Brockley Market - Brockley Brewery - Hackney Brewery - Drink Feast

Saturday 14th December - It's over nearly three months since my excursion to Brockley Market, but it's on every Saturday so let's just pretend it was last week, ok?

Sister Jo emigrated to Brockley a couple of years ago, and I finally made it out there before Christmas with the draw of a trip to Brockley Market sealing the deal.  The market is open every Saturday from 10am-2pm in Lewisham College Car Park.  The closest station is in fact St. John's, but it is a pleasant 10 minute walk away from both Brockley and Lewisham.

The market has a little bit of everything - cakes, cheese, wine, chocolate, meat, beer, and some of London's best street food traders.  On the stalls front, we were particularly taken with the Cinnamon Tree Bakery shortbread owls, and pretty much everything at the Vadasz Deli pickles & sauerkraut stand - Kimchi kraut, sprout kraut & garlic & dill kraut all went down very nicely.

Outside of Kerb & Street Feast, Brockley Market has the best selection of street food traders every week.  Van Dough, Mother Flipper, Ruby Violet, Tongue & Cheek (currently in The Joker), Fleischmob (currently in Hand of Glory) and more packed in to the market on our visit.  

We started with one of Mike + Ollie's incredible Lamb Flatbread Wraps, one of the most delicious street food options in London.  Look out for their supper clubs.  Our second main was a large pile of Memphis BBQ Turkey Poutine from Spit & Roast - a heart warming plate of chips covered in cheese curds, turkey mince, and gravy.  Their Buttermilk Fried Chicken bap with Korean hot sauce is also a winner.

Mike + Ollie Lamb Flatbread Wrap

We finished off with a dosant (cronut, cro-dough etc etc) from Kooky Bakes, surprisingly my first foray into the over-hyped croissant vs doughnut field.  Flavours were good, but the pastry had an almost oily taste to it that didn't sit right.  I'll give them another chance, I'm sure.

There are plenty of other lovely places to stop off in Brockley if you want to make a day of it.  You could take a stroll through Hillyfields to find a couple of stalls and Pistachios in the Park.  The Gantry is a sophisticated little restaurant with separate cosy rooms downstairs - people spill out the front & there is seating in the garden in the summer.  The Orchard is a friendly bar & kitchen with comfy seats, nice lighting, boardgames and books. Brockley's Rock is not your average fish & chip shop, with the likes of Grilled Seabass and Salmon on the menu.

We paid a quick visit to the relatively new Brockley Brewery which opens up to the public on Saturdays (normally 10-2 ish but check Facebook or Twitter).  They have bottles & posters to buy, milk cartons to fill up, and fresh beer for sale including Pale Ale, Red Ale & Golden Ale.  They are launching a Porter today (March 7th) and having a One Year Birthday Bash on March 14th with craft beer and live local bands from 8-11pm.

Brockley may be getting more great beer soon in the form of LDN Dispensary, another beer & burger bar from the Late Knights Brewery team after the success of Beer Rebellion in Gipsy Hill.  Peckham & Penge are also on the cards.

My phone charger was on the fritz, so I had to be careful to link up with people at exact times all day and use numbers written down on actual paper (who knew it was still useful?), hence why I met up with friend Sam for a brief hour in Horniman at Hay's for a couple of pints and the use of his phone. It's a great spot for a drink if you can get a seat outside on the river looking out at HMS Belfast, but it does get packed after work.

After that, I worked my way over to Hoxton for 5pm to link up with my final carer for the evening, Tom.  We were on our way over to Drink Feast but decided to poke our heads into the Hackney Brewery en route.  They don't have a taproom but were happy to chat to us over a beer as they cleaned up for the day.

They have been up and running for 2 years, which makes them pretty old on the London beer scene. Their Best Bitter and American Pale Ale are regular pints for me around London - highly recommended. They are in high demand, so perhaps a bigger kit / space beckons in the not too distant future for expansion.

Finally, we made it to Drink Feast - an ambitious "immersive" bar event from Offbeat that ran all weekend in the wonderful Hoxton Docks.  They gathered some of London's best bars together, designed the space like a film set, and brought in some amusing actors to tie it all together - sounds bonkers, but it worked.

We started off at an apothecary bar chatting to an enthusiastic doctor before moving on to the Travelling Gin Co., a pop-up drinks project serving up gin-based cocktails from their bicycle bars. They plan to make their own gin in the future, but already have their own Colonial Tonic (a collaboration with Ebeltoft Farm Brewery) made using Cinchona Tree bark that provides a natural source of quinine.  The result is a bitter sweet tonic, golden brown in colour, that is a million miles from Schweppes.  I experimented with it at home with the likes of Gordon's, Bombay Sapphire & Hendricks, and found lots of new flavours coming through.  Keep track of their blog to see where they might be popping up next.

The boys from Nola were down whipping up Hurricanes and more as usual - make sure you go for the full live music & cocktails experience at their bar above Bedroom Bar in Shoreditch.  Pisco Fuego brought a sample of their Latin drinking & dining experience down with their medicine-bottled cocktails.

We made some new friends outside the Hoxton Docks tequila & sangrita bar (cosily tucked into a shipping container) before heading over to the Kindred Spirits bar.

Kindred Spirits was a pop-up bar shared between Bán Poitín and Vestal Vodka.  I was already very familiar with Vestal Vodka after going on an awesome Vestal Voyage cocktail canal trip on Regent's Canal last year.  They are still running the experience regularly and I highly recommend taking them up on it! There was a decadent Drink Feast option of arriving in to the Hoxton Docks space on the Vestal Voyages boat.

Bán & Vestal - Kindred Spirits

Vestal owner William Borrell was on hand to chat about their superb range that really are a cut above most of the competition, from the creamy Kazebe vodka to the hard-to-find Amber Elderflower liqueur. They have also recently teamed up with Dalston Cola to make a vodka coke worth drinking!

Sharing the bar were Bán, a boutique spirit company bringing back Poitín, a very strong Irish distilled spirit that was banned for over 300 years - it can clock in anywhere between 40%-90%.  At 52.7%, most people will want to mix Bán but it is drinkable on its own!  Cara from Bán made us two fantastic flaming Leprechaun Zombies (see below) that were dangerously quaffable.  The best place to sample Bán in London is definitely Shebeen - an Irish bar with generous happy hours tucked below Kentish Canteen, dedicated to Poitín.

Shoreditch Grind were doing a roaring trade, shifting Espresso Martinis as fast as they could.  Barchick were also tucked away in a corner, running a bonkers little disco bar - they seemed to be having a pretty good time themselves with the limbo combined with shots keeping them entertained.

Shoreditch Grind

Our favourite bartenders of the night were the guys from Bon Vie Recruitment who looked after the Ruski's stall for the night. Ruski's is a vodka & caviar tavern, which is currently moving to a new location after opening briefly in High Street Kensington opposite their sister venue Bodo's Schloss at the end of last year.

We sampled a fair amount of the very drinkable smooth Belenkaya vodka, before Tom got into a lengthy discussion with one of the character actors about conductor Valery Gergiev and anti-gay legislation in Russia - whether she was interested (or indeed Russian) or not, she kept a straight face and earnestly chatted away.

We ended the evening listening to to Benoit Viellefon & His Orchestra, an excellent gypsy jazz band that I coincidentally seen for the first time days before at The Last Word.  If hot club swing jazz is your thing, then you need to get yourself over to Le Quecumbar in Battersea.

There were street food trucks on hand to soak up some of the booze - they were quite hard to find, but allowed the bars to take centre stage.

Offbeat really pulled it off at Drink Feast, and I am glad they are doing it all again this summer.  My photos don't do justice to the stunning event that they created, and the friendly atmosphere with actors & bartenders joining forces was a joy to experience.  Pre-release tickets go on sale on 1st April - put that date in your diary, and I'll see you there!

Source - Boopshi's - Kitchenette

I tried out four new restaurants this week, three of which have made it into this post.  The fourth one is coming, don't worry (I think there are enough pictures of tables & lights for one post).  I will, for memory-related reasons, go through them in reverse order.

Wednesday 27th October - First up is my new local restaurant, Source, which has just opened up in the old Ransome's Dock site in Battersea.  After 21 years in charge of Ransome's Dock, Martin and Vanessa Lam finally shut up shop in August, paving the way for another couple, Johan and Elsa De Jager, to open their first restaurant together.  They have worked all over including at Sophie's Steakhouse (just over the river), The Square (in Mayfair) and Eleven Madison Place (in New York).

 Head Chef James Adams (River Café) - Johan & Elsa De Jager

We started at the long bar - Crate Lager & Stout are available on tap in 2/3 pints, and Johan was on hand to whip up some house cocktails. The Fall Classic (Bourbon, Calvados, Thyme and Cider) was particularly well balanced.  Gin is well represented behind the bar with top bottles of Dodd's Gin from the local London Distillery (2 minutes away) and Boxer Gin from West London (check out their Boxing Club popup here).  Glasses of wine start at £3.50 and bottles start at £23 - you can see the full wine list here.

Source is a good looking place - it is beautifully lit at night, both outside and in, and will come into its own in Summer when they can open up all the doors and almost double their covers with tables approaching the dock.  A two man team called Offcut has done the majority of the lighting, woodwork and metalwork, and their hard work has really paid off.

The name Source refers to the natural water spring that flows directly beneath their restaurant.  For every £1 bottle sold, they donate 80p to the Magic Breakfast charity that provides free, healthy breakfasts to schools all over London.  The other 20p goes straight into looking after their filtration system.

Now for the main event - the food.  James Adams and his team "aim to simply showcase the best of seasonal British ingredients".  As is so often the way, choosing your starter is the hardest bit.  Luckily there were 5 of us, so we worked our way through the delicious Artichoke dip (£7), Rillette (meat paté - £6), Pumpkin Salad (one of the highlights of the meal - £7) and two portions of Crab Toast (£12 but a very generous helping).  Everyone had serious food envy so a lot of swapping went on.

Mains range from £12-18, unless you are there for a weekday lunch when there are several options available at £9 or £11, including large plates of the aforementioned Pumpkin Salad and the Macaroni, Squash, Cheese which we had as a side.  We unintentionally ignored the fishy Cod, Sole and Salmon options and instead went for Rabbit Ragu, Jacob's Ladders (not the children's toy or a ladder to heaven, but a popular cut of beef) and Mutton which were all beautifully cooked and unpretensiously presented.

Rabbit Ragu with Tagliatelle

Our friendly and informative waiter was always on hand for advice, and suggested we order the Broccoli, Almond and Cranberry starter with our sides of Winter Greens, Braised Chicory & Bacon, and Macaroni, Squash & Cheese.  We didn't take much convincing, and I would happily come back and let the chefs pick my food all evening, such is the consistency of quality on show at Source.

Last but not least, we had a little bit of space left for their excellent dessert list.  After describing the Doughnut Ice Cream Sandwich as "sex on a plate", every man on the table ordered it - well played, sir. It is a ridiculously creation (see below) that can easily be shared between two, and should be ordered by at least one person.  Congratulations to them for not trying to amalgamate all four words (Icedoughwich?) to spark a Cronut style media frenzy.  The comforting Bourbon Bread & Butter Pudding was the stand out choice for me, although I have it on good authority that their Pear & Almond Tart is superb.

Doughnut Ice Cream Sandwich

I haven't had a better 3 course meal in a long time, and the atmosphere and service was lovely all evening.  Johan & Elsa were charming hosts, and they should do very well here.  Sunday Roasts look tempting with Hogget and Ribeye currently on the menu, and they also open at breakfast when you can have Caravan coffee and Bread Bread bread (had to be done) from an artisan bakery in Brixton.  You can reserve tables on their website here, though they will always hold back a few tables for walk-ins.

Tuesday 26th November - The day before Source, I made my way over to Goodge Street to try out Boopshi's, an Austrian Scnitzel & Spritz bar/restaurant run by two brothers (Ed and Ben Robson). Their grandparents (whose recipes have inspired the food) used to call each other Boopshi, hence the name.  Décor is on the minimal side (it wouldn't look out of place in Hackney Wick), but it doesn't really matter when you are munching your way through comfort food.

In the upstairs restaurant, there are 6 Spritzes to choose from, ranging from £7.50-9.50.  Sister Jo (my sibling, rather than a nun) went for #4 - Sour Cherry Wine, Morello Cherry, Sherbert and Prosecco (which they have on tap).  They all turn up in wonderful Malea glasses (similar to my favourite Coppa glasses) which give the illusion of your drink being double the normal size.

They have smartly partnered up with Camden Town Brewery who have created the very drinkable Boopshi's Brüder Lager for them, after the bros rocked up at the brewery with their schnitzel-mobile a couple of months ago.

For your schnitzel fix, you can choose between Wiener (Rose Veal - £14.50), Rare Breed Pork (£11.50) and Chicken (£10.50) with optional toppings of Duck Egg, Hen Egg (is that just a regular egg?), Anchovies and Capers.  Naturally, Sister Jo, Luke and I ordered one of each type, and I wapped a duck egg on top of mine for good measure.  They are pricey once you take the sides and toppings into account, but the portions are massive.  Speaking of sides, the Sauerkraut was delicious as was the Spatzle'n'Cheese, though I would prefer some crunchier onions on top. They are thinking about turning the latter into a main course.

If schnitzel isn't your thing, there are several other mains including Frittaten Soup, Ox Tongue, Smoked Eel, Bratwurst, and an impressive Whole Globe Artichoke.

Trout with Spinach, Bacon and Mushrooms - Frittaten Soup

Despite a slightly off-putting view (see picture below), we moved on to pudding.  I went for a generous helping of Grandma Oma's Apple Strudel, which had a little kick thanks to some 80% Stroh and caraway seeds. Jo went for the Kaiserschmarnn (deconstructed pancake with fruits/jam) rather than a slice of Sachertorte or Poppy Seed Tart.

A trip to the toilets (which have mysteriously been designed for hobbits) revealed the downstairs bar, which has a completely different vibe to upstairs.  They have a separate cocktail list with some interesting creations including a Sachertorte Sour, Continental Treacle (with raisin-infused cider) and a Boopshi's Martini (with gin, kummel and optional pickle juice).

Sachertorte Sour, Holy Moly Negroni & Marillan Smash

It was a very comforting meal which all three of us thoroughly enjoyed.  It could be cheaper, especially on the drinks front, but it is right in the centre of London.  It is great to see them sticking to their Austrian roots right through the drinks menu, and everyone was extremely friendly - I wish them well!

Saturday 23rd November - Last but not least is a new all day bar/brasserie in Putney called Kitchenette.  They are a Turkish restaurant chain with branches all over the world, but this is their first British site.  I went along with Sister Jo again (watch out Sister Em, she is catching up) for another three courses.

The first thing you encounter when you walk in is a big table covered in cakes and newspapers.  Their hope is that many passers by will come in for a quick slice of something and a coffee in the morning or after work/school - I certainly would if I was in the area, it is a very welcoming sight!  Sister Jo was running late after a minor baking disaster - if only she had known about the cake table...

The food is "Mediterranean" which seems to cover most of Europe - Chicken Schnitzel, Penne Ragu, Kul Basti, Ribeye Steak Café de Paris and Lamb Shank all make it on to the same menu.  This was a trial run though, and apparently more Turkish cuisine will be making an appearance soon.

We started off with two fantastic warm salads - Grilled Halloumi Salad with sneaky bits of grapefruit giving it a sharp edge, and Marinated Artichoke with an apple cider vinaigrette.  They were almost main course size, and I would find it hard not to order exactly the same again next time round.

For mains, we opted for the Kul Basti (lamb fillet) with sautéed potatoes and peppers, and Salmon with GIANT COUSCOUS (which is always smaller than I hope) and a pomegranate dressing.  The flavours were subtle (in a good way) and the dishes are great value at around £10.

We shared a deconstructed chocolate mousse (who knew you could deconstruct that?) with berries and cardamom, which was a little too bitter for us, but an interesting idea.  More standard Turkish delights (wahay) such as Baklava should now be on the menu, and there is always the cake table to pick from.

On the drinks front, they have Whitstable Pale on tap, as well as a very affordable cocktail menu (£6-8) to choose from.  The atmosphere was relaxed all evening, the food was eclectic and moreish, and the staff were delightful.  Another success!