I feel bad.
I have not written a post in two months, and I’ve barely written any this year.
It’s not that I don’t have anything to post about, nor that I don’t have the time. I just don’t seem to have gotten around to it.
My crapness aside, let’s talk about Street Feast.
Ribs, brisket and pulled pork have been springing up as guest stars or as the foundation stones of entire restaurants on a regular basis over the last few years.
For a long time, H and I would slake our desire for American-style meats at Bodean’s in Soho. We’d snack on a pulled pork sandwich with some fries in the casual seating upstairs, and wish we were on a Texas road trip.
These days even Wetherspoon’s sells pulled pork. However there are lots of specialist places to choose from, and on a recent trip to Glasgow we tried a couple.
If two of you are attending a restaurant by car, one of you has to forgo alcohol.
I’m not a big drinker, as I’ve probably mentioned before. I don’t like the taste of alcohol, preferring apple juice to cider, fancy fizzy pop to champagne and milkshakes to White Russians. This makes me the natural designated driver, and while I’m always hopeful of something interesting yet non-alcoholic on the drinks menu, often as not there’s nothing that inspiring.
Therefore while H perused the amazing cocktail menu at Stovell’s (125 Windsor Road, Chobham), I was feeling a bit left out until I noticed on the menu it said to ask about soda, cordials etc. The incredibly helpful bar guy asked me what I liked, and I mentioned how the rhubarb puree in one of the cocktails had caught my eye. A few minutes later I was sipping a rhubarb, nettle, chocolate bitters and soda concoction, and feeling content.
This excellent start set the tone for the meal. After ordering, wonderful warm rolls with two types of butter (one smoked) arrived, accompanied by a pea shot and some interesting large crisps of different varieties, including parmesan and potato.
Dried meat has different associations for me.
There’s the stereotypical Wild West gold-prospector angle (gnarled, weather-beaten men with beards gnawing on leathery strips of beef). There’s the time H and I tried to make our own biltong in a home-made drying box (it turned out more like crumbly meat biscuits). Finally, there’s a painful memory of buying lots of delicious salmon jerky in a Canadian airport, only to have to throw it all away when we reached UK customs.
On a previous visit to Thailand, one night we ate out at the “99 Baht Buffet” (on the Pattaya Thai Road, Pattaya, behind Big C). The name was a real tongue-pleaser, as was the meal (…too much?).
On our recent trip the price had risen to a less mellifluous 129 baht, but the food was still as good, and at £3 a head, wonderful value.
The proceedings start (oh yes, this is no simple setup) with an alarming charcoal brazier being set into your metal table. This is then topped with a shallow metal bowl with a raised hole in the centre, to which is added a conical slatted metal hat.
