[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] Theatreland Smackdown / Mishkin’s vs. Opera Tavern / Covent Garden, London
With the Opera Tavern still burning a hole in our burger To Do list, we thought it time to get around to sampling the high ranking Ibérico Pork and Foie Gras Burger. Unable to get through during the day and book over the blower, we thought we’d chance it. On a Friday night. Smart, right?
When we got there though, we were met with the predictably sharp intake of breath from the maître d’ and an hour long wait for a couple of seats at the bar. So what to do in the meantime? Well, Mishkin’s is right next door, so why not go and try the burger they were sold out of last time?
They have two stools at the bar free in the corner. Plan.
We set about some boss gin cocktails - one of which is brilliant because it’s served in a Tesco’s Finest jam jar.
We order a couple of 3oz steamed beef patties with onions & Swiss cheese. What promptly arrived was a half-size burger glistening with steam. Looking closer, it was clear - it’s a slider. It’s an actual fucking slider! None of this meatball in a bun bullshit. The patty had been cooked on the onions and then cheese added.
We’re ecstatic.
The patty was spot on medium, and juicy as hell, the flavour from the onions penetrating into the meat creating a really succulently rich onion gravy. The Swiss was TV advert stretchy, gooey, and popped a little cheesy nuttiness in. The bun was warm and pillow-soft from being steamed. Every bite was melty greatness. A triumph.
We get the call whilst paying the Mishkin’s tab that our space at the bar next door is free, so it’s a three second hop to the Opera Tavern for round two.
The burgers arrived, similarly sized, a blackened puck of meat tucked into a pale, floury bun.
One bite, and it immediately feels like you’re eating fancy home barbecue. The patty was expertly charred, giving it a hard crunchy crust, but within the soft and pink middle yielded easily. The pork had a deceptively beefy wallop, perhaps aided by the addition of the foie gras.
The floury bap was a touch disappointing, being a little dry. But the sweet onions, deeply infused with a rich red wine just about made up for it. A sprinkle of battered red onion added an additional unique crunch to the ensemble.
Finish Him!
But which is the mini-burger to rule them all? Whilst similar in size, they are both pleasingly contrasting, and served to split B/A opinion. Rob found it hard to fault the Mishkin’s slider, Simon preferred the freshness of the Tavern’s effort.
We say, screw it, do what we did and go eat both. They are next door to each other, how much more fortunate can you get!
Just a quick postscript on the Opera Tavern - we both agreed it was a superb establishment. The scotch egg and crispy pig’s ears were wonderful, as was the wine. We hope to go back for a less fleeting visit in the near future.
- 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.
[FOODTRUCK REVIEW] Cheesy Mac and Rib / Grilled Cheese Truck / Los Angeles, CA
Sometimes an idea comes along that is so simple, and yet so totally ingenious that you just have to stand up and slow clap the dudes that thought it up, ‘Lucas’ style. So we applaud the comfort food genius that is Los Angeles’ Grilled Cheese Truck.
What’s all the more awesome is that these guys take such a staple, classic, comfort food and reinvent it with panache too. It’s testament to how well they do it that I’ve seen queues for this mobile eatery easily stretch 20-plus long. Our first visit attempt was at the fairly legendary Abbot Kinney First Fridays festival in Venice. The trouble was we’d already tried five trucks by the time we spotted them. Dammit.
And those queues are there for good reason; their Cheesy Mac And Rib is hugely satisfying. The barbecue pork was saucy-sweet, soft and worthy of a place all of its own on a menu. The mac ‘n cheese was heavy on the gooey cheese, sticky yet still trying to escape from every opening, and hinted a savouriness that balanced with the pork brilliantly. One hell of a sandwich.
I’m pretty sure I put this away in under ten mouthfuls it was so good, and if we weren’t going on to somewhere else for more food, I would have had another. A bang up job, and a must for anyone In L.A. who has only got time to visit a handful of food trucks.
- Rob.
★[REVIEW] All Three Burgers / Brewdog / Camden, London
“I myself will own up to being a terrible burger chef. My burgers always turn out too dry, or else they are so moist they just fall apart; I have a tendency to choose the wrong bun and cheese; and my topping-to-meat ratio is usually off. The only thing I’m good at is making sauces for my burgers, but that’s cheating. There is a certain alchemy to a good burger that I don’t understand, and that’s part of why I really love I good burger joint burger.”
Tim Anderson, Masterchef winner and all-round good dude, writing about burgers on his blog in 2009.
Our first official burger of 2012 took us to the first London bolthole of punk rock Scottish craft brewers, Brewdog. We’d heard that its short ‘n sweet burger ‘n pizza menu had been designed by none other than Tim Anderson.
You know Tim. Off the telly. Beer geek. Proper palate skills. Terrifyingly knowledgeable. Has cooked at the Fat Duck and Noma and other places starred to the hilt. He’s a Wisconsinite, so he has a proper home ice advantage with American fare. With just three burgers on the menu we thought we’d give them all a go out of courtesy, and also because they’re really sodding cheap.
The burgers came out closed and already cut in half, which we thought was awfully polite of them as it made the proceeding obligatory burger split photos much quicker and easier.
First we tried the Cheeseburger, known as the Los Feliz. Now, this is one thoroughly enjoyable burger. While the beef is pretty compact, visibly pre-prepped and not specifically memorable taste-wise, the overall package makes it a relishable prospect. The Punk IPA sauce looks like a Marie Rose but tastes like a mild Thousand Island nuzzled up to a Franco American mustard, and even some wasabi in there somewhere. It coats the underbelly of the burger with a tickly heat but doesn’t overpower it. Alchemy.
Plus, they totally lob it on the top and bottom bun, making the end product saucy in a gratefully American way; all too rare here in London. The cheese was dirty and deftly melted, combining with the wicked-smart sauce.
On to the Curry Burger. It also has a name. We can’t remember it though, because by then we were a few ales in. Although this may seem like a bleedin’ obvious statement, it actually tasted like a mouthful of beefy curry.
Nice one, Tim. It’s a genuine one-of-a-kind.
The spicy heat-laden patty is surrounded by a sweet, tangy chutney and a fresh cucumber yoghurt, with some cheese thrown in for good measure. No burger is complete without it, am I right? Uncannily curry-like and burger-ish simultaneously, this surprised and delighted the table.
Finally, the pork burger. The most expensive by fifty pence or so, it’s a chunky puck of minced pork with a sauerkraut base, pickle and plenty of mustard. The vinegar hit was on the money here, a brilliantly unsubtle accompaniment for the beers on offer, but ultimately this was our least favourite of the three.
It occurred to us very quickly that at £4.95, the Los Feliz is the best budget cheeseburger in London. It’s cheaper than the competition and the closest to a proper American budget cheeseburger yet, without any faux gastro posturing. And if that’s not your thing, the curry burger makes other attempts at novelty burgers just flat-out embarrassing.
We highly recommend Brewdog if you need a place to eat a decent burger and sup a quality IPA before going to see the latest post-Gothcore math-dubstep band at the Underworld.
And what pre-fame Tim wrote back in 2009? We think he’s cracked it.
- Simon
- Rob (And even though it weirds me out to say it, being the purists we are, I’d probably go for the curry one if you have to choose. But i’d recommend you take someone else and split that and the cheeseburger. They cut them in half for fuck’s sake, it’s practically a share request!)
Special thanks to Friend of B/A Pete for helping us with this one.
[SANDWICH INSURRECTION] Keu! / Shoreditch / London / Banh Mi
This is a fantastic Banh Mi spot. Pick up the pork belly example and be amazed.
