[REVIEW] Ribs, Pulled Pork Sliders and Burgers / Duke’s Brew and Que / Haggerston, London
We wanted a huge bowl of the pulled pork
From the outside, Dukes Brew and Que wouldn’t look out of place in an episode of Jeeves & Wooster, squeezed between a building wrapped in scaffolding and a council estate in Hackney-but-still-the-rough-bit Haggerston. The juxtaposition is evident inside as a throng of well dressed 9-to-5ers mob the bar, leaving the local drunk looking bewildered. Poor bloke, he only wants a pint of fucking bitter. Later, when he bowls up to bar for another scoop, the front of house will try and give his tiny table by the window away to a trendy young couple, and he will not be best pleased.
That’s the thing - it is a boozer, with most of the crowd queuing at the bar for one of the impressive selection of beers here solely for that reason (our pale ale loving compadre was ecstatic). But it’s also a restaurant. An arguably good balance. And yet, we are still a bit disconcerted since the FOH lady chooses to ignore us and we find our pre-booked table on our own and wait a good ten minutes before the waitress decides to give us the time of day. In short, it looks like a pub, but it’s definitely a restaurant. Not much space for those just there for the sauce.
The menu is a bit odd for somewhere touting itself as a barbecue place - there is a lot of steak going on, and a burger. And the only pulled pork available is housed within in ‘sliders’. They’ve also committed the cardinal “mission statement” sin as you can see from the picture above.
We ordered everything vaguely barbecue, and a burger.
Let’s start with that burger. The patty was thick, moist and packed a distinctly barbecue flavour, almost as if it had been smoked itself, which was quite novel. The sauce with it was fresh and spicy sweet, and the bun did a stand up job housing the lot. Yep, it was a barbecue burger, of sorts, and whilst not mind-blowing, it wasn’t bad. It did taste a bit like a frankfurter though, which some of you might find some disconcerting.
On to the ribs. The pork were pleasingly big, pink and chewy. The beef ribs were heavier on the gristle and didn’t quite have enough fat to keep them as palatable, or enough sauce to keep them moist.
Both of them however were criminally sweet, and we have a theory about it. Duke’s clearly have some kind of Memphis-style house rub they’re applying to all their ribs, be they cow or pig. We think that once they’ve been smoked, they’re re-dunked into the rub and flash-grilled so the sugar caramelises just before they’re sent out. Now, this is a problem. The dark sugary bark does indeed look really good, but there is an overwhelming caramel taste and smell to both types of rib.
Worse than that, the flash-nature of that grilling means you get the odd grain of sugar stuck between your teeth, which gives it that shuddering granulated sugar crunch that is far from pleasant. We’re fine with sweetness in ‘cue, but the sugar itself should not be identifiable by texture.
Gross.
All is not lost though. The best thing by a country fried mile were the pulled pork sliders - dinky little gems of moist pulled pork topped with a zingy slaw, served in a brilliant dinky brioche bun. We all agreed a big daddy version of one of these would have been epic. Unfortunately, the fact that you only get three of them in a mains serving is ultimately too stingy.
We wanted a huge bowl of the pulled pork and it’s just not an option on the menu.
The sides were fine, the only disappointment being the mac ‘n cheese. The pasta was topped with lots of rubbery grilled cheese without any real evidence of a proper cheese sauce. Macaroni with cheese if you will. Amateurish.
They’ve clearly done their USA BBQ research too, they’ve got the rolls of greaseproof paper right, but the menu feels focus-grouped to death (steak, steak, steak). Duke’s guys - do what you know you can do.
Duke’s is going to draw inevitable comparisons with Pitt Cue Co (which we will be reviewing soon): everything is served similarly, on similar trays, with a similar slaw side, with that familiar New/Old Filament Lightbulb Aesthetic.
But we’re not going to bother - the subtlety and complexity of Pitt Cue’s flavours, crossed with its significantly lower cost and more convenient location really doesn’t warrant one.
- Rob & Simon.
[REVIEW / ON TOUR] Brisket, Ribs, Pulled Pork / Franklin Barbecue / Austin, TX
The ‘best in the world’ lists it features on are definitely deserved.
“So where are you guys from?” grins Aaron Franklin as he de-foils a healthy looking brisket and brandishes a rather large knife. He asks me how I like my brisket. I immediately respond by asking him how I should like it.
Fatty, he says. You want the fatty end. He slices it in half, lifts it up and gives it a little squeeze. Juices run clear. My hours of waiting melt away. It all suddenly seems worth it. It is shortly after midday. And fuck me I’m starving.
I completely over order.
“You guys don’t have anything like this at home.” he says, with a glint in his eye. “You can only get this in Texas.”
Confident, much?
Naturally I bristle a tad at that comment. I don’t think he’d be very interested in me extolling the virtues of Pitt Cue Co. I take my big tray of meat and sit on the terrace outside. John Hodgman of the Daily Show and various podcastery goodness is there eating ribs. Anthony Bourdain is there too with his “No Reservations” film crew. He’s holding court in the centre of the room with a healthy plate of meat, posing for photos with fans. It’s all a bit Rolling Stones, but with more sausage. I analyse the three different bottles of sauce on the table. I take some photos. Before I’ve eaten anything it’s already a unique experience.
The important thing to remember is that as Brits, we collectively know fuck all about proper barbeque. Nothing. We’re a nation of grillers, of carbon charrers and of awful supermarket sauce. The opportunity to taste one of the absolute best in the heart of BBQ country is very exciting. It’s also our duty to report back and help influence what’s being done at home.
Much of my memory of Franklin BBQ is the waiting. Of anticipation. Of worry that Bourdain’s SLR-toting crew will have polished it all off before I get in there. They did have to queue with everyone else, there is no quick way to get in. My first queue pal is a New York startup guy in boxfresh Vans who’s just sold his company and isn’t sure what to do next. Something to do with ads. B2B. “You wouldnt have heard of it”. Very South By.
Behind me is a woman with two kids, both under five. She is married to someone that works here but doesn’t confess to “being a BBQ person”. She’s still enough of one to brave this line though. And again, marriage doesn’t entitle you to a queue dodge.
It’s 10.45am when I arrive. The queue has already snaked down the hill into the car park. I’m flabbergasted. I knew it would be busy, especially during festival week, but this is ridiculous. The two students in front of me say that on weekends, a 9am start is required if you want some of the fabled brisket. There is much chatter about Bourdain, who is a good sixty to seventy people in front of us. I can just about make out his silver head in the distance. The queue doesn’t seem to be moving much. I don’t really understand why, since there’s no enforced sit-down policy here. Surely some of these folks must be getting take-out.
I turn to Twitter.
If that Bourdain guy eats all the brisket before I get in there, I will fight him.
— Burger Anarchy (@BurgerAnarchy) March 13, 2012
A pixie-faced girl appears from the building dressed in an apron, Converse, stripy tights and a snug woollen beanie hat. It’s over eighty degrees. And it’s humid.
She tells us that the ‘Last Man Standing’ is a good twenty people ahead. It’s very unlikely we’ll get any brisket. Maybe some pulled pork or turkey if we’re lucky. Up until this point I thought Last Man Standing was a fairly poor Bruce Willis movie. But no, there is a guy and he is wearing a sign emblazoned with those three words. Whispers spread up and down the queue. The thirty people behind me disappear almost immediately. I choose to stay, knowing that this is my last chance to eat here for the foreseeable future. More people appear, some willing to risk it, others immediately getting back into the cars and heading somewhere else. By the time we reach the stairs I know my queue buddies fairly well. We all share a passion for meat - the tourists are long gone - so the conversation is good. A member of staff appears with an icebox of beer, a $2 Lone Star is mine. It’s 11.30.
Once we’re into the afternoon the door gets tantalisingly close. We’re still not guaranteed a full menu. The beanie girl pixie reappears out of nowhere and screams at the top of her voice “More brisket!”. The queue roars in response. We are all relieved. Maybe Bourdain wasn’t very hungry.
Spirits now lifted by the promise of a full menu, we get inside. The menu is stuck up on the wall, written on the same paper they use to wrap up the takeaway meat.
Immediately I’m over-excited. This is a once-off opportunity, so I should order nearly everything. I discuss menu strategy with my queue buddies. The brisket is certainly the most famous and geographically relevant (Texas is all about the beef), but there’s pork, beef ribs, turkey and sausages too. Not that interested in the sides. Startup guy says he’s just going to order all the meats. It’s his birthday. He’s here on his own. I offer a slightly weak ‘Happy Birthday’ in response.
Once we’re at the front, we’re amazed that it is actually the Aaron Franklin serving all the meat. Every customer is given his full attention. There’s idle chit-chat. Everyone tells him how excited they are to be there. Regulars are greeted like family. There’s absolutely no urgency despite the queue. I guess it’s such a super-advanced queue, it’s evolved way beyond any other queue.
We buy all the meat we can and find a nice spot on the deck.
The Meat
First I try everything without any sauce. The brisket is indeed special. Back home it’s become all trendy again which is at odds with the nice rolled pink Sunday roast ideal. Most brisket I’ve had is hard to get the best out of. It’s leathery. It’s easy to over season it. It’s hard to get the smoky flavour to penetrate sufficiently. Aaron’s brisket is soft. It’s oozing. The fibres break apart in a way I’ve not experienced before. The meat itself has that deep smoke flavour you’ve always dreamed was possible.
The pork ribs are pink. They’ve been cooked so incredibly slowly that the bone flops out when I pick them up. Pork isn’t standard BBQ fare here in Texas so it’s great to see so many pork dishes here. The pulled pork (which we’ve seen Aaron pull by hand in front of us) is superb. I get into the sauces - the darkest of which is my immediate favourite. It’s all coffee and treacle.
The meat doesn’t even need it but the sauce tops off each meat and accentuates flavour rather than disguising it. The only real disappointment is the turkey. Because it’s, well, turkey.
Texas tradition
Aaron is a relative newbie. Austin locals are notoriously hard on new restaurants, especially BBQ. What he’s achieved in the space of three short years has taken everyone else decades. This makes him the posterchild of new wave BBQ, and the fact he’s done it in the heartland is all the more impressive. It just goes to show, after all the talk and posturing and secret recipes, it’s nerdy food obsession that wins plaudits, fans, ‘top 5’ magazine articles and the mother of all queues.
If you’re in Austin (blag a SXSW trip, seriously) and you care enough about meat, or at least want to know just how good BBQ can get, then I wholeheartedly recommend the Franklin experience. The ‘best in the world’ lists it features on are definitely deserved. If you’re a queue hater and don’t understand why the hell someone would wait that long for a bog standard cut of beef they’re forced to eat for elevenses, then you probably haven’t read this far.
- Simon.
- The Lucky Chip T-bone steak at the Sebright Arms, Hackney
★[TAG-TEAM REVIEW] Bukowski Grill / BOXPARK / Shoreditch, London
Rob
Oh my giddy aunt, where to start with this one.
Trust the entrepreneurs of Shoreditch to create a pop-up mall from things:
a) Michael Bay blows up in an average action sequence.
b) The unscrupulous use to move illegal immigrants about.
Shipping container locale aside, the feel of Bukowski Grill is weird: it’s got hints of a classic muted diner (the low hanging lamps, the Americana-heavy musak), but oddly crossed with a rustic feel. It was as if someone had bunged a short order cafe in the middle of the woods. Of Shoreditch.
Anyway.
Now, regular readers will know our opinions on the Open versus Closed bun issue. Well, when the cheeseburger arrived, we were confronted with a burger prep paradox: it was a closed bun. BUT, the pickles were on side AND there were no condiments inside. Completely unsauced.
As for the burger itself, the meat was pretty good, interestingly seasoned with what we though was a hint of porkiness. Bun was crunchy, and perhaps over toasted. The double gloucester cheddar was far too overbearing in the burger and overpowers the subtle flavour of the burger entirely. All condiments are hand made, and the mayo has a nice garlicky finish to it, but the only mustard on the premises they had was a pungent Dijon-esque horseradish variety. Odd choice for a burger joint that doesn’t serve roast beef.
Also slightly unsettling are the strange deli nuisances about the place: they offer a foccacia burger bun, which they’ll probably find doesn’t get ordered much at all. At least we hope not.
As for the other burger we ordered. Oh dear.
This motherfucker (legitimate swears, it’s called the Mother F) cut in half looked like a prop limb from a Saw movie.
We like our burgers rare to medium but one of these patties was raw to the point that it was still cold in the middle. You could see the fat. Despite some reservations, we persevered, under the impression that this was how was supposed to be. We stopped when nearing the middle. It was cold.
Now, disclaimer time, it was only their second day of opening. BUT, it was hardly super busy and they weren’t rushed off their feet (we were there around 3pm). The sous chef was eager to replace the burger for us, but due to time constraints, we had to leg it. So they were very kind in taking 50% off the already discounted bill (20% off for an introductory period). The service was great. The chips were nice.
Simon
What more to say.
Well, the boxes in the BOXPARK itself are adorable. Super cute.
As for the Bukowski Grill itself, the key point Rob hasn’t touched on, and one that is not apparent until you get into the place itself, is that this is a Spanish Burger Joint.
I have had one memorable Spanish burger, and that was at a branch of Ferran Adrià’s maladroitly named Fast Good in Madrid.
Once you embrace the Iberian heritage, a lot of the operational choices seem to make some kind of sense. At least a little bit.
The tomato on the burger is dehydrated (oven dried they call it). The brioche bun (I also balked at the focaccia option) is perfectly fine, but arrives completely unsauced. The mayo is an a squeezy bottle. The homemade ketchup is in a Heinz bottle. The aforementioned mustard is completely unsuitable and in a jar. There was also some chutney or something, for no discernible reason.
Now, the cheeseburger itself was perfectly satisfactory. Relatively unfussy. A solid C+. The beef is cooked in a baby Josper grill. An adorable thing itself, but not particularly well suited to cooking a burger. You get better results from a flat-top, and considering they’re not serving steaks, this seems like an expensive and unsuitable arrangement. It also means the cheese can’t be cloched. Combine that with a dense, heavy cheddar and a burger already lacking in wetness, it doesn’t come together well.
I won’t labour further on the poisonously undercooked Mother F. They were apologetic enough at the time and I’m sure they’ll sort their Josper timings out.
What with burger competition increasing week to week in London, I don’t think we’ll be back.
Afterword
Charles Bukowski is one of my favourite authors, and as a result I was hoping that the style and ethos of his work would be reflected in this place. Apart from the old school typewriter font menus (Bukowski fact - he used knackered portable Underwood typewriters in his early correspondence and writing), it isn’t. At all. Sad times.
- Rob.
[ON TOUR] Kobe Beef + Pulled Pork Sliders / Slammin’ Sliders Truck / Los Angeles, CA
“I guess I expected more from something with ‘Kobe’ in the title…”
Sadly, the story of where I had to go to find this truck is *far* more interesting than the food that came from it: I found myself on USC’s Fraternity Row during some mental party night. Not only did I feel like a weird, peckish paedophile - trying not to look at any of the scantily clad sorority girls walking from frat house to frat house. But simultaneously, I felt like I was in some irreverent college film, so familiar did the surroundings feel to my moviephile self. Odd.
The beef sliders were distinctly unimpressive.
Uncondimented.
After adding some ketchup to them they tasted almost identical to McDonald’s cheeseburgers, just with slightly better meat - not necessarily a bad thing, I like the way they taste, but I guess I expected more from something with ‘Kobe’ in the title.
The pork sliders looked great, but the pork was really dry, with no BBQ sauce to accompany it. The slaw, whilst a colourful spectacle, tasted like crunchy-but-watery mayo and failed to moisten the pork.
In their defence, I did catch the place just as it was about to close, so maybe I didn’t get the freshest peak-time fare, but it turned me off going back there, and left me thinking that a good slider is always hard to find, even in the States.
- Rob.
