White Rabbit, Dalston, www.whiterabbitdalston.com

I am about to be effusive. Apologies. One of my first reviews was of Mr Buckleys on Hackney Road. Summary: small, small plates, big prices. Last night I went to what Mr Buckleys was obviously modelled on, White Rabbit. I am glad I went to Mr Buckleys first because had I been made to compare it to White Rabbit it would have been given a Winner style savaging.

So White Rabbit is set just off Kingsland Road on a side street which is dotted with various cocktail bars and art boutiques. By the furious building activity which was going on at 11pm it seems there will be a few more appearing soon.

The restaurant is light and open, all exposed wood and mismatched chairs. This style is obviously de rigour East at the moment, however, it has dabbled in a bit of white paint which gives it a much cleaner look than most others. It has a good cocktail list and I am not sure whisky lovers would approve of a 12 year old malt being mixed with amaretto but god damn it, it tasted good.

The menu was a mixture of small plates from the stove or their huge wood burning oven. We chose far too many dishes, still scarred from Buckleys experience and ended up getting the food sweats by the end. There were some really clever dishes, including butternut squash with smoked yoghurt with ash and honeycomb. I am not sure how you smoke yoghurt, but if any vegetarians fancy finding out what they are missing they need to try it. This small plate for a v reasonable £7 could have easily done for a main. I elected for ox cheek with pearl barley which was a huge hunk of meat which scared the vegetarian at the table. Always a good thing. The other highlight was the waffles – imagine McCoy’s crisps in 3D – they were lattice potatoes deep fried and crispy like crisps but still chunky and potatoey. Two waitresses tried to explain how they made them but I still didn’t get it, I just knew I should pity the most junior person in the kitchen. Other dishes included braised chicory with Colten Basset cheese which was punchy and some crab cakes which were sound. Every dish was a winner and there were at least 10 more that I would have been more than happy to try. The only criticism I could level against this place is the unisex toilets. No, just no, the world is still not ready I am afraid….

 This is probably the best place I have eaten in this neck of the woods in terms of a ‘proper’ restaurant with good value for money and food. Winner all round.

Mezcaleria Quiquiriqui, Hackney Road, http://quiquiriqui.co.uk/

If you are ever walking along Hackney Road, frustrated that on one side Essex louts are bringing down the tone of Shoreditch and on the other side everywhere is shut, then stop at the Golden Grill a kebab shop opposite the delightful Mecca bingo. Because not only will you get polystyrene trays full of tasty meat but you will also be close to a local mezcal bar.

Although there are stairs down to MQ in the kebab shop, you need to leave your garlic sauce (or take it) and take the outside entrance downstairs into the bar for extra Mexico City style seediness. The cracked tiles and peeling wallpaper on the stairs wasn’t Shoreditch effect raggedness, it was more the never ever been done up effect. On  my descent , I was very confused and nervous but on opening what I think I remember as being a white garden door, I was presented with an amazing dark and seedy (in a good way - actually, is there a bad way?) dive bar with decent music and a real life DJ.

Being as it was a mezcal bar I elected to get two double mezcals. When in Rome, do what could potentially make the Romans puke. Firstly the staff were amazingly kind enough to give me my mezcals for a few quid cheaper due to it being 1am and being cashless. Nice touch. They then gave us a cup of orange slices scattered with chilli flakes which you bit in to after each sip. That suggests you are meant to sip these dangerous drinks. However, my friend obviously tried to neck his double with disastrous results. The bar itself was busy but you could still get served quickly and the DJ was decent. 

This place is  a very safe option for a night out which will challenge the only other usual option of going to Efes for a second night in a row. The kebab is also obligatory on leaving, but alas they don't do fajitas or guac which is whack. 

Oh, and bring chalk as the walls have blackboard paint on which to write expletives.

Duke's Bru and Que, http://dukesbrewandque.com/

Last Saturday morning I woke up next to a blonde with a pretty eye staring at me. Unfortunately the eye never blinked and was tattooed onto the arm of my male friend who I had spent the early morning hours engaging in various physical and mental challenges. Whilst others in our generation are dancing on a Friday night, drinking WKD and Aftershockz, we were timing each other doing planks in his flat and seeing who could stop a casio watch closest to 30 seconds. So waking up on a rank and rainy Saturday morning after sharing a bed with a man, which he had graced with a lady very recently, and with a hangover which wasn't too bad, given we were both drunk, we decided to check out Dukes Bre and Que.

On arriving we stood on the cusp of 15 tables and waited for someone to pick us up and lead us to some salty variety of pig, but our presence was met with the disinterest I normally reserve for the Metro.  After a few minutes of needily eyeing the collection of waitresses we boldly sat ourselves down, a move akin to the awkwardness of opening presents. We then waited to be swept up on the production line and recieve our menu. Despite eyeing the waitresses with arched necks and smiling faces, a manner which was quickly getting weird, obviously they didn't arrive and after a few more minutes I was worried we had missed a concept of self fulfillment and bravely went and gathered the menus from the central till (yes, I know, welsh thief alert).

20 minutes into our visit and we hadn't been engaged. I know neither of us had showered, and I was wearing clothes from the previous night, but god damn it, if someone in that state doesn't need a Bloody Mary, then the world is failing.

Eventually our waitress came (with a second set of menus in hand) and we got to order. I went for poached eggs on muffins with bacon and hollandaise and my bed partner chose the most expensive breakfast item I have ever seen (an eye wartering £14) of breadcrumbed steak, eggs and potatoes.

It looked like there were about 40 people in the kitchen and the food came out admirably quickly. The poached eggs seemed to have been done in cling film with plenty of white wine vinager and so shockingly tasted like water and vinager instead of egg. This technique produces good results in terms of shape and yolk but looks and tastes meh. The hollaindaise was average and muffins too thick and floury to be a respectable vessel for the eggs and bacon on top.

My friend's steak was an interesting dish with a breaded veal like quality. He enjoyed it though but his eggs suffered from the same issues and his empty plate had the unfortunate proof of opaque diluted sperm like white water sat on top. All in all it was a breakfast which was mutton dressed as lamb. It looked good, cost quite a bit, and the venue is excellent but the quality just wasn't there.

Dukes really could be a good place. It looks the part, has an extraordinary good looking clientele and staff and is in an excellent loco. Also the metal sink and foot Pump tap in the unisex toilet is a delight masking the wrongness of a unisex toilet. However for food it isn't quite good enough and the service is a bit random. I dread to think how it would handle a busy dinner time. Maybe that's part of its appeal, but on that outing I won't be rushing back to try the dinner menu

The Pembury Tavern, Amhurst Road, www.individualpubs.co.uk/pembury/

A Sunday Session of the mature kind to talk about this time. Given we were both horribly hungover the mid-afternoon pub session was replaced by a visit to Epping Forrest. Epping Forrest is only 23 mins from Bethnal Green, who knew? Obviously if the rest of Hackney did then it would be a full of people trying to recreate Withnail and I – but it wasn’t, so they don’t. Walking in the forest is normally reserved for old people and doggers but we went looking for sloe berries to infuse the finest gin Gordon could supply. After 4 hours of walking through mud we had about 12 berries, which does not equal the quarter pound needed to make sloe gin. Also, the quaint country pubs they talk about don’t actually exist in real life, they are full of weird towns people and late 90s food. So we returned to the safety of Hackney to get Sunday lunch.

Arriving back to Hackney I wanted a simple combination of non-Sunday roast food and she wanted a veggy Sunday roast. This is no mean feat, we went to the Broadway, the Cat and Mutton, the London Fields, considered Lardo and ended up in the Pembury Tavern. Now I hear some people shouting ‘why don’t you have roast you crazy welsh nutter’ – I don’t because they are not very good – meat, dry, soggy potatoes, gravy – Sunday roast is the most overrated food out there, after tuna. Oh, and they make pubs smell like cabbage.

However the Pembury Tavern satisfied both our wants. The PT menu on a Sunday covers your main roasts all at very reasonable prices. The veggie nut roast was a mere £8 (amazing compared to Cat and Mutton £14 for VEG!) and the Italian based menu is better than most Italian restaurants. I opted for a ‘Tagliolini Alluovo con polpa di granchio, Chorize & Chilli’ with handmade pasta. This is obviously not normal pub food, and it was the best pasta I have had in a while. The pasta was very light, almost noodle like and the sauce was a deep tomato ragu full of fish, chorizo and capers with a decent kick. It was a punchy dish and cost a ridiculous £8.95. The pub also serve loads of excellent pizzas (and a pizza burger…) and the garlic flatbread had enough garlic butter to make the brown paper it was placed on go as see through as cling film, basically amazing . The nut roast item was shockingly not dry and included a veggy gravy – at least she hoped it was veggy, who can really know. 

The pub itself is laidback and ramshackle in a good way. The beers and wines are cheap and actually really good, and generally you are a bit unlucky if you don’t get a table. This places seems like it is an after-work hangout. However with this menu, they could swap the shoddy chairs and tables with something from Ikea and get a tablecloth, and it could easily be a competitor with Soho’s finest Italian establishments – but hopefully they wont.

Rubys, Kingsland Road, http://rubysdalston.com/

5th blog in, and I am afraid I am going to succumb to the most annoying and overused simile  ‘it was like a tale of two cities’.Anyone who has read  Dickens’ masterpiece will know that basically Paris was full of garlic munching cousin shaggers sitting in their own swill, and London represented a fragrant utopia due to the guidance of our illustrious upper ranks (bar a few grave-robbers).

The bar which provoked me dabbling with this tragic phrasing was Ruby’s in Dalston. So let me begin.

The good:

- Amazing decor, hoxto-shabbiness and pleasant atmosphere

- Great music that provoked the phrase 'God damn it, is that Fleetwood Mother Fucking Mac'
- Very good and different drinks
- Not too full, busy but sitting room for most
- Friendly service
- A customisable cinema sign out front!

(So far, so utopitastic...)

The bad:

-  A round of drinks took 26 minutes

-  A round of drinks took 26 minutes
-  A round of drinks took 26 minutes

So let's pick up the minor point of the 26 minute wait. This isn't 26 minutes from the time of finishing our drinks, it is 26 minutes from ordering, being told in disbelief that it would take 20 minutes and then bitterly timing it. This happening at 9pm on a Saturday night, when you are trying to get out of your mind so you can love Efes, is not helpful in anyway. It is also amazing how awkward conversation can get when soberness kicks in half way through a Saturday night and you begin to realise how much of a dick you look. When I asked whether it would be slow because the girls had shown stepford wife mentality and ordered the same 2 drinks between 8 of them, they laughed - I forgot, never, ever, rush a 'mixologist'. It was like requesting a souffle in a restaurant and being warned it may take a while, but you don’t normally mind, because, at the end of the day, you are drinking.

But, being from London I am going to be the better man, because to be fair, when we moaned about the prep time they provided us with a free Sambucca. This didn't  help reignite us after 30 minutes of sobriety, but was a kind offer. It was an annoying night because I really wanted to like this place, and we all did, but it was still a pain. I would definitely recommend coming here if you wanted a date to end with some loving. It is perfect for that, it is not perfect for fun in a large group. Which is a shame, because it should be.

 

Stingray-Globe Cafe, Columbia Road http://www.stringraycafe.co.uk/stringray_globe

Now that I have started on debauchery I may as well carry on– as they say go big or go home…

I often wake up on Sunday still quite drunk and have quite a fixed routine – it follows like thus:

10am– Wake up slightly shaking and dizzy

11am– Start mission to get sugar based products, Yazoo and Sunday papers
12pm– Read papers and bitch about whatever is ‘going up or going down’
2pm– Achieve hydration and get bored
3pm– Go to the pub for ‘food’
4pm– Realise everyone else has same idea, drink standing up and wait for seat
8pm– Eat hammered in different establishment
9pm- Vague

This is routinely referred to as the fabled ‘Sunday Session’or S². It has destroyed lesser people, it has caused many embarrassing Mondays in work and it has even caused the odd rave. Its unpredictability is what sets it apart from the Saturday mash up with the danger of Mondays inevitable awfulness.

Last Sunday I stuck so rigidly to the timetable above it was like I had a diary secretary. Having spent 5 hours festering we walked a whole ten yards to the Royal Oak – but as mentioned before, tables are like finding hens’ teeth (I hate this phrase) and so we proceeded to drink and hope one of the very settled tables of patrons would leave the log fire pub. They didn’t. However, in the darkest hour often springs opportunity so we skipped 20 yards down Columbia Road and went to the Stingray Globe Café.

The Globe Stingray Café is the stuff of legend – a slightly ramshackle pizza place which knocks out decent food cheaply. The legend is, pleasingly, very true. We were seated within 20 minutes, after having some v cheap red wine by the fire, and were offered free olives as an apology for the delay (BONUS). The menu boasts the standard range of pizzas, and a variety of changing dishes, such as Italian sausage with cous cous (£4). Noticing the pizzas resembled bin lids in size and the calzone looked like a rugby with tomato sauce on top, we opted for two pizzas between three. Feeling classical, we went for pepperoni and a less classical Mexicana – the pizzas were the anticipated bin lid size, very light and fresh tasting and all for the princely sum of £6. The toppings are decent but definitely not artisan – this is much more about tasty comfort food than seasonal produce sourced from the Italian wilderness. Stingray is almost always busy and the type of cheap local food place people would kill a flower shopper for.

Anyplace which does a pizza and beer for £6.50 between 5-7pm is a little bit special. It even does a crowd pleasing bannoffee pie for desert for about 3 quid. You walk away stuffed and drunk on the £12 wine (white good, red ropey) with enough change from a twenty to ensure that your Sunday session is finished with a few debrief pints somewhere else. The less said about Monday morning the better.

 

Royal Oak, Columbia Road, Netil House and the Cat and Mutton, London Fields ( royaloak.com , netilhouse.com , catandmutton.com )

This blog so far has been remarkably undebauched. So to avoid falling foul to the internet accuracy police, I have attempted to correct it this weekend through visits to various pubs in the area.

The first establishment was the Royal Oak – this Columbia Road pub is a stalwart of the East London pub landscape and has been known to be frequented by Alexa Chung (this is according to my girlfriend so probably give that 60% chance of being correct). You get it all here, the barmen obviously all have tatts, you don’t normally get seats, people dwell at tables over the Guardian weekend magazine and criticise the blind date section - but essentially, it is a great pub. I wouldn't eat here, as a non-banker I have a bit of an aversion to main courses which cost over £13. Steak doesn't count, but the staple items on the menu being around 15 quid is too much. Some owners may claim quality but plenty of places now manage to hit the £12 mark and are excellent (Market Cafe - I am looking at you with thumbs up). Leaving the Oak - where a Bloody Mary costs a very friendly  £4.50 (chefs, take note of your barman’s pricing policy) I set out to continue my saturday drinking to Costcutter. I shan't review this, all you need to know is that it has a cash machine with the language option of cockney, and shop assistants who probably carry guns, in a friendly ‘protect your neighbourhood’ type of way. 

 

Netil360 or Netil House is a non-pretentious private members’ club. Hhhmmmm. It presents a friendly atmosphere with yurts, hot tubs and amazing rooftop views over London. This place makes a lot of sense in the balmy summer, but coming in November isn't great. It is obviously cold and horribly exposed, and despite gallons of (bring your own) booze, a few hours of the type of exposure normally experienced by Sir Ralph Fiennes, leaves you wanting to cry. I will come back here in the summer, mainly to see more (unpretentious) people in yurts by London Fields and attempt to sneak in more booze to avoid the corkage prices – my crotch is not THAT impressive.

Leaving Netil House we decamped to the Cat and Mutton. It sits adjacent to London Fields, and is definitely a decent and civilised boozer. They have plenty of table and not much standing room but upstairs they have a bit more space for tangoing or whatever, and often have live music courtesy of the chaps at Hoxton Radio. You can’t really go wrong with this pub, although I would recommend booking a table if you are planning on eating to avoid awkwardly standing round the small bar staring at people eating, like one of the homeless chaps in residence opposite. Expect a fuller review once I have managed to get a table here.

Jones Dairy, Erza Street, http://www.jonesdairy.co.uk/

A lot of places in Hackney feel quite planned. A well rehearsed restaurant is not necessarily a bad thing but there are some occasions when you receive a receipt with a smiley face on, and you question whether the whole experience is designed to illicit happiness. There is only so much carbon filament light bulbs  and cutlery in metal tubs one can stare at in an admiring manner before one starts to feel coaxed.

So when something pops up which is accidently authentic, it is very pleasing. Jones Dairy Cafe is one of these places. On an alley off Columbia Road, the place is inevitably empty for 6 days a week due to people thinking that after the Sunday flower market the street disappears. Turning up on a Saturday morning the place felt like somewhere rural which had forgotten about the agreed gentrification of East London. The grill had broken, they had beetroot juice which was heavy on beet and supplied my partner with lip stains which supplanted lip stick for the weekend, and the receipt was handwritten. This is not somewhere which has a focus group to decide to hand write receipts, they just don’t have a modern till. I opted for poached eggs on toast which were excellent, any place which supplies Marmite as a condiment is obviously a winner. It also has a wood burning oven in the corner and does single oysters which leads to an atmosphere closer to a Norfolk farmhouse than an East London establishment. Prices are very reasonable and when we went there, there was only one menu for the entire place which amused. If it started doing Bloody Marys it would quickly become my go to destination whilst hungover on a Saturday morning.

El Paso, 350-354 Old Street, Shoreditch, http://www.elpasohoxton.com

Between the ages of 13-18 my favourite night out was, of course, TGI Friday. It had everything a young Cardiff lad could dream of, milkshakes with biscuits in, chicken wings in a variety of 'sticky' flavours and, best of all, fajitas which came in a tower with a sizzling, and potentially hand scolding, plate. Shockingly I now approach tex mex establishments with certain trepadation, but having spotted El Paso on the 55 bus several times I thought I would take a mexi-risk and go for it. 

The first thing you notice is that the place is decked out in the Shoreditch uniform of mismatched chairs and retro tables, but then you see the menu and notice that it's CHEAP. I haven't seen a pint of decent beer (Red Stripe) for 3 quid since 2002, and you will get change from a tenner from all but one dish on the menu. My wallet was happy and then my stomach was happy.

The fajitas came with a sizzling plate, standard, and they were actually good. It is always a good sign when you have too much filling for your wraps. The chicken was flavoured in a non aggressive manner and the veg was touched up with courgettes and carrots, that is michelin for a mexicana  place. My guest had a deep fried vegetarian burrito (chimichanga) which was all that you expect deep fried cheese to be, excellent.

It was quiet on the night we went, which is odd as the place is off Hoxton square, cheap and not dominated by cunts. El Paso wont trouble Heston but when you want a nice quick meal it will make you happy. It also advertises itself as a 'workspace', i do not know what this means but if you do then it can only aid your experience.  

The Sebright Arms, 31-35 Coate Street, www.sebrightarms.co.uk

So after a civil first post, let’s move onto a bit more debauchery. The Sebright Arms on a Friday night is definitely one of the best venues in East London. Located off Hackney road down an inauspicious passageway, it manages to have a local feeling rather than the Megabus from Essex vibe you get from some East boozers on a Friday night. In terms of the atmosphere, it resembles an old man’s rugby club, complete with long red velvet effect seats which should have been refurbed 30 years ago but managed to avoid modernisation's fate and now look the part again.  Plenty of beers and ciders (up to the danger zone 10% mark) allows fussy people who are too good for Carling and ‘Bow to also be happy. To complete, it also has resident food from Lucky Chip burgers, which are arguably, and I am happy to have this argument – the best in London – and also cheap. This place is good, the only criticism I can level against the place is that doesn’t have a late license upstairs but this is merely bitching so I dont look like I work there. Otherwise I could die here. 

Mr Buckleys, Hackney road

My first review of Hackney's finer establishments is a 3 minute stroll from my flat on Hackney Road, pretty close to the Marksmen. It only opened last week and I was excited about having a cliche east London dining establishment so close. It has exposed brick, sultry lighting, tables straight from the wood mill, incredibly pleasant waiting staff, food combinations which make you appreciate why you aren't a chef and it obviously serves the wine in tumblers. I should be writing a gushing review which recommends you visit my new local, but sadly, I am not. 

We started the meal with cocktails, my concoction of three ingredients took a whole 7 minutes just to stir (I do not recommend dwelling on how the barman has this wrist power),a bourbon with plum bitters, people who hate whisky or bourbon should drink this to discover a world they are missing, it was very good. For the food Mr Buckleys has gone with the 2011 trend of small plates, something I really enjoy, the Roundhouse restaurant, Made in Camden, is well worth a visit to see the perfect execution of this style. Mr Buckleys executed it with similar distinction, but served dishes which were about 55% too small and made you wonder whether they were short on supplies, sourcing it from a magical land or taking the piss. 

Among the several dishes we had highlights included Ox Cheek with Dumplings, the cheek was tender and the dumplings were dumpy in a good way but you couldn’t help but eat each scrap of ox in the fashion of Oliver Twist but without having the wee scamp's balls to ask for some more. Other memorable plates from the menu were incredible fennel fritters with aioli which should be used by vegetarians to discover the beauty of calamari - light, salty and crispy. The pumpkin dip was excellent but the half a pitta bread portion of flat bread (for £4) meant you finished it using your fingers as dip vessels. The deserts were all around the £7 mark which is a guilty cost too far for a guilty post meal sugar fix, this is Hackney not the Ivy. We finished the meal and gazed at the table like Glen Hoddle in France ’98 thinking about what might have been, such potential wasted…. a clear theme is emerging, basically if you go to Mr Buckleys you will have an excellent meal, but you will leave hungry and poor. If they halve the dish price or double the dish quantity this place will be justifiably rammed with happy and beautiful people.

To note, it also has a bar downstairs for those who like to eat but dont like to dance - I still don't fully understand this - but it is pretty.