Food & Drink Porn Marathon.
So last Friday I was on a shoot for a feature for Crane.tv (www.crane.tv) going to several places Scott and Yianni from MEATmarket & MEATliquor mentioned as their favourite places in London. This shoot involved going to the places they mentioned and shooting some footage inside. For me this was mostly a good excuse to indulge my food fetish and to drool over amazing food.
Our first stop was at Burger & Lobster. B&L is one of those super trendy restaurants which , together with MEATliquor and Pitt Cue Co, does not take reservations and is in high demand, resulting in massive queues outside the door.
Another thing to note is that Burger & Lobster specialises in two things, I will leave it up to you to figure out which two these might be.
Upon arrival there was a Mini Cooper which had three flatbreads ''displayed'' on its front window. I am not sure if that is some kind honorary thing to do in Mayfair or if it was just culinary vandalism. It made me chuckle.
The chef, Patrick, was very welcoming and keen to show us around the kitchen, whipping out drawer after drawer rammed with amazing looking lobsters.
He then took us down into the basement to take a look at the basin in which they have three separate levels filled with even more lobsters. Apparently they go through 1.2 tonnes of lobster a week. The lobster above, who I named Bob, was just chillin' out with his soon to be steamed to death friends when suddenly Patrick decided to disturb him. Bob decided to show his anger at this situation by furiously, and very slowly, lifting up his big ass claws. Good going Bob.
This guy was massive, I called him Big Mike. I think he's dead now.
Even though you can get an average sized lobster for the set price of £20, you can also be a baller and splash out on some massive lobsters for, I hope, sharing.
Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of Patrick chopping up the steamed lobsters, I only have this picture which shows what they look like after. Anyway, the mushy sound the lobsters make when they get sliced in half was both disgusting and strangely enjoyable..
This is the lobster meat-mix for the famous lobster rolls served at Burger & Lobster, I tried to get Patrick to tell me what they put in here but apparently it is a secret. Lame Patrick, very lame.
Jesus Christ look at that amazing lobster roll! Ah yeah, come to daddy!
If you are not very good at deductive reasoning I will explain what the other thing is they focus on at Burger & Lobster besides lobster. Burgers. Yeah I know, what a surprise.
So even though these burgers costs a whopping £20 (!!!!!) they do look amazing and come with fries (bargain). If I had one of those for dinner everyday, I would be a happy man. I would also be fat.
I had to take a little break from writing as I just couldn't stop drooling and had to take a cold shower to cool down for a bit. Anyway, back on track.
Burger & Lobster gets busy quick, real quick. When the doors opened at noon, the entire restaurant was filled within minutes and it took the kitchen, which started cooking burgers as soon as the doors opened regardless of orders, a mere 5 minutes to get out the first orders. Apparently they do 600 covers a day, which is a lot considering the relatively small space.
After the meaty goodness extravaganza that was Burger & Lobster we headed to one of three Goodman steak restaurants in London. After getting some footage of one of the chefs cooking steaks, the manager was kind enough to ask me if I wanted to see the fridge in which they age the meat. I am not actually quite sure why she asked as I am pretty sure there was actual drool dripping out of my mouth at the time, but I guess she was being polite.
Holy blood pressure Batman!
This frige contained about 1 ton of meat which is aged for 28 days before being served.
After all of this we were offered a glass of wine to cool down a bit which we gladly accepted before making our way down to Borough/Bermondsey.
Our first stop on Bermondsey street was the awesome Spanish/Iberian restaurant ''Pizarro's'' run by Jose Pizarro. Unfortunately, due to a combination of being tired, staring at amazing food and hitting on the latina bartender way too hard I only got this one picture of a leg of Iberican pork. So yeah.
We then went up the road to a place called ''Jose'' which is owned by the same guy. For some reason I don't think this Jose Pizarro is the most creative person around.
The chef cooked up this plate of Pluma pork which was merely seared for a few minutes, then seasoned with salt, black pepper and a drizzle of olive oil and was absolutely amazing.
The bartender poured us some sherry which he said perfectly complemented the taste of the Pluma pork, when people tell me this in a restaurant I always feel they are trying to sell me crap but as this was free I had some and holy shit was he right. The sherry did indeed do all the crap they tell usually tell you (prolong the aftertaste), It was glorious.
The next stop was, and yeah this was all in one day, at Lounge Bohemia on Great Eastern Street in Shoreditch where mixologist Paul showed us the most bizarre but brilliant and almost beautiful creations. This place in a basement where they only take reservations as they only want people seated with table service.
As Paul has a candy-floss machine, he also makes a drink with Campari called the ''Campari Candyfloss'' which is pretty much what it says. Eat your way through the candyfloss before arriving at the straw that lets you slurp up all that tasty Campari.
After a few more drinks, of which I didn't take any pictures as I was too busy being fascinated by Pauls creations (the actual drinking was also pretty distracting) he showed us ''drinkable perfume'' which once again literally does what it says. This is truly one of those creations you have to see to believe.
On we went again to Happiness Forgets which is one of my all time favourite places and my top recommendation to take someone out on a date, just so you know. This guy above called Johan made us some cocktails and it was all beautiful and tasty (especially a cocktail called ''The Journalist'') until Johan decided to pull his pants down and show us his fashion accessory/invention. For some reason I wasn't very shocked by someone pulling their pants down so I asked him what was going on.
Apparently those straps are meant to keep your socks up and your shirt down. So yeah, there you go.
It was an awesome day and one of those days that didn't feel like work at all. Check back here soon for the end result feature on Crane.tv (www.crane.tv)
Special Thanks:
Patrick, Kevin, George @ http://burgerandlobster.com/
Chef, Manager and George @ http://www.goodmanrestaurants.com/
Jose Pizarro @ http://www.josepizarro.com/
Paul @ http://www.loungebohemia.com/
Johan @ http://www.happinessforgets.com/
Scott and Yianni @ http://www.themeatmarket.co.uk/ & http://www.meatliquor.com/
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