It takes a certain type of person to be able to handle Camden on a sunny Saturday. I am without question, not that person.
All credit to them, tourists and slightly grubby teenagers seem to take it in their stride. Most will - for some reason - have Camden on their London itinerary. They’ll jaunt up the Northern Line, funnel-neck out of that tiny station in their hordes, swell into Camden High Street and progress along it at the speed and density of poured molasses.
I’m not great with crowds (see my rant about Oxford Street). The last time I was in Camden was the day I packed up and moved out of my student halls on Camden Road, in no great hurry to return. But in these pockets of intolerable people-density, there is often salvation in the form of somewhere to get away from everyone else, sit a while, and have something good to eat.
In this neck of the woods, push on through the throng and continue along the high street until it becomes Chalk Farm Road. Rejoice at the exponential reduction of headcount with every few metres you advance, and find respite in Q Grill for some brunch.
The man behind the enterprise is Des McDonald who opened it in March this year, having already landed a big hit in Islington with The Fish & Chip Shop. In the kitchen is Phil Eagle who was previously Head Chef at Hix; both men have a CV that includes Le Caprice. The concept is locally sourced meat and fish, cooked via a charcoal pit grill and in-house smoker, and in September they introduced a brunch menu.
I’ve heard people grumble about brunches recently, saying they actively avoid them or don’t see their point; I couldn’t disagree more. It’s a lazy man’s breakfast. A meal that encourages you to both have a lie-in, eat bacon into the late afternoon and accompany it with a hair-of-the-dog tipple and good coffee, is nothing but a friend of mine.
On the note of alcohol, they’ve set up a DIY bloody mary bar, creaking under its own weight of rainbow-coloured tomatoes, celery, chillies, sauces, lemons, limes and every other bloody mary paraphernalia you might think of. You can concoct a pitcher to your own specification and with your own fair hands for £20.
The food options include meat butties, grilled broccoli with wild mushrooms and a duck egg, eggs on muffins or toast, waffles with sweet cured bacon and maple syrup, and beans and egg on toast.
But forget all of that, because what you want is the Josper Fry-up. A josper is an elegant combination of a grill and an oven in a single machine - combine that cooking method with some gorgeous meats, and you’ve got yourself a plate of something very good indeed.
Bacon so crisp it was like crackling, a slice of sourdough, slightly sweet (but not overly) BBQ beans that worked with the saltiness of the pork wonderfully, a sausage, a portobello mushroom, an egg.. and ¼ rack of ribs. Oh yes.
I cleared the lot (as well as a few other things), and felt fabulous. None of the self-loathing associated with finishing plates of greasy meat and carbs that poor fry-ups often are. This was the best I’ve had in a long time. I would travel from where I live in SW London all the way up the Northern Line and happily endure the weekend masses to eat it again.
Now guess the price of it. In the tourist hotspot that is Camden. With quality locally sourced meat. And that ¼ rack of tender, gorgeous, bone-sucking ribs that no other fry-ups have. Go on, guess.
You’re right, they could easily charge over a tenner for it, and folk wouldn’t bat an eyelid. But it is in fact only £7.75. I know.
My companion had the eggs royale, with great generous hunks of cooked salmon rather than smoked. The large is £11.50, translating to two eggs and muffin halves rather than one in the small, we assumed. A great hit of protein and good it was too. But compare it to the fry-up, in terms of value and volume, and I know what I’d order.
There’s also the option for a continental breakfast at £12.50. You can help yourself to an unlimited amount of fresh pastries, fruit, muffins, granola, quality bread and parma ham from the counter.
I ordered a kale, avocado and apple smoothie to balance out the sin from my pork-heavy plate (£4.50). It was good, but needed more blitzing to eliminate ice chunks clogging up the straw. Even the coffee was good, really leaving me with little to grumble about.
Q Grill is a double fronted, large space. Around the corner of its L-shape interiors, there’s more seating and a mezzanine level, but it’s a lot darker back there and a bit smokey from the grilling. My suggestion is take the bright and sunny window seating with comfortable swivel chairs. You can indulge in a spot of people watching as you enjoy a coffee and a paper, and you can crack the window open for some fresh air. All these elements one looks for on a relaxing weekend morning came together during my visit, and I have to say, I really enjoyed it.
I’ve already told the in-laws to stop by Q Grill during their upcoming Camden visit (they're a great example of ‘domestic tourists’) and to get that fry-up. I think I might have to join them.
Liked lots: great value fry-up, ribs in the fry-up, bacon cooked just so, good coffee, great easy-going vibe, very pleasant staff
Liked less: I think sitting up front in the bright and breezy part of the restaurant helped the experience - I'm less sure about the rear; pricing of some of the other brunch items seem a little dear for what they are in comparison to the fry-up
Good for: wiling away a lazy weekend morning
My rating: 3.5/5
Find the menu on Zomato.
Afiyet olsun.
Note: I was invited as a guest to this restaurant.
Bar food. Or more accurately, the food found in bars. Their prime objective to provide the grease / stodge / salt an alcohol-sodden soul so desperately craves by their fourth drink. Serving little purpose other than to negate the need for a drunken stumble to the nearest Burger King on the way home, I tend to steer clear of the food offering in bars. Because generally, it's pretty shit.
So imagine my surprise when I ate at the newly opened Forge Bar round the corner from Bank, and found it to be rather good. The site was previously Abacus; my friend and I entered with low expectations. “Abacus was a meat market for suits,” he said on the way in. “And they didn’t serve food. I hope this has a different vibe.”
I hadn’t visited Abacus (in reality I probably have, but there’s little hope in me being able to recall it), and so I couldn’t compare. But the £20m refurbishment the Late Night London Group have ploughed into this site, completely gutting it of it’s interiors and questionable reputation, has resulted in a pleasant surprise to be found in this part of town.
It’s not a meat market, and it’s not all suits. It’s a lively, sophisticated yet informal space that’s gone for bare-brick industrial chic with a much broader clientele than Abacus ever had. Yes, it does have one of those high-spec basement club areas with VIP tables that require a £500 minimum spend and sparklers when posh fizz is ordered, but feel free to avoid or only descend once the night gets really late.
I had a chat with debonaire Giles, the restaurant manager. He hails from The Jones Family Project over in Shoreditch, and injects a touch of the dapper tweed-adorned hipster (with compulsory facial hair) into a part of town that can be stiff and grey before The City starts drinking. He’s been in hospitality as long as he can remember, and is utterly charming. His passion for his industry shines, and you should visit Forge Bar to have a drink with him if nothing else.
But there are other reasons, and quite a few. The cocktails are ace. I can’t quite recall which ones I sampled (a sign they’re of commendable strength), but I do remember settling on an excellent sour, and when I asked Giles if I could please have it extra sour as I like my jaw to ache from citrus, his face lit up: ‘I know exactly what you mean - I’m the same.’ Extra sour it was, they were great, and I think I had five. So that was good.
The food. You won’t find delicate portions here: it’s big, meaty and in your face. It hits all those spots I mentioned before that need hitting alongside a few beers or cocktails, but with skill you’d be hard pressed to find at other bars in the area.
There were beef short ribs with meat that fell off the bone from a hard stare alone (£6). Skewered chicken was expertly cooked - still soft and succulent - and with peanut butter, lemongrass, coconut and green chilli (£6). The cider pork with chunky chips and vanilla and Bramley apple sauce had the most cracking crackling I’ve come across in a long time, and a belly that wasn’t fatty beyond enjoyment, which is so often the case (£13). Someone else ordered the 20oz Tomahawk steak for two, so I took a picture - I reckon it could feed a family of four for at least two days (£50).
My advice would be come hungry or willing to share - a few of the small plates or a main between two would likely more than suffice on most occasions.
Then there’s The London Essentials. I understand these guys can be found making the rounds at a few top bars in London. They play here every Wednesday, and they’re excellent; there’s nothing that gets a vibe swinging more than live music. What’s particularly good about this acoustic act is they move around the venue with each song they play, serenading different tables and sets of people with whatever request you throw at them. They were a lot of fun and I’d want them to be there next time I visit.
Don’t be put off by the Forge Bar website. I’m not sure their content marketing is quite right with phrases like ‘a new breed of euphoria’. What it is, is a spacious bar in The City with it’s top button undone, that embraces the eclecticism of our pals further east, that does good reasonable food, great cocktails and often has live music.
That’s almost my full checklist of a good night out.
Liked lots: not too crowded, central location, pork belly crackling, Giles, value for money
Liked less: the menu has a focus on heavy meat - opt for the smaller plates if you're not in the mood for meat sweats
Good for: a full night out without having to eat and drink in different locations, or settle for rubbish food in order to avoid doing so; dancing like a loon to live music after a few cocktails
My rating: 3.5/5
Afiyet olsun.
Note: I was invited as a guest to review this restaurant.
“The burger is omnipotent and irresistible, it can never be weakened.”
A bit god-like, is that. But the rousing burger-inspired quotes on the Meat & Shake website aren’t far wrong. Burgers are still here. This meaty tide has yet to subside. Perhaps - along with cockroaches - they would be the only things left after a nuclear war; the bloody things just won’t die.
“If everything else fails, the burger will still stand”.
I don’t doubt it.
It’s just as well I quite like them, then. Meat & Shake is the relatively new kid on Tooting’s block (opened August 2013), taking over the site where an Indian restaurant stood before, and another before that.
It’s a clever location - I believe the next closest burger joint might be in Clapham (Byron - “opening soon” said the board last time I was there, and Haché). More importantly, they know their market - the menu is fully halal. I suspect the local Muslim community welcomed with open arms a new place to eat that wasn’t Nando’s or food from the Indian sub-continent.
It’s not a huge place, and I know how busy Tooting (Bec) can get. They also don’t take reservations, so I suspect any qualms will be around waiting for a table. Go a little either side of the usual eating times - 2pm on a Saturday and there were two tables free on arrival, it quietened down soon after.
They’ve gone for a casual American diner feel with leather booths and a sign illuminated with bare light bulbs. But there’s also a little refinement found in the large and heavy menus (for a burger place), and the addition of edible flowers and chefy slashes of sauce with your meal. The latter is entirely superfluous, but I appreciate the effort to be a little different.
The sourcing is solid. All the meat is free range and from Macken Brothers. Beef is dry-aged for a minimum of 35 days, ground daily and made into patties to order. And the meat offerings stretch far beyond what you can find between a bun - think lafayette wings, steak, slow-cooked sticky ribs and dogs.
Wave the hint of truffle under my nose and I will order it, even if it comes on a Spontex J-cloth. There is always the risk though, that ordering something with white truffle mayo and a honey and truffle glaze can be too potent.
But the Truffle Shuffle (“hey you guys!”) was spot on, with melted Gruyère to boot. Patty pink in the middle with juices escaping as I cut, the whole assembly as sloppy as you like - my burger preference. The brioche bun - shiny, plump and fluffy - provided a perfect medium to mop up the mayo and dark sticky glaze; there are few things worse than bun left over with nothing for it to do (£7.90).
How I am with truffle, the other half is with blue cheese; “There’s proper blue cheese in this - I just got a bit of wheel rind” - a good sign. The Pepé Le Pew, also with aioli, red onions, walnuts and soft caramelised pear, was better than a similar offering he’d had at a much more well-known burger joint in town, he said (£8.50).
Dirty Fries (enough for two) looked like a toddler had gone mental in a Little Chef, but they were good. Chips topped with chilli con carne with nice fat kidney beans, sour cream, a stringy mess of melted cheese, slashes of mustard and generous helpings of jalapenos, which is always nice to see. I’d put them on a different plate though - it looks too busy (£5.50).
The coleslaw was a little disappointing and mostly left - too watery. Thicken up the mayo dressing and add a bit of Dijon would be my advice (£2.50). The side of gherkins were three fat piquant whoppers, so that was good (£1.90).
Shakes take up a whole page, with flavour combinations enticing enough to draw me back alone - fig and cinnamon, coconut and mango, stem ginger with lemon and honey, peanut butter with banana and brownies. But salted caramel was there and we all know how impossible that is to ignore. So it was ordered, delivered in a frozen metal vessel, and very much enjoyed (£5).
In an effort to boost my calorie credit before gorging, I walked over 2 miles to get to Meat & Shake from my house; I likely would again. A solid Tooting eatery and great to see on my local dining scene. I hear they have plans to expand - if I were them, I’d stick to neighbourhoods crying out for good burgers, rather than trying to compete with the well-established heavyweights up town.
Keep a hungry eye on these guys.
Liked lots: burger sloppy-ness, shakes, it's local to me
Likes less: coleslaw
Good for: good burgers that you don't have to go in town for, getting adventurous with the shakes, halal-seekers
My rating: 3.5/5
Find the menu on Zomato.
Afiyet olsun.
Note: I was invited as a guest to review this restaurant.
“Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai” is a saying that translates from Hindi as "Indians and Chinese are brothers". I know this because it was the response my Indian companion gave me, when I asked on route to dinner, her thoughts on the Indo-Chinese menu that awaited us at Asma Khan’s supper club.
I suppose it makes a lot of sense. China and India are two of the world’s oldest civilisations and have co-existed in peace for millennia. The first Chinese emigrant to settle in Calcutta was a Mr Yang Tai Chow in 1778 followed by many more, bringing with them their cuisine and culture. Not to mention Chinese is probably the most popular street food in Calcutta and what we would be sampling at dinner (both nuggets of insight shared by Asma to give the evening context - I am alas not a walking encyclopaedia of Indo-China relations).
Proceedings began with one of the best dishes of the night, chicken thupa. A thin broth occupied by shreds of soft 6hr slow-cooked meat full of flavour from the bone, homemade noodles, vegetables, garlic and ginger. A bowlful of well-being originating from Tibet and immediately recognisable as at home within those climes. With nurturing qualities to make any Jewish mother discreetly dab at a moist eye, it lulled me into a comfortable sense of ‘Asma is going to look after me this evening’.
And that she certainly did along with 26(ish) fellow diners, all seated in a quite beautiful open plan living room and dining space in her West London home. Chinese style beef momo dumplings I witnessed being parcelled up in the kitchen were steamed and served with a green chutney. The delicate casings housed chunky shreds of beef cooked with garlic, ginger and onions and the chutney was blow your scalp off, eye-sweating hot.
Vibrant green and with tongue-tearing fire, I kept returning to it like a crazed masochist thanks to the incredible flavour from the coriander. It was zippy, refreshing and on the verge of self-combusting simultaneously - really very good.
Crisp deep fried dumplings stuffed with very well flavoured chicken cooked down with onions and spices were served piping hot with spirals of steam rising from the breached skin, and so very wonderfully savoury; they did nothing in the way of pacifying my blistering tongue but who cares when you’re devouring parcels of joy.
Platters piled high with two ways of chicken made the rounds. Boneless chunks marinated in lemon overnight with delicate flavour and intermittent nuggets of quite glorious crispy bits with more intensity, and chilli chicken on the bone cooked down with green peppers and the signature Catonese influence that is a cornflour sauce coating.
Tender beef slithers stir-fried with chillies were very satisfying between the teeth and smoked chilli garlic prawns were fat and firm. The beef hakka chow mein with homemade noodles had delectable pieces of meat, but the plate needed a little more oomph to compete with the rest of the menu.
Then there was manchurian gobi; cauliflower florets combined with a very rich and quite sweet tomato sauce that would have been just as at home stirred into a pan of steaming pappardelle and served with a few basil leaves. Despite my companion feeling as though the florets should have been crisper from their deep fried treatment and the sauce needing more garlic (she is well acquainted with the dish), this was my second favourite plate of the evening - I loved it.
Proceedings concluded with fruit chaat and a jelly intense with the flavour of coconut; the latter sporting an opaque layer from its milk and a transparent one from the juice. The texture was much firmer (and therefore more pleasing) than the wobble western offerings present.
Whilst I would have liked to see more vegetables on the non-vegetarian menu (I really liked that gobi), and despite proceedings finishing a little late for a school night (a few people had to make their excuses before dessert as the clock approached 11pm), the menu was a great success with each morsel executed with knowledge, skill and most of all, a lot of love.
It's worth noting that at the time of moving to the UK in 1991 with her husband, Asma was bereft of the knowledge to even boil an egg; the distance she has come since then in terms of skill and success is inspiring. In 1993 Asma visited India for several months, determined to master the recipes and techniques from her ancestral kitchens that had been in her family for four generations. Since then, she has not looked back; via her business Darjeeling Express you will find her hosting supperclubs, pop-ups, private catering, cookery classes and more.
Upcoming Darjeeling Express events can be found on Edible Experiences but if you'd like to get in touch with Asma directly, you can reach her on Twitter @AsmaKhanCooks or drop her an email at darjeelingexpress@hotmail.co.uk.
I'll certainly be returning for Asma's highly-acclaimed Indian supper clubs - it's all some of the people I know ever talk about.
My rating: 3.5/5
Cost: £35 (please note this may vary)
BYO
Afiyet olsun.
Red meat is not something I indulge in too frequently at home. Partly because if I did, it would be quite an expensive habit (when I do entertain it I’ll splurge on high welfare free range), and partly because handsome hunks of loins and rumps take a decent amount of time to cook and are therefore, in my mind, best reserved for the slower pace of life weekends are so good at.
So when the opportunity arises to have not one but three glorious and often underused cuts of marvellous muscle sourced from none other than The Ginger Pig cooked for me to succulent perfection by tong-tastic bearded professionals in a single evening, I’m jumping at the chance like a frog on fire. Did I mention they’re cooked outside over coals? Exactly.
For a hotly anticipated and select 30 days over the summer of 2013 that was, supper-club stalwarts Forza Win teamed up with beloved butchers The Ginger Pig in a gathering of flesh and fire, pork and panzanella, rump and rib-eye, cocktails and coals and a lot of people chowing down on some seriously good dinner.
Each Thursday to Sunday between 25th July and 22nd September saw piles of salivating punters following their nose to locate the disused East End pickle factory hosting the carnivorous carousal, guided by wafts of quality meat browning on hot grills. Around a vast communal dining table constructed from salvaged wood, 70 clientele were seated each night to enjoy four courses of Tuscan inspired dishes cooked with expertise, executed simply and presented on beautiful big sharing platters passed round and picked off.
Commandeering the custom-built sustainable English firewood and charcoal burning behemoth was chef Nick Fulton (previously of The Orchard in Brockley), along with a little help from his friends.
Large mixing bowls of panzanella accompanied the meats, full of multicoloured ripe tomatoes, lightly pickled red onions and oily crunchy croutons. The meat marathon began with juicy hunks of 80-day Longhorn beef rump (from the top of the rear leg) served with polenta croutons hardening from the post-Parmesan melt, a deeply flavoured wild mushroom confit, and plates slashed with drizzles of garlic cream.
Round two presented itself as slices of lamb neck fillet (textured and muscular from the top of the backbone) tenderised to the touch of a plump baby’s thigh thanks to an overnight marinade in rosemary and lemon, and served with a vibrant sweet pea and marjoram purée, whole firm peas and fresh pea shoots. A wonderful pea-off to accompany the luscious lamb.
Tender pork rib-eye (boned-out shoulder from the front leg) rounded off these class cuts, a blackened exterior encasing succulent flavoursome flesh within and my favourite of the three meats; served with firm Italian beans slow-cooked with fatty lardons and a side of grilled bitter treviso lettuce.
Delicate silken panna cotta flavoured with lavender and served with blackberry compote, espresso and homemade biscotti bark concluded the evening’s delightful proceedings.
CUTS was a novel dining affair in an unusual setting and with a communal and sociable format that many won’t have experienced before, not to mention the food was utterly delightful. It’s had it’s run this summer but due the runaway success, I would put good money on seeing this collaboration resurface at some point in the future. And if it does, you surely must go.
My rating: 4/5
Afiyet olsun.
This review can also be found on the Your Local Guardian website.
Ribs are a meal that defiantly bear a cross to the face of etiquette and utensils; like a sanguivoriphobe (Google it, it's an actual thing) to a blood sucker - they are not welcome here. There's something liberating about pulling meat off bone with your teeth - throw into the scene a spread-eagled woolly mammoth rug and a couple of tusks as leaning posts and I could well be making dinner for a pair of grunting Neanderthals. You'll find rib sauce systematically migrate across your face, further reaching with every bone you gnaw and suck dry as you throw back to the ways of our ancestral cavemen and get your muzzle in amongst all that juicy meat - embrace it.
Sticky, chewy, sweet and sour, these ribs are impossible to resist and tick all the boxes for any animalistic tendencies you fancy exercising, with a little bit of added finesse when it comes to flavour. The glaze is packed full of vibrant citrusy notes and the sweetness from the honey counteracts the spices very well. The secret is to get the ribs really well caramelised before adding any of the other ingredients. As they braise in the oven, all that colour turns into the most amazing flavour with a hint of the Orient. This recipe is one from Gordon Ramsay's book Ultimate Cookery Course.
Sticky Pork Ribs
Serves 3-4
1 kg pork ribs, separated
Olive oil
Sea salt and black pepper
3-4 fat garlic cloves, peeled and sliced
5 cm piece of fresh ginger, peeled and sliced
1-2 tsp dried chilli flakes (to taste)
1 tsp Sichuan peppercorns
2 whole star anise
4 tbsp runny honey
150ml soy sauce
2-3 tbsp rice vinegar
300ml Shaoxing rice wine or medium dry sherry
5 spring onions, sliced
400ml chicken stock
Preheat the oven to 180C.
Season the ribs with salt and pepper, pushing the seasoning into the meat. Heat a roasting tray on the hob with a little olive oil and brown the ribs for 5-10 minutes until they are coloured on all sides.
Tip If you don't have a roasting tray that can be used on a hob, you can colour the ribs in a large frying pan instead.
Add the garlic, ginger, chilli flakes, Sichuan peppercorns, star anise and honey and continue to cook over the heat for 2 minutes until the honey begins to caramelise. Add the soy sauce, rice vinegar and Shaoxing wine and bring to the boil, simmering for 1 minute. Taste and adjust the flavours, adding more vinegar if necessary. Add the spring onions and stock and bring to the boil.
Tip If the above was done in a frying pan, now transfer all of the contents into a roasting dish that's been heated up in the oven.
Place the roasting dish back in the hot oven and cook for 1 hour until tender, turning the ribs halfway through the cooking time.
Remove the pan from the oven and place back on the hob (or tip the contents back into the large frying pan). Heat the marinade and reduce for 8-10 minutes until the sauce is thick and syrupy. Turn the ribs in the sauce to ensure they're fully coated. Serve - with napkins.
If you can't quite manage that amount of protein in one hit, leave any remaining ribs sitting in their sticky marinade for a day or two which will help develop their flavour. When you come to finish them off, give them about 20 minutes in a hot oven to ensure they're well heated through.
These rich ribs work very well with some fresh spring rolls; how we ate them and the next post to be added - watch this space.
Alfiyet olsun.
