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The Dinner Party: James Balmont, Swim Deep

Meet James Balmont, chief keyboard tapper in Swim Deep. I’ve known James for a long time, and he’s definitely someone you want at your dinner party. Whether it’s his enviable long locks, strong pout or spot on Simpsons references, he brings the pardee. Enough about him; Swim Deep are making waves (lol) on the music scene. Formed initially in 2011, the B-town babes are playing at tons of festivals including Glastonbury and Reading/Leeds this summer and have just announced their UK tour in October. Watch their latest video below:

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The Guests: I’m gonna have to pick Joel Amey from Wolf Alice since he picked me when he did this. I’ve had many a good dinner with him over the years – his family have been handing down a recipe of sausages, chips and baked beans for generations now and it’s an absolute treat. On the other hand, he’s prone to misusing cutlery, so he’ll be eating with a big wooden spoon while the rest of us dine with fine silverware.

Children’s entertainer Dave Benson Phillips will be invited, but only if he’s as enthusiastic about everything as he was when he hosted Get Your Own Back. He also has to drink two fingers whenever he addresses another guest by their first name for the duration of the evening.

The last guest would have to be female to balance out the genders, so I’m gonna go with Jennifer Lawrence.

Our food will be served by Riff Raff.

The Food: Starters are everyone’s favourite, and sharing food is always fun, so I’ll head along to Iceland and get a 100-piece frozen party platter and then bung some other little things out there. Like nuts and shit. For mains, Pad Thai is the best dish I can cook from scratch so I’ll make that. I’ll hide a lucky Diazepam in one of the meals like they traditionally do in Thailand, where the dish originated. For dessert: McFlurry. Guests choice of flavour.

The Drinks: Champagne will be offered to all guests aside from Dave Benson Phillips, who will be given a 3litre bottle of Frosty Jack’s immediately upon arrival. He won’t be offered anything else for the rest of the night, and he has to drink straight from the bottle. Frozen margaritas will accompany the food. Not on ice. Proper frozen - from a slush puppy machine. One for each course, offered in a variety of flavours (classic, strawberry, mango). And after everyone’s finished their plates I’ll insist that we all drink a load of fancy Belgian beers out of those novelty “metre of beer” sticks.

The Music: Classical music to set the mood for the dining table. Anything by Bach. During the main course, I’m going to request that we all sing football anthems while we eat. Vindaloo by Fat Les would go down particularly well. When Freebird by Lynyrd Skynyrd comes on that’s the signal for everyone to go home, but not until they’ve listened to the full 9.5 minutes, including all the guitar solos.

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Follow James on Twitter for regular updates of his fun life, and visit Swim Deep’s website/Twitter for more information.

[bethanrees-blog]

The Dinner Party: Sarah McCready, chef and MasterChef semi-finalist

Meet Sarah McCready, chef, food blogger and MasterChef semi-finalist. She’s a half-Italian, Oxford graduate and boy can she cook. Known for her array of raviolo and serving John Torode a Lagerita, she’d be welcome to any one of my dinner parties. 

Not just a food-lover in the kitchen, Sarah also has her own website which features recipes, reviews and plenty of foodporn.

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The Guests: Charlie Brooker- I think he is a genius and I completely adore everything he does. He’s rather grumpy, so not sure my company and food would necessarily provoke a smile out of him, but would happily sit there gawping at his superior intelligence and lapping up anything funny he has to say.

Nikki Graham- as a Big Brother superfan there is no doubt that Nikki is the most entertaining housemate of all time ever. In fact, I can’t think of a single piece of television that I’ve enjoyed more in the last 10 years than “Who is She!”. Also, the interaction between her and Brooker would be quite a spectacle (the jokes practically write themselves).  

My mother- because my food always fails to impress her and she is super picky, so if I’m pulling out the stops for the other celebrity guests, I might have some vague chance of finally meeting her approval. Also, I feel highly-functioning alcoholics make for great dinner party guests/never fail to ramp things up a notch, and my mum is a total lush! Therefore, no need to employ an additional wine waiter as she never fails to keep you topped up, and she would definitely make sure everyone had a good time (and by good time, what I really mean is that she would get everyone blotto).  

The Meal: Canapé - mini chorizo tacos, topped with mango salsa, escabeche radish pickle and smoked Applewood cheddar. For the starter, I’d serve a selection of tapas, straight out of the Boqueria Market in Barcelona. This would definitely need to include Pan con Tomate and really vinegary white anchovies. For the main, there’s a Thai restaurant in Oxford City Centre called Chiang Mai that makes the very best Gai Pad Kapaow (minced chicken stir fried with oyster sauce, thai holy basil and birds eye chillis). This, served on top of coconut rice with some green papaya salad, and I’m literally in heaven. Followed by Nutella, straight out the jar (no judging allowed)

The Drinks: Rosewater and Lychee Champagne Cocktail for an aperitif; I sampled this for the first time at Atul Kochhar’s Benares, and instantly fell in love with how girly and elegant it is.

Alsacian Riesling, I spent a lot of time in Strasbourg a few years ago, and ended up getting a taste for high quality Alsacian Reislings. They get a pretty bad reputation as they tend to get lumped in the “German sugar water” category, but are really drinkable and perfectly compliment some of the food I love to eat (spicy food, strong cheese etc.

Apple Sourz shots. When I get drunk and unruly, my friends say my “daemon” comes out.  What I think they mean by this is that whilst I can pretend to be a respectable business women who loves Michelin-starred elegance most of the time, once I’ve had a few drinks, it becomes very apparent that I spent a lot of my teenage years in a variety of sleazy nightclubs in Hatfield and Stevenage, being a terror. Sadly, I still associate these dirty shots, which always seemed to come free with a double Disaronno and cranberry, with a really good night. I feel Nikki would be a fan of these bad boys, and it would definitely get us all in the mood for some dancing.

The Music: Trap Queen by Fetty Wap, my current party jam, for when the Apple Sourz come out; More than a Woman by Aliyah, my favourite song; Little Wing by Jimi Hendrix, my mother’s favourite song and, as I said, I’m relying on her to get the party started.

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Follow Sarah on Twitter, visit her website and remember, she’s available to cook you a feast at your very own dinner party. 

[bethanrees-blog]

The Dinner Party: Gareth Rees, The Fat Bear

Meet Gareth Rees, owner of serious soul food joint The Fat Bear, and also my brother. Now this may seem like a cop out, but everything I know about food and drink, I learnt from him (and Lewis). Based in St Paul's, the regional American cuisine they serve literally haunts my dreams, in the best way possible. From classic buffalo wings to seafood jambalaya; Coney Island hot dog to truffle gnocchi with goats cheese, it doesn’t get much better than this, on this side of the Atlantic. 

Also, I’m delighted to announce that he’s also the new candidate to stand for councillor in the Chaucer Ward (Southwark) for the Green Party. Let’s change this world, bro. 

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The Guests: Freddie Mercury, Derren Brown, George Carlin

The Meal: Obviously canapés! Pimento Cheese with freshly fried (but not too crispy) tortilla chips, cheese soufflé (à la Gavroche) to start. Ridiculously well-marbled côte de boeuf aged for 70 days; seared in a pan then finished in low oven, properly rested and heavily seasoned pre-cooking. Salted Caramel Sticky Toffee Pudding for dessert 

The Drinks: Ruinart Blanc de blancs for aperitif; a big sexy Barossa Valley Shiraz; George T. Stagg overproof bourbon

The Music: Treme Song by Glen David Andrews to get the party started; serious New Orleans jazz to please the discriminating music tastes, and also kick-start things with its up-tempo feel-good energy; Mozart’s Sonata No. 10 in C Major (K330) played by Krystian Zimerman for sophisticated and gentle background music whilst discussing weighty matters; Don’t Stop Me Now by Queen – a nod to our guest and an ironic closing number

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Find out more about The Fat Bear here. Trust me, you won’t regret it. And you’re also very likely to find me perched at the bar, as if you didn’t need another reason to visit. 

[bethanrees-blog]

The Dinner Party: Joel Amey, Wolf Alice

Meet Joel Amey, drummer and general disco cowboy of London quartet Wolf Alice. Ever since the release of their debut single Fluffy in 2013, they’ve come on leaps and bounds. On the bill for Glastonbury this year, and their debut album, My Love is Cool, due for release in June 2015, they’re kind of a big deal. Catch them on one of their many tour dates, including their homecoming gig at the O2 Academy Brixton in September.

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The Guests: James Balmont from Swim Deep (his table manners are impeccable and he’s most likely to bring After Eight mints), Theo from Wolf Alice  (he’s handy to have around to make a killer cocktail) and the new bad guy from the upcoming Star Wars movie in full character all night, passing me condiments using the force

The Meal: A Red Stripe each, chilled of course, to start. For mains, there’s a hotel in Canada called the Drake Hotel and they make seriously badass food all in-house, so I’d fly their homemade pasta dish over (whatever special they have on). For pudding, we’re gonna get down on some cherry pie from the diner in Twin Peaks

The Drinks: An assortment of White Russians, green tea floats and White Lightning fishbowls on tap

The Music: Slipknot - Duality (start the night with a simple mosh), a Brian Eno mixtape (to ease into the evening) and Secret Machines - Alone, Jealous and Stoned (for when we feel sorry for ourselves)

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Keep up to date with Wolf Alice’s movements on Twitter 

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The Dinner Party: Simon Milner, Is Tropical

Meet Simon Milner, guitarist, keyboardist and long-haired babe of London quartet Is Tropical. Famed for NSFW videos and one of the first Western bands to play in Mongolia, their dark yet jubilant infectious melodies are a welcome soundtrack to my bank holiday Monday. Watch the band’s latest video for Cruise Control, self-directed by Simon.

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The Guests: Tom Waits, Damien Echols and Sasha grey

The Meal: Salty pimento peppers, Spanish style, for nibbles. Lamb chops, Pakistani style. Followed by Buta No Kakuni which is a Japanese dish of pok belly cooked in soy sauce and coke. Cheese plate to finish

The Drinks: Cava, Cherry Coke and tequila

The Music: Lou Reed - Street Hassle, Tindersticks - My Sister and The Modern Lovers - Road Runner

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Keep an eye on Is Tropical on Twitter

[bethanrees-blog]

The Dinner Party: Taurean Roye, Last Night in Paris

Thank you so much to everyone who's helped me out with my incessant pestering over the last couple of months. Here's the first instalment of The Dinner Party (see my previous post if you have no idea what I'm talking about).

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Meet Taurean Roye, co-founder of the R&B/art/pretty-much-everything collective, Last Night in Paris. They're making waves in our culture as we speak. Check out the short-film they made in collaboration with Karim Huu Do for Dazed and Confused; pretty trippy. Keep your eye on LNIP, they're moving incredibly fast. 

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The Guests: Jimi Hendrix, Jesus Christ and Naressa Valdez

The Meal: Hors d'oeuvres - A blunt of blue cheese rolled in Raw papers and a deconstructed prawn cocktail with a Marie Rose sauce

Main - Grilled lobster with triple cooked chips and béarnaise sauce

Dessert - Another blunt and banoffee pie

The Drinks: Voss water upon arrival, a good wine like a Sauvignon for the meal and 4oz Actavis prometh with codeine + 20oz of 7up for the night cap

The Music:  OG Maco - Bitch You Guessed It, PARTYNEXTDOOR - Ballin' and Sade - Like a Tattoo (in no particular order)

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Follow Taurean and Last Night in Paris on Twitter, SoundCloud and Tumblr.

[bethanrees-blog]

A new chapter

Since I last posted, I have rather shamefully in some respect, achieved quite a lot. I have finished and gained a first class degree in journalism from City University, I have accepted a full-time job as an editorial assistant at The Mayfair Magazine (not the porno mag as I continually have to reiterate), and I have eaten a lot of food, and drunk a lot of drinks. 

So, here's the concept: 'The Dinner Party'. It's hardly an original idea but it's one that everyone can relate to. I want to know how your perfect dinner party is formed; who are you inviting? What are you eating? What is the soundtrack? I want to speak with people from all walks of life, from students to accountants, chefs to florists. I'll be personally reaching out to a lot of people in the next few weeks, but if you wish to jump ahead and get involved, please email me at bethanrees@live.co.uk for more information.

Additionally, I will be putting my toilet snob self to good use with my new 'The Powder Room' posts, and I'll be bringing to you the best, and the worst of bathrooms in London's restaurants, bars and pubs. I'll be judging everything from hand-dryer speed to choice of lotions. If you have any recommendations, for good or for bad reasons, please let me know!

[bethanrees-blog]

The Big Easy Bar.B.Q & Crabshack, Covent Garden

If there’s a restaurant that requires you to wear a bib, you’ll be sure to find me first in line, particularly if the bib has a decorative lobster printed on it. Aside from being a big chubby baby in a high chair, the first place I can remember having to wear one, was in Provincetown, Cape Cod. I love the whole ritual and the rights that come with the bib. It signposts shelly, saucy anarchy, where eating the claw meat from a lobster like a Greek goddess with a bunch of grapes, is perfectly acceptable. This is why I was so excited for The Big Easy Bar.B.Q & Crabshack to open in Covent Garden.

The first Big Easy is situated on the Kings Road, Chelsea, which always just feels a bit too far away to induce myself into a real shellfish stupor; ideally I want to just sit on one train all the way home, and be woken up the other side by the train conductor, bib still tied round my neck, covered in garlic butter.

The industrial sized restaurant, which caters for 300 covers, was once an electrical power station, and you could feel the energy as soon as you walk in. Entering from Maiden Lane through a dark, ever-lasting hallway, it feels if I’m entering a Berlin sex club, and I’m expecting to be greeted by an intense, bald man in crotch-less latex trousers. Thankfully, for the sake of my appetite, the welcome came from three very smile-y members of staff.

Taking a seat at the bar, I was struck with awe. The gargantuan bar is home to over 500 bottles of spirits in a library style case with a ladder spanning across; if all libraries looked like this I’d certainly be a bookworm.  The mesmerising slushie machines worked their magic on me, and I ordered a Sazerac. I was expecting the slushies to be a fun gimmick producing average tasting drinks, but I was very pleasantly proven wrong. Marcus, my lobster-loving life partner, opted for the ‘Big Easy Ale’ which was the Hackney-based Crate Brewery IPA, packing a punch of peaches and pineapple. If you’re a sucker for free bar snacks like me, head to The Big Easy. We were given a whole bowl of complimentary pretzels, which I attempted not to scoff, but that mission soon took a nose-dive.

The restaurant, designed by Macaulay Sinclair who is responsible for the Hawksmoor interiors, encapsulates the unrefined character which is reflected in the laidback food; The Big Easy is not the place to go for finesse, its emphasis is so much more on the flavour and in my experience, this is often a winning formula. The menu features the usual Americana suspects, utilising the barbeque pit and wood burning smokers imported from Texas: 16 hours Carolina pulled pork, St Louis dry-rubbed ribs and pit smoked barbeque chicken, which smelt and looked (from our neighbours tray) absolutely divine. However, I think it would’ve been a crying shame on my first visit to not have navigated my way through the seafood list.

To start, we opted for the deep fried voodoo shrimp with blue cheese sauce. The batter was just light enough, holding a stable shape to pick up but allowed the flavour of the cayenne pepper and shrimps to shine through. The smooth blue cheese sauce was a little on the strong side which I personally found overpowering, but continued to dip away all the same. For the main, I couldn’t resist the ‘Lobster Fest’: Whole fresh 1.5lb lobster with fries and a free slushie cocktail, with a drawn butter sauce for dipping. This came with a price tag of a meagre £20, and it was worth every penny, if not more. The Nova Scotia lobster, which was fished out of the 1,500kg tank, was utterly celestial. The tail slipped away without much encouragement and the same with the claws – although I gave myself an injury by smugly attempting to simply snap the claw with my hands, cutting my own claw with a fragment of shell. The drawn butter sauce was indulgent gluttony at its finest, and to be honest, a little unnecessary but charming all the same. The aged cheddar mac ‘n’ cheese was a little weak, it could’ve done with a more potent cheese, but the balance of sauciness and stickiness was faultless.

I left The Big Easy, bib in hand, pining for my next encounter with my shelly friends. It’s the perfect place for a night of crude debauchery, with a hint of class, and a dollop of gracious service. 

[bethanrees-blog]

An interview with Paul Hood, Social Eating House.

Down the dimly-lit stairs, through the jacquard quilted curtain under the ‘employees only’ metal signpost, and in to the kitchen of the restaurant that has just been awarded an unprecedented Michelin star. 34-year-old Coulsdon born Paul Hood, head chef and partner of Social Eating House, is mucking in with the supper preparations, and unlike other celebrity chefs’ styles, this kitchen oozes a spell-like calm. Upstairs, despite the lunch service being over, the crowds are still nursing their ‘Cereal Killer’ cocktails (using coco pops milk, complete with a candy cane striped straw), alongside the remnants of baked curried hake smeared on the china white plates. At a first glance Hood looks like your average 30-something man; But his culinary creations are far from ordinary, as the Michelin star would suggest.

The eatery is the third in the series from chef and restaurateur Jason Atherton, following Pollen Street Social and Little Social. Despite being open for just six months, the SEH was awarded the star in September, and they all celebrated in the kitchen with a glass of champagne. He explains that it was an amazing feeling, although he adds “everyone’s expectation just jumps up, so it does stress you out more”.

  The restaurant exudes a pomposity-free atmosphere despite its Michelin star, with no dress-code for its diners, “apart from no shorts in the winter,” he adds. SEH is the perfect example of relaxed excellence, and this was a completely intentional step away from the ‘fine dining’ ambiance. Both Atherton and Hood wanted to create somewhere which wasn’t saved up for a special occasion, but you could visit every night of the week with no justification. He wanted it to be a place where “you can go to sit at the bar, have a glass of wine and a cote de boeuf for two and bugger off home”.

Hood’s menu highlights the personal cooking style he has honed over the years, showcasing simple yet delicately created dishes. The ‘Duck Smoked Ham, Egg and Chips’ is the perfect illustration of his character which transforms a classic ‘pub-grub’ dish into a gastronomic delight with the ham being smoked and cured on the premises, and a molten oozing duck egg. He describes his style of food as “fresh, modern, and British.” His approach radiates in to the décor of the restaurant, with exposed brick walls, traditional white washed copper ceilings and restored pieces of furniture.

He takes his black rimmed glasses off which are slightly fogged, and pulls a stool to the ‘employees only’ dining bar, where eight guests can sample the delights of a six-course tasting menu with an exclusive insight into Hood’s stomping ground.  “I don’t really know where it starte-“ he says being interrupted by a commis chef enquiring about how many monkfish loins need to be prepped. “…Started. Nobody in the family cooked. Only my Gran really.” He started working at Jamie Oliver’s private member’s club in 2000. Monte’s, in the heart of Chelsea, was his first experience working with big flavours and fresh ingredients every day. He says, “This is where the love really started”. Following a stint in the countryside at Michelin-starred Thackery’s, he was desperate to get back to London.  He says: “I wanted to get back. Out of town is very different and slow paced. I wasn’t really used to that”. And that’s when he joined Gordon Ramsay’s Maze, which is when he first met Atherton. “That restaurant was an absolute machine. It was a struggle at first jumping from doing no covers to 120 for lunch and 170 for dinner every day and even higher standards,” Hood says as his eyes become wider. He was there for almost five years, and in 2011 he joined Atherton at the Pollen Street Social as his right-hand man and head chef.  In April 2013 Atherton and Hood opened SEH.

He pours two cups of English breakfast tea from a silver plated vintage teapot and explains that being a chef might have always been engrained in his psyche, before he even knew it. Like many other children, he always wanted to be a fireman. However after completing his career assessment at school, ‘chef’ appeared at the top of his list of highly suitable jobs. “For some reason I filled it out towards becoming a chef, ‘would you wear a uniform’ yes, ‘would you work late nights’ yes. So it was always a subconscious thing, I knew what I was looking for.” Despite both the careers involving flames of different kinds, he decided to pursue his career as a chef. The start of his gastronomic journey wasn’t always smooth. He admits that he received an F in home economics. Looking at the sensitively hand-crafted menu at SEH, it’s hard to imagine. Whilst dabbling in a hotel management course at college, he started as a kitchen assistant at Fairfield Halls, Croydon, working whenever he could. He remembers, “whenever I wasn’t in college I would go and clock in and work, in breaks, I just wanted to learn”.

  When he’s not slaving away in the restaurant, he enjoys fishing with his father, relaxing with his wife Anna and daughter Ava, and it appears that he’s hung up his dancing shoes for now. He laughs: “I’m getting to that age now where I can’t really go out and club all night, as much as I think I’d like to, I’d probably only last until midnight.”

It’s refreshing how humble he is for a young man who has worked under some of the most notorious names in hospitality and built his way up to earning a Michelin star. A true feat to his character is that despite creating dishes such as ‘Flamed Cote de Porc’, his favourite meal still remains to be “a normal aged steak and chips and béarnaise sauce, easy”.

[picture from pollenstreetsocial.com]

[bethanrees-blog]

ABSENCE MAKES THE HEART GROW HUNGRIER

I’ve been so busy with my university work recently, third year is a McMeanie.

Here’s what i’ve got coming up soon for ya:

My glorious eating trip around America which included a lot of pizza and beer.

An interview with Paul Hood, from the newly Michelin starred Social Eating House head chef.

A handful of new restaurant reviews including London pop-up The Fat Bear @ The Sun and 13 Cantons.

A few recipes including my sticky treacle tart.

My experience of the 5:2 diet, and some really low-cal recipes i’ve found along the way.

#Foodporn revolution; tricks of the food photography industry.

WATCH THIS SPACE YA’LL.

[bethanrees-blog]

Waking & Baking: My Carrot Cake Recipe

I've made a promise to myself to start baking more, and with this I thought it'd be a good time to start my new writing series - 'Waking & Baking' (let's see how long I can keep this up for). 

Last week I made a carrot cake for my friend’s birthday. After looking at several recipes, from Delia to Nigella, James Martin to Mary Berry, I decided to play the mad scientist and play around with a few different recipes. 

I was pleased with the result, although I only actually tasted the final product after a few beers, and this may have skewed my opinion of it. But everyone knows drunk cake is the best cake. 

Here's my recipe:

Ingredients

For the cake:

300g soft light brown sugar (I used dark brown and it made the sponges darker than I wanted!)

3 eggs

300ml sunflower oil

300g plain flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp ground cinnamon 

½ tsp ground ginger

½ tsp salt

¼ tsp vanilla extract

½ orange zest

300g carrots , grated

100g shelled walnuts , chopped

  For the icing:

600g icing sugar, sifted

100g  unsalted butter at room temp.

250g cream cheese – always use full fat!

  1. Preheat the oven to 170°C (or just slightly below if using a fan assisted oven)

2. Line the bases of three 20cm cake tins, with greaseproof paper. Whisk the sugar, eggs and oil together until well incorporated. Slowly add the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon, ginger, vanilla extract and orange zest, and beat until well mixed.

3. Grate the carrots (roughly three average sized carrots), and crush the walnuts to whichever consistency you prefer. I made mine quite small, but left in a few larger ones for a nice crunchy surprise! I chopped these on a board with a large, sharp serrated knife, however this took forever, and might actually be quicker to just attack them with a rolling pin in a plastic bag.

4. Add the carrots and walnuts to the mixture, and stir in well (not whisk).

5. Pour the mixture in to the tins as evenly as possible and smooth over the tops with a palette knife or spatula.

6. Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes, but check after the first 15 minutes. The cakes should look golden brown, and the sponge should bounce back to normal shape when touched.

7.Leave the cakes to cool, in the tin for the first 10 minutes and then remove, and transfer to cooling racks

8. Once the cakes are completely cool, it’s time to make the icing. You can prepare this before, but I’m very impatient and once I’ve made the icing I want to ice the cake immediately. Beat the icing sugar and butter together until well mixed, and then add the cream cheese and orange zest. Continue to mix until fully combined and glossy looking.

9. Decide which cake you want to stand at the bottom of the three layers – if yours are slightly uneven then choose the largest one. Place ¼ of the icing on top of this cake, then add the second cake and spread ¼ of the icing on top. Put on the final cake layer and use the rest of the icing to completely cover the top, and all the sides.

10. I added some cute chocolate carrots, which I bought from Sainsbury’s. Alternatively you can leave it plain, or add some more walnuts, orange zest or cinnamon to decorate.

11. Eat the cake and induce yourself into a coma.

[bethanrees-blog]

Shake Shack, Covent Garden.

When I heard the news that Danny Meyer’s restaurant chain was crossing the pond to the big smoke, the excitement trembled through me, probably more-so than when my Beyoncé tickets arrived in the post (and that was almost earth-shattering). And they were even kind enough to open the burger joint on my birthday, July 5th.

I am a massive fan of Meyer. His book Setting the Table is my bible, and his legacy of restaurants (Union Square Café, Eleven Madison Park to name a couple) has earned him numerous awards, including the NYU Lewis Rudin Award for Exemplary Service to New York City in 2011.

However, incomprehensibly, I have never even visited one of his restaurants, for no other reason than the air fare. So, my first Meyer experience needed to be profound. It needed to be insightful. It needed to live up to this other-worldly haven of smoke-y burgers and frozen custards I have created in my greedy, ravenous mind. So in order to have the best encounter possible, I waited a few days for the hype to die down a little, and chose a time in which I thought was ‘off-peak’ for fast-food junkies.

It’s 3pm.  I’m struggling to see any empty tables. There’s a sea of plastic trays and mucky, ketchup rimmed mouths. I’m panicking. I haven’t even seen the entrance yet and I’m expecting the worst.

But, there’s a twist in the tale. My burger companion (Julia) and I walked straight in.  I order our food. We’re given a buzzer and told to “take a seat; it’ll be ready in 5-10 minutes.” I’m slightly worried by how well this whole process is going. There’s more seating available, lots more. The buzzer vibrates the table, although this could have been misconceived as my jittery anticipation.

The food: I ordered the single SmokeShack Burger (a cheeseburger with British free range Wiltshire cure smoked bacon, chopped cherry pepper and SmokeShack sauce). Julia ordered the Shack-Cago Dog (an authentic German all-beef hot dog with Rick’s Picks Shack relish, onion, cucumber, pickle, tomato, sport pepper, celery salt and mustard). We shared a portion of crinkle cut fries and the Sticky Toffee concrete (vanilla custard with chocolate toffee, Paul A. Young chocolate chunks, salted caramel sauce and malt powder).

The drinks: I wanted to try the ShackMeister Ale but they sadly had run out. Instead, we opted for a couple of the Kernal table beers.

Now, I had already read a few reviews for Shake Shack London, some of which slammed it for being ‘just another half-hearted burger joint’, and people complained it was not worth the wait. But I am a strong believer in my own research, especially when it has subjects of a meaty variety involved.

I absolutely loved it. Each bite of my burger revealed a new flavour. The first bite involved me squealing about how good the burger was, despite actually not paying any attention to the taste, I was too excited. The second bite hit me with a smoke-y punch, and a tangy crunch from the cherry pepper. The bun was like a bready cushion, encasing the treasurable 100% Aberdeen Angus beef, grass fed on Scottish pastures (oh and boy does it show). Julia kindly let me try some of her hot dog, which was beautifully fresh for such a hot summer’s day. The crinkle cut fries (ribbed for your pleasure) were impeccably crisp on the outside, and smooth on the inside. Perfect. The concrete felt like a slightly more animated version of Ben& Jerry’s, which is not a bad thing in my books. However, obviously the quality of ingredients was vastly superior, in particular, the Paul A. Young (award winning English chocolatier) chocolate chunks.

If I haven’t given you enough reason to go and stuff your face, I’ll give you one more. They serve red velvet dog biscuits, with peanut butter sauce and vanilla custard for our four-legged friends, which actually sound rather divine. Woof woof.

As Mary Antoinette once famously said: “Let them eat burgers.”

[bethanrees-blog]

Apologies for my absence yet again - I’ll be back this week with more blog posts including:

Shake Shack London, SW4 Gin review and feature, and a special feature involving the innovative eating-event Grub Club and their latest pop-up (which is the brainchild of my brothers), The Fat Bear. 

SEE YOU SOON FOLKS. KEEP EATIN, KEEP DRINKIN. X

[bethanrees-blog]

Duke\'s Brew & Que, Haggerston.

Barbeques used to be the job strictly reserved for the dads sporting hats resembling ‘the Man from Del Monte’, rather red faced, not from the midday-five o'clock sun as he claims, but the several litres of booze he has swigged. He then consequently singes the meats to a charcoaled fatality, for all the family to fallaciously enjoy. However, in the past two years or so, London has been witness to a flaming frenzy following the escalating success of new restaurants such as Pitt Cue, and old time favourites such as Bodean’s.  Now the barbeque has hit the ‘burbs of De Beauvoir Town, a place I've always thought sounds much more swanky than it actually is. 

Located within a shroud of brutalist council estates, the former pub is now owned by Byron Knight and Logan Plant (son of  Robert Plant). The reason I was drawn to Duke’s was not solely due to the irresistible legend of the ribs; there was more than meats they eye. It is also home to their microbrewery, Beavertown, named after the old cockney term for De Beauvoir Town.

On a Friday evening, the bar was discernibly bustling with hungry tums awaiting their tables. I had a pint of the Beavertown Brewery 8Ball IPA, an energetic hoppy beer, with a bouquet of orange and spice.  After waiting just 10 minutes, we were seated among several happy diners. The menu is small, but being only 5”4 (and a half); I have become accustomed to the phrase “good things come in small packages”. The options include beef and pork ribs, pulled pork sliders, steak, burgers, with specials of the day including gumbo; and the sides offering pit smoked baked beans, seasoned fries, deep-fried pickles, mac and cheese, and the ‘bastardo’ chicken wings. The pork ribs come in servings of two, three, and four ribs. I had to battle between my ravenous mentality and my reasonable, rational outlook. The coherent part of my brain won, and I ordered two ribs, accompanied by a blob of home-made ‘slaw, with the addition of the ‘bastardo’ chicken wings and seasoned fries.

The meal arrived on a metal tray, (a fashion here, but conventional for the US), and to my surprise the ribs were the largest beams I've ever laid eyes on, and I congratulated my sensible conviction. They were sweet, smoke-y, succulent, sticky and spiced; the seasoned fries packed a peppered punch; and the chicken wings were a little milder than I was anticipating, however fully satisfied my hot wings and blue cheese dip inclination. My meaty accomplice (Marcus) and I had more than enough food, and realistically we did not require the wings, although they were a scrumptious extra.

When leaving Duke’s I spotted my neighbours beef rib, which was voted one of the top ten dishes in London by Time Out, claiming “these sticky ribs are the closest thing to the perfect rib that you’ll find outside the American Deep South”. It was about the size of my arm, and although I have small (BUT PERFECTLY FORMED) arms, this is arguably colossal. The picture of the 17oz beef rib has stuck with me since, and I cannot wait to go back to bask in my barbequed glory.

KFC was once synonymous with the phrase “finger lickin’ good”. Now, for me, Duke’s Brew & Que takes this phrase to a whole new level.

@DukesJoint

Duke's Brew & Que: 33 Downham Road, De Beauvoir Town, Hackney, London, N1 5AA.

[Pictures taken from Duke's website as in my meaty haze I stupidly didn't take any good enough- apologies!]

[bethanrees-blog]

Apologies for my absence! I'll be back soon with more fooding and boozing stories, including my latest trip to Duke's Brew and Que, Haggerston. WATCH THIS SPACE RUMBLIN' TUMS XXXX

[bethanrees-blog]

Chuffed.

Anonymous asked feastieboys:

Hi Bethan, a good friend of mine just gave me a link to your blog, I'm one of Maggie's sons Oliver and just read your article. I can't talk too much as I can hear my young baby stirring, but I would just like to say how wonderful your article was you really have a talent for capturing the moment very articulate and captivating. My mother loved it, keep in touch.

[bethanrees-blog]

Why Maggie\'s Cafe is the best in London.

Maggie’s Cafe is a pretty non-descript dwelling in Lewisham, serving up typical cafe cuisine. But the experience of dining here is somewhat charming, and somewhat bizarre.

I used to go to Maggie’s Cafe with my Dad on school mornings, waltzing in to class an hour and a half late, with a tummy full of scrambled egg, or “scramby egg” as I then called it. I hadn’t been there in years, so decided to visit my old haunt, expecting my eight-year-old memories to be far too enthusiastic about this quaint cafe in SE13. However, as my boyfriend and I walked in, the nostalgia flooded back, and everything was exactly as it was twelve years ago.

Maggie, the lady of the house, still worked there, and didn’t appear to have aged since I last saw her. Must be something in the bottomless tea. Tables were crammed in, with just enough space for my sizeable booty to squeeze past and interrupt someone's bacon sarnie, and while sitting, my elbows touching my neighbours. The cafe was buzzing with hungry bodies, every table occupied.

"Tea please,” I responded.

Within seconds our mugs were full of tea from a stainless steel pot, and shortly after I’d finished my first cup, it was refilled. Now this is something you don’t get in shiny, contemporary, eggs-Benedict-serving cafes (NB I have nothing against these cafes or eggs Benedict, in fact its my favourite meal).

The Breakfast. 

The menu doesn’t offer a simple “Full English.” Instead, for £5.95 you can become a mad scientist for a few minutes and invent an entire meal from a list of twenty items. The choices consisted of; fried egg, poached egg, scrambled egg, sausage, bacon, mushrooms, black pudding, liver, fried onions, chips, hash browns, beans, bubble, tin tomatoes, grilled tomatoes, ham, fried slice, toast, bread, bottomless tea or coffee. In a freak moment I thought, “I could order everything. This is a really great idea.” But then practicality set in and I thought, “as much as I love Maggie’s, I don’t want to die here.” So I went for the healthy option; fried egg, bacon, sausage, mushrooms, hash browns, beans,  and fried slice.

The food was great. The egg was runny, and the bacon wasn’t too fatty. But the fare isn’t the curious factor of the breakfast. The people are.

Jimmy sits in the corner like he owns the place. He gives you his opinion on current affairs, if you want to hear it or not. “Horses are for riding, not eating,” he shouts. He waves his toast around trying to get the waiters attention, the toast which he stole from his neighbour’s table once they had left. “My name’s Jimmy, but I’m not Jimmy Saville.” Phew, that had been worrying me. He knows almost everyone in there. Everyone knows him. And if you don’t when you arrive, you sure will when you leave.

The mix of customers is extraordinary. There’s the group of builders from the construction site down the road, the young couple with a hangover, the big family with a baby in the high chair, the older couple drinking wine with breakfast, and the old boy with his copy of The Sun. It’s hard not to listen to your neighbour’s conversation, and the discussion we overheard was remarkable.

“My angels told me to come to this cafe,” said the middle-aged lady adorning a dusky pink fleece. “They guided me all the way from New Cross to here. They seemed quite persistent about it and I couldn’t ignore the signs.”

It seemed like a very elaborate excuse to have a fry up, but whatever floats your boat.

Even if the cafe were empty, Maggie, the living legend of Lewisham, would entertain you. Her thick Irish accent is undeniable, and her motto, “I don’t care what you order, as long as you eat it,” sits well with me.

Maggie’s Cafe remains to me to be the best place in South-East London to have a fry up, maybe even the whole of London. It’s a collective of people from all walks of life; all enjoying their first meal of the day, and all your needs are met. Good value, a perky atmosphere, and forget about reading a newspaper, I’m sure Jimmy will fill you in of any news that’s significant.

And if you needed another reason, here is the framed picture of choice in the toilet.

If Maggie's Cafe ever (god forbid) closes, I will personally erect a blue plaque on the wall, which will read "Maggie's Cafe: Home to the hungry, eccentric, and breakfast-time drinkers."