MEATmarket - Jubilee Market, Covent Garden

MEAT. IN A MARKET. MEATmarket. No messing around here. For their second venture in 6 months, the MEATLiquor team have gone back to basics. Utilitarian, stripped-down, situated on the mezzanine floor above Covent Garden’s less salubrious market.  Judging by the old menus on the stairwell, the space was previously occupied by a particularly low-end Chinese restaurant.  Jubilee Market, it’s called, and I can only assume they picked this location as their way of showing respect to Brenda in her Diamond year. Crowns off to you, chaps. 

I don’t know what I was expecting when I found out about their plans for a second location but this wasn’t it. This is proper fast food. There’s a few high tables and stools, no table service: you place your order at the till and they shout out your name when it’s done, which was bloody quick when we were there, even though it was press night and they’d only done one previous full service. The kitchen is huge, like McDonalds. Obviously having learned a lesson from the ridiculous queues at the mothership they are clearly aiming to shift high volumes with a quick turnover. Nowt wrong with that. This is a burger joint, after all. 

At MEATmarket they have a pared-down food and booze menu with a few new surprises. First up - the Black Palace burger. This slab of pure filth takes two beef patties, some American cheese and a mixture of onions and gherkins all steamed together into a glorious gooey mess. This is the most full-on burger they’ve done (there’s no way you could do two), and like most palaces it’s a glorious thing of majestic beauty. Apparantly it’s an homage to the US chain White Castle Burger. See what they did there?

They’ve also introduced a brand new menu of hot dogs. I went for the RIPPER, which is a bacon-wrapped ‘dawg covered in crunchy bacon bits and onions (on a base of ketchup and French’s mustard, obviously). This is a superior quality wurst. Thick, juicy and a good amount of pop. I think it might actually pip Big Apple Hot Dogs, though I’ll have to do a side-by-side comparison to make my mind up properly. Answers on a postcard if anyone can suggest the best way to achieve this. The bun is basically the hot dog equivalent to the burger bun - light but chewy. Great stuff. 

On the side we had the fries (same as MEATLiqour) and yet another new addition - deep fried jalapeño and cheese poppers. Yep, you guessed it, these were bloody good too.  

Booze-wise they’ve got cans of Vedett and Hard Shakes - thick shakes with booze in. They are certainly tasty but one is enough - any more and you might be chucking your Black Palace on to the head of an unsuspecting market trader below. At current exchange rates a Hard Shake is more expensive than Mia Wallace’s Five Dollar Shake. Judging by the ones I tried (Vanilla with rum, Chocolate with Mozart liqueur) I think Mrs Wallace would approve.  

So, sorry to write such a predictable glowing review but they’ve taken what they’ve learned at MEATLiquor, developed it, trimmed the fat (from the operation at least, certainly not from the food) and opened up an establishment dedicated to getting you high quality premium US ‘junk’ food as quickly as possible. Proper fast food. This is a place to hit late at night after a few drinks, gorge yourself on a sloppy burger, knock back a Hard Shake then fall asleep on the bus. 

I have two reservations (not that anywhere takes them nowadays) :

1. Will they be able to keep up the quality with such a quick turnover?

2. Will there still be epic queues, such is the rabid desire for quality burgers at the moment?

Time will tell. On the strength of this preview I think they are going to do very well indeed. Having seen the setup first hand, I can’t help but think they’re going to roll it out to quite a few more sites at some point soon. I’m not going to give it a score as it was a freebie and they ain’t even open yet (they open tomorrow I believe) but you can probably tell that I think it’s pretty damn good. Go out, get drunk, stagger to Covent Garden and get yourself some MEAT.

MEATmarket
Tavistok St
London
WC2E 8BD

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Goodman, Maddox St, London

“Heifer whines could be human cries, closer comes the screaming knife, this beautiful creature must die, this beautiful creature must die”, sang Morrissey in the mid-80s. Unfortunately Mozza wasn’t demanding the beautiful creature be slaughtered to make quality dry-aged steaks, he was making a passionate plea to the trenchcoat-wearing hoards of 1985 to reject the carnivorous ways that are the norm in this country, as it’s murder, no, no, no it’s murder. 

Thankfully few people listened to the be-quiffed one and in London these days you can enjoy some of the finest quality steak in the world from numerous purveyors of high-end beef. The ‘big two’ are the amazing Hawksmoor and today’s review, Goodman. They are both talked about in the same breath, they are both similarly priced and they both have legions of fans convinced one is better than the other. I thought it was only fair to you, dear reader, that I find out for myself if Goodman could out-steak Hawksmoor (no mean feat considering I gave Hawksmoor a perfect 10/10). It’s a tough task but professionalism comes first on this blog. 

First impressions - the room was buzzing (it was Friday night after all) and it’s a rather pleasant space. It’s more of a traditional room than Hawksmoor’s vintage industrial vibe, and the feel is ‘upmarket’ rather than ‘trendy’. We had a kind of booth. Everyone likes a booth. 

Unfortunately for us on our visit we had to endure the frequent London phenomenon of a large group of loud, lairy pissed-up City bankers. SWEARING and GOING ON ABOUT MASSIVE DEALS, YAH? Thankfully they buggered off before the mains came. Most upmarket restaurant suffer from the expense account brigade’s ill behaviour from time to time but the problem is particularly bad in posh steakhouses, purely because steak is BIG and MACHO and is for REAL MEN with LOTS OF MONEY. 

Anyway, onto the food. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? Not to listen to my grumpy ranting. Keen to find out about Goodman’s Russian angle (they are Russian-owned), I chose the sweet pickled herring to start. Served, ‘Russian style’ in a Kilner jar with mustard and some sort of delicious rye bread. It was fantastic. Juicy, thick slices of herring with a touch of mustard, a gherkin and a wee bit of bread make for a very tasty (and oddly refreshing) mouthful of food. The combined sweet/vinegar flavours are a great palette cleanser ahead of all that meat. 

The main event is obviously STEAK, and lots of it. There were 4 of us so we got 2 900g Porterhouses, cooked medium-rare. I think the photos speak for themselves here - this was a VERY good steak indeed. It was cooked perfectly medium-rare and the char was spot-on. My favourite bit was the fat which had developed an amazing rich smokey flavour.

Just look at the colour of it! Better than Hawksmoor? Well, it’s a bit different. I’d say they are as good as each other, in their own special way. Unfortunately Mrs MBFBY? said that the other steak had been cooked to medium rather than med-rare so wasn’t quite as juicy as my one, though she still enjoyed it immensely. 

Obviously it’s not a trip to the steakhouse unless you cover your table in sides so we went for truffle chips (brilliant - cooked in truffle oil), normal chips (brilliant - not cooked in truffle oil) green beans (brilliant - but what else can you say about competently cooked green beans?)  and carrots (lovely honey and ginger glaze). No marks lost for the sides. 

The staff were friendly, helpfully knowledgeable and efficient. Our waitress took a lot of time to make sure we were all happy and everything was fully explained to us. 

So, food-and-service-wise, it’s very hard to say Goodman beats Hawksmoor. They are both serving steak to an absurdly high standard. I do have to dock them a point for overcooking Mrs MBFBY?’s porterhouse a tad, though. 

They also lose a point for the annoyance of having a TV film crew walking around getting in the way, at one point the cameraman set up a light which was shining into my mum’s face and I had to go an tell them to turn it off. Though to be fair I emailed them afterwards about this and received a prompt apology so top marks for customer service. 

When it comes down to it though, I have to say I personally prefer Hawksmoor. I love Hawksmoor’s aesthetic, I love their cocktails and I love their hipster staff. This has nothing to do with the food, Goodman is a fine establishment, but one with a more traditional feel. If you want to savour the flavour of murder properly then I urge you to try both. Don’t listen to Morrissey. The flesh they so fancifully fry IS succulent, tasty AND kind. Well, kind on the taste-buds at least. It’s not kind to the cow, or to your wallet.

8/10

Goodman
24-26 Maddox St
London
W1S 1QH

020 7499 3776

http://www.goodmanrestaurants.com/

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Cây Tre, Old St, EC1

Serves me right. I should never have ventured into the bleak wastelands of Shoreditch on a Saturday night. 10 years ago you could have called it exciting round here, now it’s all lads-on-tour, shouting, breaking glass. Come back hipsters, all is forgiven. Plus there’s STILL no cash machines that don’t charge £1.75 for the privilege of access to your own money. 

Anyway, a good friend’s birthday necessitated a vist here and we’d booked in at Cây Tre to meet some friends for a meal and a chat before the party. I’d heard lots of good reports, some not-so-good, certainly enough to warrant checking it out. 

Unfortunately I can’t tell you about the food as Cây Tre had no record of the reservation I made over the phone. We arrived, our friends arrived, they kept us hanging round awkwardly for 5 minutes whist they talked amongst themselves then told us no, we can’t have a table. A half-apology was mumbled and we left. I got the impression they didn’t believe me when I said I phoned up the day before. Well, Cây Tre, here’s a record of the phone call:

I can handle below-par food. I can handle aloof service. I can even handle strip lighting, blood-stained menus and toilets out of Trainspotting. I can’t handle planning an evening in a busy part of town around a meal with friends and not being able to guarantee that the restaurant will actually honour the reservation you’ve made. 

So, if you definitely want a nice meal with friends on a Saturday night in Shoreditch then don’t bother with Cây Tre. The one thing you have to get right as a restaurant is to honour someone’s booking, and they didn’t. Not only that, they didn’t give a fig about making it right. As a punter it’s embarrassing, annoying and just downright inconvenient. 

Anyway, we went next door to Busaba instead where we had a decent meal with professional and courteous service. Shame on you Cây Tre.

0/10

Cây Tre
301 Old St
London
EC1V 9LA

020 7729 8662 (though they won’t actually write your reservation down in the book)

http://www.vietnamesekitchen.co.uk/caytre/

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