Berners Tavern: Veni, Vidi, Vici?

Empires are funny things to us iPad-owning, European Union, One Direction, generation. Which, funnily enough, all represent an empire of sorts. Empire in traditional command & conquer, "do you have a flag?" meaning; is so remote to us that the brutality and suffering they perpetuated seems almost fiction. Empires are spoken of with some nostalgic pride in the UK, a great force now spent and rendered to the annals of history. While eschewing evidence that immigrants bring added value to us, while also conveniently forgetting we asked a lot of them to come in the first place, we are content to think that we were merely benevolent dictators. We bestowed upon them a parliament, democracy, cricket, medicines, road and railways. We even gave* them our religion (*ahem).

Sushi Tetsu: No Place I'd Rather Be

Many things have to come together to make a meal truly memorable. Environment, attitude, company, perception, taste, timing, skill, even prior experience. Only a few of these are in the full control of a chef and the staff and even if the parts that can be, are, sometimes the smallest things that ruin a meal. Be it a diner talking that bit too crassly and inevitably loudly, a baby crying in a restaurant just not meant for babies, or where the service simply leaves you cold. Consultants go to great lengths, and charge far too much, to make restaurants as unoffensive to as wide an audience as possible. Slickly dressed servers, non-imaginative interior design, techno-ordering systems - too many places now fit into neat buckets that pre-describe the clientele before anyone has even walked inside. Funny then that every great restauranteur already knows the actual answer - genuine friendliness, passion and an unashamed lack of compromise is what makes great atmosphere. Sushi Tetsu knows this too.

Akami - Perfection

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

Homeslice Covent Garden Review: Suprisingly Uncommon

Grabbing a great ‘pie’ - as the Americans call them - in London is about as rare as finding quality Indian food in New York. It’s there, you just can’t find it. There are only a handful of places that can justifiably be said to serve quality pizza in Zone 1. Princi and Rossopomodoro are contenders while out in other Zones, street traders such as Fundi, Well Kneaded and Pizza Pilgrims (often trade in Zone 1 and soon to be at a bricks and mortar site on Dean Street) offer even better options. Sacre Coeur and the ever-expanding Franco Manca valiantly service Zone 2's cheese-related needs.

So why the lack of great pizza parlours in Zone 1? It can’t be an issue of low profitability, pizzas are one of the higher margin products and there are far too many awful slice-microwaving takeaway kiosks in the West End fleecing tired hungry tourists before the Angus Steakhouses could (RIP) for that arguement to hold true. Maybe it’s that people are happy with the tasteless cardboard served out of Pizza Express and Zizzis? Maybe people aren’t fully aware how much better something as simple as a pizza can be? If that's the case maybe it is time for a revolution, I mean you only have to look at burgers for a precedent.

Seating -space at a premium

Jose Pizzaro: Spanish Simplicity

Spain has a long and inspiring culinary history, every province resonates with such a clear cultural identity, forged from a mixture of nature, politics history and the available ingredients. Cantabria with its amazing boquerones, Castilla y León and it's superlative Iberico pork and Valencia with its paella. There's a vibrancy and passion for food that matches both France and Italy, yet is given far less credit by the external food community. While Spain boasts some of the highest ranked restaurants in the world: El Cellar de Can Roca being named the best in 2013, Mugartiz (4th), Arzak (8th) and of course the previously imperious El Bulli; a Spaniard has never even ranked in the top 3 at the fabled Bocuse D'or and the country has only half as many three starred Michelin restaurants as those sausage-eating, sauerkraut-loving Germans.

Croquettas

Burger & Lobster Review [Farringdon]: Catch of the Day

Back in 2011 London slowly started mirroring a very New York trend for single-dish restaurants; so much so the Graun even wrote an article about it. By 2013 it seems that despite our love of supermarkets and the mantra of "Choice, choice, choice!"; when it comes to eating out we prefer to take the less taxing route. Virtually every Soho joint is a 'singlet': steak, noodles, falafel, burgers, meatballs, even mash potato! Clearly fans of Adam Smith's work, I can appreciate that the potential to create something truly special, when you only have one dish to focus on, is that much greater. Burger & Lobster caught on early, opening their Mayfair joint in 2011 and they took the limited menu idea one step further by offering everything at the same price. No starters just a lobster roll, a burger and a whole lobster each for £20. Needless to say they became rather popular. Since then they have opened three other locations around London in Soho (Dean St), the City (St Pauls) and Farringdon. Because of the other trend of not taking reservations and my general lack of patience for queuing when I'm hungry, I'd never actually been before. To rectify this I met up with Clerkenwell_Boy and Burger Addict at the Farringdon branch. Will, who runs the whole network, kindly showed us around the kitchens and the tanks and answered all our annoying blogger questions. Thanks again Will, t'was very kind.

I think we're gonna need a bigger boat

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.

Alba: Unfortunately Forgettable

Just that morning my flatmate was asking about reasonably priced Italian places in London. I was racking my brain, at half past eight in the morning refused to work. Bocco di Lupo, Locanda Locatelli, L'Anima? All bit OTT for your average Londoner in search of a better-than-average bruschetta. Polpo and Trullo probably comes closest but one doesn't take reservations, and at the other trying to get a table at a time approaching normality is a rarity. Plus, Islington is a right slog for us staunch Southeners. 

So then, that night I was meeting my father for our usual father-son catch-up dinner and he had booked Alba in Clerkenwell. A quick peruse of the menu showed it to be a mid-priced Italian jobbie with underwhelming choices. My hopes were that the quality of the ingredients would gild the otherwise unimpressive lily. Unfortunately my instinctive apprehension was well placed as it proved to be correct as the food was simply rather forgettable and the interior was a little lacking in style and seemed a little dated. There were several tables of elderly folk tucking into the set menu. I'm not one to bash the elderly, but a general rule of thumb is that if a restaurant has a large number of them, the food is often less than inspiring.

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

Yauatcha: How Not to Treat A Customer

Food blogs are funny things. Ultimately it is just one person's snapshot view of a restaurant. What would bring you to read my views on a restaurant you may well never visit? I guess like all critics, as a s/he is read more and more, the reader compares it with their own experiences and they learn to trust the critic's opinion, or not. They may also come for the writing, or they may even come to satisfy their raging food-porn obsession if the blogger has spent a suitably grotesque amount of money on the latest SLR wonder box of tricks. Did you SEE the bokeh on those?!

Food critics for the New York Times have rules about the number of times they have to eat at a restaurant before they can review it. As to with the Michelin process. Too many times have I seen negative reviews because the kitchen sent a few bad plates out of the thousands that week. It may even have been the only bad plates to get through the pass all year. Nonetheless, bloggers often write up a scathing review and move on to the next terrified bastard holding everyone to Michelin levels. For things that are cheaper like burgers/street food, I will generally try to go several times before writing it up. I understand that everyone pays the same amount for each plate but if only 1% of the orders are duds then it is unfair to say the quality is poor if you’ve only been once and gotten unlucky.

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

Fairuz: Warm Welcomes

Overly sweet and sour pork with boil in the bag rice; microwaved salmon and tomato pasta; a leg of lamb, still in a roaring oven, whose last traces of blushing pink was lost some 20 minutes ago. Childhood memories, hardly Larousse Gastronomique. It may surprise you however to hear that these are some of my fondest meals. Why? Because they were cooked by my mother. It doesn’t matter if your mother was Delia or a Ramsay kitchen nightmare; her food will always have a special place. Part of the reason for this is the strong emotional bonds between the cook and the customer.

Restaurateurs either ignore this fact, or grossly misjudge it and try to be cringingly 'matey' (read: Jamie's Italian). It is a rare treat in a gastro-joint, or Michelin-starred tasting menu food-palace, that you forge even an inkling of a bond with the chef or his food. You are there to be wowed and to stand in awe at the expensive ingredients and fancy techniques. Too often customers are served the chef’s vision. Emotional attachment is rarely forged through perfection and more from endearing flaws and genuine warmth in the way it is served.

Fairuz

The Diner Soho: Superbowl Burger Excess

The Diner kindly invited several burger enthusiasts for a tasting of a new monster burger they are rolling out for their Superbowl party. Now although they are sold out for that evening (see bottom of this post), for those that aren't fans of 'football', but are fans of burgers as big as your head, this beast will be rolled out for the week following the event, 4 - 10 February.

Its called the Stiff-arm burger (see this for explanation) and is one of those plates that actually get you a little worried when its brought to the table. That little flutter of "fuck, am I actually going to finish that?! How do i even start it?!" while people turn to stare from other tables. You'd be right to be worried. The Stiff-arm contains a 5oz beef patty, an 8oz Jucy Lucy (we'll come to that), jalapeno slaw and 'football' sauce all in cased in a poppy-seed Rinkoff bun. So that's 13oz of meat give or take. Its a fearsome plate of food.

The Stiff-Arm

Battle of the Giants: Steak Wars

Prost - Senna, Ali - Frazier, Borg - McEnroe, Hendry - O'Sullivan. Since the first person to kick a rock into a cave opening, past an outstretched monkey, man has competed. And competition breeds rivalry. More enthralling than the rivalries and the heights they push themselves to be the best, are the spectators' intense love or hatred for one of the two. Great rivalries: the ones that last, are those where the two competitors are polar opposites. One cool, laid back and usually Nordic. The other an angry, brass young upstart, usually American. You can tell a lot about a person's character by whom they pick out of Ovett or Coe.

Sport and its competitive nature is a metaphor for many things in life. One of those mentioned less often is the rivalry within the food world. There are great examples: the American v Lafayette Coney hotdog war in Detroit, North Carolina v Kansas City for BBQ and the most famous the race-to-the-bottom: McDonalds v Burger King, to make the least edible burger (congratulations McDonalds, you just sneaked it with the McRib)

The reason I live (Note: Not a McRib)

The Green Man and French Horn: Gem of St. Martins

London has always felt a great amount of envy towards its culinary superpower across the channel. While the French sipped their cafe au lait and nibbled warm buttery croissants; Brits shoveled down ham and cheese toasties washed down with milky tea. We have always been defensive about our traditional cooking, the French usually guffawing at our attempts at bold flavours and delicate desserts. London has been hit by the food revolution and it seems we have more French restaurants than Paris. Typically, the market is skewed towards Café Rouges and Chez Gerards - serving over-cooked, toughened steak frites and pre-made deserts straight from the fridge. The top of the market is well-catered for by the Rouxs, Ducasses and Koffmans. What has been missing is the simple, passionate cooking reminiscent of the brasseries and auberges. Recently there have been some strides in the right direction such as Brasserie Zedel dominating the Piccadilly area. 

The Green Man and the French Horn is nestled down in St Martin in the Lanes, a stones throw from J.Sheekeys and Asia de Cuba with Le Garrick just round the corner. It's somewhere I've had had my eye on ever since reading The Perfect Trough's review. The venue was formerly a pub and it has the usual narrow entrance which makes for a slightly awkward wasted space. The interior isn't too far off some of the auberges of the Loire region, each table is different design and the plates seemingly odds and ends. This is a deliberate design plan, not a lack of money (the owners are behind Terroirs and Soif), however it still has a sense of charm. The ambiance suffered due to it being midday on a wet and cold January, but when full during a dinner service, it would undoubtedly be a cozy bolt-hole busy with chatter.

Burger & Shake [Launch Review]

I was honoured to be asked along to the Burger & Shake launch last night for a feast of milkshakes, burgers (unsurprisingly), lobster rolls and wings. They have set up shop opposite the Brunswick Centre just down from Russel Square tube in a little unit just down from The Marquis Cornwallis pub at 47 Marchmont Street.

 

Pitt Cue Co: Still a BBQ Champion

This post is almost redundant as Pitt Cue is not new, has a million and one reviews and is widely accepted as one of the best BBQ places in town (not a huge amount of quality competition to be fair). So why the post? Well, I've been a fan of Pitt Cue since the days under Hungerford Bridge and visited it numerous times the first few months after it opened. Due to work finishing times and busy weekends, I hadn't been back for quite a while and so thought a view as to how it is settling down may be in order.

Pitt Cue has navigated all the major issues of a new-opener. Waiting list system is locked-down, bar service upstairs is slick and the turnaround of punters is kept fairly quick as to facilitate maximum face stuffing by the number of London's carnivores. The buzz has died but the loyal and curious still flock to the doors. It has become a favourite, a staple, a solid choice; rather than 'that place you have to try near Carnaby street that has that huge queue'. The menu is becoming more adventurous and the guys behind the scenes are having a ball rearing their own piggies just for the joint. The quality of the food remains incredibly high.

Pitt Cue - Sunday 11:55am: The queuing begins

Burger Breakout: Close to perfection

I'd been looking forward to coming to Burger Breakout for a month due to missing their opening due to work commitments. I'd heard frankly outstanding things from some serious burger fans and my expectations were set pretty high the night I managed to get over to Holborn.

Dave Ahern is the head chef at the Old Crown Public House and has made a culinary journey that mirrors my own imagined path through life. A respected food writer turned chef in early middle-age, he put down his pen and snide remarks about smears and foams and put on a apron. I've read his blog all the way through and felt a certain kinship with someone who finally had to balls to get behind a grill and see if he could do it better. 

Old Crown Public House

Chisou: Exceptional sushi, for London

Despite the recent burger revolution in london, sushi is something that people immediately conjure in their heads when you say you are a food-lover. Japanese food has been, and continues to be, something that is fawned and obsessed over by food-porn addicts across the world. The superlatively clean flavours, the expert use of salt, sour and umami that transcends anything traditional Western cooking Larousse or Bocuse could ever concoct. The gap has been narrowed in the recent years with the Spanish and pioneering British chefs transforming the food landscape and challenging long-held beliefs. The Japanese however have been plating up food like this for hundreds of years and modern day sushi is the embodiment of their search for perfection through simplicity. 

With nigiri there is no where to hide. It is just the delicately seasoned rice and the fish put in front of a customer and it is this unapologetically transparent 'cooking' that has always spoken to me.

Chisou is a favourite of my mother's, who lived in Tokyo for several years before me and my siblings were born. Truly authentic sushi is almost impossible to come by in London and although Chisou does not fulfill that brief in the strictest sense; what is does deliver is exceptional quality and so far, incredibly reliable. It is owned by a husband and wife team, one half of which is Japanese. They used to found front of house but have been absent in recent years. Their replacement is an Indian gentlemen that has the staff on a such a tight lease that the atmosphere has suffered. Japanese places always have exceptional service but I always like when there are glimpses of personality that shine through. Chisou unfortunately lacks this individual touch and is too mechanic.

Fried baby octopuses

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