I really wanted the Covent Garden pulled pork stall I just tried to be better than Pitt Cue Co. I wanted to wax lyrical about its fiery beans and meaty succulence, use it as a counterbalance to my anti-Aberdeen Angus food snobbery, have it act as an example of how branding, smart Twitter strategies and hip furniture do not necessarily a great place make. I wanted to rave about its awesomeness and turn the tables on the ‘in the know’ brigade heading to the likes of nearby Meat Market and prove that sometimes tourist destinations can offer the goods – to encourage you to block out the hype and try a bite to eat occasionally that hasn’t been socially endorsed.

Problem is it wasn’t and I couldn’t, so I won’t and you shouldn’t.

Sorry. The pork at this place had zero smokiness and the stringy texture of zombie flesh, the beans were drippy little droppings and the coleslaw, of which there was far too much, had the consistency and pleasure power of a sneeze on a packed tube. The whole package was cold; I ate it standing up, surrounded by less picky pigeons, and it’s left me feeling wrong all afternoon. Friendly guys though.

Price per head: £6
The Real Food Market, otherwise known as ‘the Larder of London’ (although I think only to them) is on the East Piazza from 11am – 6pm on Thursdays. You’re probably off to Eat Street though right?

Do you call it dude food or man food? Junk food, or just lunch? I’m talking about the hot dogs and tacos that are clogging the city’s arteries and crammed into every lifestyle supplement at the moment: the burgers and lobsters of Burger & Lobster; Mark Hix’s kamikaze poultry at Tramshed; The Player’s Lucky Chip sliders.

For me it’s guilt food. I don’t mean that in a dieting sense; I’m not thinking about my waistline or balancing the calorie count with the miles I promise myself I’ll run tomorrow. I just mean I usually feel a bit wrong about two thirds of the way into eating it. This kind of salted, saturated food is so tempting and so quick to eat, its pleasure payoff so instant, that you can’t help but overorder, go at it with deranged gusto, and then want it out of your sight – and belly – before you’ve even finished.

This compact cycle used to only apply to the chain restaurants and the early hours – that 2am trip to blend six pints with a Big Mac before bed – but it’s snuck into daylight and more respectable establishments, and was in full force round Rita’s place.

Within minutes our table at the pop-up dining project currently at Birthdays on Stoke Newington Road was littered with the spoils of unfettered gluttony. I blame the prices, which hold tight below a tenner on the whole, or perhaps the blackboard menu, which not only includes every junky joy imaginable but sees sold-out items ceremoniously crossed out to incite panic ordering. Anything but me, anyway.

By the time we’d knocked back four small but punchy margaritas (two of which were struck off the bill for tardiness which is always a nice touch), the pair of us were looking at the ravished remains of sticky soy and ginger chicken wings (delicious), Southern-fried chicken in a sweet bun served in a paper bag (also delicious) and numerous ox heart and fish tacos (tasty, but icy cold and wetter than Ed Miliband).

It was the patty melt that tipped me over the edge though. Coming hot on the heels of a so-so green chili mac cheese it was a formidable hunk of meat sandwiched between caraway-packed rye bread and lathered in pungent and overpowering cheese. It was a dish that needed to look in the mirror and take one item off before coming out of the kitchen and so dense with competing flavours it finally sent a ‘one-in, one-out’ message to my brain. We were at capacity.

I’d overeat at Rita’s again and again, though. It may be a hipster hive – the ladies wear tatts and the men denim hot pants, and every other guy looks like he’s in TV On The Radio – but as I mentioned last time, this is largely irrelevant. I’m just saying, in case you go and get scared by them. It may have had teething troubles with the temperatures during our visit and it may lull you into a food coma requiring an intravenous juice cleanse to bring you back to life, but when the food is this alluring and the alternative is something like Saf, I’ll be back.

And I’ll still go the full Adam Richman at any new venture that will care to have me – someone remind me to try the KFC Nacho Stacker next time I’m battered – despite the fact that somewhere in my fishbowl memory head I know it’s wrong, and that David Mitchell has just said junk food impacts on your IQ. I tried to read the full article but got distracted by something or other.

Price per head: Under £20
Clientele: It’s in Dalston
Website

A month later and Shrimpy’s still feels like a dream. Everything about my visit to the summer’s most hyped restaurant seems a fictional memory or an elaborate trick from some nefarious third party, as if the whole place was a set piece from some 2012 sequel to The Game. In retrospect it just doesn’t seem like it really happened.

It’s just such a surreal place. It’s conjured in old petrol station in that infamous clubbers memory-vacuum behind Kings Cross; cacti sprout by stencil-specked walls and lamps are made of pineapples; sea kelp moisturiser is dispensed in temporary toilets seemingly transported last minute from backstage at V Festival. Our waiter sported a pencil tache, a white lab coat and a French accent and took our orders on an iPad. I thought at one point I might slip into a daze and wake the following morning in the harsh morning sun in an abandoned forecourt wondering what happened. I didn’t though; it’s just a restaurant.

The food, focussing on improbably upscale dishes of rural Americana with nods to Mexico and Peru, was equally dreamy. Their signature soft-shell crab burger was a bundle of benign claws smashed into avocado, creamy and gooey and best shared with someone else. I split crabby with scrapple and a sharp chicory and coriander slaw. Scrapple is a rural American breakfast staple of Dutch origins featuring porcine scraps and trimmings mushed up with flour and then pan-fried. It’s popular with the Amish community and as healthy as it sounds, but of course this was the polite, polished version and a long way from its roots.

Both monkfish and octopus drew appreciative gasps from the other side of the table while the tuna tostada was near perfect. The dish has been decreed “as chewy as an old toenail” by one reviewer who clearly needs to start eating theirs straight from the foot. Sides were simple; a green salad and fries lived up to their billing while both the sweet caramelized onion and creole salsas lasted about two minutes tabletop.

Shrimpy’s is undoubtedly a zeitgeisty place. It serves buzzy food in an up-and-coming area and its architects Carmody Groarke are fresh from the Frieze and a Barbican Bauhaus show. So inevitably its clientele is chic and even more predictably this is deemed a bad thing. The Evening Standard branded its customers “fashiontossers” while someone on the Metro’s site offered “strang-esters”, which means apparently “strange scenesters”. It seems a bit unnecessary.

Sure, Lily Cole was there on our visit, only separated from us by a person with seashells for rings and a guy who had seemingly ironed his cap peak, but so what? In fact, as people who care deeply about the aesthetics of facial hair or fixed wheel bikes or whatever cliché you’d care to insert they’re probably quite good arbiters of taste, and a sign of a good restaurant. Much more so than their stereotypical dining cousins the bankers.

Shrimpy’s is cute, inventive, and well aware of its own absurdity. It serves impeccable dishes for a relatively reasonable price and its carafes are shaped like penguins. It’s my favourite restaurant of the year and – as a two year pop-up in a building earmarked for demolition – it’s running on borrowed time. Go now, before it turns into dreams in London’s regenerative dust.

Price per head: You could probably swing in just under £31.75 if you steer clear of the wine.
Clientele: I think we covered that.
Website

Yes, it’s not supposed to be the same, and yes it still says “chicks” and “dicks” on the door, but there’s a few reasons why MM isn’t a patch on ML. Namely:

You can wander in to Meat Market
While earnest foodies (myself included) have been huddled in hopeful lines down Welbeck Street since the dawn of time to get into Meat Liquor, and critics like Zoe Williams wait an astonishing 90 minutes to get the downlow rather than tell their editors to stick it, there’s no wait at all down the Market. In fact there’s more “no queue-jumping” signs than there are people.

The burgers aren’t as good
I know it’s against the law to say their burgers aren’t great, and they were great, but they just weren’t burgers. Mine looked like something out of Prometheus, and was more of a burnt onion soup with oversized (and to be fair delicious) chunks of chuck beef patties squelching within. All of their offerings come with two massive patties, and all are even harder to eat than their predecessors.

Of course, half the charm of the Meat chain is the sloppy mess you get yourselves in eating them, but these leave you literally dripping in oil, onion and bits of beef and feeling like a Game Of Thrones mountain savage. Plus they look about as sexy as Chris Huhne.

Jubliee Market aint no Welbeck Street
Their first foray into bricks and mortar was a compelling dive bar, a semi-subterranean gloombox dedicated to dirty burgers, festooned in filthy slogans, and fuelled by rocket-grade cocktails. Its urban art and rough ‘n ready aura shot it through with all the illicit thrills of an east end fight club.

This new place, meanwhile, is in the armpit of Covent Garden, due south of the jugglers and men dressed as out-of-work actors in gold paint, tucked behind a pearly king put out to pasture and several stalls selling car boot-quality Jubilee tat. The bright and funky signage, meanwhile, smacks of Apprentice brainstorm rather than their usual effortless chic.

There’s no liquor
Or hardly any. Frozen vanilla Jäger ices are on offer, but this place is geared towards the in-and-out maximise-bums-on-seats philosophy of Maccy D.

This shot from music and meat photographer Danny North

It probably won’t be around in two years
Only a fool would bet against this franchise going from strength to strength, but I can’t see this branch lasting. Hard to find and identify, and just up from a Byron that will suck any burger-hungry tourists in a flash, this needs the “foodie buzz” more than anywhere. And I’m not too sure it’s that forthcoming this time round…

Website

As usual, if you want to read more, London Eater and Burgerac are top of the pile.

There’s a guy who hits up the Bankside Health Club at lunchtimes who tries way too hard. If he’s not throwing himself across the floor on a rowing machine he’s back-peddling on a cross trainer faster than a Tory near a pasty, or gimpily performing thousands of upside down sit ups on a Powerplate all dead-eyed and eye-of-the-tiger visaged. It’s annoying. (NB: I look like I’m giving birth after two reps so I can hardly talk but still.)

The point is, you should never try too hard. Or look like you’re trying too hard. In gyms, or indeed in restaurants. Of course, and mentioning no names, many places do, but it’s a lot better to let the concept speak for itself. Meat Liquor has no manifesto; there’s no ‘philosohy’ to Pitt Cue Co. Overtly quirky or stylised places miss the point, as does anywhere that feels the need to explain itself. Restaurants that want to succeed and entice: just be.

Brew & Que, on Downhan Road in the heart of derelict Dalston, barely looks like it’s breaking a sweat. They’ve only just opened and seem to be building the place as they go along, but they’ve already mastered the laid-back insouciance we’d expect from this part of town. Take the décor – a mishmash of moose antlers, loose light fittings, exposed brick and the rest thrown together with a half-arsed shrug and yet it looks great. Our corner of the pub was stacked full of road signs, empty prams and other random paraphernalia and it was hard to work out what was art and what was just lying around waiting to be cleaned up. The website, meanwhile, looks like it was thrown together by a Key Stage 3 IT class at 3.30pm on a Friday afternoon sometime around 1998.

When it comes to what matters, though, they’re obviously trying really hard (behind the scenes). Angling itself, as the name would suggest, as a beer and BBQ joint it specialises in craft ales by the pint, half pint or third of a pint and slow cooked ‘que’. We were there at about 11am, so we opted for a third of some fruity amber ale whose name I forget and some US-style brunch.

A Popeye Omelette, all wilted spinach, tomato and sliced onions in a mostly egg white duvet, was a decent enough fortifier accompanied by some moreish sourdough, while scrambled eggs came creamy and warm. Both were served with home fried potatoes, which is one of those sides – like hash browns and potato hash – that rarely lives up to its billing on the menu. Sadly, these were no exception, too soft and under-seasoned, in dire need of a proper roasting until the crunch factor was almost unbearable.

This is mid morning munchies as we imagine the Americans enjoy every day, as good as any coastal cafe I’ve ducked into along the edge of the Pacific if not particularly better, but nicer than many of the breakfast options round Dalston way. And if my Instagram-addicted friends are anything to go by the ribs are even better.

Website
Words on their meatier options at Burgeranarchy

Look lively, El Camino, Buen Provecho and Adobo, there’s a newbie in town and they just booted the last one of you out of the Taco Top Three. And as for El Camino on Brewer Street, best get the staffs’ P45s ready, because La Bodegra Negra is set to show Soho a really good time.

Much has already been frothed over this Soho upstart, brought to us by Will ‘Eight Over Eight’ Ricker and Serge Becker, a New York restaurateur who’s had the phrase “nightlife legend” surgically stitched onto his name by all and sundry (not least for opening the infamous Box last year).

And rightly so, really. It has all the elements we want and expect from a new opening. With a buzzy cafe slapped on Moor Street and a subterranean restaurant located behind the facade of an Old Compton Street sex shop it’s about as Soho as it comes and has mastered the art of spot-on simplicity that’s worked so well for Meat Liquor and Russell Norman’s ventures.

Margaritas of course weren’t as lethal as their Mexican, or even Californian, counterparts (there’s a place in Palm Springs were you can literally feel the units stacking up against your cerebral cortex as you drink), but they were acidic enough and did their utmost to usher memories of the day’s red-flagged emails to the door. Our rims were salty despite our initial protestations but then this is opening month.

A ceramic pot full of chewy, tomato-stewed chorizo provided a perfect amuse-gob when spooned into generous lettuce leaves with a sprinkle of coriander (and a sprinkle of that herb is all you need, really. I’m not a hater but it can be noxious in the quantities some places serve it) but it was the tacos that won our hearts and minds.

Contrary to some early reports I thought they shone. Sure, they’re far too small (their diameters were equal to most other places’ radiuses, maths fan) but the fillings – perfected by consultant chef Richard Ampudia, who comes from Mexico City via La Esquina – were insanely good.

Sadly they forbid the mix and match, so we only got to try two. Conchita pibil pork was tender, juicy and packed full of tomato and lime notes, its salsa verde fresh and clean. De camaron salteados on the other hand, recommended by our chirpy and irrepressibly enthusiastic waiter in a t-shirt with drawings of a suit on it, was even better – big fleshy prawns bathed in a creamy, spicy sauce that, and which is rare, was neither too creamy nor too spicey. A perfect succession of moderate mouthfuls to set you up for a night in London’s playground.

Chipotle, you just got served.

Why there are no good Mexican restaurants in London

Price per head: About 15 quid.
Soundtrack: Mumford & Sons and The Beatles jostled for airspace on our visit.
Website
Other reactions: Four stars from Time Out but Gourmet Traveller wasn’t so keen (they took great photos however).

Hands up who’s sucked on a second hand bike chain. Or surreptitiously sniffed the chiselled palms of an East End mechanic at the end of the day. No? Well surely you’ve nibbled on the odd burnt match, right?

These might not be normal activities, but they’re sensations unquestionably evoked when you spend an evening in the company of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society.

My wife and I joined a tasting in Bistro du Vin’s secret whisky snuggle this week (a comfortable glutton’s den in the basement of their Clerkenwell branch) as part of the SMWS Whisky Live Week, and we were whisked to a whole new world of alcohol appreciation.

We’ve done our tasting time in the wine world. We’ve supped and sipped from Paso Robles to Avignon (via some really questionable Groupon-sourced sessions in London) and come to terms with nose, bouquet, body, complexity and finish. We’ve swirled until our olfactory receptors cried mercy. But we weren’t quite prepared for the dedication of the whisky crew.

Over a four course dinner that begun with beef carpaccio and a gloriously gritty steak tartare / raw egg combo, continued via a butchery demonstration in BDV’s storage room and a dry aged porterhouse with roasted bone marrow, and finished on a pave au chocolat with delicously chewy honeycomb, we were privy to some of the society’s finest malts and witnessed an almost out-of-body enjoyment from our new friends.

The SMWS prides itself on selecting only the finest batches of whisky from 125+ distilleries for its members, and produces only a finite and often tantalisingly small number of each from a single cask. They’re numbered following a system of identification my grey matter has given up to the drink (but I think it was something about the distillery and possibly date) and given abstract names that would do Mogwai proud.

We started with some lively openers, a 20 year aged, 54% zesty treat called ‘Classy & Attractive’ and ‘An Angel Fallen To Earth’, which came in at 50% after 36 years of aging and had a kind of vanilla, arctic roll hit to it. ‘Xmas Cake & Afghan Coats’ followed, a spicy, leathery, clovey kind of beast, and ‘Hot Embers At The Gates Of Hell’ certainly tried to live up to its name.

The seemingly benign ‘Oak And Smoke Intensity’ was the stealth bomber of the evening though. If I’d noticed the tasting notes – which talked of TCP, cinder toffee, diesel-soaked cherries, onion bhajis and mechanic’s hands – I might have been prepared for its Kwik-Fit kick. Uncompromisingly unusual but phenomenally moreish. It seems wrong to enjoy a drink that a professional taster has likened to “a lion-tamer’s whip”, but what can I say?

We had to leave before we developed a fetish.

Whisky Live London takes place this weekend – details here.

January sucks. There’s no two ways about it, it sucks big Simon Cowell balls. It’s particularly painful if you’re trying to adhere to a healthy regime, and as I’m three weeks away from my wedding there’s a crushing spartanism to our household’s diet right now. In fact, my fiancée won’t go within three feet of cheese, wine, bread, glucose, carbs, Coke, egg yolks, etc etc, anything fun god I’m boring myself thinking about it.

It doesn’t leave you many dining options. Google ‘healthy restaurants’ and try finding one outside California. Dig a bit deeper and you’ll get the odd half-hearted feature from some eating site on London, citing Saf (God help us) or, bizarrely, Masala Zone. Let’s face it, though, going out to eat and worrying about what the food will do to your waistline is more depressing than the words ‘president Newt Gingrich’. It defeats the purpose.

Still, I insisted we went somewhere during the Jan gloom, and fortunately Chalk Farm’s Hill Brasserie offered not only a post-festive freebie (disclaimer delivered) but a whole menu of healthy choices.

The boozer’s been tarted up in the last year, and the dark den of iniquity is now as light and airy as you’d expect for a North London pub, comfortable and pretty quiet, and dishing out Pacific American delights, many of which would sate the most belly-conscious health freak. From the raw bar: sashimi, salmon, yellow fin tuna, salt-water scallops; from crustacea corner: rock oysters, jumbo prawns, langoustines, shellfish and lobster; from the fish: salmon, sea bass and more scallops; from salads: quinoa concoctions and soba noodle piles.

I defied our penitent pledge for a lobster bisque which came creamy and smooth, perhaps taking a little too much pleasure in the thick buttered rolls, before a burnished brown sea bass, somewhat small but easily forked into unctuous mouthfuls, swimming in a puddle of butter aside a small mound of pea shoots. Considering it had all flown enough miles to earn it a free upgrade (it’s not just the owner that comes from the westernmost extremities of Northern America), it was fresh as you like. Tuna carpaccio, meanwhile, was soy-marinated and pretty pleasant although its noodle, carrot, cucumber and chili nest needed something more.

Virgin Marys (yes, really) could also have done with more of a kick but with a healthy dusting of pepper fooled me into thinking I was stroking the hair of a non-existent dog for a moment, and overall we left pretty chuffed. As we walked back down the hill to Chalk Farm tube, the whole of London unfurled through the winter haze before us. I’d not noticed that aspect before (presumably too drunk) and we walked home pretty pleased with ourselves and thinking that this time of year aint all that bad, really.

Price per head: Free for us but probably £20-30 a head.
Soundtrack: The Norah Jones end of the spectrum
Website

The Hill Bar & Brasserie is part of the Taste London scheme, which I warbled on about at punishing length last year.

Say what, a decent Mexican takeaway? In the middle of London’s arid burrito desert? That isn’t another Tortilla factory full of cheerless automatons churning out bland slop for a fiver-plus (guacamole 50p extra)? You’re joking, right? Fortunately not, and although it’s taken me a year to find it, Holborn now has a place worth checking out.

While Waterloo workers have Buen Provecho, Kings Cross denizens got Eat Street, and the Tottenham Court Road office bods have been enjoying Chipotle for some time, round these parts was always a bit of a Chilango fest. But thanks to Adobo that’s all changed.

I was turned onto this place by a commenter on my (somewhat dated) Mexi moan, a long rant about why there are no decent Mexican restaurants in London (something that hasn’t really changed; in fact, one of the best ones, Green And Red, closed). And it was a great tip.

Three tacos seems as good a way to judge a place as any, so it was one pork / carnitas, one beef / barbacoa, and one marinated chicken. Portions were generous, and while the meat was a shade dry that would be the only complaint. Corn salsa added pep, fresh salad spilled out onto the huge bowl they were delivered in, marinades got lips smacking all round, mature cheese tasted of cheese rather than PVC, and little nuggets of chewy chorizo were an inspired extra. They even do a meatball filling too.

In a city where most fast food dishes are constructed with all the care and attention of Francesco Schettino and the aesthetics of a Nuts spread, they were put together thoughtfully, with a smile and even a glint of passion, which goes a long way in this mean and impersonal town.

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Why there are no good Mexican restaurants in London
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