Meat Liquor Reviewed

I have a special place in my heart for American food. A space that I intend to clog with the chlorestoral goodness of Meat Liquor. American food is about excess. America takes something that is already high in fat, like a Twinkie, deep-fries it into oblivion, and then adds cheese and sour cream. Why? Because they can. Americans know, perhaps better than any other nationality, that fat is flavour. And their food has plenty of flavour.

So what am I looking from an American meal? I want amazing food that makes me feel bad about myself afterwards. I want food so ridiculously over the top that I feel slightly embarrassed about ordering it. And I want so much food, that when I’m finished, there is still a whole mountain of food staring back at me. And afterwards, I’ll be so embarrassed that I will actually pretend to have a dog to justify asking for a doggy bag.

Meat Liquor’s concept appears to be an attempt to get away from the pretension of other restaurants and bars, serving amazing food and drink for a reasonable price (£10-20 per person) to anyone who walks through the doorway. The menu is equally laconic in both word and design with descriptions of food being down right Spartan.  The menu is small if you take into consideration that most of the main meals are a variation on the burger. Food is simply served on metal trays, delivered to the hungry customer.

Whether I would like this place always depended on one thing. And that was the burger. I can forgive waiting in line, poor service, loud music and bad lighting for a good burger. And I am pleased to say the Meat Liquor does not fail. After my first bite I was forced to quote Samuel L Jackson in Pulp fiction. “Mmm this is a tasty burger.” They miraculously managed to balance keeping the burger juicy while getting the perfect sear on the meat, which was all balanced by lovely cheese and lettuce. This is quite frankly the best burger that I have had in London yet.

However, the food at Meat Liqueur takes a back seat when compared to the drinks menu. This is not a restaurant to order wine in. What they do have is some very tasty and strange cocktails served in jam jars, using ingredients that we don’t normally see in English restaurants, like maple syrup. Trust me, it works. My personal favourite however is not one of their cocktails: it is the House Grog. The House Grog is a mixture of light rum, dark rum and over proof rum combined with a secret recipe. All I could tell you is that there was citrus. And rum. Lots of rum. Being a reasonably sized lad and having a London student’s constitution when it comes to drinking, this deceptively innocuous drink hit me hard. The menu limits the diner to two per person. And I can see why. You can’t taste the alcohol, but you can feel the alcohol. And they have the upside of being delicious

One of my favorite things about this place is the atmosphere. Put simply Meat Liqueur is dark. I mean this both figuratively and literally. Even during the daytime the restaurant’s circular windows are tinted to give it that dive bar feel. In my book this is not a bad thing for this type of food. Nothing is less appealing than seeing someone scoff down wings dripping with buffalo sauce in the cold light of day. You want a dark room, preferably a closet. And, at night, the lighting is more akin to a bar than a restaurant, with the reddish glow of the neon signs primarily lighting up our food. It even smells like an American burger and beer joint!

Located on Welbeck Street (W1G 0BA), which is the next street over from Oxford Street, you would expect this place to be full of tourists. Fortunately, this is not true, with the place sticking to the dive bar, London-locals-only feel. That being said, it is hardly off the radar with every foodie, blogger and humble LSE food reviewer talking about this place.

Everywhere, there is vaguely punk rock art, with a variety of different animal heads on the ceiling’s dome. The clientele are a strange mix of young businessmen men in their post work suits and artistic indie gallery types swanning about. The music blasting from the speaker (and I mean blasting) was 70’s rock and roll. Matching this, is the slightly frantic air as the under-staffed waitressing staff rush around the dining area with trays of food and drink, giving the sunken main dining area a mosh pit like feel.  But that is not to say that this restaurant is uninviting. While you cannot say it is relaxed, the place makes you feel like you can do whatever you want, be it dressed as a skeleton or drunk out of your skull. And you can do this, as Meat Liquor doesn’t take reservations and it is open late, making it my new destination for late night food.

I loved Meat Liquor’s food and hipster punk style and atmosphere.  But its’ greatest strength is also its’ greatest weakness… The dark room and red lighting meant that I could barely see the colour of my food. Just a vague outline where I stuck my face. The music, too was loud. Good for bars but bad for relaxed dinner conversation. This place is busy, meaning that you probably won’t get your food quickly, or even get the attention of the waitress. Worse still, this place is so busy that their popular menu items may run out as they did when I was there. My biggest disappointment with Meat Liqueur was that it wasn’t American. I was not presented with the Flintstone sized burgers of my youth. What I got was the English take on American food, which doesn’t sacrifice on flavour, just on size. All these things don’t matter when you consider what this place really is: A ridiculously cool place that opens late and does an amazing burger and cocktail.

I loved this place. While I think it has its faults, if you view it as a restaurant, I think it is perfect for the late night munchies. If you finish your massive paper at 11pm and feel like celebrating, go there. You need a place that does great late night food after a night on the town, go there. Fortunately for us, on Friday and Saturday this place doesn’t close until 2am: The ideal time to go and get some food. This place is the place that you should think of for late night comfort food and drinks. The pub has closed… You’re still thirsty and a little hungry. This is the place for you.

Beginner’s Wine Guide (15/11/11)

When I was younger, I went to a French restaurant with a cohort of friends. We were all pretending to be much older than we were, actually believing that the waiters mistook us for a bunch of 20 something artists out for a night on the town. Then came the dreaded moment. The waiter handed us the wine list. We huddled together, each producing a factoid that we had gleaned from the “grown-ups,” thinking that we were sounding like French vino connoisseurs. We were young boys, wearing our fathers’ ill-fitting suits; looking absolutely ridiculous.

I may have gotten older, but my fear of the sommelier persist. I mean I want him to like me, right? I like to think that all people, to lesser or greater extent, feel the same fear and loathing that I do when faced with a decision about what to drink. Now you might not be a wine person, and that’s fine – wine culture in many ways comes across as horribly snooty, elitist and pretentious. But what are you going to do when those bastard sommeliers sneak up behind you and catch you unaware? Wine etiquette, even if you don’t like wine, can be useful. From boss to potential partner, wine jargon, like all jargon, is used to separate the insider from the outsider. And it is always better to be inside. If you enjoy wine, then there is all the more pleasure to be had.

I am not a wine snob. I am not one of those people who, when poured a class of wine, swirls it in their glass, compares the colour against a white background, takes a small slurpy slip, and then juggles the wine about my mouth for a minute. I am someone who enjoys wine and wants to know how I can get the stuff I like for a price I love.

 Assuming that you know nothing about wine, let’s start from the beginning. Red or white? The traditional rule is red with meat, white with fish. And this is a rule of thumb. However, it is perfectly acceptable to order a red wine with a meaty fish like tuna or salmon, especially if the meal contains strong flavours. The important thing to remember is that although colour is an indicator of certain qualities of a wine, it is not the final judge of taste. The better rule of thumb is strong flavours with red, more subtle flavours with white. The actual differences come mainly from the type of grape, or whether the skins are left on or off.

The next step in deciding what wine you would like to drink is grape variety. Despite common conceptions, there is no such thing as a Pinot noir.  What does exist is what is known as the cépage, which refers to vines, which are very similar to the grape variety in question. For white wine all you need to remember is the big eight, consisting of Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Gewürztraminer, Pinot Grigio, Sémillon, Viognier and Chenin blanc. Important names to remember for red wines are Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot noir, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Syrah, Shiraz, Sangiovese, Malbec and Granche. Each of these grapes has unique flavours and colours that affect the wine.  Once you know the names, all you need to do is try a little from each type, and decide which mixes you like the best

The next variable is the origin of the wine. Anyone who has ever looked at a French wine list knows that they do not list their wines by grape variety but by region. For example, in my personal favourite region Bordeaux, reds are made from a combination of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot grape varieties. Simply by knowing what grape varieties you enjoy, you can make a much more informed decision on what to buy.

So why do restaurants group wine in terms of variety instead of by grape variety? The answer is that climate affects how the wine will taste just as much as the grape type. The more sun a vine receives, the more time the plant will have to photosynthesise, which creates sugars that affect ‘alcohol content, sweetness and colour.

After you take all these factors into the equation, wine becomes like mathematics. And we all know how much you like mathematics. Grape variety plus sun exposure and other regional variations plus age equals what your wine should taste like.

Another thing you need to know is the tannin content of your wine. Tannins are simply a chemical compound found in wine. A light bodied wine will have fewer types of tannin than a full-bodied wine, which will have more tannin. During the aging process tannin becomes “softened,” meaning that wine with a higher tannin count like a claret will become better with age, while wines with a lower tannin count come to maturity at an earlier age.

So why do people say that wine tastes like smoky pears on a lazy afternoon with a woman named Matilda? The reason is that during the fermentation process, the newly formed alcohol reacts with the air, forming “esters” which remind us of things like fruit, because they naturally occur in it. So that person drinking grape juice and tasting apple isn’t crazy, he is just pretentious.

In terms of cooking, there is a very simple rule. Never cook with wine you wouldn’t drink. Cooking wine has high salt levels and acidity, which makes food disgusting. Good red cooking wines are Mourvedre, Grenache and Shiraz. All three are easy to cook, guaranteeing that you get the most out of your alcohol.

A word against cheap wine: it is your right and privilege to drink whatever you want. Drink cheap wine. I had a friend who enjoyed wine from £2.50. Granted she had to cut it with lemonade, but like all questions of aesthetics, it comes down to personal choice. Drink what you enjoy and to hell with everyone else! That being said, by ignoring the world of wine you are missing one of the fundamental joys of drinking.

Fortunately for us, you no longer have to go to some scary wine specialist to get good wine. These days any supermarket has a good wine selection, for descent prices, and all it requires for you to do is look past those 2 for £2.50 bottles of paint solvent to find them. I recommend a reasonably priced Côtes du Rhône or Bordeaux, as they have a heavy-bodied complex flavour, making it a perfect accompaniment for autumn dishes.

Enjoying wine, like enjoying food, is a learning process. It involves actively trying new things and deciding what you really like. However, after reading this article, hopefully the next time that snooty sommelier comes over and asks whether you would like a bottle of Pollo in a sippy cup, you will be able to use new wine knowledge and make an informed decision.

Go sushi (25/10/11)

Sushi for me has always been an object of mystery. It is easy to overlook the complexity behind sushi because of its simple presentation. Yet within sushi lies an essential character of Japanese culture: minimalistic, yet extremely complex, sushi is both food and art. In order to be called a sushi master, a chef has to go through ten years of training with two of those being spent on perfecting the art of making rice alone. These sushi itamae are modern day samurais, wielding blades that were forged in the same manner as the katanas of the Edo period. They are master chefs in the handling of food, artists in their presentation, and performers in their preparation of food before the customer. This is what many sushi eaters have forgotten. Hopefully, through understanding, we can rediscover this art.

Before understanding what sushi is today, we have to understand where it came from.  Though the origin is debated, some sources believe sushi originates from the fourth century South East Asia. At its genesis, fish was packed with rice so that the natural fermentation would preserve it. This method of preservation spread throughout Asia until it finally reached Japan. Here, it configured to Japanese tastes to form sushi as we now know it (nigiri) in the late Edo period in Tokyo.  Sushi was then used as a form of fast-food, where people could buy it from convent stalls. Over time sushi developed into the various forms that we enjoy today.

So what is sushi? Quite simply, sushi has become an umbrella term relating to any combination of fish and rice. Despite popular belief, sushi does not refer to the raw fish, but rather the short grain rice, which has been prepared in a specific way with salt, sugar and rice wine vinegar. If it is just raw fish then it is sashimi, not actual sushi. For health reasons, it can only be made with the only the best fish, graded as sushi quality, which is one of the reasons it is expensive.

As anyone who has ever been to a sushi restaurant will know, there is more than one type of sushi. The two main types that are served in this country are makizushi, which is when the sushi is rolled and then cut into round pieces, and nigrizushi, which is hand-formed with the rice on top. The most important thing to remember is that there are many different kinds of sushi, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Other forms that should be sampled, include chirashizushi, where the raw fish is served on top of a bowl of rice, and oshizushi, where the raw fish is pressed into a block shape and then cut into bite-sized pieces.

Etiquette is extremely important in Japanese culture. While reducing all of Japanese dining etiquette to as few lines as impossible, for the culturally sensitive who wish to follow sushi, I have provided ten of the easiest customs to follow. For those who want the ultimate sushi experience, there is only one phrase that you will need to know. “Omakase onegai shimasu”, which is you telling the chef that “you are in their hands”. In exchange you will receive his finest stock. While this will probably only work in more traditional places, it is a sure way to get the most out of your sushi experience. Just don’t expect it to be cheap.

Before we gorge ourselves on the different types of sushi, we need to take into account the environmental impact eating sushi is having on the world. Put simply, we are exhausting fish stocks, and a large part of that has to do with the rising demand for sushi. Does that mean we should stop eating it all together? No – what we need to do is ensure that we are eating less sushi and that what we do eat is of the highest quality. Sushi is a luxury food item and we should treat it this way. If we are going to ask some poor fish to make the ultimate sacrifice, we may as well do it justice by making sure that it tastes as good as possible. And please don’t ever eat supermarket sushi again.

Armed with your newfound knowledge of sushi and sushi culture, you doubtlessly want to go out and try your skills. My personal recommendation is Zuma in Knightsbridge. This is not a student restaurant. It is one of the best restaurants in London with a wine list and a cocktail bar to match. You will pay a premium price for sushi. What you get in return is the best sushi in London, and luckily you don’t even need to make a reservation, as Zuma doesn’t take bookings for the sushi bar. So you can walk in today and eat this delicious sushi for a price no greater than taxi ride back to halls on a night out.

Once upon a time, sushi had mystery. There was a time when it was not made by industrial machines but handcrafted by highly skilled chefs who did nothing else. What we as consumers must do, is make sure that what we are buying is a proper representation of the enigma that is sushi.

The dangers of late night fast food (18/10/11)

Have you ever been to your favourite kebab shop in the light of day? Have you ever gone in and ordered your all-time favourite after-club snack? Suddenly this manna from heaven, in the light of day becomes something that most of us wouldn’t touch with a stick, let alone eat.

Just in case you didn’t know, drinking is bad for you. Worse still, it’s the combination of drinking and then going out for that greasy kebab that we all seem to crave. Simply look into any late-night fast food joint and they are overrun with drunken people looking to get their fatty food fix. And it’s not just kebabs – it’s everything from KFC to Burger King. At the end of the night we all seem to crave food that we know is bad for us.

For a lot of people, eating junk food simply isn’t an issue. Many just don’t care that they are eating food that is bad for them.  I am not one of these people. I am not an obsessive calorie counter, but I am someone who after two years of university (eating and drinking whatever I like) is starting to think more and more about being healthy. I know that I will never stop going out – you need to go out to recharge your warrior spirit so you can drag yourself into the library every day. What you can do is cut out the most unhealthy part of going out – the late night snack.

For the sceptics who do not believe that the late night binge is that bad for you, I will provide a simple example. The average kebab contains 1,000 calories.  A 150 pound man burns 100 calories per mile walked. This means that in order to fully burn off a kebab you will have to walk ten miles. To put this into spatial terms, walking 10 miles is the equivalent of walking from the LSE to The O2 arena. And as anyone who has been knows, that’s a long bus ride, let alone a long walk (which would take about 3 hours, assuming you knew where you were going).

The story is much the same with other types of fast food. A Big Mac with fries and a Coke comes to around 1,010 calories. At Domino’s, a medium Americano has 248 calories per slice. This means that if you eat an entire pizza (8 slices) you will have had 1,984 calories, and that’s before you factor in toppings. A Burger King XL Bacon Double Cheeseburger has 933 calories even before fries snf soft drink. If you’re just getting regular chip shop chips you’re looking at 956! And that’s just the calories – it’s not taking into account the low nutritional value and the high amounts of fat and salt.

However, there is good news for those of us who like to eat after few drinks. Eating late at night is not, as the myth says, worse for you then eating during the daytime. While it’s true that if you exercise during the day you are more likely to burn off the calories you have eaten, eating at night in itself is not especially unhealthy. What matters is that you stay within your recommended calorie intake (which 2,000 calories for women and 2,500 for men). This not mean that you should starve yourself during the day so that you do not go over your calorie intake at night, because eating at regular meal times helps you regulate the amount of food you eat. So the good news is that eating junk food is always bad for you, not just at night.

The bad news, for we who like a late night snack, is that, after four units of alcohol the ability for your brain to regulate food intake decreases. The alcohol affects the hypothalamus gland in our brains, making us crave high fat foods in larger quantities than we would normally eat. Combine this with the reduction in inhibitions that also comes with alcohol and we are far more likely to eat unhealthy and normally unappealing food.

So, what are the alternatives to getting a kebab? If you are determined to go down the Mediterranean route, you can always get falafel. While being reasonably high in calories at 376, it can boast a higher nutritional value than a kebab, especially if you have a couple of vegetables chucked in – and they taste amazing. And if you’re really hungry I would suggest a curry. While you can’t exactly say they’re healthy due to the large amount of ghee, you can still have a slightly healthier meal. Popular favourites like Rogan Josh and Jalfrezi can be reasonably healthy and they provide vitamins C and antioxidants like lycopene. Order some saffron rice alongside (335 calories) and you have yourself a delicious meal. So, the next time you’re out and craving flavoursome food, head to your local curry house, especially if you’re near Brick Lane where you are practically guaranteed a decent curry.

To be honest, after a few drinks most people aren’t going to resist that kebab at the end of the night. Beer goggles work just as well for food as it does for the opposite sex. However, if you’re like me and are trying to live a little healthier this year, rethink your kebab eating ways and spring for an alternative.