Burger & Lobster: … & Cocktails!

This is the only time you’ll see the food menu, because these three items are quite literally all they serve. After Hawksmoor successfully ported the America’s favourite summer roll to the El Smoky last year, it was only a matter of time before the Russians would follow. Well it took them a while, but the good people from Goodman (who are imho still the capital’s best steakhouse(s)) bring you the first lobster bar in London. With burgers. And cocktails, designed by The Soul Shakers. If Goodman attracts the mid-week fat banker stereotype (actually, I think they entertain more Chinese tourists rocking bling Vertus than city workers) , then Burger & Lobster is where the fat banker would take his family for a weekend meal. If I was 10, I could totally see myself bibbing up every Sunday with my family at this restaurant. No really, I love this place, it’s basically premium fast food. So, you choose either a Beef burger, a lobster roll or a steamed/grilled whole Canadian lobster for £20. Every plate comes with chips, salad, clarified butter (with or without lemon) with the seafood and in-house pickles for the beef. Grilled Lobster, chips, salad, £20. When you visit, ask Dave Strauss (if he’s about) to show you the lobster tanks which they have specially put together in the basement to hold … tonnes of live, swimming critters

Lucky Chip Revisit: The best burger in London.

My food writing invariably boils down to a caricature of self-indulgent cliched hyperbole or superflous self-doubting and pointless debate of what food should taste like. Given the circumstances, I sincerely believe this is the best thing between buns I’d yet come across. But first let us be properly acquainted. Reader meet Lucky Chip’s weekly burger special “The Bill Murray Life Aquatic Surf and Turf”. She is an aged beef patty with a (new) sesame bun, partnered with a fried soft-shell crab, guac, spring onion, spicy mayo, sweet chilli ginger sauce and processed cheese. She’s worth £9. Yes, I thought so too, how could purists ever love such a criminally tainted patty which has laid with a creature from the deep blue sea? After one bite, any lingering doubt was erased. I was completely convince: this wasn’t just a great burger, this was a sexual experience. As you know, Lucky Chip, like Meatwagon, utilise the steam-the-patty-and-fixing under a metal cloche technique, which allows all the flavour-concentrated steam to re-condense within the patty, leading to the satisfying and sloppy mouthful. However, I was most impressed with how the guac, the syrupy sweet chilli drizzle and soft shell crab complimented the already potent beefiness of the patty. The burger had this great textural quality that held together real well, a little like the way it feels when you sink your fingers into kneading

Mishkin’s : The Fifth Element

Damn it, he’s done it again. (He being the elusive blurryman with the fire red scarf, and thick brown rim specs, aka Mr Cool.) And here I thought that Da Polpo was the last cherry atop this tiny empire. They are back, this time around, Norman, Beatty and Oldroyd give us a glimpse of something a little Jewish. It’s deja vu because Mishkin’s is like that other off-shoot hobbyist lightbulb moment which Russell Norman had brought to life. Remember that ..the truffle egg toast, the ground beef sliders, the speak-easy-esque ambiance? You know how much I love Spuntino, I was so excited with this project, I decided to book a table on the first official day of service. 50% off for the previews. As usual, Russell is on scene for day one service (yeah… I’m pretty sure I was there for first day service at DaP and Spun as well) to greet us. So new, the paint is still drying, but this time around, things sure look much tidier. The decor possess the now classic Norman touches : there’s the rectangular bar, the Victorian ceilings, dangling lamps, the brick walls. It’s like an American diner but all grown up, bringing some Madmen slickness to the indie feel. Its Spuntino in a red blazer with beige docker trousers and polished brogues. Floors are decked out with black and white tiles, the

Barbecoa: No Bodeans.

There were an incredible number of suits who sat through Friday lunch service with me, to which I presume most (if not all) of these folks occupy cubicles in the offices nearby. If this was the share of the market which Jamie Oliver and Adam Perry Lang were hoping to capture, then by the looks of things, they’ve succeeded. But boy are the reviews terrible. As this restaurant approaches its one year anniversary, I wonder if the two chefs have sat together to reflect on the feedback. With Saint Oliver’s name plastered across the project, it was always going to attract attention, but it just seems so uncharacteristic of Oliver, it’s in total opposite to his everyman image. Barbecoa has such a premium level feel to it, that it would probably unsettle Jamie himself, if ever he was caught dining here. Now wouldn’t that be a sight for Jamierites out there. I rocked up in jeans and trainers, and I felt a little underdressed. The tricked out designer furniture store look wrapped in red velvet, rivets, shiny brass and double high ceilings is ace, the views overlooking St Paul’s is nice, but it is also intimidating. Since I arrived sans booking, I was shown a high table by the bar, solo diner, even though I spotted a few unoccupied tables in the dining room. After the bartender sat me down

Lucky Chip: New patty on the block

The things people do to track down a good meal, this one in particular involves my first encounter with the Lucky Chip burger. As you know, summers are pretty up and down every year, we remember the odd day when the thermometer crosses the psychological 100F mark, but we tend to forget that mostly, it’s just very wet. So there we were, Mark with his gentlemenly brolly, and me with my … FT Weekend Magazine… (ironically, this weekend’s was the Food issue including a feature on the slow death of the Bib, and a short Heston interview) and soaked Marni blazer (sniffers) , we were traipsing up and down London fields to find this rather elusive, and well hidden Netil Market, and mindful that the mild drizzle – like a balloon slowly filling with water – was about to burst into a proper rainstorm. After a little tinkering with google maps, we circled onto Westgate Street as the entry point to Netil Market. So we found it eventually, quite modest, in a rather small car park, but as it had been raining all afternoon, it wasn’t a surprise to find the vendors packing up their stock to shield from it. The sight of the Lucky Chip van was modestly uneventful, and given the street food craze, it’s quite a change coming across an empty food truck with good internet gossip

Back to Spuntino. Again, again…

… yeah it really is, quite special. This must be my sixth visit, and everytime I’ve been back, I alternate between two of – what is quickly becoming – my favourite snacks: The ground beef & bone marrow slider and the gooey truffle egg toast. Most of the menu is fabulous, the panzenella (a kind of stale bread and tomato salad) , the mac & cheese, the cheddar grits and the PB&J pudding, are entirely edible. But I think I like it because it’s so accessible, you can drop in, have a swift bite and a short measure of meantime ale, enjoy the food and the speakeasy-esque ambiance, and the 50s harmonica laden background noise and be on your way again. I’ve come in here by myself a few times, and I’ve seen a few people do the same. Places such as these, where you can pop in for a snack are few and far between, and I cherish it for this very reason. Also it’s only but a stone’s throw from Gelupo.. who have started to bring back their Zabione gelato again, which I really appreciate! Basically, this is my Friday afternoon routine, ie, lunch at Spuntino, followed by dessert at Gelupo. Four months since it opened it’s dusty doors, I think its become a unique part of the London dining scene, and of course, a unique landmark in

Goodman: The standard equation of Meat

Hello Meat, I’m back. It’s been six months since I was last here. And my information gathering has returned the following: John had left the Josper to pursue new charcoaled pasteurs in Swindon… and is possibly back at Maddox St… , Dave S is still the smooth operator, and Goodman Mayfair is still ever overbooked. It remains my favourite place to go for a steak dinner in the city, and I am very glad to say the Josper grilled, charcoalised, blood filled sensteaktions are still my paramour. Food wise, sex wise, I mean, you know what I mean. Please excuse the vulgarity, it’s meat afterall. As per usual, I always request for a bespoke cut of meat, on the bone, and have it served sliced, and to be shared. I have since come up with a formula to figure out how much each table requires: Firstly, to figure out the weight you should order, apply Kang’s Standard Equation of Meat: 150 + 200 x (n1) + 300 x (n2) + 400 x (n3) replace n1, n2, n3 with number of persons who fall in the categories according to the key below : Key: 150 – weight of bone, n1 – number of ladies on table, n2 – number of gentlemen, n3 – number of men with impossibly large guts. eg: if table of three contains 2 ladies and a large

Tiny Robot : I wanna make brunch in this club

The reception for the Robot franchise, has been lukewarm, to say the least. Blogs can’t seem to get excited about either Tiny or Giant. Nevertheless, I was still interested in visiting at least one of the two all day diners in town, mainly because they serve one of my childhood nostalgic puddings – the baked alaska. Oh I wet many a diaper watching a waiter set meringue on fire to the effervescence of evaporating alcohol, right by the table. The food is Italian-American, and two restaurants that specialises in signature balls. Meatballs that is. But I didn’t get in any of the full menu action, instead I was looking for a place to brunch, on a sunny Saturday morning. Tiny Robot is situated along Westbourne Grove, and it sits on the ground floor, on top of a members only Starland Social Club in the basement, which is owned by The Rushmore Group. Let me just start by saying that I really like the decor. The space is actually quite small, with diner-style motifs, such as the green leather seats, washed out green tiled walls, aged wooden floors, and retro patterned enamel table tops. It’s great, it’s really comfortable inside. Bring on the coffee. Rum & Vanilla milkshake, Filter coffee. Woah, the rum was pretty stiff! Nice. I initially asked for a cappuccino, but changed it out to just a brew,

#MEATEASY : Expertly pickled grease

Unless you have been living under the proverbial rock that requires abstination from evil things such as sex, alcohol and greasy chips, you would have otherwise heard about the gospel of The Meatwagon. Unfortunately, the wagon was stolen late last year, so in early 2011, Yianni Papoutsis – aka Blighty’s one true burger king – had reassigned his team at the first floor of a closed down pub, in New Cross Gate. The pub had offered its space, as it is in the middle of its refurbishment plans. Yianni’s intention is to be able to secure enough funds to get a new van to roll out for the summer. And thus, #MEATEASY was born. And it’s fucking brilliant. Very rough around the edges, but we don’t mind of course, because we love quirky and egalitarian, rage against the guerilla dives. Upon arrival, you are given a ticket, and then it’s a mad scramble to find a spare seat at the cramped space, as you study the menu scrawled across the wall. The first time I went was a Thursday night at 9, and we didn’t eat till 11. So we spent all our cash on the £7 cocktails and £3 beers. Rum swizzlers aplenty. But when the food arrived, oh my giddy Uncle Bob, it was certainly worth the long wait. As expected, the menu is not for vegetarians, their

Spuntino: Three times, is really a charm.

I would like to begin by publicly apologising to Russell Norman and his team, because on reflection, I think I was man-pmsing when I wrote the Polpetto review. I was out of line, and rude, and I hope I can be forgiven. Handslap. Most of you are already familiar with the famous bacaro in Soho that is Polpo, and many of you would have heard of the owners, Norman and Beatty’s exciting plans of growing the brand they have created. And while Polpetto was more of the same, except smaller (great ossobuco), the third outfit, Spuntino, is a step in a totally different direction. The Italian influence, is now heavily laced with references to the American diner, the menu is still presented as a personal paper table cloth; except this time round, you can almost hear Robert Frank’s shutter going off in the background to a recital of the bebop beat poetry of Jack Kerouac. Spuntino inherits the winning ambiance from its predecessors and then some. There’s just something very special about this squarish room, in the heart of striptease central. I didn’t like the crammed Polpo and hated the rammed Polpetto, but Spuntino is very close to perfect. Spuntino is tiny, about twenty can sit around the bar, there’s a table for six right at the back, and at the very end of the bar, there is a oversized

Maze Grill : Stonecold.

Gordon Ramsay restaurants are entering the autumn of their lifecycles. Cycle being the keyword here, with many of his proteges, who used to run his restaurants during their heady years, moving on to bigger and better things. Originally a spin-off from the next-door small plate wonder that was Jason

Otto Pizza : The Corn Rules.

And so the legend came to pass, that Otto would become the very first pizzeria in London to crust with cornmeal. Purists (and Italians) will balk at the mention of this heretical abomination, even though the cornmeal base (polenta) is more Chicagoland than Neopolitan. There is no oily, tear resistance, wood-fired sponge in this pizza, rather, one will find that the base takes on a buttery crumble, having more in common with a tart or a quiche than a bona fide DOP. I like the little corner restaurant, the interior is resourceful, down to their choice of decorative photographs, mere 4x6s rather than eye popping 12x18s. Painted green. It is off the noisier end of Notting Hill Gate, and on the convenient bus route – 328 and 31 – that runs from Kilburn/Camden to High St Ken. Tom and Rich, the owners, are two ex-city types who decided to swap suits for aprons, becoming inspired after visits to Dove Vivi, a cornmeal pizzeria in Portland, so the story goes. Eventually, they would return to good ol Columbia to learn how to make them, and before long, they were back in London, taking over a closing cafe, install an oven, whip on a fresh lick of paint and call Otto their own. The better half and yours truly had spent the entire Sunday afternoon cleaning out my old flat in Gloucester

Goodman City: Steax and the city.

I have been itching to supersede my first Goodman post which I wrote last year with something that better reflects my feelings about the restaurant. I love my meat sweats obviously, and in the twelve months following the first visit, I’ve returned to many a fabulous meal at Goodman in Maddox Street. With the launch of their City branch, I thought this was the perfect opportunity to formally update position with Goodman

Byron Hamburgers: Patty Zenith.

I remember the early days when Byron was the new kid on the block, did sliders and was firmly a West London thing. I didn’t think much of them back then, but all that’s change. I am a little amazed that some of my friends still haven’t tried a Byron yet. There are now ten locations spread across the most densely populated parts of town, while they maintain a reticent philosophy to burgers and life, each branch has its own individual character. I’m not going to pontificate about burgers – I know very little about them to be quite honest (I remain un-shacked) – but I do visit a Byron at least once every month (actually, I now use it as an incentive to go running) and I just love them to bits. The charred beefiness… ohh… I am a gruyère, medium rare with skinny chips. My local is Gloucester Road, but I like the new Old Brompton branch, a little further away from me, which opened last month. However, my favourite is the Intrepid Fox in Soho. Just ambiance I mean, burgers are consistent across the board, it’s a franchise afterall. Let’s see now, I have been to the High Street Ken one, Westfield, Gloucester Road, Old Brompton Road, Intrepid Fox, Covent Garden…. but have never been to the Canary Wharf, Islington, Kings Road or Kingston ones. As an

Sonoma Grill, Taipei : Well travelled American beef.

Bodeans: What is the Puff-Off? [review]