Pitt Cue, Devonshire Square

I've always been a fan of Pitt Cue, right from when they opened a van underneath the Hungerford Bridge way back in 2011. Back then we didn't know a thing about proper American barbecue; sure, we had Bodeans, where meat was cooked until it fell off the bone, to be drenched in sweet, smoky sauces. People obviously liked it as the place was busy but every experience I had there left me feeling a little meh, a little over-stuffed and quesy. It felt, to me, like junky giant portions of mass soulless catering. Then Pitt Cue Co. burst onto the scene, and there it was; properly smoked meats and brilliant sides. 

A year later, the Soho baby was born. It was tiny. Queues were lengthy, and to eat there you had to really put the effort in; turn up early, turn up only mildly hungry to increase in the wait, get stuck into the cocktails while you tap your foot impatiently. I went a handful of times, whenever I could convince companions it was worth the wait. With a restaurant that small you can't turn enough tables in the service to make a decent profit, especially when you're using high quality ingredients. While it was a lot of fun down there in that raucous basement, it was obvious that it wasn't sustainable. It was also uncomfortable, unless you were more tolerant than I was with eating with your mates' elbow in your side. Finally, FINALLY, they've relocated to a much larger space.

Devonshire Square, near Liverpool Street is one of those hidden away little places that I've never set foot in, in all my years in London. It's wine bars and bouncers and blue-lit trees, festooned with fairy lights. It's suits and tall buildings and City. I got lost and a security guard guided me to the restaurant. It's enormous inside, and it's also incredibly beautiful with exposed brickwork and chrome beer tanks, bottles gleaming behind the bar. There's a bar area in which we sat at on high stools, sipping on pre-dinner, bright pink mezcal cocktails. The dining room holds around a million (roughly) more tables than Soho, backed by a gleaming kitchen, head chef Tom Adams at the marble pass. 

The menu, too, has evolved. Gone are the trays with hunks of meat served with a heel of bread. No, the menu now has snacks, starters and mains, while a blackboard lists specials of meat by the weight. The 'potato cakes' from the snacks menu is not to be missed; layers of potato pressed and deep fried, reminiscent of The Quality Chop House's now-famous confit potatoes, and served with a leek mayonnaise. I don't think we need chips anymore, guys. These are the one. 

Cep and black garlic mangalitza sausage showed off the kitchen's sophistication. Smoky, juicy and with an incredible earthiness, the puck of sausage was neither dense nor crumbly, but just the perfect resistance to the fork. 

Lamb's heart and rosemary was the most surprising dish of the night. Any hearts I've eaten - I sound like a serial killer - have always had some sort of  chew to them, a slight toughness from a muscle well used. This was different; velvety slices melted in the mouth, a light lamb flavour with just a hint of rosemary in the liquor. Simple, stunning, and very clever. 

For me, smoked eel broth with bacon toastwas less successful. The broth was beautifully clear, studded with cubes of carrot, celery and eel but I found the intense smoky flavour jarring with the format being broth, and the bacon toasts a little over-greasy. 

The Mangalitza chop seemed a diminutive portion for £16, but actually the richness and flavour of this rare-breed pork justified the price tag. Two slices of perfectly pink meat, topped with pickled onions with incredibly buttery, delicious fat; I knew I'd chosen well, despite my innate dislike for my dinner served on a board - maybe they'd run out of plates though, as this chap on the same night had one. The bone marrow mash that Pitt Cue were so famous for is still on the menu, now adorned also with mushroom. There'd be riots in the streets of London (ok, hyperbole. But only just.) if that came off the menu. I was in a rich, meaty heaven. 

For such a meat-centric restaurant, they really care about their vegetables. Grilled hispi cabbage with wild garlic was the perfect foil for all the meat we were eating; who needs salad when you can have smoky charred greens? And how better to dress a salt-baked celeriac than with runny cheese? These are the kind of vegetable dishes that make you really want to eat vegetables. 

Ahhh lardy cake. I usually avoid those warming spices in desserts, you know the sort - cinnamon, nutmeg and that - but this was something else. It's a slice of sweet bread studded with raisins, but with the most crisp outer layer, and soft cakey insides. It's traditionally made with lard and I have no reason to suspect otherwise here, so delicious was it. We also had baked custard with rhubarb, which while tasty enough felt a little on the boring side in comparison; it was very much a sum of its parts. 

You can get away with spending around £40 a head with booze if you don't go mad on the cocktails and then decide to drink a bottle of wine each (ahem) which, for the level of skill in the kitchen and the quality of the food, I thought pretty great value. For somewhere open in only its second week, the service was incredibly accomplished, our waitress was fun and nice and knowledgable which is all that I want. Those Soho stalwarts may lament a change in atmosphere, a glossy sheen added, suited City types on most of the tables, but we're on their turf now, and I'll take it for the ability to reserve a table. What novelty! So that's what happens up town. 

Pitt Cue 
1 The Avenue
Devonshire Square, EC2M 4YP 

To book: reservations@pittcue.co.uk or 020 7324 7770

Delancey & Co., Goodge Street

I'll confess - I never once went to Katz's Deli in New York in all of the 5 or 6 times I've visited the city. I know, it's an institution, but have you seen the sandwiches that come out of there? They are enormous. Behemoth. I couldn't face satiating my hunger quite so roundly. That would put me down for at least an entire meal time.

Delancey & Co. on Goodge Street is a New York deli-style kind of place. 'Modernising New York tradition', they call it. Smoked salmon, salt beef and the mystery that is smoked turkey - I'll never understand what is so special about smoked turkey - offered in bagels or various type of bread. When I first visited, challah bread took my fancy and it came totally wodged with salt beef.

That green goo? That's wasabi horseradish mustard and it doesn't seem to be on the menu anymore; all the better really, because that greenness gave me the wibbles. Nothing is wrong with normal mustard. In fact, please stick to normal mustard. The cheese, blow-torched onto the bread is entirely superfluous and I'm going to go out on a limb and say for once, this sandwich is better cheese-less. Yep. The unadulterated salt beef is really that good.

They're not buggering about with their smoked salmon, either. That shit is generous. Too generous for a 9am breakfast bagel. But perfect once the sun has passed the midday point.

It's not cheap - it's definitely not Brick Lane Beigel Bake cheap - at £7.95 for a standard salt beef sandwich. The meat is plentiful and moist, laced with fat and just the right side of salty, and the smoked salmon is obviously well made. Skip the chopped salad - it has the office canteen slop feel to it - and opt for the sweet n' sour pickles instead, to fill your vegetable quota. They are GOOD.

Delancey & Co.
34 Goodge Street
London W1T 2QL

New York, January 2015: The Manhattan Edition

Having spent a little time in Manhattan in the past, I was keen to visit the places missed off on previous visits. Our group was a good mix of New York old-timers, part-timers and first timers so we spanned a breadth of obvious tourist trips and more cultural visits; a Tenement Museum tour is highly recommended - it was brilliant and informative. The Highline, in January, while brilliantly sunny was windy and freezing. We had almost entire freedom to it though, a stark contrast from the crowds in the summer. Central Park had a fresh blanket of snow, muffling our footsteps.

Grand Central Station is a tourist stalwart and you can see why. Breath-taking architecture in the main hall melded with the modern times in the basement of crowds gathering for a pre-train Shake Shack burger. En route to a walking tour of Harlem, we were lured into the world-famous Oyster Bar.

Everywhere around us diners were tucking into hearty bowls of their famous New England clam chowder, served from tureens on pivots for easy pouring. Sachets of fish-shaped crackers were scattered on the bar to dip into them. On a cold winter's day, they can sometimes sell 550 bowls of it. In anticipation of lunch, I stuck to 3 of the most amusingly-named oysters from a long menu and we were persuaded into ordering a bottle of prosecco, upgrading our glasses.

Obviously in the excitement of it all we missed our walking tour by getting pretty stupidly lost (never let me direct you anywhere). We binned it off and ducked into Sylvia's Restaurant, a 50 year old Harlem institution, self-styled as the 'Queen of Soul Food'. We walked into a surprisingly busy restaurant, given it was 3pm, and promptly discovered we absolutely had to all order a main course each, as were the restaurant rules. Our planned restaurant crawl fizzled out. Warm complimentary cornbread with butter kicked us off and it was really irresistible; slightly sweet, cake-like in texture and with a slight crunch to the top. 

There was only one thing in my mind that I absolutely had to order and that is the fried chicken. On the set lunch menu it came with a choice of two sides, so garlicky mashed potato with okra and tomato gumbo were my selects. I love the sliminess of okra, and this certainly didn't disappoint, though it won't win any beauty contests. The chicken was crisp and hot, a salty crust giving way to juicy leg meat. It was a fine example, though I can't say it has beaten any fried chicken I've tried so far. Collard greens stewed with ham was comforting, macaroni cheese was a bit school canteen-style but I liked it, in a nostalgic way. Fried chicken with waffles was served with maple syrup and a pat of butter and was an absolutely monstrous portion. I'd go back for their 'famous Gospel Sunday'.

We visited at a fortuitous time, when other friends also happened to be in the City and on the Friday night we converged into a mass of 8 and descended upon Uncle Boons in East Village. Obviously, given it was Friday night, they were full but happy to call us when we were up so we went next door to Sweet & Vicious to slurp giant frozen margs. By the time we sat down we were more than merry. Do you know what it's like to attempt to order for 8 ravenous people? With a menu that you could quite feasibly fancy all of? No thanks. I relinquished entire control of our ordering to the waiter, who walked us through his selects to a chorus of "YES!"es. Tiny deep-fried quails eggs were minature son-in-law eggs - you know the ones, in a tamarind sauce, perfect for popping in whole.

Tiny little riblets, marinated in shrimp paste and deep fried were attacked with urgent hands and stripped of their flesh. Grilled baby octopus arrived charred and tender, tentacles waving, served with a fresh incandescent green chilli relish. A special of king crab claws arrived with a mild red curry dip; our West Coast Canadian was non-plussed given its ubiquity back home, but we savoured every moment. I wonder how much they cost.

Khao Soi noodles were properly spicy, tempered by coconut milk but still emphatically hot. Not an easy one to share between 8, but by now the team was starting to flag so I could secretly scoff this one. Crunchy salads revived the palates in between dishes, especially the sweetbreads on crispy noodles and various herbs. Pork belly was braised and served in a sour tamarind curry with a body of squid, stuffed with pork and herbs. Me? I started to flag here, and still the food kept coming, and still I kept eating. Finally, the skate over rice noodles (khanom jeen) with wild ginger sauce was the end of our meal, and unfortunately it was a rather limp finish; all a bit bland, floppy and wet. I could have had palate fatigue by then, but others agreed.

I barely managed to fit another beer in after all that, but I have no regrets; the meal was a riot of flavours, spiciness, and inventiveness. Our eyes widened at the bill - $70 a head, with rather a lot of wine - but actually only because it was our most costly meal there. We'd pay that in a heart-beat in London.

I read somewhere (probably here) that Shanghai Cafe Deluxe serve excellent soup dumplings (siu long bao / xiao long bao). Since here in London there's virtually impossible to find a decent one, it was all I could do to stop myself from going every day.

Forget the wontons in spicy sauce. They're lukewarm and doughy. The XLB, however - yes. We ordered two steamers, one of the classic pork, the other pork and crab. My hungover friend couldn't handle the crab version which was a total win for greedy little me. Scoop a little vinegar and ginger into your spoon. Place dumpling carefully in spoon. If you're nervous, bite top off dumpling and slurp. But for maximum gratification? WAIT for it to cool a little, pop the whole thing in and savour that glorious dumpling burst.

"If you want to go anywhere that's decent to eat in New York City, you, like, have to wait in line for two hours for it. ANYWHERE GOOD is the same." This whinge came from the guy who lived in our Air BnB apartment who moped around looking so haughtily miserable all the time we renamed him Sad Sack and suppressed giggles at his eye-rolling dourness. "Oh yeaaaah and Mission Chinese? Get there at 5pm or forget it."

 

It was Monday. Our flight was imminent, and Mission Chinese was closed for the day. Our solution? Breakfast at Mission Cantina, the Mexican outpost. I'll still continually kick myself that I didn't try the kung pao pastrami, but the Vietnamese breakfast at Mission Cantina - I know, it's confusing... Vietnamese breakfast? At the Mexican place? - was pretty excellent.  

We flung open the door to the restaurant and came face-to-face with none other than Danny Bowien, the chef and co-founder of the Missions. I was a bit star-struck. We were led to a table and left to order from a hearty menu. I wish I'd had a stronger appetite, but well, we were on Day Four of a hefty trip. Otherwise I'd have smashed that heritage steak tartare at 9am but instead plumped for the duck porridge, their Vietnamese style of congee. Before our meals, we were given a couple of complimentary eggs, fried till the whites were crisp and drizzled with Maggi sauce. Prawn crackers were perfect to dip into, and midway through mouthfuls of egg I wondered why they'd only given us two between the three of us.

Oops. Greedy me. Mine already came with one. The congee was warming and smooth, slightly sticky and studded with shreds of duck. Peanuts and pickled vegetables were provided to season each mouthful. The prawn toast was actually half a baguette smeared sparingly - it was a little greasy and soon became too rich, though. A salted plum soda was incredibly refreshing; I'm replicating it as soon as I get my hands on them plums. 

My friends both went for the chicken pho 'Hanoi style'. I'm not sure what that constitutes (YES I DO! Recipe is here), but it came in a vat big enough to bathe in. The usual star anise-scent was largely absent here, instead focused on a bright clean broth, plenty of noodles and poached chicken. The accompanying chilli sauce was mandatory. No one managed to finish their bowls. Make sure you use the loo - it is awesome.

Fortified, we headed back out to the freezing sleet. 10 minutes later, we ducked into a nail salon. SOOO New York dahlink (my first mani-pedi in all of my 28 years).

Bodily grooming sorted, we headed back out for the whipping wind and driving rain. Thoughts soon turned to lunch, and happily Empellon Al Pastor was nearby. It was the sort of place I wish we'd gone to for a night out, rather than a Monday lunchtime; it had that feeling of yes-you'll-definitely-get-hammered-on-tequila-here. I looked longingly at the drinks list - Loaded Micheladas! - goddamnit. We remained on good behaviour and tackled the taco menu instead. 

Al pastor - that is, pork cooked on a spit with pineapple - is their namesake, so that had to be tried. It did not disappoint; tender, juicy spiced pork with a wafer of barbecued pineapple on a floppy, fresh corn taco. Tacos needn't be better than this. 

Just in case they were, I tried a tripe, beef tongue and bacon taco which was good, if a bit indistinguishable of the animal parts. Nopales (that's cactus), arbol chile and queso fresco (pictured above) was light and welcome relief from the rich meats. The sides are decent (and massive) too - we tried the braised kale and the drunken beans, both heavily spiked with meat. This is drinking food. We should have got our drink on.

Our last day. A mild sense of alarm had set in. We hadn't had any proper barbecue. No Fette Sau's. No Hill Country. It was last chance saloon and nothing was standing in our way.

Mighty Quinn's was entirely different to how I expected it to be. I had imagined some sort of basement, perhaps some filament lightbulbs, slinging bourbon, at least some cocktails for god's sake. I think I've been in London too long. What it was was an airy restaurant, a lively and pleasant service counter, plenty of tables and importantly, no queue. In your FACE, Sad Sack!

The menu is simple. Choose your meat by sandwich, naked or weight, choose a side if you wish, and choose your pickles.

Obviously it was essential for me to have all the pickles. They were bright and perky, still retaining a rainbow of colour. Vinegared or mayo coleslaw was also offered - obviously vinegared - it was just a shame that all the pickles, the slaw and our incredible broccoli salad (dressed with buttermilk - these Americans KNOW salad) was all fridge cold. Slightly hurting the teeth kind of cold.

Beef brisket (above), pulled pork and spare ribs were our selects and I think I won - they all had good flavour, but I find pulled pork a little one-note and the brisket could have been more tender. Barbecue and hot sauces on the table were crucial accompaniments for both the meat and the fries. 

Thus concludes another New York Marathon. This handy spreadsheet might help you out on your trip - please do let me know if it did as it has been compiled over several years, so it's nice to hear.

Until 2016!

New York, January 2015 - The Brooklyn Edition

This was my fourth visit to New York, and every time I go I love it more and more. My eyes welled up in the back of the cab on the way to JFK for our flight home, and that's not just because JFK is a huge ball of rage-inducing queue-mageddon. This time, for the first time, I wasn't leaving a boyfriend behind either. It's hard to describe what it is I love about it so much; the architecture? Probably. The people? Yes. The restaurants? Absolutely.

This time round, we stayed in Williamsburg, right under the bridge. I wouldn't recommend our Air BnB apartment, unless you're fond of cold showers and sleeping in woolly hats and sleeping masks. But Williamsburg is a great place to stay; it's village-y. It has cool coffee shops and nice people. It has GREAT bars. It's easy to get to Manhattan, if you so wish. They freaking love brunch.

We popped into Egg on a weekday, needing sustenance for the day's sightseeing. I couldn't resist organic cheesy grits (stone-ground from South Carolina, apparently) and eggs, with a side of country ham. I'm a huge fan of any corn product. The portion sizes of America caught us off-guard here; I worked my way through piles of country ham (basically ham, fried) and oozing egg yolk, while my friend worked through two hefty sausage patties, and I helped my other friend out with her candied bacon. The eggs are offered any style, and were poached perfectly which, you know, given its' name. We passed by on a weekend and the place was packed, an obvious wait-list in force.

Grits became a slight obsession of mine. We did a very hungover wander around Dumbo in Brooklyn on a freezing but beautifully sunny day, lighting the bridges spectacularly and the warehouses a rich red. The decor in Vinegar Hill House was completely surprising (a theme that ran throughout my restaurant expectations in New York); for some reason I had expected a bright airy room, perhaps light wood and stainless steel. I think it's the website. Instead, it was small, a bit dark and ramshackle, mismatched furniture, tables packed closely together. Trying to remove my very padded and REALLY COOL ski jacket was quite the kerfuffle. The toilet, conversely, is massive. Anyway, sitting down for a 3pm brunch when service finished at 3:30pm obviously really endeared us to the staff. Nevertheless, 'cheddar grits (see?) with braised beef, salsa verde, poached egg and scallion' was a flavour sensation. Smooth, creamy grits topped with shredded, crispy beef was lovely enough, but the salsa verde was tart, spicy and herbaceous; it sorted that richness right the rich out. My friend's biscuits and gravy with bacon was made that bit more with slivers of pickled apple, while eggs benedict was given a makeover with delicate pink smoked trout and wafers of pickled onion. The kitchen looked like a galley in which three people at the most could operate, so it was all the more impressive that they could turn out the food that they did. My only disappointment was that we didn't have time to give the menu a full work out. And the coffee was a bit shit.

Obviously you can't go to New York and not visit Flushing's Chinatown*. A whole hour on the 7 train out to deepest Queens, we were escorted by our new BFF who, as a stranger, suffered through 6 hours of us talking at him on the plane ride from the UK in an effort to stay awake and prevent jetlag. He still agreed to hang out with us after all that. Anyway, after 18 years living in Brooklyn, not even he had been this far out. But these are the things I will do at the promise of a new and exciting Chinatown, like the good Asian kid I was brought up to be. We embarked on a little tour of some dumplings.

Tianjin Dumpling House is not a house. It's not remotely a house. With the aid of Google maps we navigated our way into what seemed like the basement of a department store, also known as Golden Shopping Mall. Everywhere you turned were counters serving noodles, dumplings, and big steamy polystyrene bowls of stews and broths to people bundled up in their winter jackets.

You could choose up to three ingredients from a picture list and have the dumplings made fresh, or choose from a menu. The pork, pickled mustard green and chive dumplings were the boiled Beijing type. We ate them doused in chilli oil and black vinegar, and they're as good a Beijing dumpling as I've ever had. 12 for $5. Madness.

Best North Dumpling was through another door, down another arcade that was damn near closed - perils of visiting on a Sunday night - and this was a slight upgrade in terms of space and room to actually put your belongings down.

Beef and turnip dumplings, served straight from the steamer, again benefited from a splash of vinegar and chilli sauce. The skins were thin, the fillings juicy. We worried that dinner would become difficult, and they gladly packed us up a polystyrene box of leftovers which were promptly demolished after a quick blast in the microwave the following evening, when we rolled in steaming from a night on the absinthe cocktails. Literal life-savers.

We carried on upgrading our surroundings, and we ended the evening in Biang!, the posher outpost of my beloved Xi'an Famous Foods. Swinging filament lightbulbs, cold beer and dark wood tables juxtaposed with the ramshackle stalls we'd been at made it fine dining indeed. Fiddlehead fern salad had to be had, given the rarity of finding that vegetable, and they were dressed in a chilli-heavy oil, cold yet fiesty.

The chicken 'longevity' noodle was one giant noodle, coiled round and topped with a star anise-spiced chicken and vegetables. On the menu it says the chicken comes on the bone, but ours was bone-free - probably a blessing, given the mess I made with just the noodle itself, flapping around. The noodle was made from wheat, and chewy and elastic, satisfying on the teeth.

Cha'ang tofu was slightly disappointing - my last experience at Xi'an Famous Foods was wobbly, hot, bright, salty, sour, sweet, in your face - this seemed dumbed down, though I'm not sure if it was maybe my memory from two years previous that built it up.

Tofu skin, skewered and grilled was served with a lick of spicy, numbing chilli oil. We were quite meat-light on this visit, of which I was a little glad - I was stuffed to the brim by this point. The bill was so reasonable it was laughable.


I loved Flushing. I would live there if I could, which seems converse since most people like to actually live in the town they work in, but hey - I did East Dulwich for 3 years - an hour-long commute is nothing new to me.

We finished our trip with the only pizza we had - at Paulie Gee's. We arrived initially at 6:30pm on a Saturday night - HA! Fools! 2 hour wait! - and slinked off, tail between our legs. We are nothing if not determined though, and returned all eager at 5pm on the day of our departure. Ha! Fools! They open at 6pm. Anyway, I don't have a picture because it is so hilariously dark inside, I can't tell you what my pizza looked like. I can't tell you what Paulie Gee, who pops out for a chat with his customers, looks like. All I can recall accurately was the flavour of a great crust, and a shit-load of kale that came on my Lacinato Red pizza.

Next up - the Manhattan Binge.


*This is a complete lie. Only do this if you are a Chinatown fanatic, as I am.