaurants. Although these buffets definitely don’t represent the best of Jordanian cuisine, they are a quick way of filling your belly before trekking onwards. The buffet at the Jerash Rest House just inside the site of the city’s expansive Roman ruins won’t win any awards, but it is relatively cheap at just JD5 and includes a surprisingly good range of hummus and crushed fava beans, or fuul, which can be mopped up with as much flatbread as you can handle.

There are a lot of hotel resorts along the Dead Sea for taking in the surreal buoyancy and skin softening qualities of its seriously salty waters, but most Jordanians head to the public Amman Beach Resort which costs almost half as much at just JD11. Although the slightly worn-around-the-edges pool and changing facilities are in need of a facelift, the buffet, which costs around JD12, isn’t too shabby. The muttabal was surprisingly creamy and moderately smoky, while the lentils accompanying the grilled chicken was far more moreish than the poultry itself.

Sadly, and somewhat predictably, both the buffets inside the site of Petra itself were dreary, poor value affairs leeching off the captive tourist trade – trekking back to the nearby town of Wadi Musa from the centre of Petra takes at least 45 minutes. The mundane look of the JD20 Crowne Plaza buffet was instantly off-putting and the more run-down JD10 nameless buffet across the way was utterly unmemorable.

The Marina Plaza Red Sea resort is frequented by truck loads of Jordanian, Western and Russian tourists which inevitably meant that the dinner-time buffet was aimed at the lowest common denominator. The meat was a particularly dreary affair – the chicken shish kebabs and stewed lamb served with chickpea-flecked rice were both bone dry and barely edible as a result.

I’ve had better in the suburbs of south London after chucking out time.

Dry.

The vegetable dishes were far better – a particular highlight was the makdous which was far better than the version at Haret Jdoudna. The chilled fleshy baby aubergines were filled with tart, mildly firm nuts and a dash of spicy hotness. It was an addictive combination. One mysterious surprise was a dense, soft and sweet vegetable paste that not even my very well-informed Jordanian guide, Nader Samir Saleh, could identify. It tasted somewhat similar to sweet potato or pumpkin and was very moreish. The desserts were for the most part an inoffensive selection of forgettable mini cake slices.

Baby aubergines.

Tasty, fluffy, unidentifiable orange thing.

Random selection of unremarkable desserts.

The breakfast buffet, on the other hand, was better. The makdous turned up again, but there was plenty for carnivores. The thin slices of beef bacon tasted somewhat similar to roast beef and was surprisingly addictive, while the smooth and salty chicken sausages tasted surprisingly close to the pork frankfurter variety. The museli, hash brown and halwa weren’t bad, but rather forgettable. Surprisingly, quality fruit was thin on the ground with only the dried figs standing out.

Beef bacon is far better than it has any right to be.

More beef bacon. I couldn’t help myself.

Makdous for breakfast. It probably won’t catch on over here, but I love it.

Fly away

Falafel stands are pretty ubiquitous in Jordan, although the random stand that I stopped at on my way out of Wadi Musa/Petra wasn’t up to much. Oddly accompanied by stodgy chips, the falafel was a little too crunchy and tough for my liking and smeared with a light dab of so-so hummus and salad.

Have I been handed a chip butty by mistake?

That’s better. Sort of.

The falafel available from the Kahla stand at Amman’s airport was far better, although it still wasn’t quite as good as the falafel from Hoxton Beach back in London. Wrapped in a thin, almost crepe or roti-like flat bread, the falafel balls were soft and fluffy, although the portion was a little on the small side. The light smearing of hummus and muttabel was a little miserly too, but the spicy sauce did have a tingly heat to it.

I’m not sure I can trust anyone who doesn’t like falafel.

Service slows to a crawl when queues start forming. Which is doing it wrong.

Finishing off my final meal in Jordan was the ‘nutella saj’ or nutella crepe in more prosaic terms. What I ended up with was even less glamorous as Kahla had run out of crepes so I had to settle for a soft sub-style loaf buttered with nutella instead.

Was this worth the wait?

Depends how much you like nutella.

Jordan is an astonishingly beautiful country. If I get to go back, and I really hope I do, I’ll be skipping the buffets and the familiar Levantine mezze classics from more quirky fare like mansaf.

Until next time.

The best meal of the year and inexcusably overlooked by the Michelin Guide

I encountered a fellow travelling Brit with some interesting views on food during my recent jaunt around Jordan. Although he had a broad palate, this didn’t extend to Modernist cuisine, especially multi-course tasting menus. ‘Artsy fartsy’ ‘nouvelle cuisine’ wasn’t ‘proper food’ he contended. Like all articulate debaters secure in their well-reasoned positions, he wouldn’t brook any argument to the contrary. This unfortunate culinary blindness means he’ll never experience the pure joy of eating at The Clove Club, but that merely makes it a wee bit easier for the rest of us to get a table at this small-ish, cosy Shoreditch restaurant.

The Clove Club only has room for a few dozen covers, so booking ahead is essential. The bare dining room is surprisingly Spartan, but service was friendly, informative and efficient, as well as devilishly good-looking, although it was often hard to hear what they were saying above the lively chatter of the other diners.

An eight course tasting menu (including three amuse bouche) that changes frequently is available in the evenings. There is the option of extending this further to 13 courses with pre-booking, but at the cost of doubling the price from £50 to £100 per person. Vegetarians are accommodated for, much to the relief of The Flame Haired Squelchie. The vegetarian amuse bouche were almost more enticing than their meat-based counterparts. The Squelchie was very pleased with the tempura-like battered artichoke – the crisp, fluffy batter gave way to a buttery, roasted artichoke that melted in her mouth. She was also pleased by the odd-looking but marvellously sweet and globular slices of cucumber.

Chokehold.

Yes, this is apparently cucumber.

The Squelchie enjoyed the smokiness and hint of spice present in the aubergine caviar ‘sandwich’, but she was more taken with the radishes. The spicy sauce and peppery mayo complimented the crunchiness of the vegetables.

Sorry for the iffy photo folks.

You look radishing tonight dear.

The meat-based amuse bouche started off with a moist and meaty chunk of fried chicken coated in a crisp, light, herby and oil-free batter that was a marvel to behold and eat.

Colonel, you’re fired.

The cod cream was served on an odd cracker that resembled an enlarged bran flake, but that didn’t detract from the delicate yet unctuous texture of the cream or its distinctively salty fishiness.

Swaddled in cloth like the precious child it is.

The wood pigeon sausage was remarkably beefy yet light and coarse, which only increased its resemblance to a seekh kebab. As enjoyable as the sausage was, it was nothing compared to the decadent, fatty, enjoyable greasiness of the lard on toast.

Seekh and ye shall find.

Lard on toast is now fine dining. Up next: spam and smash.

A hint of Japan arrived in the form of sea bream sashimi served with pickled celery and tangerine. The delicate citrus-like texture of the fish was complimented by the similar texture of the tangerine, but the excessive sharpness of the pickled celery was out of place and tended to overwhelm the rest of the dish.

Sometime it’s best not to mess with the classics.

Squelchie also encountered a hint of the sea in her next dish. Surprisingly delicate fennel bulbs were topped with seaweed, walnuts and crème fraiche which proved to be a scintillating combination of contrasting textures. The fishy texture and flavour of the seaweed didn’t overwhelm the other elements of the dish, especially the fennel, while a hint of dill added a herby touch.

You’d have to be nuts not to eat here.

The addition of raisins to the cobnuts and bitter leaf made this vegetarian dish resemble muesli. The Squelchie wasn’t impressed though. While she enjoyed the cobnuts, the bitter leaf was bland and the raisins added little so that this dish didn’t really hang together.

Alpen.

I couldn’t identify the thin, yet firm slices of bitter vegetable layered on top of a small heap of squid slices. Nevertheless, the bitterness proved to be a good compliment to the firm saltiness of the squid.

Peek-a-boo.

One of the few vegetarian dishes that was clearly a repurposed alternate version of a meat-based original was the cep mushroom with truffle slices and truffle puree - the meat version had John Dory instead of cep. Even so, both versions of the dish worked well. The delicately creamy cep was enhanced by the earthy and addictive puree, although the actual slices of truffle were surprisingly lacking in both aroma and taste. The meat version benefitted from the meaty and salty fillet of John Dory which tasted just as good with the earthy truffle puree, if not a little better.

Automatically distrust anyone who uses the phrase ‘artsy fartsy’ unironically.

Finding Dory.

I was not expecting to encounter kebabs on The Clove Club’s menu, but these reimagined versions couldn’t have been more different from typical Green Lanes fare. The vegetarian version consisted of dense and meaty mushrooms interleaved with delicate yet punchy fennel bulbs, all brushed with a tangy balsamic glaze.

A vegetarian kebab and not a slice of halloumi or pepper in sight.

This kebab course was definitely one where the meat version was superior though. Chicken with a crisp skin interleaved with a delicate yet meaty, smoky and fatty Parson’s nose (or a chicken’s arse end to you and me) and something decidedly and deliciously offaly was nothing short of remarkable. The combination of flavours and textures was truly sublime.

Guts and glory.

The meat courses only got better from here on out. Delicate strands of lightly caramelised skate had an extra layer of moreishness added by some capers, while the sharp and creamy cauliflower puree added a lip-pursing, lip-smacking finish.

Skate to where the puck is going to be.

Pork belly with anchovy emulsion, French beans, mint and a nutty garnish sounds like a ragbag collection of disparate ingredients, but if you’re thinking that then you clearly haven’t been paying attention. The tender and lightly fatty belly was viscerally satisfying when taken with the powerfully salty emulsion. The tenderness of the belly was offset not only by the crispness of the crackling, but also by the firm beans and the crunchy dusting of nuts. Finally, the mint acted as a very effective palate cleanser – much needed after such a powerfully bold combination of rich flavours.

Oh my.

I wasn’t fond of the charred chewiness of the artichoke skin, but the Squelchie loved it and thought it went well with the distinctly flavoured  artichoke puree.

Artichoke x2.

Leek and cheddar is a classic pie and mash combination, but here the reimagined pairing has been put to highly effective use along with truffle slices. The firm leek acted as a delivery mechanism for the other two ingredients – the thin cheddar sauce was surprisingly effective in releasing the earthiness of the truffle slices.

Open your pie hole!

Duck with pumpkin slices, pumpkin puree and a balsamic reduction sounds rather intricate, but it’s not too far removed from duck a l’orange. The two forms of pumpkin provide a sweet, but not sickly sweet counterpart to the firm, juicy slab of mallard cooked rare.

Pumpkin kingpin.

The Squelchie got the same dish, but with the duck replaced with onions. Although this seems like a very lazy and hurried substitution to me, the Squelchie seemed content with the combination of sharpness and sweetness.

Autumn veg.

Although the Squelchie and I thought the savoury courses were done, the kitchen had a few more snack-sized treats up its sleeve. Delicate crisps and an extra skewer of onion and pumpkin for the Squelchie, while I got a miniature braised duck leg. As good as the first two were, they felt like left-overs. The braised duck leg, however, could easily work as part of a main course in its own right. The meat had an unctuous fattiness that was almost confit-like, but with a moist richness all its own.

Curly wurly.

Did you guys forget to chuck this onto the main plate?

Somewhere out there is a one-legged baby duck feeling sorry for itself.

Both the Squelchie and I enjoyed the goat’s mousse which managed to be light yet creamy at the same time, as well as the topping of berries which was very sweet. The Squelchie and I diverged when it come to the golden graham-style crackers though. The Squelchie felt they were tacked on, while I warmed to them and enjoyed their vague honey-like sweetness. If nothing else, I could use them instead of the spoon to scoop up the rest of this dessert.

Goat’s mousse, not goading moose.

The best dessert of the evening, and indeed one of the highlights of the entire evening, had to be the poached pear with a granita and oats. Although poached pears is now a dessert cliché, the sweet, sharp and fragrant pears here were so silky soft that they almost resembled a mousse. The crisp, hearty oats added a bit of stodge, while the refreshingly cool and herby granita cut through the richness of the pears like a knife through butter. Easily one of the best desserts of the year.

There is a party going on in my mouth.

The Verdict

Although there were a few missteps during my meal at The Clove Club, these pale in comparison to the soaring triumphs. It’s easily one of the best meals I’ve had all year – The Clove Club is an essential, quintessential fine dining stop in London. If you have no desire to go then I pity your lack of taste and ambition.

Name: The Clove Club

Address: Shoreditch Town Hall, 380 Old Street, London EC1V 9LT

Phone: 020 7729 6496

Web: http://thecloveclub.com/

Opening Hours: Lunch, Tuesday – Saturday noon-14:30 and Dinner, Monday-Saturday 18.00-22:00. Closed Sundays.

Reservations: essential.

Total cost for one person including drinks: £100 approx.

Rating: ★★★★★

Bar barbecue face-off

During my recent round up of American-style barbecue places, an unsurprisingly large number of the best places to eat were market stalls and residencies inside bars. One of the winners of that round-up, Texas Joe’s, has since set up shop inside Brewdog Shoreditch. This gave me the perfect excuse to see how this Texan newcomer compared with BBQ Whiskey Beer which, at the time of dining, was located at the Wargrave Arms near Edgware Road but has since relocated to the country for the winter.

BBQ Whiskey Beer

I revisited BBQ Whiskey Beer with the help of the Youngling and, between the two of us, managed to plough our way through a life-threatening amount of ribs. The kitchen was criminally late in sorting out our starter of baby back ribs – but as compensation they essentially doubled the size of the already gluttonous portion.

The baby back ribs came coated in a spicy, tangy sauce that stuck to the tender pig meat rather than to my fingers. The tangy heat was pleasing, but they were also a touch on the dry side and weren’t smoky at all.

Baby got back?

The beef short rib and the pork spare rib can both be sampled in one sitting thanks to the unimaginatively named ‘Mixed Grill’. Youngling, who had eaten at the Soho branch of the mediocre Bodean’s the day before, was instantly impressed by the upgrade in flavour.

The charred dry bark of the beef short rib gave way to reveal a tender, moist, mildly fatty slab of meat on the bone, but without the expected layer of collagen. There was an abundant amount of smokiness to the beef rib, but it was a bit chemically. Although very peculiar, it didn’t spoil my enjoyment of the rib.

Jacob’s Ladder.

The same strange chemically smokiness was also present in the pork spare rib. Although tender and mildly fatty, it was also a little drier compared to both the beef short rib and the pork spare rib from my last visit. I’d attribute this to the natural variation in the pigs’ fat content, but I don’t know enough about porcine anatomy and animal husbandry to say so for certain.

Adam’s rib.

Texas Joe’s

Brewdog Shoreditch has never held much appeal to me as a non-drinker, but the bar has hosted a couple of kitchen residencies over the past year or so and the latest is Texas Joe’s. Best known for his jerky and Dragon’s Den appearance, Texas Joes’ beef brisket sandwich was easily the best brisket dish in my barbecue round up.

The residency has a bigger menu than the original market stall and the Sampler allows you to, well, sample a large swath all in one sitting. The ‘link’ sausage was very beefy and coarsely textured, yet also surprisingly light – it’s easily tasty enough to give many German sausages a good run for their money. The coleslaw was unremarkable though and a mere half slice of pickle seemed insufficient given the amount of meat to be devoured. Although the beans were a little too watery and soft, they were surprisingly piquant.

Don’t be a silly sausage.

A hill o’ beans.

The pork shoulder, which presumably forms the basis of the pulled pork, was a little disappointing. Although tender and reasonably moist, it relied heavily on the accompanying jar of a thin, fruity tomato-based sauce for both flavour and moisture. Without it, the pork would have been a little tedious to chow through.

Yes, this is a rubbish photo.

The beef brisket, which until now I had only tasted chopped and served in a bun, wasn’t especially smoky but was otherwise very good indeed. The bark was charred and slightly chewy, while the beef underneath was moreish and succulent with small rivulets of fat running underneath the main layer of beef.

No longhorns were harmed in the making of this brisket.

The pork spare ribs had been prepared with a dry rub that was lightly pepperty, salty and lip smackingly moreish with a flavour almost reminiscent of Chinese five spice. Although a touch dryer than other pork spare ribs I’ve had, it was still moist, pink and very lightly smoky with a delicate smoke ring.

Dry rub pork spare ribs – a rarity in London.

Given the size of the Sampler there’s no need for side dishes, a gut-saving revelation I wish I had known before ordering the jalapeno cornbread. It was light, fluffy and surprisingly fruity, although totally lacking in heat as well as the nutty sweetness I normally associate with cornbread.

Cubed for eating as a bar snack.

Texas Joe’s Take Two

Given the quality of the beef brisket, I had to return to try out the beef short rib and I was glad I did. The charred, dry bark gave way to a thin layer of moist meat that pulled away from the bone in slightly waxy shreds of flesh. Although lacking in smokiness, it was lightly sweet and salty in a way reminiscent of both soy sauce and Chinese five spice. Although not quite as good as the beef short rib available from either Miss P’s Barbecue or Smokestak, I was still left gagging for more which is definitely a good thing.

Rib tickler.

Rib spreader.

The four thick slices of Texan toast are easily large and stodgy enough to be a main course in their own right if it wasn’t for their odd blandness. While crisp, they were lacking in the garlic butter found on Duke’s version. As this is only the second time I’ve had Texan toast I won’t be too critical about it, but it’s definitely a ‘side dish’ designed for sharing – there’s just far too much carbs for one person to have alongside a mass helping of meat and pudding.

A toast to Joe.

I wasn’t expecting much from the banana pudding. I was therefore pleasantly surprised by the crunchy biscuit, slices of banana and the light and creamy banana custard. Although none had that distinctive banana tang, the variation in texture was pleasing and they were all, collectively and cumulatively, intensely sweet but not overpoweringly so.

Looks weird, tastes good.

Texas Joe’s Sunday Lunch

I hadn’t intended to return to Texas Joe’s (if only to avoid the appearance of favouritism), but I found myself in Shoreditch with The Euro Hedgie in need of a hearty Sunday dinner on a blustery autumnal evening. Texas Joe’s has started serving a slightly gimmicky ‘barbecue Sunday roast’. The meat remains barbecued, but all the trimmings are traditional British ones with a Texan twist.

Despite the so-so pork shoulder from my first visit, I opted for the pig anyway and it was far better this time around. The tender hunk of pork was moist and mildly fatty. The Hedgie opted for the beef brisket and was immediately impressed with it – it was just as good as before.

The special relationship.

Now that’s more like it.

I’m driving slow on Sunday evening.

We were divided when it came to the trimmings – I enjoyed them all, but the Hedgie was underwhelmed and had hoped for a wider selection. Although the jalapeño Yorkshire puddings weren’t that different from plain Yorkshire puds, I enjoyed their crispness nonetheless. The roast potatoes were also good – crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside. The puds and spuds went especially well with the thin but tangy and moreish gravy. This is just as well as the gravy didn’t really suit either the pork shoulder or the brisket which are both easily strong enough to stand on their own without any embellishments. The cumin carrots were lacking in the promised spice, but were tender and very buttery.

Spuds and puds.

Less carrots, more puds.

The jalapeño Yorkshire puddings may have lacked the spicy heat I was expecting, but the same couldn’t be said of the side dish of stuffed jalapeños. They packed a spicy punch that, combined with the dangerous Holy Fuck sauce from The Rib Man, were easily potent enough to give a mild case of the heat sweats. I thought it best to not to enquire into the provenance of the mystery white filling, but we both agreed that the bacon used to wrap each jalapeño was too crunchy and not fatty enough.

Tiny but punchy.

Finally, no review of Texas Joe’s would be complete without a mention of his beef jerky – the product that the oddly-dressed Texan touted on an episode of Dragon’s Den. Compared to other jerkys I’ve had, this one wasn’t excessively sweet, too tough or embalmed in a ridiculous and artificial ‘teriyaki’ flavour. It was a bit chewy in places, lightly sweet and a bit salty in a soy sauce-like way with an occasional suggestion of spice. As a carnivorous equivalent to popcorn, it’s a pleasing one.

It’s OK to have beef jerky for dessert, right?

Don’t be a jerk.

Don’t dismiss it out of hand just because it’s available in Sainsbury’s – that would be a knee jerk reaction.

The Winner

BBQ Whiskey Beer was one of the better barbecue places in London, but Texas Joe’s is even better – and not just because the latter hasn’t (temporarily) abandoned the capital for the sticks. The laconic Texan’s brisket and beef ribs are easily among London’s best and are well worth the small trek to Shoreditch.

Name: Texas Joe’s at Brewdog Shoreditch

Address: 51 Bethnal Green Road, Shoreditch, London E1 6LA

Phone: 020 7729 8476

Web: http://texas-joes.com

Kitchen Hours: seven days a week, noon-22.00.

Reservations: not taken.

Average cost for one person including soft drinks: £20-30 approx.

Rating: ★★★★★

Hotel food with a twist

Hotel restaurants are very different from restaurants in hotels. This may seem like a minor semantic difference, but there’s actually a yawning gulf between the two. Hotel restaurants are identikit eateries serving up a large menu of lowest common denominator dishes designed for weary travellers too tired to care and unadventurous tourists who don’t know any better. Restaurants in hotels, on the other hand, are designed as destinations in their own right with menus and interiors designed to appeal to hotel guests and non-guests alike.

Berners Tavern is definitely a restaurant in a hotel. Located on the ground floor of the newly opened, Marriott-owned Edition hotel in Fitzrovia, and part of Jason Atherton’s burgeoning London empire, Berners Tavern is quite unlike any restaurant I’ve seen before in a Marriott-owned hotel. My shoddy camera phone photo barely does the high ceilinged dining room justice. It’s a very atmospheric place, especially at night, with the multitude of paintings on the walls and the intricate plaster friezes lit by a central row of candle-lit lamps, all of various shapes and sizes. In a way, it’s a much more grandiose version of the vaguely similar decor at the nearby Newman Street Tavern. The plush seating is very comfy, but the service needs a little work. Although always efficient, it varied from friendly and confident to cold and hesitant.

It looks even better in person.

First things first

The food at Berners Tavern can sound deceptively dull and homely, but many dishes have an unexpected creative twist or two. The egg, ham and peas is an example, if not an especially good example. A runny soft boiled egg shrouded in a crisp crumb coating and accompanied by flavoursome mushy peas and very crispy, salty, earthy, almost bacon-like ham. Each element was fine in of itself, but none of them really complimented or contrasted the other.

Not your father’s egg, ham and peas.

Far better was the pan braised halibut and risotto mixed with squid ink served with garlic squid and broccoli. The creamy risotto was enhanced by the battered baby squid, creating a deliciously salty, tangy combination with the soft grains of rice contrasting nicely with the firmer tentacles. The meaty, tender fillet of halibut and tenderstem broccoli were both good in their own right and provided a variation in taste and texture, although the squid and risotto were easily strong enough to be enjoyed on their own.

No mushy halibut syndrome here.

Funky reflections in the very shiny saucepan.

Squink.

The duck fat chips were unimpressive. Although all had a lovely golden colour, the exterior was a little too crunchy and verged on chewy in places, while the insides were too bitty.

A fat portion of chips.

Going back for seconds

Snails plucked out of their shells, a well as a smudge of black pudding, were served in surprisingly generous serving of potato and parsley soup. The parsley unsurprisingly dominated the taste of the moderately thick and very creamy soup, but the overall effect was of a sweet and moreish pea soup. Unlike other snails I’ve had in the past, which were earthy and chewy, these ones were tender and buttery. They were nonetheless exceedingly moreish, especially when taken with a mouthful of soup. The snail-to-soup ratio may seem a little out of kilter and stingy, but this was more than compensated for by the fluffy triangular piece of toast filled with an earthy mushroom-like filling. Although I couldn’t really use it to mop up the soup, it was so addictive and complimented the taste of the snails so perfectly that I didn’t really care.

It is… green.

More please.

The pork chop would be nothing without its accompaniments. An initial hit of charred smokiness faded quickly, leaving me to deal with a dense, slightly tough chunk of pig. The so-so chop was saved by the sweet and flavoursome fig chutney – the combination is somewhat similar to the classic Christmas pairing of turkey with cranberry sauce, but this meaty-fruity combo is far tastier. The moist, slippery and buttery lettuce went down a treat, as did the sweet and buttery mushrooms although I couldn’t detect the promised presence of cobnuts.

Trust me, there are the remains of a pig under all of that.

The slightly buttery, crunchy and buttery tenderstem broccoli tasted even better with the addition of thin almond slices scattered on top. It sounds odd, but their crunchy nuttiness was a perfect compliment for the crunchy butteriness of the greens.

My second visit ended on a sour note. The calvados and apple eclair was underwhelming in every way from the muted flavours to the stodgy, heavy, almost stale-tasting pastry and the unremarkable salted caramel ice cream. Given that calvados and apple are a classic European dessert pairing and can be powerfully flavoursome, this dire rendering was a bitter disappointment.

Send it back.

Third time’s the charm

If you’re expecting a chunk of baby sheep to show up in the crispy lamb breast starter, then you’ll be disappointed. If you’re not begging for more after the last mouthful, then you’re an unmitigated idiot. Although the patty-esque slab of meat was rather bitty, the crumb coating was delightfully crispy. It went exceedingly well with the sweet, nutty and fluffy topping of butternut and pecorino cheese. As if that wasn’t addictively moreish enough, a saucepan of bone marrow crumble is provided for you to spoon on top yourself – the crusty layers of gelatinous globules were the perfect finishing touch to a warm and comforting dish full of delightfully complimentary textures.

Oh my.

The roasted sea bass was flaky and light, but otherwise unremarkable leaving this main course to be defined by the tastes, smells and textures of its accompaniments instead. The salty fishiness mixed with the sweetness and mild heat of mustard was pleasing, as was the wrinkliness of the kale and the chewiness of the shrimp.

For some reason, in the evenings, Berners Tavern is full of people dressed to kill.

As warming side dishes go, it’s hard to beat the fluffy smashed swede and its occasional spicy hits of ginger. ’Smashed swede’ conjures up images of blotto Scandis, not vegetable dishes. Or is that just me?

Sweet potato creme brulée sounds adventurously quirky, but the sweetness of the root vegetable merely served to emphasise the custardish-ness of the creme brulée. The crackling could’ve been a little crisper, but it was still very good and accompanied well by the intensely sweet figs, aromatic and lightly spicy nutmeg and crunchy cocoa nib ice cream.

Figgy pudding.

Four-wards

It’d be a shame not to have oysters during oyster season and Berners Tavern has the option of native rock, West Mersea and Fine de Claire oysters. I ordered a couple of all three, but couldn’t quite identify which was which though. In any case the general quality was a little underwhelming – fleshy oysters with a mineral tang were a highlight, but the briney oysters with a little bit of grit were merely okay and the  oysters with far too much grit in them were either poorly sourced, poorly shucked or both.

I have no idea what type of oyster this is.

Joining me for this final meal at Berners Tavern was the Euro Hedgie. He was just as taken with the crispy lamb breast and the pork chop as I was on my previous visits.

If anyone puts an apostrophe in ‘Berners’, there will be trouble. They may get the chop.

The braised duck came in two chunks – a meaty, slightly fatty slab of breast meat cooked medium rare-ish and a more well-done hunk of leg that peeled away from the bone in bitty shreds. The bird was competently cooked, but it would’ve been nothing without the sweet and sharp caramelised apples and the complimentary turnips that were so sweet and sour that I mistook them for plums or prunes.

Unless they duck quickly.

The Euro Hedgie skipped dessert, but I opted for the sugar-dusted, slightly chewy English-style doughnut. At its centre was a sweet, slightly bitter molten chocolate filling. It was all pleasing enough in a Greggs sort of way, but the real highlight for me was the tacked on almond sorbet. It wasn’t too icy so it almost resembled an ice cream and proved to be a good palate cleanser, while the bold flavour of almonds was not only unmistakable but also very satisfying.

Less doughnut…

… more sorbet, please.

The Verdict

Berners Tavern and Social Eating House, another Jason Atherton restaurant not too far away, may be similarly priced but I prefer the former. Although Berners Tavern’s creative flourishes don’t quite reach the same playful heights as those achieved by Social Eating House, the quality of the cooking at the former is far more consistent. Just as pleasing as the generally good quality, satisfying food with a twist is the atmospheric decor which is a gleaming pleasure in its own right. It may be heretical, but I even prefer Berners Tavern to Pollen Street Social, a vaunted flagship Atherton restaurant that I found somewhat overrated (and which I visited on a rare night off, hence the lack of a review), and if that’s not a hearty recommendation then I don’t know what is.

Name: Berners Tavern

Address: 10 Berners Street, London W1T 3NP

Phone: 020 7908 7979

Web: http://www.bernerstavern.com

Opening Hours: seven days a week 07.00–midnight

Reservations: highly recommended.

Average cost for one person including service and free tap water: £45-50 

Rating: ★★★★☆

The Hawksmoor that’s not a Hawksmoor

Foxlow is the latest restaurant from the guys behind the Hawksmoor mini-chain of steakhouses, but it tries to be different by concentrating on meats other than steak. I say ‘tries’ quite deliberately, as you can still order various cuts of steak at Foxlow. Even if this wasn’t the case, Foxlow’s non-Hawksmoor branding is still a little puzzling as the various Hawksmoor restaurants haven’t been afraid to serve dishes other than steak. The short menu is nothing if not straightforward though. The meats are divided up into two sections – smoked and grilled/roasted. If you want sides, salads, starters and desserts, there’s a choice of around half a dozen of each.

First things first

I first visited Foxlow with The Euro Hedgie during the soft launch period and, even with this in mind, both the service and the kitchen was already a well-oiled machine – we were in and out in just over one hour and 15 minutes. The Hawksmoors have a special place in my otherwise blackened, shrivelled heart due to their cornflake milkshake – a superlative non-alcoholic drink that’s a real pleasure for a non-pisshead like me. The cold-brewed iced coffee couldn’t live up to the same standard though. Although it was malty in places and had a clean after taste, it also seemed a little watered down.

Put the bunny back in the box.

The salads can also be ordered as sides, although my choice of roast acorn squash was underwhelming. Although soft and light, the usual sweet creaminess was surprisingly muted – a dash of pine nuts added a little crunch for contrast in texture. The squash skins were still attached too, which was unusual.

Hulk, squash!

There’s little of note to be said about the tenderstem broccoli, while the roast potatoes were surprisingly light – the soft chunks had a zestiness to them that was unusual but pleasing.

Sack of potatoes.

Barbecued baby back ribs from Iberian pigs sounds like a winning formula, but I was sceptical as I’ve always favoured meatier, fattier spare ribs over the comparatively lean and small baby back ribs. The uninteresting rub, with the exception of a mild tanginess, passed me by while the meat itself was tender and lightly smoky. Not bad, but I’ll stick with spare ribs.

Nobody puts baby in the corner.

The barbecue theme continued with the bacon rib. Although not very smoky, the massive slab of moist, tender and fatty meat was still a delight. A more flavoursome rub would’ve made it even better, but nonetheless it’s still one of the better pork ribs you’ll find in London.

Blood, tears and gold.

Fat of the land.

The Hedgie opted for the monkfish. He found it a tad overcooked and would’ve preferred it if the fish had been cooked a bit on the rarer side instead, but the light yet meaty fillet was still pleasing enough with its zesty, salty hits.

Fishlow.

The Hedgie didn’t stay for dessert, but I had to have the intriguingly named peanutella toast. The treacly peanutella (presumably a nutella spread dervied from peanuts rather than hazelnuts) arrived in a jar dotted with whole peanuts. It wasn’t excessively sweet, nor was it too thick or viscous either. On the side were crisp soldiers with a very sweet taste reminiscent of almonds, although this was lost when the soldiers were slathered with the treacly peanutella. The two sides of the dessert didn’t really work together and I’d much rather have had more of the scrumptious soldiers.

Ten-hut.

Nutella by any other name is just as sweet?

Going back for seconds

Since my first visit to Foxlow occurred during the soft launch, it was only fair that I returned when they were formally and fully up and running. The iced tea was a disappointing non-alcoholic tipple – watery and lemonish, I’d swear it was actually a glass of Lipton’s. The cherry soda was better with a very sweet, mildly fruity flavour reminiscent of Calpol, which is a good thing because I like Calpol, with a couple of boozy cherries providing some extra kick.

Gnat’s piss.

Am I the only person in the world that likes Calpol and Diet Cherry Coke? Not together of course – don’t be a heathen.

A starter of butternut squash and ricotta on toast wasn’t as satisfying as I had hoped. The soft and chewy bread hardly counts as toast, while the fluffy squash and ricotta were both drowned out by sharp onions, a light spicy heat and some fresh, zingy mint.

Was the toaster broken?

The side dish of baked beetroot with hazelnuts and horseradish sounds like a stodgy, overwhelming combination, but it was actually surprisingly light and subtle. The large, soft chunks of earthy beetroot were dressed in a surprisingly muted horseradish and a light dusting of fine grained, crushed hazelnuts. A slightly stronger horseradish would’ve complimented the earthiness of the beetroot even better though while a more generous dusting of hazelnuts would’ve emphasised the contrast in texture more.

Chunky.

Foxlow may have been a bit shaky on the vegetables, but it was firing on all cylinders when it came to the iberico pork pluma, a cut of pork from the shoulder section of the loin (unless I’m mistaken). Cooked rare/medium rare, the tender and pink slices of pig were a little sweet and lightly seasoned with pepper and crunchy salt. Although it wasn’t quite as deeply flavoursome as the iberico pork cooked medium rare sometimes available at Pizarro, it was still a deliciously satisfying, yet simple dish.

Pork pluma photo.

Pink pork pleasure.

I’ve never been a huge fan of sundaes, but I was lured into trying the chocolate and popcorn sundae by my friendly and informative waitress. The bottom layer of caramelised popcorn was topped by a mildly sweet layer of melted chocolate. On top of that was a massive seam of soft serve ice cream studded with even more popcorn, this time individually dipped in chocolate. Although initially pleasing, the massive portion meant that I quickly became bored – the excessive lashings of ice cold soft serve and so-so chocolate became monotonous very quickly.

Chocorn.

Third time’s the charm?

I returned to Foxlow for a third and final time, with the Euro Hedgie tagging along for the ride once again. Our seafood starters were an unimpressive duo.  The Hedgie’s salt and pepper squid was firm, but very lightly seasoned and battered in a rather uninteresting coating that was at least crisp.

Brown.

Bitty head meat was used in my crab with devilled mayo. I would’ve preferred a claw or two, but the head meat was at least pepped up by some coriander and chilli slices. This is just as well as the ‘devilled mayo’ seemed to be nothing more than the seafood sauce you’d find in a prawn cocktail.

Feelin’ crabby.

Surprisingly, the Hedgie once again opted for a non-red meat dish as his main course. The imam bayidli, a Turkish dish, resembled ratatouille – a hearty heap of assorted vegetables, but it was difficult to make out the smoked aubergine that was supposed to be at the centre of it all.

The Euro Hedgie doesn’t like my naff puns. He can bite me.

Beef short rib with kimchi may sound like a bizarre combination, but Hawksmoor did pioneer the kimchi burger to great effect and success. This particular combination of barbecued Jacob’s Ladder and fermented Korean cabbage didn’t start well, but it quickly grew on me. The short rib could’ve done with a more flavoursome rub, but the charred bark was tender giving way to meat that was tender, lightly smoky and intensely beefy. It was also relatively dry due to the noticeable lack of fat, but the combination of tender beefy strands, collagen and tart kimchi that grew in spicy heat with every subsequent mouthful was ultimately an effective main course.

Kor-Tex.

Another meaty success was the side dish of onion stuffed with sausage meat. The moist, hefty meatball, which the Hedgie confidently proclaimed to be a mixture of pork and beef, was very moreish. This was only enhanced by the thin, meaty, lightly tangy gravy and the thin, whole layer of onion used as a wrapper.

A good stuffing.

Foxlow must have a massive reservoir of soft serve ice cream as both my dessert and the Hedgie’s came with the stuff even though neither of us ordered a sundae. The Hedgie’s banoffee split came with the fruit sliced in half and arranged around the sides of a plate with a massive dollop of soft serve ice cream, melted chocolate and sweet, crunchy macadamia nuts in the middle. It was a rather middling dessert, with the caramel-ish ‘toffee’ effect most pronounced when the ice cream had melted a bit, mixing more easily with the chocolate and macadamias but even then it was pretty weak.

Splitsville.

My cherry pie arrived in a small meat pie dish with a dollop of soft serve ice cream drizzled in cherry sauce on the side. Underneath the thin, crispy crust was a pool of tart, squidgy fruit that almost resembled cranberries. Ironically, the cherry sauce on the ice cream tasted far more cherry-like than the actual fruits themselves. Although disappointing, mixing the hot crust and fruit with the cool ice cream together into a creamy, crispy sweet gloop proved to be a reasonably satisfying consolation prize.

No cherry on top.

Cherry picking.

The Verdict

Foxlow was, overall, a disappointment. While far from bad, most of the dishes felt like half-finished experiments that needed a little more finesse or at least more development time in a test kitchen somewhere. The vegetable dishes in particular need more work, while the desserts felt oddly-retro as if they were designed to appeal to nostalgic adults hankering for the desserts of their youth, but slightly reimagined. There were a few highlights – namely the beef shortrib, bacon rib and iberico pork pluma – but equivalents that are just as good or even better are available elsewhere. Foxlow, like a good cut of beef, may get better with age but for now St. John, its competitor down the road, doesn’t have anything to worry about.

Name: Foxlow

Address: 69-73 St John Street, London EC1M 4AN

Phone: 020 7014 8070

Web: http://foxlow.co.uk

Opening Hours: Monday – Saturday noon-23:00 and Sunday noon-16:30.

Reservations: highly recommended.

Average cost for one person including soft drinks and service: £40-50 approx. 

Rating: ★★★☆☆