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Parts of San Francisco, this will not be news to many of you, are quite spectacularly beautiful. You'll have seen the impossibly severe roads lined with picturebox Victorian rowhouses, the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars and the glittering waterfront from countless travelogues and movie locations, but up close it's all even more impressive.
The Pacific Heights and Telegraph Hill areas of town, in particular, have a unique kind of dramatic impact; standing at a street junction with one road plunging down towards Alcatraz Island and the other soaring infeasibly skyward is equally jaw-dropping and unnerving, like that scene from Inception when the buildings start folding up and over themselves. It's almost enough to put your off your lunch.
I said almost. Given my priorities when visiting a new city position eating and drinking significantly higher than sleeping or breathing, I had a list of places to cram into a whistle-stop 3-day stay, and all a strenuous traipse up and down Lombard St was going to do was work up an appetite. So breakfast at the excellent Thorough Bread bakery near our Air B&B in Castro gave way to a an obligatory terrifying cable car ride up to Russian Hill (surprising how paranoid Americans are about health and safety in most cases, and yet are quite happy to make you hang on white-knuckled to the back of a covered wheelbarrow as it hurtles up a mountain) and lunch at Leopold's.
A boisterous Austrian gastaus isn't the first thing that might come to mind when thinking of San Francisco, but a beer and a poached egg salad was just the ticket after barely having time to work off a pound of pastries from Thorough Bread. A white bean soup, too, was typically hearty Austrian fayre, even if we weren't as badly as need of its warmth as presumably most are in Austria this time of year, and one of our party even managed to stretch to a pile of grilled sausage and sauerkraut, all very well received.
Maverick, a restaurant in Castro serving regional (largely southern) cuisine had the kind of menu an American food obsessive like me dreams about. The buttermilk fried chicken was predictably brilliant, as were some miniature lemon tarts for dessert, but the star of the evening was devilled eggs with caviar, the kind of dish that can make an entire trip. We still talk about it.
The next evening was Oscar Night, and I'm afraid the first real disappointment. No, not just Brave winning Best Animated Feature (I mean come on, ahead of Frankenweenie, ParaNorman, Pirates! and Wreck-It Ralph? Are they insane?) - a takeaway from Mission Chinese. I am painfully aware that judging a venue on its takeaway offering is a bit like having a beer in the street outside Harry's Bar then moaning about the lack of complimentary peanuts, but we really found it hard to see what all the fuss was about. For a not insignificant chunk of cash, lamb ribs were 99% fat, Mapo Tofu was notable for little other than its eye-watering dry heat, and all dishes, including the famous Chongqing chicken wings and Kung Pao pastrami, were disastrously salty. I've since learned that the head chef has left to do something in New York, which may explain something, if not excuse it.
The next morning though, a stunning selection of pastries at Tartine got us back on track. One of the most acclaimed bakeries in the US, if not the world, Tartine is always busy and always churns out incredible product. The gigantic ham and cheese croissant, for example, was so astonishingly good with its dark crust, soft filling and perfect balance of dairy and protein that I can hardly believe a better version is made anywhere in France. The only downside, in fact, is that given Tartine's immense popularity, much like anywhere else that has them queuing round the block no matter what, the serving staff aren't often all sweetness and light. I realise it must stressful dealing with such huge numbers all day every day with no end in sight, but as we were unceremoniously chucked our carefully-selected purchases and told to bugger off (I paraphrase) a quote from Absolutely Fabulous came to mind from when Edina found herself in a Kensington art gallery - "You only work in a shop you know. You can drop the attitude."
And talking of bad attitudes, this might be a good time to bring up the biggest problem I had with this city, something which really took a shine off most of the many wonderful things it has to offer - San Francisco is Crazy Central. In no other place in the world have I ever seen so many drug casualties, hoboes, lunatics and destitutes. We were shouted at on the bus, screamed at in the street, sung to, propositioned and abused more or less wherever we went. Sure the smart areas of town had fewer issues, but it seemed every tiny area of public space was a cardboard city or had people pushing their belongings round in a old shopping trolley, and it made getting around - particularly on public transport though by no means exclusively - a bit, well, unpredictable. I'm not going to pretend I have any idea why the problems should be so bad here and why elsewhere in California seems to have more of a handle on it, but it's certainly something to be aware of.
I swear I will end this post on a lighter note, but we have one more disappointment to get out of the way first. I don't know what's happened to Chez Panisse since it was one of the most well-regarded and famous restaurants in the US, but I can only tell you time has not been kind on this Berkeley stalwart and these days the pioneer of California cuisine now appears happy to charge credulous guests (that would be me then) a vast amount for dreadfully boring food. Perhaps in 1971 it was acceptable to charge $150 a head for a spinach & ricotta pie, some greasy pieces of duck and a (actually this was OK) crème caramel, but we left feeling completely ripped off. Thoroughly not recommended, although I promise it wasn't me that set fire to it a couple of days ago.
But happier times awaited elsewhere. Back in Mission the next day we jumped in the queue for Dynamo Donuts, surely the next imported American fad to hit London if these are anything to go by (Electric Donuts have already made a start). Lovely friendly staff and great fresh donuts with a variety of very interesting toppings such as "Meyer lemon and huckleberry" or "passionfruit milk chocolate". And just round the corner, another first - lunch at an El Salvadorian restaurant for pupusa, a kind of thick corn tortilla filled with cheese and pork. The pupusa were very nice - incredibly filling for something so deceptively small and pretty cheap, but a huge bowl of shrimp soup was the unexpected star of the meal, powerfully flavoured with a generous number of plump, juicy shrimp. At the very least, I'm glad they turned out better than the "Mushy Disturbances of Corn" promised by my specially-purchased augmented-reality translation app (above).
Ah, I almost forgot. Straight from the airport early in the morning on the first day we hired a car and drove to Napa. A brief tasting at the Alpha Omega vineyard opened the door to lunch, and we found ourselves in the Oxbow market just down the road, sat at the bar at the Hog Island Oyster co. It is difficult, in fact I might argue impossible, not to enjoy yourself eating fresh oysters, drinking Sauvignon Blanc and pulling apart whole Dungeness crabs of an afternoon, and it is this place I think reflects the side of San Francisco cuisine the world is more familiar with - fresh seafood, served with charm and with a nice cold glass of local wine.
A strong start, and end, to the trip then, and plenty to love in-between, but like the city itself geographically and otherwise, the food was (groan) a bit up and down. Tartine aside, we seemed to do better by avoiding the big names and just wandering into whichever little place was nearest, which also had the advantage of not requiring risking life and limb by travelling on public transport. Getting there was a cinch, though, thanks to Virgin America, our little house in Castro was a joy, and though it will never replace dear old San Diego in my affections, it's clear there's a lot more to know of this enigmatic, topsy-turvy town.
Leopold's 7/10
Maverick 7/10
Mission Chinese 4/10
Tartine 8/10
Chez Panisse 3/10
Dynamo Donut 7/10
El Salvador 6/10
Hog Island Oyster Co 9/10
It's easy to dismiss Electric Diner as the latest in a long line of copycat American comfort food outlets, and indeed I'm going to do just that, but it's also too easy to forget that outside of a select group of bloggers, critics and Twitter-stalking restaurant fanatics (and I have a horrible feeling I qualify for all three), this kind of thing is still a relative novelty. If you find yourself inwardly groaning whenever you learn about a new no-choice chicken restaurant or Soho burger bar, you're in a tiny minority. Most of the population of London haven't been eating at Meatwagon since 2010, still think of ramen as a kind of soup they do at Wagamama, and would consider a new diner selling gourmet hot dogs and cheeseburgers a huge improvement on their local Chicken Cottage or GBK.
It's also worth noting that, Soho or Shoreditch excepted, we're really still not spoiled for choice when it comes to this kind of thing. West London in particular, never at the top of the tree when it came to decent places to eat (the astonishing Ledbury being the exception that proves the rule) is one of those affluent restaurant deserts (see also Hampstead, Chelsea) that would welcome anyone trying to do something even slightly different. So perhaps I shouldn't be to harsh on Electric Diner for being a bit derivative; it is, after all, better this than another bloody Strada.
So I'll try and stress the positives. It's a beautiful room, with a long, sleek open kitchen on one side and low booths nestled under exposed brick on the left, stretching towards a gleaming white-tiled back wall. Staff were pleasant and efficient, and despite the dreaded "we'll need your table back by 7:30" (after arriving only just before 6:15) they were at least attentive enough to feed and water us in just under that time. My Hemingway Daquiri was a great example of its kind - unsweetened and forcefully alcoholic, just like the great man used to like them (only he would order doubles - that's four shots of rum at a time).
But I'm afraid my enthusiasm can't stretch to the food. An £8 portion of chicken livers came served with sweet brioche bread and a small pot of congealed butter in case you weren't finding enough fat elsewhere on the plate. Pickles were decent but couldn't win against such a huge amount of grease and sugar, and so the overall effect was pretty unappealing. Also, it was all stone-cold. Surely it wouldn't have been impossible to fry up a few chopped chicken livers to order? It seemed a bit lazy.
Bologna Sandwich continued in the same vein - sliced mortadella (or wafer-thin ham, which was all it tasted of) and cheddar (I think) inside a very sweet brioche bun and with whole mini gherkins rolling around - a bit slapped-together, a bit careless. I know diner food isn't supposed to be too fussy but there was very little to get excited about here, just thin-sliced fat under melted fat between two pieces of fat. For a tenner.
It seems strange to complain about a side order of bacon being too fatty, but these really were 90% lard, and I think I'm entitled to moan about how even the thin strips of red flesh were crumbly and dry, the fact that the sugary dressing just made the whole thing even more of a challenge to eat.
The "green salad", ordered because the rest of what was coming our way seemed a little heavy (oh how little we knew) was, despite an adequate dressing, nothing more than a supermarket ready-to-eat bag of mixed greens dumped on a plate, and nowhere near worth £6. Chips had a good crunch but were otherwise unmemorable, and for £4 for a small cup hardly represented value.
The bill for two, with a couple of beers on top of the above, came to £57, an amount I would have been happy to pay had I not left feeling so unpleasantly, overwhelmingly grease-sodden and had there just been one dish I could have considered ordering again. Looking back on the evening now all plates of food just merge into one huge, shapeless, lardy blob - the kind of thing you might start to resemble in fact if you ate there on a regular basis. Also, is there a reason they have their lighting so stupidly low? It started off just barely being enough to distinguish between animal, vegetable and mineral on the table in front of you, and halfway through the meal they turned it even lower.
But after all, this is Notting Hill, and if it's a choice between the Electric and getting on the tube to MeatLiquor, then perhaps it will find an audience. And as I say, if this was your first exposure to London's new wave of pimped-up US junk food joints and weren't on too much of a budget (both eminently possible if you live in Notting Hill), you may find enough to enjoy. It's a nice room, it would be a good place for a drink and it's better than a number of other places nearby. Oh, and they bring tap water without being asked. So they get an extra point for that too.
5/10
The Meatwagon started it all off, then MeatEasy kicked it up into the stratosphere. I can hardly believe the date on my post about the place was only 12th January 2011 - so much has happened since then to Yianni and Scott and their merry band of burgerettes it feels like those boozy, grease-stained nights in New Cross happened a lifetime ago - but it was at MeatEasy that the gamble paid off, that London finally fell for the charms of the Dead Hippie and Chilli Cheese Fries and Bingo Wings, and the template was set.
Granted, MeatLiquor doesn't require the same kind of effort to get to as SE14, but it is hardly conspicuous with its anonymous frontage, tinted windows and position under an ugly car park tucked around the back of Debenhams. If it wasn't for the queues that regularly trail up Wellbeck St, in fact, you'd assume it was either abandoned, or a strip club, or both. For one of London's most popular restaurants, it's trying very hard not to be noticed - which of course is all part of the game. MeatEasy proved that having a bit of swagger, treating customers if not badly then certainly with irreverence, making them work just that little bit harder for their dinner, all these things helped create that aura of a place confident of its own importance and confidence in their ability to show you a good time. You may not like it, but by God it works, and no matter how many people grumble about it you can guarantee they'll be joining the back of that queue eventually.
MeatMission, then, arrives at a time when London pretty much knows what to expect from a Meat[wagon] restaurant. We know we won't be able to book a table (sort of - groups of 6 can book at certain times); we know pretty young waitresses will serve expertly-constructed US-inspired comfort food alongside punchy cocktails; we know there will be loud rock music and tinted windows and paper towels on every table. We know we will probably have to queue. None of these things will be a surprise. And yet MeatMission is a surprise, thanks partly to an expanded menu featuring an appearance of one of the best things I've had the pleasure of eating in a very long time, and an interior design that is genuinely impressive without resorting to any dive bar clichés.
If you're lucky enough to bag yourself a spot in one of the raised booths on the edge of the large dining room, you will have a commanding view not only of the incredible stained glass ceiling above but the rows of diners in the "bear pit" beneath. Original stone plaques of religious texts (this is a former Christian mission - hence the name) are sensitively restored in situ, and next door a slightly smaller room is decorated with more urban art, this time illuminated glass panels of strange hybrid creatures. I was never really a fan of the aggressive graffiti at MeatLiquor but here it's all a lot more easy and stylish, though I can't help feeling having the toilets downstairs and not at the top of the frightening spiral staircase overlooking the main atrium is a missed opportunity. I'd love to see people negotiating that after a few Peckham Negronis.
And the food. All the classics are here, and are better than ever - particularly the bacon cheeseburger which had a very generous layer of that crispy pressed bacon arrangement last night. Fries, too, seem to have overcome early inconsistencies at MeatLiquor to become some of the best of their kind in the city; just as well when they find their way into so many of the dishes in the 'Onna Plate' section of the menu. The £9 'Chilli Garbage Plate', I'm fairly sure, could feed six people.
But the star of the new dishes is something called Monkey Fingers. Battered, deep-fried strips of tender chicken soaked in buffalo sauce and served with a blue cheese dip, they are every bit as addictive as the classic MeatLiquor Bingo Wings but the lack of a bone to contend with means they are better value, and even more filthy fun to eat. One of my strongest memories of the launch night (although that's not saying much, given the amount of booze they were chucking at us) was waitresses carrying around canapé trays loaded with Currywurst and Greek Salad skewers and a sad patch of orange sauce where the Monkey Fingers used to be. They are my new obsession, and are only available in Shoreditch.
The booze menu is a riot as well. The Pinot Grinchio is a cocktail made with white wine, apple juice and God knows what else, served with an edible candy cane for extra seasonal jollity. An impressive rack of beer taps at the back of the bar serve a determinedly non-craft selection of decent ales, and there's a wonderfully profane wine list if you want to go down that route. No element of food or drink or service is over-thought or intrusively "cool", but the attitude is infectious - fun without being gimmicky, relaxed without being slapdash, with confidence just the right side of arrogance.
So yes, I liked it. And, I'm certain, so will you. After all the wannabes, proto-chains and imitators to follow in their wake, and God knows there's been enough of them, there still is nowhere that does this kind of thing better.
10/10
There's a fair amount of huffing and tutting amongst street food purists whenever an established restaurant or company launches a mobile van. If you've bought into the whole independent, counter-cultural ethos of queuing in the rain for your lunch then the idea that some faceless corporation can buy their way into direct competition without spending years building up a rabidly loyal following could, I suppose, be quite irritating.
But if the food's still good, what's the problem? Byron's mobile shack serves burgers just as good as any of their restaurants (which are very good indeed), Wahaca's taco van is actually only the natural next step for somewhere that only ever claimed to make "Mexican street food" in the first place, and now we have Dirty Burger from the guys behind Pizza East, operating in true street food fashion out of a converted shipping container in the car park in Kentish Town.
And Dirty Burger is very good as well, I'm pleased to say. The menu is short, in fact outside of breakfast hours there's literally just the one main course option - a cheeseburger, and very reasonably priced, the burger being £5.50 and a side of crinkle-cut fries or onion fries an extra £2.50. It's all served well wrapped-up in a branded paper bag and greaseproof paper whether you are going to eat it in the industrial-chic premises or not, and indeed plenty of people from the surrounding area, builders from a site at the bottom of the road and various office workers, seemed to be taking advantage of this and had their burgers to go.
I don't know how many people out there are desperate for a forensic analysis of a cheeseburger, so I'll try and be brief, but it's probably worth pointing out why, though very good indeed, this just falls short of the very best in London. Firstly, I noticed the mince was stored in drawers in the kitchen, pre-divided into neat little cubes. I can understand why, of course - for consistency of burger shape and to save time during service - but they looked rather unappetisingly grey thanks to exposure to air and there's probably a reason MeatWagon (the van at least) tear their mince from a large block as and when needed. Perhaps due to this then, or maybe just down to a leaner mince, the beef was slightly on the dry side and didn't have a huge amount of flavour. Also, although well melted (thank God) I hardly need to tell you that good old American Yellow would have been a better cheese choice than the strangely bland Cheddar-a-like seen here.
But! But. With a good kick of mustard mayo, a subtle layer of sliced pickles, a very nice slice of tomato (first time I've ever been able to say that in this country, I'd like to know where they get theirs from) and - most impressive of all - a firm, glossy bun that held its shape until the very last bite despite a river of tomato juice spilling out with every bite, the burger as a whole worked. It's a great size, not too tall or too wide, the ingredients packed neatly inside (thanks to the takeaway packaging) and with every element weighted perfectly. Ironically, then, for something called a Dirty Burger it's perhaps the least messy of any of the "new wave" London burgers to eat, and certainly compared to the Day-Glo Americana of MeatLiquor or Lucky Chip, one of the more conservative. But it is impossible not to enjoy the process of eating it - and enjoy it I most certainly did.
I also enjoyed a portion of wonderfully crunchy crinkle-cut fries. A million miles away from the depressingly uniform style you may have seen elsewhere, these were golden brown and charmingly irregular, full of flavour and dangerously addictive. To say they're the best crinkle-cut fries I've had in this country isn't much of a compliment, so I'll just say that a visit to Dirty Burger would be wasted without a side of these little beauties.
It's a testament to the staggering pace of improvement in London burgers that even so recently as a couple of years ago Dirty Burger may have enjoyed a position at the top of the tree. That there are now a tiny handful of outlets doing this thing very slightly better, though, doesn't mean that it's still not very much worth the journey to NW5 - for £8 you still get a lunch worth grinning about, and if you're lucky enough to live or work in the area you should feel very smug indeed. And if you're a street food pedant and you've already decided to boycott the place based on the fact it's run by the Soho House group, well, it's your loss. I'm sure they will do very well regardless.
7/10
I visited Dirty Burger during soft opening, and everything was 50% off.
Bacon peanut brittle; Pancetta & anchovy wedge; Fish taco; Ox-heart taco; Ginger & soy hot wings, pickles; Chicken roll; Patty melt; Smoked pork & duck heart baked beans; fries. The menu at Rita's Bar & Dining is not so much as if someone had asked me what 15 or so of my favourite things in the world were to eat and then written them down, no, it's more than that. It's as if someone somehow knew what my deepest subconscious foodie desires were and constructed a list of ingredients combined in such a way as to make me wobble with joy. I want this menu read out at my funeral; I want to spray-paint it onto the side of my house; I want to take it home to meet my parents.
Yes, I liked the menu. And I only have my pathetic Saturday evening post-pub appetite to blame for the fact we didn't order the whole lot, so sadly this post will just have to serve as a short teaser of the delights awaiting visitors to Rita's. But based on the handful of dishes we tried, this unlikely spot in the furthest reaches of Dalston will have them queuing down Stoke Newington Road much in the manner of other North-American inspired smash hits across the capital. It really is that good.
I will begin with the only thing that could have been improved - Ginger & soy hot wings had a lovely aromatic flavour but were a little too flabby; perhaps the oil they were fried in wasn't hot enough, or perhaps they weren't deep-fried at all. But accompanying pickles were excellent in that sweet, soft style of US BBQ.
Rita's serve the finest tacos I've eaten this side of the pond, and if that isn't perhaps the greatest compliment I can pay, you'll just have to take my word for it that they tasted every bit as good as you could hope. The fish, crispy and fresh and livened by colourful crunchy pickles and herbs, came on a stunningly authentic-tasting masa-flour (I presume) tortilla, and a ox-heart version paired the same earthy base with some wonderful gamey notes, the meat itself just chewy enough to be interesting. The offal one in particular, in fact, strongly reminded me of something Tacos El Gordo in Chula Vista could have served. How has it taken this long to get tacos right in London?
The Rita's Patty Melt has the potential to be their signature offering, partly - admittedly - for the novelty factor (you must know how these things work by now) but mainly because it tastes so damn good. Dripping with, well, dripping I suppose, and using beef mince with a commendable depth of flavour for something costing only £5 (well aged I'm guessing), this is essentially not much more than a toasted beef and cheese sandwich but absolutely none the worse for that. It's enough to make you want to dig out the Breville and have a go yourself.
The chicken roll (not pictured I'm afraid, we were enjoying ourselves too much by this point) was like a gourmet KFC wrap, served in a brown paper bag for that true High-Streetfood filthy chicken feel, but constructed with care and boasting lovely moist and crunchy chicken. If we are to believe the hype that "good" fried chicken is going to be London's latest street food fad, then this is a good a place as any to start.
OK, I know I'm gushing. This kind of thing just happens to be my personal restaurant heaven, and it maybe won't push everyone's buttons. Dalston is a long way from anywhere, the noise and crowd levels later in the evening do have a habit (so I'm told) of slipping just the wrong side of comfortable, and there was more than the usual element of the braying red-trousered type in attendance the evening we went, in accordance with the oh-so-trendy industrial décor and popup sensibilities.
But if you can't enjoy yourself surrounded by fresh fish tacos and fried chicken and burger sandwiches then you're likely to be missing some vital fun-loving part of your brain, and probably shouldn't be eating out at all. I loved Rita's not just because it's "my kind of thing" but because all the food was just way, way, better, and cheaper, than it needed to be, and everything about the way it was delivered (including the wickedly strong frozen Margaritas - careful with those is my tip) made me smile. And there is no greater compliment than that.
9/10
