I like to e-mail at work. When I have the time. There's nothing like some mindless e-chit-chat to keep you going during a hectic day at the office. As long as it's clean. I'm sure we've all got a story of a colleague, or the colleague of a friend, who went too far with disparaging remarks about the company, the boss or the job and ended up paying for it.
I often feel as if I am treading the thin line between what is acceptable and what isn't. Once a friend of mine and I were mired in an Arrested Development quote-a-thon and the comment "you're one hell of an analrapist" was sent. Firstly, if you aren't familiar with the above show, I suggest you get on it promptly. One of the snappiest, fullest and most brilliant sit-coms ever, the recent fourth season is long overdue. Sort of like any reviews on this blog. Secondly, as I received the e-mail, I had a nervous vision of firewalls collapsing all over the company.
In a similar vein, when a friend of mine told me about the infamous Meat Wagon of Peckham setting up permanent shop in the west end, I had to do some research. One piece of advice: make sure you know the spelling of the place you're researching before you type "Meat Licker" into Google at your desk.
Two trips occurred over the summer: both with the wife, both ending up in Gelupo for gelato and both with others joining us. The first involved three of us going somewhere we'd been desperate to try for some time: MeatLiquor was high on the list of places to visit and we queued patiently outside, salivating at the prospect of what was to follow.
MeatLiquor is a no-frills, modern burger bar. It is scuzzy, dark and packed with loud attitude. It's quite predictable but grubbily enticing in the way that most burger joints should be. The menu also has a superbly attractive simplicity which makes ordering a seamless enjoyment.
The wife and I deliberated only briefly before making our choices. The Dead Hippie was one that had been promoted by a friend so she leapt at it whilst I went for a Meat Wagon classic: cheese & bacon. We decided that a large burger each just wouldn't cut it so we went for a load of sides as well: onion rings, fries, chicken wings and coleslaw.
The tray presented to us was heart-stopping (left). Food like this should be unpretentious and piled up wherever possible, something MeatLiquor takes pretty seriously. These were glorious, intense hits of food. Food which requires a temporary suspension of any of the usual trappings of civility, healthy eating and cleanliness. Grab handfuls of the kitchen roll on the table, paper them over any at-risk area and go nuts.The food was actually exquisite. Such meaty, tender, moist and properly-cooked burgers with just the right amount of dressing and soft buns are not to be trifled with. Whereas some time before I had been lauding Bar Boulud as the best burger ever, I had a hasty re-think.
Whilst there is something wholesomely decadent about eating spectacular burgers in a high-end environment, I discovered on this particular Friday night that nothing really beats a proper, greasy, fattening burger in a proper, greasy, fattening environment. This is enjoyable, self-loathing face-stuffing at its finest.
The sides were so good they deserve a whole separate mention. The fries were good enough to be scoffed along with the main events, but the others were on a par with the burgers themselves. Radioactively orange chicken wings with just enough heat to cut through the bread and beef were gorgeously greasy and moist. Red cabbage slaw was exactly the cooling, faux-concession to health you want with a burger. The onion rings were coated in a light beer batter and were the size of child's fists. Ridiculously good stuff.
As we staggered out it can't have been far past 8pm, but it felt as if we'd aged several years. MeatLiquor was somewhere I was going to repeatedly go back to for as long as my dwindling health would allow (about a fortnight if I played my cards right...) Nothing about this place was off. The bar was scuzzy and friendly and they chiseled their ice out of a glassy block at the back of the counter. Cocktails in jars, beers in bottles, condiments in place and food on trays. Yes, thank you: this is the centre of the comfort eating universe.
Dessert was wholly unnecessary at this point but by the time we'd crossed over Oxford Street and made it to Soho, the mood had taken us so we stopped in at Gelupo, the sister venture of the highly successful Bocca di Lupo. Gelupo is a rather friendly ice cream (probably gelato) parlour which also dabbles in cookbooks, kitchen accessories and expensive Italian foodstuffs. In short: heaven.
The ice creams and sorbets they stock tend to change on a daily basis which only makes one enjoy it more: there's something slightly special about each visit. On this occasion, we had simple strawberry and vanilla and were reasonably pleased. I suppose we had to reign it in somewhere.
Nearly two months later, a mutual friend of my brother and I was visiting London from Canada and she suggested we (plus wives) met up for some food. My brother had heard enough of my ravings by now to know that MeatLiquor was the place to be. It was duly arranged and five of us strolled in on a Saturday evening, surprisingly enough able to find a table pretty swiftly (they don't take reservations, like more or less any hip new place in London these days.)
At first, all seemed the same. Everyone except the wife and I ordered cocktails which they duly enjoyed, cooing at the rustic presentation as they went. The orders were made and they were more or less identical to what we'd had the first time (right). But that is where the similarity stopped.The burgers were not great. They were over-cooked, tough and not at all pink in the middle. Right there I could tell there was something ominous in the offing. The sides were not up to scratch either. The onion rings were so greasy as to dull most of the lively crunch we'd loved beforehand and the chips had even lost some of their crisp.
The wife and I were fairly shocked but we couldn't say too much since everyone else seemed to be enjoying themselves. The one constant was the chicken wings, which retained an indulgent slip and slap of spicy sauce. The slaw was okay but not great, leaving the tray with plenty of untouched food at the end.
Two of the girls shared a peanut butter cup sundae, which I was not going to go near, given my dislike of nuts (left). They enjoyed it and from the look of it alone, I could see why it appealed. Plenty of chocolate, cups and sauces made for a mean-looking thing and, sadly, reminded me of what the first visit to MeatLiquor was like.For a totally different reason we ended the night at Gelupo again. This time we were definitely in the mood for dessert but it was a swelteringly hot day so ice cream sounded good. Another visit went down well, with some bold raspberry and rather inventive lemon-infused rice ice cream a real couple of treats. As a stop-in on your way home kind of place, there isn't much better in Soho. A recent visit showed me that - if they have it - the rhubarb eton mess ice cream is a definite winner.
A classic tale of a re-visit gone bad, overall. The food at MeatLiquor was way below par for the second time, but the first was so good as to stop me from writing it off altogether. The first visit is the one I remember best, simply because there aren't many occasions I've felt so very satisfied, comforted, disgusted and guilty at the same time. Any burger joint which can simultaneously summon such emotions must have something going for it.
MeatLiquor
Gelupo
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