My Thoughts on Sausage & Mash

Food in winter is all about comfort and familiarity. Even though I rarely have the heart to admit it those well-intentioned souls who try and maintain super-healthy diets in the depths of December, there’s something that seems a bit unnatural about grilled red mullet at this time of year. If I am going to have fish, it’s almost certainly going to be in a pie, a stew, or a curry – hold the rocket salad and the mango salsa until April, please. In place of the light, Mediterranean style of cooking many of us favour in the warmer months, we have the tried and tested favourites more commonly associated with British cuisine.

Everybody has a favourite in the comfort food stakes. Usually, it’s something that takes them back to their childhood. For me, my mum’s roast chicken dinners will always hold the top spot, with brow-mopping curries - like the lamb farcha from the superb Cinnamon in New Cross - being a close second. Also definitely in my top five is sausage and mash. I don’t expect for a moment that I’m alone in this. Unfortunately, it’s a dish that’s frequently abused, most obviously by the identikit Ye Olde Pub Grub menus that curse our country’s drinking dens. Instant mash, granulated gravy, and cheap, fatty sausages might fool a few hapless tourists, but not those of us who live life on a fork’s edge.

MEATliquor, Marylebone

If Roti Chai has enjoyed its fair share of blogospheric activity in recent weeks, it's nothing compared to that provoked by the burgers of a certain Yianni Papoutsis over the last couple of years. Now, I must admit that I'm a bit biased when it comes to Papoutsis's enterprises and, more specifically, to the food they revolve around. I was expanding my gut to the tune of his carnivorous revolution yonks before pretentious hipsters gave #Meateasy their blessing and have always found him to be an affable character - I'm still grateful for the interview he gave me for an Eastlondonlines article. But more importantly, it's the sort of food that takes me back to my misspent youth in Massachusetts. One bite of a jaw busting Dead Hippie burger or a gob-full of buffalo wings heavily doused with blue cheese sauce and I'm thirteen again, it's Friday night in West Concord, and the waitress at Pub 99 is casting disapproving glances at my table as we empty whisky-filled water bottles into refillable soda cups under the table.

It was extremely unlikely, therefore, that I was ever at risk of disliking his latest venture and first genuine bricks and mortar operation, MEATliquor. The only pertinent critical question was: how much would I like it? Al and I decided to tip up after our dinner in Marble Arch for some nightcaps - always plural in my book - and sample the vibe of the place on a Saturday night.  I'm happy to report that the new joint is as gloriously seedy as ever, though the sleaze factor is perhaps partially mitigated by the fact we were in Marylebone, not New Cross. Still, he is clearly a man who sticks to his principles, and when those principles revolve around burger-fueled debauchery, it's fairly certain to garner approval from the Scavenger Gourmet. 

Roti Chai, Marble Arch

In many ways, Roti Chai lives up to the recent hype it’s been receiving. A visit I paid last Saturday as part of a birthday party revealed the food to be very good indeed. My starter, somewhat elusively titled 'Chicken 65,' is best described simply as little nuggets of kick ass spiced fried chicken - to say I really enjoyed it is putting it lightly. Al's Bengali fishcakes got the thumbs up too, and she also approved of the main course, Awadhi lamb quorma (lamb korma to you and me), which I can confirm was spot-on, a delicately flavoured masterpiece. The use of rosewater and saffron gave the sauce a distinctive fragrance and richness that separated it from bog-standard curry house kormas, though the lamb could perhaps have been stewed a little longer so that it fell apart more easily. Still, it was good enough that I managed to forget that the roof of my mouth didn't resemble a Croydon furniture shop in August. That it so say, it was very good indeed. The eponymous roti selection was stellar, some of the best bread I’ve had in an Indian restaurant, with the orange and cumin one standing out in particular.

My only real gripe with the place, therefore, is that £16.80 is a heck of a lot for a bowl of curry. It’s nouveau Indian prices – a curry at Michelin-starred Tamarind is only a couple of quid more - but this was not nouveau Indian food. It was, rather refreshingly I might add, brilliantly executed home-style cooking and contemporary takes on classic subcontinental street food. I was told that the larger plates we ordered from the ‘Regions’ section of the menu were just about substantial enough to share between two; that's a distinct possibility, if the two concerned have supermodel-style appetites, though given my stature I wasn't prepared to take the risk. The tag attached to plain steamed rice, £3.50, is more difficult to justify - surely it should have had something a bit unique about it to explain the price? -  though a more realistic proposition for sharing.

The Market Porter & Brindisa Grill, Borough

On my most recent trip to Borough Market, I found myself in a reflective mood, contemplating some of life's big questions. Chief among these: is there a better real ale pub in London than The Market Porter? Regulars at The White Horse in Parson’s Green will surely stand up for their local. My boss at The Jerusalem Tavern might well draw up a rap sheet laden with various treason-related charges. And sure, The Euston Tap, Rake Bar, and Craft Beer Co all offer a more diverse and eclectic drinking experience. But for a classic pub atmosphere and an immense selection of rare ales that you’re unlikely to find anywhere else in a major metropolis – a recent visit turned up Harvey’s Bonfire Boy, which I’ve previously only ever encountered in the brewery’s hometown of Lewes...on Bonfire Night – it’s hard to argue with. But I sincerely hope you do, as I always love an excuse to go check out a new boozer.

And also: where do you find the best sandwich in London? Quite possibly at the Brindisa grill just over the road. Open lunchtime Tuesday through Saturday, it serves chorizo sandwiches and only chorizo sandwiches: sweet red piquillo peppers contrasting with the spicy, top-quality sausage still sizzling from the grill, everything stuffed into a soft toasted ciabatta roll and brought together with a simple drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and finished with some crisp rocket. There are various, semi-comfortable places to perch outside the MP where you can drink and munch your meaty masterpiece free from persecution, a really attractive proposition in June if not December.  If it came smeared with a good glob of alioli, it would almost certainly top the John Montagu list. It might do anyways – at least until I finally get my hands on one of Mark Gerveux’s creations. Or until someone says: "Hang on you pleb! What about that place that serves the amazing bánh mì out in East..."

The Market Porter and Brindisa Chorizo Grill, Borough Market, Stoney Street side, SE1

Elliot's Cafe, Borough

One of the biggest joys of studying in Elephant and Castle is the fact that every day I get to leave the place, and head out to to areas I actually enjoy going to of my own free will. Monday lunch was one such occasion where I was able to make the most of my university’s location by going elsewhere. On the recommendation of Daniel Young (he of Young and Foodish fame) and his Top 10 Burgers in London list, I made a beeline for Elliot’s Café in the heart of Borough Market. Having big pimped it by the sea the previous evening, I was now craving a top-notch example of steak’s trailer park cousin.

I went to the right place.Elliot’s offers only one burger – a cheeseburger - and I’m beginning to think that a great many establishments should follow their lead and stick to the basics, because this was one exceptional patty. Soft, juicy, and tender – the pedigree of the meat from the neighbouring Ginger Pig was evident – it was served medium-rare and came precisely as advertised. By that I mean it was pink, oh so beautifully pink, and not the gray, slug-like medium-rare that many gastro pub ‘chefs’ sling out.

The Coal Shed, Brighton

After London – and Bray if you’re the sort who gets Michelin stars in their eyes – funky, friendly Brighton stakes a serious claim as Britain’s gastronomic capital. In this, the most cosmopolitan city on the South Coast, chefs enjoy an embarrassment of riches, with access to world-class produce emanating from the Sussex coastline and surrounding countryside. Think artisan cheeses, rare breed animals roaming rolling hillsides, the best of British wine, arguably the freshest seafood in the country and you’re still just scratching the surface. 

The city’s restaurant scene makes the most of its enviable location at the heart of a venerable foodie paradise: the Gingerman group pulls off the gastropub concept as well as anyone, Terre à Terre takes vegetarian cooking to Blumenthalesque creative heights, and the Chili Pickle ticks all the right boxes for nouveau Indian without succumbing to any of its pitfalls. Then there are the myriad fish restaurants – Riddle and Finns stands out amongst an above average crowd – that exploit the ocean’s finest fruits. Judging by a recent visit over bonfire weekend, the recently opened Coal Shed looks a good bet to take its place amongst the city’s elite.

Shhh! Be verwy, verwy quiet...I'm cooking wabbits

When carnivorous cravings kick in and I happen to be staying at my ultra-cushy Wimbledon abode, I count myself as luckier than Frankie Cocozza on a Sunday night (that’s for his inexplicable ability to survive, not his alleged effect on the ladies) as two fantastic independent butchers sit conveniently on my doorstep.

Robert Edwards of Leopold Road is probably the better known of the two. A bit more upmarket, they stock a wide array of high-quality meats, many pre-prepared and oven-ready to suit the hectic lifestyles of this Nappy Valley outpost.  But on this occasion, it was the wares of Arthur Road’s more traditional (read: cheaper) W.A Gardner & Son that caught my eye on Friday morning, in particular the temptingly plump rabbits that seemed to wink at me from their window.

eat.st @ King's Boulevard

An article I just finished at uni, hopefully soon to be published on either SUARTS or ArtsLondonNews. It's not so much a review as shameless hype for eat.st's latest venture in King's Cross. Like they actually need another blogger gushing about how good they are...

Students at Central Saint Martins must be happier than Mario Balotelli on bonfire night. Not only can they boast a brand new £200 million campus as their creative playground, their recent relocation to King’s Cross places them on the doorstep of arguably the capital’s most exciting food market.

Every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, pioneering street food collective eat.st descends on recently opened King’s Boulevard to showcase some of its finest traders, with a regularly rotating line-up ensuring that even the most fiercely fickle palate does not get jaded. One week it might be artisan pizza from the lads at Homeslice that steals the show, while the next could see Kimchi Cult’s Korean interpretations of Western fast food classics wowing the crowds. Crucially, the price point suits cash strapped students perfectly, with fresh, stomach-expanding lunches generally clocking in at around a fiver.