Despite being at the tail end of some gnarly hangovers, you don’t turn down a free shot…
Viewing entries tagged
street food
We have to apologise in advance for what is less of a professional breakdown, and more of a vague recollection of Bleecker St Burger’s offerings, as we were fucking blotto by the time we got to Red Market on Saturday night.
“We’ll have the lot, please.”
The Rose & Crown is a big boozer nestled in the heart of the ‘Stow. It’s a classic ‘locals’ pub; the booze ‘n food offers sellotaped to the bar on neon card cut into star shapes, the local vagrant a mere drafty waft away and an eclectic music selection that throws Irish jigs followed by ambient jungle followed by Abba at you.
It’s also a celebrated CAMRA venue. We only know this because of the certificates on the wall. We know absolutely toss-all about real ale, but this pub is definitely on the circuit and they have an impressive array of regularly changing casks on offer, if that’s your thing.
It’s here where Kimchi Cult take over the kitchen for their Korean-style menu every Thursday night. We live in the mighty E17, so when we caught wind that someone was selling sliders at a pub a three minute bus ride away, we were straight down to sample everything we could get our hands on.
So, we ordered one of everything on their menu. It’s what we do.
We’ve come across Kimchi Cult before - a few times on Eat Street (where they pop up regularly) and when they were first getting started at Brick Lane Market. We’d not had their sliders or wings, since the street food tends to be geared towards subs. Being LA street food nerds, we’ve long been hankering after someone beefing up the Korean offerings here in London, Kogi BBQ style. There’s no Korean BBQ / Mexican fusion as you see over there, but we’re gradually heading in the right direction.
First out of the traps were the sliders: Kimchi burger, Kimchi Cheeseburger, Kimchi Cult Special (Bacon Cheeseburger), the Kimchi bacon and the Pulled Pork. Now, we won’t bore you right now, because that is for a longer post, but these are less ‘sliders’ than they are mini-burgers, but they are cute, dinky things indeed.
The stand out factor in most of these is, obviously, the namesake kimchi. You could liken it to the sauerkraut of Asia, with chunks of cabbage amongst a spicy red sauce, it provides a gentle, universal heat with a tiny side-pocket of sweetness to everything it covers.
Our recommendation would be the Kimchi Cheeseburger (surely you’d call it a Kimcheeseburger, right?) as it has the best flavour balance of kimchi, drippingly melted cheese and nicely (if only just slightly over-) cooked patty.
The pulled pork is boosted by a totally inspired fresh, zingy ginger coleslaw that got must-find-this-recipe shout outs instantly. If anything, the buns are a tad large and heavy dough-wise, but they don’t overly mask the taste of their contents.
However, Kimchi Cult really level up with their chicken wings.
They are outstanding - sticky, with a familiar base of chinese take away sweet and sour, but with a thump of hotness and extra lemongrass zip at the end. They taste double-fried.
We’d say the wings are worth braving the top end of the Victoria line for. We think they’re on to a real winner here, and get the inkling they do too.
Luckily you don’t have to travel up to the Walthamstow to check these guys out, as they pop up on Eat.st every now and again, and the wonderfully chatty Sarah told us there is more to come. We do hope so.
- Rob and Simon.
Kimchi Cult
[REVIEW] Fish Tacos / Luardo’s / Brockley Market, London
The only other London burrito slingers to our knowledge that serve a fish taco are Wahaca.
Much as I love Wahaca, they have a tendency of being a bit snooty toward Californian Mexican fare, then putting it on their menu and botching it.
The Luardo’s version is far closer to tacos we’ve had in SoCal. The Coley is nicely cooked but the liberal amount of lime juice, mango, coriander and wonderful creamy guacamole brings a little piece of the west coast to a wet car park in Brockley. Without any local point of comparison then, we can say quite conclusively that these are the best fish tacos in London.
Sadly, the fish taco is only available on Saturday lunchtimes at the moment, and not during their more popular Whitecross Market or Eat Street residencies. This is because it’s nowhere near as popular as their standard meaty burrito options, which is a massive shame.
Fish tacos are a great differentiator for Luardo’s now that the London burrito scene has become so shamelessly identikit. Let’s hope they roll them out more regularly. And that people buy them. Please buy them. Supply and demand and all that.
- Simon.
We’ve finally got proper American cheeseburgers being sold by multiple vendors in the capital at reasonable prices.
It’s Friday night, and we’re lamenting the lack of excitement our last few burgers have delivered. We wanted something fucking good. Little did we know we only had to wait 12 measly hours…
In a car park, at the rather lovely Brockley market, you’ll find three youthful dudes with a grill banging out some pretty buzzworthy burgers.
They look like they’re in their early twenties, wearing obscure hardcore band tees and American Apparel hoodies. And honestly, we were kind of jealous. Why the hell weren’t we this proactive when we were their age?? We ordered all three of the burgers on offer, and then impatiently watched the impressively slick cooking from the grill boss and efficient construction from his buddies.
And, well, the burgers are excellent. Let’s have a closer look at a three course burger lunch:
Starter - The Mother Flipper
Their take on a classic cheeseburger, and our standard ‘control’ burger.
The first bite of the smashed, well-seasoned patty hits with a salty, deep meatiness from the concentrated juices pressed into the crust on the grill. It’s brilliant. The cheese is substantial, two slices thickly melted perfectly over the patty with a rather ingenious homemade cloche. A lattice of ketchup just takes the line over a spiral of French’s in the mix. Finished with some shredded iceberg and a beefy slice of pickle in the middle, it’s a very accomplished take on a classic.
And the brioche bun, from an undisclosed ‘artisan bakery in North London’ (we all need a secret ingredient or two) is impressive - solid, substantial and just soft enough, it contains everything without struggling from all the juice.
Mains: Double Candy Bacon Flipper
Two slightly smaller cheese-covered patties contained in a similiar set up to the Motherflipper, except with sweet, sticky candied bacon (which had a similar smokiness to Oscar Mayer). Nice to see a double patty bacon option here.
Pudding: Chilli Flipper
A really awesome and original take on a chilli burger, the pepper and onion mixture on the patty packs the heat of a kebab shop chilli sauce on one level, with a fragrant chinese-style lemongrass finish. It’s a complex and memorable kick, which lingers nicely.
Boom. Three superb courses.
These are really solid sandwiches prepared with startup, haphazard love: from the grill that occasionally teases hot and cold to the cunningly homemade cloches, by a guy you might bump into at the Turtle.
One final thing to say. It would be very feasible for someone to just order a cheeseburger and write it off as a competent Meatwagon rip-off. We recall this happening to the Lucky Chip guys last year and it saddens us enormously.
To those people we’d just like to say the following:
- Christ guys, it’s OK for there to be more than one Proper American Cheeseburger in London. FFS.
- If they’re similar then that’s because they’ve both Done It Right.
We’ve finally got proper American cheeseburgers being sold by multiple vendors in the capital at reasonable prices. Party times.
So this is a must return for us, and a must venture south for all you lot.1
Get down there. This Saturday. GO ON.
- Rob.
- Simon.
- It would also be great to see these guys join the ranks of the Eat Street collective. Nudge, nudge. ↩
Sometimes an idea comes along that is so simple, and yet so totally ingenious that you just have to stand up and slow clap the dudes that thought it up, ‘Lucas’ style. So we applaud the comfort food genius that is Los Angeles’ Grilled Cheese Truck.
What’s all the more awesome is that these guys take such a staple, classic, comfort food and reinvent it with panache too. It’s testament to how well they do it that I’ve seen queues for this mobile eatery easily stretch 20-plus long. Our first visit attempt was at the fairly legendary Abbot Kinney First Fridays festival in Venice. The trouble was we’d already tried five trucks by the time we spotted them. Dammit.
And those queues are there for good reason; their Cheesy Mac And Rib is hugely satisfying. The barbecue pork was saucy-sweet, soft and worthy of a place all of its own on a menu. The mac ‘n cheese was heavy on the gooey cheese, sticky yet still trying to escape from every opening, and hinted a savouriness that balanced with the pork brilliantly. One hell of a sandwich.
I’m pretty sure I put this away in under ten mouthfuls it was so good, and if we weren’t going on to somewhere else for more food, I would have had another. A bang up job, and a must for anyone In L.A. who has only got time to visit a handful of food trucks.
- Rob.
So the second at. A burger van. They’re pretty hot right now. Should be a slam dunk, right?
The Chilli burger is still as good now as it was a year ago.
So many great things have happened since my first post on the Meatwagon early last year.
I’ve visited countless times, and even ran into Yianni at the Verdugo Bar in LA last summer.
I was on holiday. Yianni was doing research.
He’s a guy that has taken a detailed, systematic and yet unendingly passionate approach to this project, and after visiting the #MEATEASY twice, I’m starting to wonder what state his empire will be in this time next year.
Of course the ‘wagon was stolen, which we all know. But out of the darkness comes the light.
At Meateasy there are door guys, and burgerettes, and a full menu and a roof and an amazing bar and decor and one of London’s most mid-Atlantic atmospheres (this place feels like it’s in New York, not New Cross).
There are a few questions to answer and points to make. So without further ado, for those of you considering a visit:
1. The food is still brilliant
Quality hasn’t dropped. Whatsoever. The Chilli burger is still as good now as it was a year ago. They’re not standing still either: the fries and macaroni cheese have improved significantly over the last week.
2. It’s a brilliant space
Music, ambiance, quality of booze. All fantastic.
3. It’s not a restaurant!
You cannot turn up at 8pm and expect to eat in a timely fashion. If at all. The same rules apply now as they did with the ‘wagon itself - turn up on time, or early. For the Meateasy, that means 6pm. Check your expectations with your watch.
With the practicalities out of the way, there are a few thoughts I want to throw out there. I had a brief exchange on Twitter with Daniel (he of BurgerMonday and other FoodWeekdays fame) after he said:
“Still I hope Yianni will inspire others, not intimidate ‘em”
To which I said:
“If this was LA there would be 14 meatwagons by now. Probably more.”
I think this is something that needs further discussion.
As mentioned earlier, it’s now been a full year since Yianni showed up on the food blogger radar. Since then, he has properly crossed over into the mainstream with traditional media coverage, almost universal online admiration and among certain circles, has become a bonafide household name. This isn’t going to stop.
But what of the others? Where are the other street food entrepreneurs? The other guerilla dining obsessives?
Visiting LA last summer, there were dozens of foodtrucks catering to every cuisine and culinary whim you could think of. And they’re still multiplying like rabbits. It’s the same in San Francisco and the East coast is rapidly catching up. They’re all a pretty amiable bunch too, since cultivating an online following is key to foodtruck success. For example, I felt genuinely proud to be Slidin’ Thru’s first customer from the UK.
They even posed for a picture:
(They’re in Vegas, but they illustrate the point I’m trying to make.)
At the time they were nearly all startups. They’d been open for two to three months, maybe. Tops. And there were dozens of them, with an enormous crowd of cash-ready, media-savvy customers following them around the city, wanting a new favourite dish.
Even the old hands, such as Kogi BBQ (five trucks, three locations per day each, five days a week), have turned into full-on empires without relinquishing their values and food quality.
It’s an enviably simple model - find something you can do really well, build a following, then expand.
Yianni has clearly done his stateside homework and is building his empire. Not just with food, but with PR, marketing and customer experience. He’s not even behind the grill anymore. He’s front of house at the Meateasy. He’s doing interviews with the Evening Standard and quality checking.
So having established all of that, it saddens me a bit that there aren’t any other grassroots street food startups generating the same buzz with amazing food. Somebody should be giving Yianni a run for his money, the same way that all the LA foodtrucks compete with each other (and their brick ‘n mortar-based, venture-backed buddies) to earn the crown of being the best. They’ve already had a reality show doing just that.
I will always love what he does and what he has done for bringing proper American food to London after all this time. It underlines our completely British approach to competition when there’s nobody else doing anything remotely similar in the same space.
Where do we go from here?
The other question mark with the Meateasy will be what happens when it shuts down in March. Between now and then, a back-of-fag-packet calculation suggests the MeatEmpire will have served way, way more covers than it ever has done before. With that comes the next difficult sequel.
How do you go from having created such a special place, with a full menu, table service, a bigger kitchen, electronic ordering systems and all the other elements that add up to their slickest project yet, to then shutting it down and going back to a little van again?
And what of the pubs? Surely, Yianni is in the completely unique position of being able to say to any pub in London, from zone 1 to 6, that he can show up with his team and guarantee a horde of big eating, big drinking punters. Most of whom will post about it online. And then bring in even more punters. That surely has to factor in to his long term strategy.
I don’t know what’s going to happen next, but I sincerely hope his amazing burgers will be around for a long time to come. And maybe it’s time for somebody else to be just as obsessive and give him a run for his money. But for now, it’s still very much the best burger joint in Britain. And the odds are it will stay that way for a long time yet.
NB. This post is not addressing all the lovely people that do a sterling job running London’s supperclubs. This is a food truck rant only. Thanks for understanding!
#MEATEASY is running until mid-March above the Goldsmith Tavern in New Cross, SE14.
