New York Tales: 2. The Burger Brunch

Forget eggs benedict and fancy fries. When your insides are wincing from margarita pain - the burger’s where it’s at.

I’m a maximalist when it comes to the burger. I once had a month’s stint in Australia, where avocado and beetroot is packed in just about everything, after which I was purist no longer. Pickle, onion, fried things, bacon bits. You know the score.

Think thick slabs of meat, wedged in bun and made sloppy with enough condiment to drip from your hands. Cheese? Oh go on then. Melt it.

That was the tonic after a night out at Industry in Hell’s Kitchen - a pulsing gay club, newly opened, box-fresh and quite frankly, too much.

I’d spent the morning-after dazedly wandering the art galleries of Chelsea, all Andy Warhol polaroids and sad artists. But by midday I had a purpose. Brunch with my friend Barry had been booked at the Mercer Kitchen in Soho and burgers awaited. Just the anticipation of eating was making me shake.

The Mercer Kitchen is a fine place - airy and busy up top, but the floor underneath in its Christian Liaigre glory is clandestine - dark with wenge-wood. You may think it's a dear place as it's a Jean-George Vongerichten number (who's just opened Spice Market in Soho, London. Read Jay Rayner's review here) but with burgers at $15 a pop, I don't think that's bad at all.

Barry chose the Niman ranch burger, adorned with only aged cheddar. Mine was called the Mercer (which surely allows the kitchen to dress it up with as fancy ingredients as possible) fussy with tart pepperjack cheese, avocado, creamy Russian dressing and crispy onions. All this glorified cheeseburger was missing was the crunch of salty bacon. Simple golden fries were served charmingly in a flowerpot.

I’d learnt to love Brooklyn Brewery lager over the weeks (the Draft House in Battersea stocks the lager and the ale) which was a handsome thing to swig with mouthfuls of chargrilled meat.

Now, the Mercer is not the best place to chow down burger in New York City. But as far as fussy burgers and good chat go, this place has the winning combination.

It’s the place to talk the morning after the night before. The place where you can avoid smug bright eyed shoppers. The place to hide from the stream of sunbeams when your eyes aren’t quite used to daylight.

I’m all for the burger brunch. Are you?


The Mercer Kitchen
99 Prince St.
New York, NY
10012

New York Tales: 1. The art of eating alone

I grew up on London suspicion.

“Don’t talk to strangers”
“Men that come up to you will kidnap you” (primary school aged six)
“Don’t answer the doorbell especially on Hallowe’en”

I’ve been slowly unpicking these axioms from my life (perhaps the last one not so much).

And then I go to New York City. Everyone’s yapping. No one's moody at you. No huff of an impatient brute in your ear on Oxford Street if you walk too slow. Nor constipated silence in the reluctant intimacy of a train racketing its way to work.

It is a joy to be in New York on your own. Almost every bar of every decent restaurant will have ownsomes drinking, eating, and if they could only smoke, they would.

It’s not an opportunity to leer, it’s not a no-mates statement.

In London it’s unheard of to see people alone for those brunch or dinner occasions. Lunch and coffee perhaps. And rarer still to see strangers talk to each other unless they want to pounce on each other. Perching up at the bar without a companion exposes them as being ON THEIR OWN and WITHOUT FRIENDS.

My friend Kate, a Brit who lives in New York, once rocked up to The Fat Radish to meet a friend only to realise she’d misread her diary and was frustratingly sans mobile. Undeterred, she ordered supper, armed herself with a glass of wine and a paperback. A full member of the ownsome club, she went back for supper with her friend the next day unembarrassed and knowing what to order.

And so I have twenty minutes at the Mercer Kitchen in NY’s Soho on my own. Yearning for a burger brunch that will make friends with some beers and margaritas from the night before.

My friend is late. And that is fine. Trouncing up to the bar, greeted by lovely white-teethed smiles, I snatch a high chair next to someone going at his egg-white omelette with his fork.

I order a cucumber martini.

He looks at me like I’m his kinda girl.

And that’s it. I learn about his trade - broking for marigold yellow cabs. He tells me most people like to rant about them. I don’t, and from there it’s freeflow.

It’s acceptable to be on your own, to wait. My friend Barry comes along, picks me up and there’s no obligation to keep talking. We politely exchange goodbyes. My interlude with a stranger has not ended in kidnap, but a richer appreciation of the yellow cab. Though to be fair – he didn’t come up to me, I bothered him. Perhaps he should’ve been suspicious of me, the Londoner instead.

Eyre Brothers, Shoreditch

*Warning. Another porky post*

Eyre Brothers in Shoreditch. I’m too excited to give this place a full review as we only tried two dishes there - but I wanted to say that the two dishes we did have were outstanding. Both pork, both exceptional and balanced dishes. They were maximalist without being over the top, with punchy flavours that are expertly reigned in.

Pork and clams braised in white wine, garlic, bay with fried potatoes and coriander - Alentejo (a region in Portugal) style
A rich and fun dish - chunks of pork with the delicate clams that appear in the dish. Bursts of freshness of the sea

Grilled fore-loin of acorn-fed Iberico pig marinated with smoked paprika, thyme, garlic and patatas pobres - potatoes with green peppers, onions, garlic and white wine.
Perfectly cooked, hearty, rustic flavour through the meat.


To accompany, we drank a glass of Monastrell 2009, Bodegas Castano from Spain which was rather rich and rather fruity.

It’s rustic and stylish cooking from David Eyre, who set up original gastropub The Eagle in Clerkenwell, and his upbringing in the former Portuguese colony of Mozambique is reflected in the food, which has punchy Spanish flavours too. The room is pared down - dark African mahogany and New York clean lines. The service is impeccable. And you’ll be surrounded by a strange mixture of clientele - mostly City and creative-types. Oh and maybe a daytime TV chef having a celebratory supper.

All I can say is that I urge you to go. And I will be going again to try the pulpo - octopus Galician style, and Caldeirada - the Portuguese fish and shellfish stew.

The mains are close to £20, but each dish is very filling.

Eyre Brothers
70 Leonard Street, City of London EC2A 4QX
+44 20 7613 5346 ‎

6 Nations Rugby Rolls: Hot Pork with Caramelised Onions

I can’t help the porky posts. I know I’ve gushed about hot roast pork rolls here and no doubt I shall write about them again. I make no apologies, it’s an addiction.

And it is rugby-time.

Here’s a treat for the six-nations weekends. I heartily recommend doing what we did last match - the boys came on over for a rugby lunch - a help yourself DIY hot belly-pork roll with a dollop of homemade apple sauce and a thick smear of caramelised onions. Perfect with the biggest bottles of British ale you can find.

It's the caramelised onions that makes this.

I learnt the secret of these onions when I was out in the South of France learning Provencal cookery from the extremely talented Alex Mackay.

The secret was simple. Patience.

I am an instant-gratification kind of girl. I'm not keen on waiting or stirring much (which is why I’ve never made risotto), so these onions are not as faithfully caramelised as what Alex would use in a Pissaladière (this fantastic recipe is in his book Cooking in Provence).
But I do make vast amounts and keep in a sterilised jar. A sort of condiment that goes well with almost everything savoury, the onions make great friends cold with a cheese sandwich, or hot on a steak.

Hot roast pork rolls with caramelised onions


Most of this can be made in advance.

The sagey pork
Get yourself a large slab of belly pork. Score and heavily salt the fat. Preferably leave overnight, but at least for two hours.
Preheat the oven to 240C. Slice the whole layer of fat off with a sharp knife and place sage leaves onto the meat as pictured. Put the layer of fat back on top and roast for 20 minutes before reducing the heat to 200C. Roast for 40-45 minutes until crispy. Leave to rest for 10 minutes then slice thickly.

The apple sauce and onions before
The onions
While the pork is roasting, slice five mild onions. Slug a little mild olive oil and a large wedge of butter into a heavy-bottomed pan. Heat gently until foaming, and throw the onions in. Let them cook gently for at least 15 - 20 minutes and stir occasionally to avoid catching on the bottom. Add a large pinch of salt, and two teaspoons of golden caster sugar. Add a little water every now and then to moisten and make gloopy - cover occasionally if you think they look like they will dry out to steam them a little. Cook for about 15 more minutes until a gorgeous goldeny colour.

The apple sauce and onions after
The assembly
Take floury white bap bottom. Layer with butter, Tracklements English mustard (warning - hot!), apple sauce, onions. Lay on three thick slices of pork, some crackling, salad leaves and floury white bap top.


Sink your teeth into that and get ready for some prime rugby.


Thanks to British Onions for sending me a vast selection of shallots and onions. I had too much fun experimenting.

Olive Magazine's Media Must Have

Olive's Food Porn April Edition Cover

If I've been walking round with inane grin this week, it's because I'm ridiculously pleased to find out that Voracious is fabulous food magazine Olive's 'Media Must-Have' blog this month.

I'm terribly chuffed at being a 'Must Have', right next to cocktail genius Tony Conigliaro and Masterchef champ Mat Follas.


The view at page 114


So hello to any Olive readers who've dropped by this way - enjoy your browse and hope you'll come again.

Thanks Olive and to @charlythechef for choosing the blog.

Morito: Pre-Gig Tapas

Carrying on the theme of little sister restaurants, three of us popped round to Morito. Down London's food mecca Exmouth Market fellow giggers Harriet, Ianthe and I caught a quick supper there before being wowed by the voice of Clare Maguire in Shepherd’s Bush. And I’ll say it upfront that Morito is a gem of a place, Sam and Sam Clarke have a little winner on their hands. It may be right next door to its older sibling Moro, but with its Spanish-Moorish tapas and informal clamour of canteeny tables and chairs, it is equally pleasurable.

Pre-gig bites were swift in their delivery and the staff so down to earth that on occasion I thought we were house-partying with them. More low-key and chirpy than Moro, we chatted happily to our waitress and the kitchen about quail egg deliveries and which moritos to have.

Padrón peppers
We plumped for padrón peppers - (the ultimate beery snack bar edamame beans and pork scratchings) scattered with crystals that gave perfunctory saltiness, croquettes that were light yet jam-packed with salt-cod.

Salt cod croquetas

Patatas mojo - salt crusted potatoes with green chilli & coriander sauce
We had wee boiled potatoes layered thick with a vivid green coriander sauce - a wonderfully simple and rustic dish, as was the sausage with white beans and alioli, which prompted uncouth mopping, ordering of the bread basket and unlimited alioli.

Butifarra sausage (a type of Catalan sausage) with white beans and alioli
The star dish of the night

Crispy aubergine with Miel De Caña
Sliced aubergines had their savoury-soft flesh drizzled with devilish miel de cana (a black molasses) and were followed by the quail’s egg and peppers - oh-so-sweet and perfect in its proportion. But this was the last dish, and there was a definite ‘is that it?’ disappointment by the end as the portions were so tiny. The recommendation was to have three dishes each, but when the tapas was an average £4 each we went for two-and-a-bit. This may have been a mistake.

Quail's egg and chargrilled peppers. They kindly replaced the jamon with peppers for the vegetarian among us

The cooking cannot be faulted. Neither can the service and if I could I would swing by every day. But the bill steadily mounted, and though we did order a fruity Castro Regio Tempranillo at £15, we were all taken aback at how much it totted up to.

On the bright side, you don’t want to be gigging on a full stomach, and there lies the silver lining.

Go early on a weekday and preferably pre-gig, ready to be wowed. And bring lots of cash.

Morito
32 Exmouth Market
Islington EC1R 4 
020 7278 7007

A Polpetto lunch

Polpo was the darling of London restaurant-lovers when she opened in 2009. Cutting through the ubiquity of the pizzas and pastas that have come to define Italian food, the breakthrough concept of the Venetian bacaro had arrived in Soho - a kind of working man’s wine bar, serving good but rough round the edges food.

A hard act to follow, no? Well, hot on its heels trots Polpetto, Polpo’s wittier, more confident little sister. Perched happily above boozer The French House, a Soho institution, battered stairs lead to the diminutive room that has the effortless intimacy of a supper club. It’s busy. And you have the sense it’s always busy. Polpetto only has 28 seats and a legion of Polpo fans after all. Tiny tables crammed with elbows and dishes, flickering candles in the bright daylight backdrop the hum of conspiratorial chat rising above the beats of Mark Ronson. This is not a deal-making place but one where plans are hatched. 

A window seat means a firm view of brazen torsos and tight Y-fronts in an Old Compton Street shop window. Staff are equally rock ‘n’ roll, and we’re served by the cheery spit of a Camden frontman, all skinny limbs and skinny jeans. He’s the right side of chatty rather than intrusive and is quick to serve our inexpensive rosé from the well-chosen list - a fresh and accessible bardolino chosen by Ruth, sloshed from a humble carafe.

Chopped chicken liver crostini
Moscardini
Cicheti is the thing here, tapas-type small plates, which start at a friendly £2.50. Thick-cut crostini slathered with punchy chicken liver are impaled with the tartness of sunblush tomato. Moscardini, baby octopus flecked with shards of garlic and fennel is excellently flavoured but upsettingly chewy.

Braised ox cheek, polenta bianca
and breaded sardines, caper mayonnaise
Larger sharing plates are wholesomely good; braised ox cheek has a gloriously unfashionable amount of fat that ensures its melty softness. The cavolo nero, a kind of kale, is an inspired dish enlivened with the crunch of rosemary breadcrumbs as are crisp breaded sardines.

Cavolo nero, borlotti beans & rosemary crumbs
Polpetto has nothing to prove, and there lies its scruffy charm. While the food may be slightly patchy, the coolly effortless concept isn’t. It has slipped seamlessly into The French House’s scuffed walls as though it’d been there all along and I bet you anything will be far more popular than her big sister.

Pizzetta bianca

Polpetto
Upstairs at The French House, 49 Dean Street, London
020 7734 1969
Reservations taken for lunch only.

Click here for my take on Polpo last year.