Byron’s The Shady

The Shady at Byron, O2 Greenwich

Today is National Sandwich Day in the US.  We don’t have a similar holiday here (outside of the wonderful British Sandwich Week, of course) so I have decided to adopt it (any excuse).

It’s been a while since I have written anything here, but only because I have been busy writing my other blog.  I have a whole list of sandwiches backed up in my draft folder that I hope to share with you soon, but right now I’m going to start with a burger.

A couple of weeks ago I went to see Lady Gaga at the O2 with my friends Madeleine and Joe.  In our younger gigging days we had a pre-show drinking ritual, which has been replaced with a pre-show eating ritual (let it not be said that your 30s are not fun), so turned up a little early, and ravenous, to look for dinner.  Anybody who has visited this curious building on the eastern curve of our river will know that it is hardly a gastronomic destination.  In the trend of all large public spaces in London, it has little more than a series of charmless chain restaurants providing fodder to the masses.  The food is often expensive and usually sub-par, as anybody who has found themselves in a Slug and Lettuce, staring blankly at the menu will attest.  Thank God for Byron, is all I can say.

In recent years, some chains have emerged that have bucked the trend somewhat. Byron is up there with the best of them, making burgers that could rival any in town.  As well as this, Thomasina Miers’ Wahaca and sourdough pizza giant Franco Manca are also good dining options.  Carluccio’s always has been, and remains, excellent.  Hopefully this is a sign of things to come.

So we ended up, not unhappily, at Byron in the O2.  Having worked my way through their permanent menu some time ago, I usually opt for their monthly specials for a bit of a change.  This month, they have The Shady:  a 6oz hamburger with crispy cheese, pickle relish, American cheese, onion and ketchup.  I don’t recall ever seeing this on their menu before, and I was intrigued by the ‘crispy cheese’ which, I was told by the waiter, was a kind of parmesan crisp.  Sold.

The burger, as you would come to expect from Byron, was very good.  The patty was well-seasoned and pink in the middle and the toppings well-proportioned.  My only two gripes were that my patty was more medium than the medium-rare I had ordered, although this wasn’t too much of a big deal, and the cheese was not as crispy as I had hoped.  There was a little snap around the edges, but it seemed that the heat and other ingredients had softened it in the middle.  That being said, the addition of another kind of cheese is never a bad thing.

The staff at the O2 were excellent.  Our fries arrived cold so they replaced them and removed them from our bill.

Byron, The O2, Peninsula Square, London SE10 0DX.

Honest Burgers’ Tribute

Tribute at Honest Burgers

I find it hard to imagine a day when I will be bored with burgers.  I confess that when the number of burger joints in the city was reaching saturation point, I briefly foresaw that I would tire of them and start obsessing about something else instead, but that never happened.  Instead, it has invigorated my need to get out and try as many as possible of London’s diverse offerings.  Scotch egg burger?  On my list.  Ramen burger?  Making plans to go as we speak.  See… not bored yet.

Honest Burgers has been on my list for longer than I care to admit.  Considering their original site in Brixton is close to where I live, I really should have been by now.  Blame the long queues, the allure of Franco Manca or the unbearable number 37 bus, the only form of transport between Peckham and Brixton, if you like, either way, I feel as though I’ve been missing out.  It’s been a long time since I read a list of the best burgers in London that did not have Honest Burgers on it.

A new site in Oxford Circus finally gave me the push I needed to go, for it is a mere five-minute walk from my office.  My initial plans for a late breakfast were scuppered when my colleagues protested against a pre-midday burger, so we arrived instead at 12.15pm and got a table right away.  Like many other restaurants of its ilk, it operates a no-reservations policy and has only about 30-40 covers, hence the queuing.  That being said, even when full it did not feel too cramped, and its minimalist decor left it feeling light and airy.

Honest Burgers have a permanent menu of one chicken burger, one veggie burger and three beef burgers, including their eponymous offering with mature cheddar, smoked bacon and onion relish.  As well as this, there are usually a couple of monthly specials.  Their aim is to do simple burgers with excellent local produce, and use dry-aged beef from the excellent Ginger Pig butcher for their patties.  The salads are seasonal and the drinks local – including gins from London and Sussex and an English wine.

I ordered a Tribute burger, one of their monthly specials.  I usually make a point of ordering the most simple burger on my first visit somewhere but could not resist the perfect combination of cheese, bacon, American mustard and pickles – the exact kind of burger I have a weakness for.  Once it arrived, I could see why it was so popular: the patty was cooked perfectly medium rare (I would even say that it was verging on rare) and had an excellent beefy flavour with just the right amount of seasoning.  It was coated in a thick layer of delicious American cheese, my favourite kind, and topped with crisp bacon.  They were generous with the pickles, and I was lucky enough to be dining with a colleague who removed hers, so I quickly swiped them and added them to my own burger.  The brioche held it all together well.  My only gripe is that I wish the red onion had been pickled instead of raw, but that was it.  Honestly (sorry!) a very, very good burger.

Honest Burgers, 4 Market Place, London W1W 8AD.

Caphe House’s Special Banh Mi

Special banh mi at Caphe House

This post is a little later than expected, apologies. My trip to Germany kind of got in the way.

I ended up at Caphe House by accident one Saturday afternoon.  Back in September, I was asked to judge the bake-off at the Bermondsey Street Festival with my Band of Bakers co-founder Naomi.  I don’t know if you’ve ever considered the practicalities of judging a cake competition, but you end up consuming an awful lot of sugar.  We had a plan to taste just one bite of each cake, but some were so good, I ended up going back for seconds, and even thirds, fourths and fifths of the winning cake.  With the wide eyes and slightly manic demeanour of a child that’s overindulged on e-numbers, I went on the hunt for some savoury food to try to counteract the sugar.

The Bermondsey Street Festival has grown considerably since I first visited in 2009 and now has a huge street food section, with many vans pitching up for the day and a number of the local restaurants setting up their own stalls.  There were a couple of beer-and-burger deals, including one from The Woolpack, one of my favourite Bermondsey pubs, but the queues were colossal.  With neither my husband or myself willing to wait that long, I suggested we instead go for a banh mi.

Although there are more Vietnamese restaurants south of the river than there used to be, most are still concentrated around the Kingsland Road in Shoreditch.  Caphe House is more cafe than restaurant, with a few menu items focusing around baguettes, soup and salads, rather than the pages and pages of menu you find in the east.  Their speciality is authentic Vietnamese coffee, which becomes an obsession for anybody lucky enough to have visited Vietnam.  I like mine with ice and a lot of condensed milk.

Another obsession that followed me back was banh mi.  Both my husband and I ordered the special banh mi, which is pork and pate – one of the most common types you will find in Vietnam.  The pork and pork pate have a deep flavour, despite the pork looking perhaps a little pale and the bread, although not the traditional rice flour baguettes, was both crispy and light.  What I liked the most was that the sandwich was packed full with pickled carrot, daikon and onions and topped with a generous amount of red chilli.  I have had far too many banh mis that lack both the acidity and the heat that comes from these items, but this one had those flavours in abundance.  The service was a little sketchy and we had to wait a while, but what the hell.

Caphe House, 114 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3TX

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.

Wahaca’s Pork Pibil Tacos: National Taco Day

Pork Pibil Tacos at Wahaca, Fitzrovia

I never had a taco until I went to Los Angeles in my early twenties, until then I didn’t really know what a taco was; it was just something that was mentioned on American sitcoms from time to time.  The first one I had was from Taco Bell, and it was pretty disappointing.  Since then I have learned that there are far, far better examples out there – including ones that you can make yourself.

Today is National Taco Day, which is one of those invented American food holidays I love so much.  For what is better than having an excuse to indulge in something that you love?

My search for lunchtime tacos led me to the Charlotte Street branch of Wahaca, where they have a takeaway.  Wahaca, started by Masterchef winner Thomasina Miers, has helped to up the ante of Mexican food in London, which was previously characterised by terrible fajitas and lurid green margaritas in wooden clad, saloon-style ‘Tex-Mex’ restaurants.  The cuisine in the city has thankfully moved on and Wahaca has only grown in popularity as a result.  There are now 13 branches in the London area, as well as several ‘street kitchens’ and a new branch in Cardiff.  There are rumours of expansion into other parts of the country too.

The Wahaca takeaway offers a pared-down version of their normal menu: tortas, tacos, burritos and salads – all things that are easily transportable back to the office.

The tacos are served up in a portion of two: each wrapped in two warmed mini-tortilla wraps.  As the wraps worked their way along the taco production line, I could see them being filled with shredded lettuce, black beans, pork pibil (other options include chicken, steak and vegetables), a little cheese, a sprinkle of coriander and some bright pink pickled red onions.  The salsa options were mild, medium and hot, and guacamole could be added for an extra 50p.

The popularity of Wahaca is not down to its convenience alone, they make an incredibly good taco.  The pork pibil is moist and well-cooked and has a strong, smoky flavour with a slight acidity behind it that was amped up by the addition of the beautiful little pickled red onions.  The plentiful fillings means that two tacos is a substantial lunch.  On my next visit, I fully intend to graduate from the medium salsa to the hot as it didn’t quite have enough punch for me.  My companion, however, found it had the perfect level of heat.

Wahaca Takeaway, 19-23 Charlotte Street, London W1T 1RL.

The Ship’s Galley Burger

Burger from The Ship’s Galley, Fitzrovia

I don’t know if you’ve ever entered ‘best London’ into a Google search to see what the next word will be.  Of course, it is ‘restaurants’. Duh.

I know that it’s a huge cliché, but one of the things I love about this city is that there are always new places to eat.  I have spoken already about my love for the survival of London’s old establishments, but I cannot dismiss the excitement of the new.  In our social media-led age, it is not difficult to find out about new openings; they pay people to use every platform available to make us aware of them.  The hungrier we become for a certain food trend, the bigger the maelstrom of publicity that surrounds a new restaurant, and the more impatient we become to get down there, Instagram everything in sight and tweet about just how great it is.

In contrast to this, some new places open so quietly that it is only when you literally stumble across them that you become aware of their existence.  This happened to me yesterday.  With the back to work blues following my holiday, I took to the streets of Fitzrovia to seek solace in some lunch.  Turning off Foley Street to answer my phone, I almost walked straight into a couple of guys cooking on a hot plate outside of a cafe.  I was intrigued.

The cafe in question is The Ship’s Galley on Hanson Street, a tiny little coffee shop that has been in the owner’s family for 23 years.  Having recently been taken over by the two young sons of the family, they have branched out into a kind of outdoor BBQ, hoping to attract hungry office workers.  This new venture operates three days a week: burgers on Wednesdays, burritos on Thursdays and steak sandwiches on Fridays.  All priced at around the £5 mark.

I was a little sad to see the patty cooked well-done, as I am a fan of a pink middle, but was cheered up when they split the patty through the middle and filled it with cheese and the red onions that had been cooking on the hot plate next to the burger.  The bun was a standard seeded bun, but was fresh and held together well.  I was offered a choice of various toppings but opted only for pickles, lettuce, mustard and ketchup – which prompted a debate about tomatoes in burgers (my bete noire).  The thing about this burger is that it breaks the rules of what we think to be a good burger at the moment: no brioche bun, no medium rare, no ‘dirty’ sauce or ‘filthy’ sauce, but it tastes good.  The bread is fresh, the patty moist, despite being cooked right through, and well seasoned, and the toppings basic but right for the job.  It is a good honest burger which, with some of the gargantuan offerings about at the moment, is quite refreshing.

The Ship’s Galley, 1 Hanson Street, London W1W 6TA.

La Petite Bouchee’s Croque Madame

Croque madame from La Petite Bouchee, Sydenham

This weekend I found the perfect croque madame in the back of a van in Sydenham.  Those are words I never thought I would type.  Allow me to explain…

To be honest, I was wondering when this was going to happen.  My search for a good croque madame has been a long one.  For there are many in London, but few that are actually any good.  Usually they fall down on the cheese.  I’ve seen it all from the poor-quality cheese that somehow refuses to melt, the cheese that tastes of practically nothing and the cheese that is so stingy in portion size that it is barely cheese at all.  I was beginning to give up, but then I was invited to a brunch that had a croque madame on the menu and thought I would have one last go at finding a good one.

There was to be no restaurant at the end of this invitation, but something altogether more special:  a 1973 Citroen H van that had been transformed into a perfect little dining room.  It is called La Petite Bouchee, which literally translates as “the little mouthful” and is parked up opposite a lake in this pretty little south-east London park.  It has everything you might expect when out for brunch: orange juice on the table, the weekend newspapers and a pot of fresh coffee with milk and sugar.  It can accommodate four people and is remarkably spacious considering its diminutive size.  An outdoor kitchen, where all the food is prepared, transforms it into a French bistro serving up local, organic and seasonal foods.

The brunch menu is typically French.  As well as the two croques (monsieur et madame), there are eggs Benedict, Florentine and Royale; and a selection of omelettes.  And like every good brunch, there is booze.  Either prosecco or a bloody mary made with their house-infused vodka.

So, about the croque:  this is not only the best croque madame I have ever had, but one of the best sandwiches I have ever had.  Every element is so well-chosen and executed with such care that when it comes together it is sheer perfection.  The bread is a good-quality white loaf, sliced thickly enough to hold together the filling and lightly crisped in the pan.  The ham is decent and a little smoked and the egg placed on the top perfectly cooked with a soft yolk.  The cheese, often the disappointment of a croque madame, was perfectly melted in the middle of the sandwich, and on the top made into the most delightfully oozing cheese sauce, spiked with just a little mustard.  I asked Anita-Clare, our cook, which cheese she used and she replied “Emmental in the morning and Gruyère in the afternoon.  Gruyère is too much in the morning.”  And she was totally right.

Try as I might, I couldn’t finish it. This is one huge sandwich.  Fortunately there were three other eager diners, forks poised, ready to polish off what I left.

La Petite Bouchee, Sydenham Wells Park, London SE26.  BOOKING IS ESSENTIAL.

For transparency I should mention that I was a guest of La Petite Bouchee, but not in return for a review, simply because they are kind … I just had to share the croque!

Kin Cafe’s Roasted Vegetables with Feta Sandwich

Roasted vegetables with feta sandwich from Kin, Fitzrovia

I really should rename this blog ‘half a square mile’ as a lot of my sandwich hunting seems to be concentrated to the little patch of Fitzrovia around Great Portland Street and Great Titchfield Street.  I really need to start branching out a bit further.  This post is not the beginning of this new-found sandwich wanderlust, in fact, it is almost as close to my office as you can get.

Kin Cafe was a treasure I found at a particularly low ebb, unusually on a Friday.  I had been up late the night before, partly due to having a disagreement with a friend, partly due to the disagreement that Scottish voters were having with one another.  Once the referendum results were in, I sloped off for a very short and disturbed sleep.  The next day, understandably, was difficult.  By the time lunchtime rolled around, I was craving not comfort food, which is the way I usually go when tired, but the restorative power of vegetables.  I went for a stroll along Foley Street and found this sign:

It made me laugh so I popped in for a look.  Almost as soon as I was in the door I was invited to play ‘Guess the Bride’.  All of the staff were dressed up as you might on a hen night: all plastic tiaras, veils and glitter.  Only one of them was getting married.  I managed to guess right.  It was so fun in there it cheered me up immediately.

Kin Cafe has been open since June and seems to be thriving despite the huge concentration of cafes in this area vying for the money of local office workers.  It has the classic Fitzrovia set-up of good coffee, home-baked treats, bright salads and a couple of sandwiches, enough space to sit in and quick enough to take out.  There were two sandwiches on offer that day, thankfully one that was heavy on the vegetables – a combination of aubergine, red peppers and spinach with a little feta.  They quickly whipped it into a panini press before I took it back to my desk.

The trouble with roasted vegetables is that they can lack flavour if not properly seasoned – not the case here.  The aubergine had a little smokiness, like it had been cooked over a flame, and the red peppers were sweet.  The salty creaminess of the feta brought everything together well and the bread was good and robust.  If I had one small complaint, it was that it was on the small side, but that might just be an example of my greediness.  £5 – obvs (Fitzrovia).

Kin Cafe, 22 Foley Street, London W1W 6DT.

Sylvan Post’s Angus Beef Burger with Cheddar

Angus Beef Burger with Cheddar at Sylvan Post, Forest Hill

First up, apologies for the worst food photo ever taken.  Photography in dark bars is not my forte.  I would have taken this burger to a better lit area if I were not so hungry. Sorry.

Sylvan Post is one of the new additions to Forest Hill that happened after both the Overground arrived and I moved out.  It coincided with the SEE3 project, an initiative headed by Mary Portas to boost the businesses of Forest Hill, Kirkdale and Sydenham.  The pub was not part of that scheme, but is a welcome addition to a high street with few places to eat.

It is on the site of a disused 1960s post office and has kept some of the original features of the building which, combined with some vintage furniture and interesting artwork, makes a warm and welcoming pub.  They have quite an extensive beer menu, offering a range of bottled beers, as well as some on tap.  The menu is largely British bistro food with a few international influences and seasonal ingredients.

I ordered the burger, billed simply as an ‘Angus Beef Burger’ (£10.50 with chips) and added some cheddar at a further £1.  You could also add blue cheese and bacon for the same price.

Without much description on the menu, I was not entirely sure what to expect, but was not disappointed.  I could see the shine on the brioche bun before the plate even reached the table, and they were definitely not stingy on the side.  There was definitely value for money on the cheese, as the patty was topped with a slab of cheddar so enormous that I feared what kind of dreams I would be having that night.  Having removed the slice of tomato and most of the raw red onion inside the burger (for me, neither add anything good – pickled red onions on the other hand…) I noticed that it was missing some of the additions that really make a burger.  For me, some gherkins and a sauce, either mustard or ketchup.

That being said, the patty was very, very well seasoned and cooked perfectly pink in the middle whilst retaining the outer crisp.  The abundance of cheddar may be too much for some but I loved it.  Given a few little extras, this would be an excellent burger worth venturing to Zone 3 for.  Also, the chips were homemade, which is a rarity in pubs and such a delight.  They were not quite as good at my Mum’s, but that’s an impossible standard to live up to for anybody.

Sylvan Post, 24-28 Dartmouth Road, London SE23 3XZ

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.