Spit and Roast’s Buttermilk Fried Chicken Burger

Buttermilk fried chicken burger from Spit and Roast

All you need to know about this sandwich is in the following sentence:  it is the thing I always crave when I have a hangover.  There you go.  Only this wouldn’t be a very good blog if I allocated only one sentence to a sandwich, so I will elaborate further.

I discovered Spit and Roast one god-awful Saturday morning when my friends convinced me that I should go to Brockley Market with them rather than languish around on the couch with a box set, a litre bottle of coke and a bag of doughnuts.  I was hungover, it was raining and series four of Mad Men had just arrived in the post.  In a moment of weakness (or strength, depending on how you look at it), I put on my coat and went out.  When I got there and saw the words BUTTERMILK FRIED CHICKEN  on a blackboard, I knew I was saved.

Until this point, I had never understood the appeal of fried chicken in the morning, I would usually wait until at least after closing time before indulging, but then I had never had fried chicken like this before.  Up until now, it was whatever I could get on Rye Lane after the last train has kicked me out at Peckham Rye station, and it was never good.

Spit and Roast have been kicking around the various London street food markets for a few years now and, aside from a few seasonal specials, have not deviated too much from their original formula of rotisserie chicken and an excellent fried chicken burger.  The latter is what saved me from my hangover on that rainy Saturday and restored me to normality.  I have re-ordered many times since and it has become one of my all-time favourite sandwiches.

Spit and Roast’s fried chicken is marinated in buttermilk and given a well-spiced coating.  The result is moist, succulent meat with a crispy skin with just the right amount of grease (i.e. not too much).  This is served in a soft bun with a slaw, made up mainly of white cabbage and red cabbage, and a Korean hot sauce with a base of Sriracha.  The beauty in this sandwich is that it all works together so well – the crunch of the slaw emphasises the crunch of the chicken coating, and the hot sauce brings out its spice.  There’s a decent amount of chicken in the sandwich for the money, and although they do offer it with a side of chips, I’ve always found the sandwich substantial enough not to need them.

Never change, Spit and Roast.

Spit and Roast, at various street food markets across London.  Check their Twitter for details.

Paul Rothe & Son Delicatessen’s Corned Beef and Pickle

Corned beef and pickle sandwich at Paul Rothe & Son

Since my joy at finding a fifty year old deli in Fitzrovia that sells some of the best Italian sandwiches in London, I thought it would be a long time before I found another experience that so beautifully encapsulated London’s continuity with its culinary past.  Then I went walking in Marylebone and found a 114 year old deli with a very long queue outside.  It seems that my fellow Londoners are more in tune with this than I.

Paul Rothe & Son was founded in 1900 and has been passed down through the same family to the current owner, who is the great-grandson of the original one.  The sign for HOT SOUP outside can be seen from much further down the street and is enough to attract the attention of hungry passers-by.  Apparently it is the soup that they are most famous for, but they also have a menu of extensive sandwich fillings, some of which are now so rarely found in London cafes I wondered if I’d stepped back in time.

It’s not just the sandwich fillings that give this feeling of history – the window display contains both bunting and stacked jars of jam, and the interior is probably unchanged, although wonderfully preserved from several decades ago.  The furniture is antique and the way of presenting the produce reminiscent of a time before minimalism or online ordering changed the appearance of shops.  By the time I arrived there was not a seat left in the place, clearly people like this trip back in time.

My choice of sandwich was influenced by a pang of nostalgia when I saw it up on the menu board.  My Nan always made us corned beef and Branston pickle sandwiches when we were children.  In fact, she had a bit of a thing for meat that came in tins and packets – corned beef, polony, spam – I think it had something to do with growing up in the war.  I have shed many of these childhood foods as I’ve grown up, but still have a bit of a weakness for corned beef.  The good stuff you can buy in delis, obviously, but also the basic tinned corned beef you buy in supermarkets.  The corned beef and pickle sandwich at Paul Rothe and Sons was exactly like the one my Nan used to make:  granary bread, real butter,  thick slices of corned beef and a good smear of Branston pickle.  And that’s it.  When I opened the paper wrapping to see that he had cut it into quarters, as she used to, I smiled.

Paul Rothe & Son, 35 Marylebone Lane, London W1U 2NN.

Attendant’s Royal Chicken Sandwich

Royal chicken sandwich from Attendant, Fitzrovia

This is not the first time I have been to Attendant.  In fact, I have been going there for coffee at least twice a week since I started working in Fitzrovia a year ago.  I had my appraisal there and frequently meet colleagues there for meetings.  Initially it was the novelty of meeting in a converted public toilet that spurred me on, but I very quickly realised that they do very, very good coffee.

Let’s get the obvious characteristics out of the way first.  It is, indeed, an old public toilet.  With above-ground property prices soaring out of control, business owners are coming around to the idea of these subterranean spaces.  There are a few new ex-toilet openings in London, I am told, another one being WC in Clapham, but apparently this one was the best-preserved and least vandalised of them all.  So much so, that they have managed to keep the porcelain fittings intact and make a feature from them.  I was fortunate enough to be in there whilst the owner was recounting the history of the space. Fascinating.

Despite being in Attendant for coffee and cake so frequently, I had yet to try any of their lunch options.  Now that I am often out looking for lunch in Fitzrovia (or ‘sandwich-hunting’ as my colleagues call it), it seemed like a good time to start.  Attendant usually has three or four sandwiches on offer at lunchtime, as well as some rather delicious-looking avocado on toast that I have yet to try.  Once selected, they will gladly heat it up for you in a sandwich press before you either take a seat at one of the ‘urinals’ or head back to your office.

My sandwich of choice was the Royal Chicken, nothing, I was informed, to do with the recent royal baby announcement, rather that it was a take on the old coronation chicken.  The chicken was breast meat and (I think) roasted.  Along with this was a curried sauce, a little mayo, some sultanas and a herb salad.  The bread was good quality wholemeal bread, that lent itself well to being lightly toasted so the sauce sunk in and softened the inside.  I’m always partial to a good coronation chicken, but this is a great, slightly pared-down alternative that does not have the excess creaminess or overwhelming flavour of curry powder that many of them do, rather it is subtle and given a freshness by the addition of herbs.

It is £5 (isn’t every sandwich in Fitzrovia right now?) But is substantial enough to be your main meal of the day.  If you’re really keen to splash out, get yourself an americano and a lamington too.

Attendant, 27a Foley Street, London W1W 6DY (it’s underground!)