B.O.B's Lobster - A Contender or Emperor's New Clothes?

My diet seems to consist of burgers, burgers, BBQ, ribs, fried chicken and burgers. What London is missing is quality seafood, that is reasonably priced (Michelin dishes with one small lobster tail for £50 don't count no matter how good they taste) and preferably somewhere that doesn't involve a two hour queue. A lot of restaurants and pubs nowadays have a grilled half lobster on the menu. Burger & Lobster obviously have to be mentioned when talking about seafood, their £20 lobster rolls are a decadent, but affordable, treat. Only problem is that the queues can be fearsome - especially later on in the week. There are some other good options such as the classic Sheekey's, Green's, Lobster Pot, Wright Brothers who all either do lobster or specialise in seafood, but again, price can be an issue and you usually have to book Thursday onwards.

B.O.Bs Lobster

#bleeckerspitroastgangbang - Inappropriate Burgers and Hashtags

For those not 'in the know', the McGangbang is not a sexual euphemism for an appalling sex act involving Scottish clowns, but a 'secret' sandwich combination available at the wonderous Golden Arches. Oh MaccyD's, where would society be without you? Its creator is unknown to us mere mortals: some speculate he was a College 'Bro' of the highest Bro-order, others that he was a bodybuilder trying to bulk up on the cheap. See, a McGangbang is a double cheeseburger, patties split in twain, and stuffed with an entire McChicken sandwich. Both items were originally on the US Dollar menu and the sandwich cost only $2.16 in total. I suspect that you would struggle to get more calories, 'meat' and minutes taken off your life at such a bargain anywhere else. Sure your HMO may adjust your premiums by a few hundred dollars a year for getting one - but that's for 'Future You' to worry about. Forgettaboutit.

Hawksmoor Spitalfields: Revamped Bar

The blog has been a bit slack of late, and for those of you that actually read this, I can only apologise. I have however been continuing to eat over the last month (fortunately) and so some reviews will hopefully be winging their way up onto here soon.

Anyway, as for today's post it is for the revamping launch of Hawksmoor's Spitalfield bar found in the dungeon beneath the main restaurant itself. They have also got a new food menu and as is traditional with Hawksmoor, the first month is 50% off food so I duly waddled along to partake in some inevitably meaty treats. On the meat overload I did not disappoint dear readers. Of course this 'review' should be taken with a pinch as it was only the second day of the menu and tweaks will (hopefully) be made. Until then there is the 50% off to offset some sub-par issues.

The Bar

Burgers: A London Sampling

Two slices of bread and a slab of meat, simple ain’t it? Although bread has been eaten for thousands of years in countless forms and humans have been eating meat for just as long, it took a surprisingly long time before someone thought to combine them. Bread was the original crockery; in medieval times stale bread was used as edible plates soaking up the juices of whatever was being eaten, leading to open–faced sandwiches. Bread is even used as the delivery vehicle such as for Shooter’s sandwiches or pain surprise. Despite the vague claim of a Jewish religious leader being the inventor of the sandwich, the widely accepted factoid has it that back in the 18th century the Fourth Earl of Sandwich was the first to have the bright idea to put cold meats between two slices of bread. Handy during a game of cards as marking your hand with sticky fingers is not a good thing. 

Fast forward a hundred years and some bright spark decided to put some hot mincemeat in a bun and the burger was born. No one knows exactly who the innovator was and frankly I don’t care, what matters is that it was created. What seemed like a relatively simple evolution has led to waves of innovation, debate, favouritism and politics. Burgers were big news in 1950’s America with Whitecastle pioneering the fact that burgers, uniformly shaped, could be made fast. Then McDonalds created the franchise and with these two weapons they unleashed a steady torrent of meat slurry into the face of Joe Public. They ate it and they loved it. 

Over the years our love affair for the burger has waned, becoming a symbol of everything that is wrong with modern society – greed, lust and excess. Greasy, fatty fried meat in a carbohydrate-packed bun served with oily chips, washed down with high-fructose corn syrup. Soon governments and media declared fast food as the 'food of the poor, the stupid and the gluttonous'. "Shame on all those that eat it!” they cried. Do it, and do it now; lest we have time to look at ourselves dunking our chocolate digestives in our tea and dripping on our copies of the Daily Mail. Acres of trees are cut down every week to ensure thousands of column inches can be dedicated to how we are eating and drinking ourselves to an early grave and taking the taxpayer with us. The face of this epidemic: the humble burger.

Outside of the world the Daily Mail seems to have created, the burger has made a comeback. The food culture of this, and many European countries, has exploded and people have decided that they will eat anything as long as it tastes good. Fuck the diets, what matters is taste. A form of self-fellatio, people run around endlessly like food junkies desperate to get their next fix. McDonalds is scorned and mocked, not because it is unhealthy, but because it’s shitty solidified grey sludge. Look at American chains such as In-N-Out. They are heralded by both the press and the public, yet the offerings are essentially the same. The only real difference is taste and one saying they care about the quality of what they are serving. Both are still high fat, high carb foods.

London has more than its own fair share of burger joints. Mega-chains such as McD's and BK as well as smaller chains and independents. Below I present six very different offerings from around the capital. A street food van, small independent types, dirty slices of Americana and one supposedly down-on-its-luck chain. Forgive me for not visiting the Golden Arches for comparison - I think we all know what that tastes like.

Bleecker Street - Simply The Best

I've written about these guys before and to signpost where this is going: this is, in my opinion, the best burger in London. Full stop, hands down, shake it all around. A more controversial point would be that I don’t even think anyone else is even close - maybe only the guys directly below. When I tell friends this I find it hard to describe why exactly. The bun is pretty straightforward and there are none of my favourite accompaniments such as pickles, pickled/caramelised onions or a spicy sauce. What it does have however is exceptional beef, tasty cheese and some moreish burger sauce. The bun is beautifully toasted giving a nice crunch and there are two thin circles of charred onion that gives a light smokey flavour. The cheese is pure Americana and gives a creamy blanket for the patty. Overall though, the star is the beef.

Yum Bun: Best Buns in Town

You have to respect anyone who actually chases their ambitions above and beyond just sending out a few CVs and sloshing back a few glasses of mid-priced overly acidic Sauvignon Blanc at another networking event. To look at your life, with a solid job and steady income and say “fuck it, i’m out”, takes balls that require a wheel-barrow for transport. Everyone thinks about it, everyone talks about it: “Oh yeah, recruitment is like totally just a short-term thing. What I REALLY want to do is move to Indonesia and become a scuba instructor.” Well, fuck me Mr Cousteau, please don't let me be the one to stand in the way of your dreams. Just this morning on the tube I had an idea about peer-to-peer medical services done over video chat. Doctors from around the world would log on whenever they were free and patients would be matched by language proficiencies. The video diagnoses could even be checked by a cloud of doctors for an additional fee. I thought about who to contact, how the business model would work etc. Am I ever going to do any of this? Come on, I can’t even get the motivation to change the batteries in the TV remote and just sit rolling them back and forth trying to eek out the last electrical drips.

Blythburgh belly pork with hoisin, sriracha, cucumber and spring onion

BrooklynFeast: A Cold Feast in Dalston

Streetfeast is one of a handful of London organisations that seek to bring street food to the masses. Between them, WeFeast and KERB, multiple events run every month to serving up incredible food at interesting locations with an party atmosphere.

Streetfeast had been in hiatus for a while and the BrooklynFeast was their return to the forefront with a rather trendy event in Dalston on a bitterly cold Tuesday evening. The venue was as hipsterish as it gets, an old car park which itself was a disused building full of shipping containers and beaten up old bangers. The team in charge had done a great job in filling the space. Plastic chairs and some floodlights this was not. Glow lights and back-lit signs were hung in and around and across the open spaces between the traders vans. Several large marquees were put up and filled with plentiful seating for a change. Best of all, they actually stuck their head out the window, realised it was beyond ‘just a bit nippy’ and rented a dozen heat lamps. For more pictures I’m sure Kate Beard from www.asouthernbellein.com/ took some great pictures so keep a look out on her blog.

London Street Food 2.0: Brick Lane, Kerb, Brockley, Red & Borough

The last time I wrote a street food post it included a multitude of traders over multiple locations. I thought it was an easy way of showing the range of cheap, quality fast food available to the average Londoner. This is the same. I appreciate its rather long but there are also lots of lovely pretty pictures to entertain those with shorter attention spans. 

I was happy when I saw the post getting widely retweeted because these guys work fucking hard and deserve greater publicity than they currently get. The London street food scene has exploded over the last year and there are some great characters and custom modified vans that are beginning to rival the culture found in New York or California. I love street food because it's a great equaliser. Huge bank rolls can only do so much if your product is pants. Put McDonalds onto the streets next to the likes of Burger Bear or BleeckerSt and they wouldn't last a day. Your advertising is limited to who can see your sign, twitter, and people like me. It's capitalism as its most simplistic - those that create a superior product thrive. those that can't match them fall away. Hopefully that means they'll be a race to the top, not the bottom as demonstrated by the recent Horsegate scandal in supermarkets.

Its a well known fact across continental Europe that markets give an area a sense of community and that's what is beginning to happen in and around these sites. Come summer I expect it'll be at its height. Cyncial or overly-manufactured vendors will be shunned. Passionate, hard-working, talented traders will continue to thrive. Vive la révolution. The (Burger)King is dead, long live the King.

Market Happiness

CASK Pub and Kitchen: Missing Oomph

CASK pub had recently come onto my radar and a friend dragged me there despite setting my eyes on having ramen on one of the few free weekdays I have had recently. I'm always game for a good burger (as this blog does and will continue to attest to), and so we made the trek to a slightly baron part of Pimlico to see what these guys could do.

The outside of the pub is a rather grotty 1960's-style monstrosity, its interior having had an overhaul along the way. CASK, as the name betrays, is just as focused on its impressive selection of beers as it is on their burgers, served up by a group calling themselves 'Forty Burgers'. The bar-front is full of a myriad of pumps, with more on offer in the way of bottles. There is something for every taste and I would readily go back just for a tasting. Commercially cross selling of selected beers with certain dishes/burgers could be leveraged to a greater extent. Now this post should have a disclaimer that they haven't been serving burgers all that long and readily admitted on twitter that they are listening to comments and tweaking the specifics. Which is all rather refreshing considering what can happen to a blogger these days.

CASK Pub

London Markets Tour: Kerb, Berwick, Real Food Festival

Working as I do over in Canary Wharf, I am in a street-food wasteland. There is one Wahaca van and a market once a month that is so full, crowd surfing above a sea of suits ad ties is the only way to get across it. In general, the only time I get tasty lunchtime treats are on weekends. Enough was enough and I took Friday off work in order to partake in a bit of a London tour and visit some of the major markets in London.

Kerb was the first on the hit list with some great traders due to be serving that day. The better half and I neglected breakfast in order to make the most room for the feast that awaited. Unfortunately a freak issue with power meant that when we arrived at 11:30am, we were told that it wouldn't be until 12 that we could eat. Safe to say I wasn't the most popular boyfriend right then.

Everything we ate was between £3-7. Overall it was a pricey day but then again most people don't eat like I do. For the experience, extra engagement with traders and friendliness of everyone we met, the value is superb.

We started off with  fiodena from the fabulous Gurmetti boys. A toasted and crispy foccacia with wafer thin wild ham and onion jam. Such a great sandwich on a cold day like this. The ham had bags of flavour and the fatty slivers that hung out the sides were gobbled without mercy. The onion jam was sweet and so moreish. Sharing was difficult. A photographer for the Evening Standard was taking pictures of London markets and yours truly may be in the paper next week receiving the below beauty from the boys from Parma and Turin (UPDATE: I wasn't :/).

Fiodena.

Gurmetti boys

Franco Manca: Definitely Not Sour

I've been to Franco Manca's several times without blogging, both in Brixton and also in its recently opened Clapham Junction venue. Its has been widely praised in both the mainstream media and food bloggerati. It is famous for its soft chewy sourdough bases and simple, high quality toppings.

The owners Giuseppe Mascoli and Bridget Hugo opened in the enclosed Brixton market in 2008 at a time when London could really do with a smile and the joy a great pizza brings. They have brought sourdough to the masses and have turned those used to crispy but flavourless crusts, back into the light. Today, with four venues and a growing fan base, the dough is still made with the military precision that it was in 2008 and the ingredients still sourced with care. Prices may have risen over the years but at between £6-8, its still amazing value.

The pizzas are cooked in a brick oven at 500 degrees and take a mind-numbing 40 seconds to cook. This is basically as close to Naples as you are likely to get while sipping your organic lemonade and sitting next to a couple that fell through a Jack Wills catalogue.

Chorizo and mozzarella pizza

MEATmarket: Not original but who cares?

Its been around for quite a while now and I went pre-blog days a week or so after opening for a mid-week treat, and fearing a Liquor-like line and was surprised to see it empty. Hidden away in a gritty hideaway above one of the less chic areas of Covent Garden, back then the cogs were still being polished and the delivery was a little off: burgers under seasoned, and lacking some of the menu favourites of the original (where were the wings and deep friend pickles?). Nonetheless these things take time and the better-half was craving a MEAT hotdog, so we duly swung by on a wet Wednesday evening.

Worried that by now the cat would be out the bag, and that infamous MEAT queue would be snaking down the spiral stairs, I was anxious as I rounded Waggamamas. My worrying was all in vain, as although full, the nature of fast-food became apparent as two gentlemen left just as we arrived. I duly hurried to the service point.

Food:

One Dead Hippie, Ripper, wings, fries and beers.

The wings had the important crisp blistering on the skin that gave the hot sauce something to cling to and were still moist inside. The wings were well coated and were as tasty as at its parent. The BH is not a fan of spice, so that left me with double the fun.

Hot Wings