Feast

Only once place to mention I hear you cry? Not quite... On Friday night (the 8th), Natalie (our current List leader) and I made our way to Shadwell near Wapping to attend Feast food festival in the Tobacco Dock building - an amazing 19th century warehouse complete with two pirate ships docked nearby!

We arrived almost as soon as it opened at 18.00 to get a few tasters in before the crowds arrived.  We had a quick scout around before starting with some freebies from Roti Chai - a delicious chicken chilli bun, dhokla (Gujurati steamed chickpea cake) and various chutneys. Their full street kitchen/restaurant menu looks very interesting - go and find them near Edgware Road.  We moved straight on to a Hix Fishdog - a posh fish finger sandwich with minted mushy peas and yummy tartare sauce for £3.50 (possibly my favourite item of the night) - my second Hix experience of the week after going to Mark's Bar on Wednesday (read about it here).

Next up we went to chat to the boys at The Bowler who serve Great British Balls out of their van, The Lawn Ranger. We went for spicy tomato meatballs with rice and coleslaw (£5 for 2 big meatballs, £3.50 for one - generous portions). Check their site to see where they are parking up next. We moved swiftly on to Forza Win who were serving up Fonduta Fingerz - Slow roasted smoked loin of Ginger Pig ham with oozey fontalle cheese cooked with oregano, and a touch of mustard in a toasted ciabatta. They were deliciously cheesy and therefore pretty filling - perhaps not our best move strategy wise for eating as much as possible! Forza Win normally run seasonal supper clubs that look fun, and they are returning in June later this year.

The Lawn Ranger

Natalie then spotted the word rabbit and went all northern on the folks at the Beagle.  They were serving up buttermilk fried rabbit (her favourite game apparently) with black bean and tomato salsa which we munched our way through pretty quickly.  Natalie went back and discussed rabbit cooking until they gave her some free lamb and homemade pesto as well, showing all the experience that has seen her take the top spot on Team List from Maggie.  The Beagle is opening a cafe/bar/restaurant at the end of March in the arches near Hoxton station with the restaurant focusing on seasonal British food.  Check the website for updates on the upcoming launch.  We obviously forgot about our cheesy strategy mistake from earlier as we moved on to Anna Mae's Mac'n'Cheese next.  They make it up in giant pans in front of you and offer some interesting variations on the original but we had to go for the classic this time around.  The portions are extremely generous at £5 and very moreish.

Despite being now entirely full of cheese we soldiered on and headed for Spit and Roast to try their Buttermilk Chicken Slider with Korean Hot Sauce (£3.50).  Many of the other vendors recommended these guys and they weren't wrong.  The are holding their own Spit & Roast Jamboree on Friday 15th March which promises to be a great night.  They are also appearing at the Brooklyn Feast on Tuesday 12th March (tomorrow!) - 8 of London's top street food vans are parking up next to each other and being paired up with a different Brooklyn beer by Brooklyn Brewery brewmaster Garret Oliver. A £6 ticket even includes a beer AND a signature dish from one of the trucks.

We were really starting to feel fat by this point so we decided it was time for some pudding. Luckily we discovered a stall from Le Petit Paris in the bar where we had some delicious ice cream - we tried rhubarb (winner), salted caramel and hazelnut praline.  They also do macaroons and milkshakes. It's not entirely clear what they are up to after Feast but they did present a pop-up last September called Sunday Service on a rooftop in Dalston that looked amazing. We washed that down with a bourbon cocktail and had a wander in the hope that our stomachs would create some new space for more food.  It was during this wander that we followed a few subtle arrows on the floor and suddenly found ourselves on our own in a blacked out room under UV lights playing table tennis or "Ping Tron".  We felt very smug for having found this secret room on our own but we didn't stick around for long because Natalie is pretty rubbish at table tennis even when the room is fully lit.

Ping Tron

We still weren't feeling ready for more food so we ventured in to another secretive little area where Rita's Supper Club was quietly putting on a 4 course candlelit meal with rum cocktails on the side.  We couldn't face that much food but we did talk them in to giving us a Kraken of Youth cocktail made with Kraken rum and Michelberger's Fountain of Youth (otherwise known as Coconut Water - follow that link to an amusing website). Rita's Supper Club is run by Rita's Bar & Dining who are currently based in Dalston - check it out!

We finally decided to get back on the food and headed over to Dishoom who were serving up a Lamb Raan bun with some tasty sides and, best of all, a free cup of authentic, warming Chai tea. Dishoom's London Bombay Café can be found in Shoreditch and Covent Garden. We couldn't eat any more after that so we settled in to watch some of the great folk music on offer and even tried to aid the digestion process by joining in with some organised dancing. There were still so many places that I wanted to try out but we left some on purpose that will hopefully be getting a visit soon - Mishkins, Patty and Bun, Elliot's Cafe, The Good Egg, The Last Days of Pisco, Big Apple Hot Dogs, Meringue Girls, Beard to Tail , and Pizza Pilgrims to name a few!

Big thanks to Team List front-runner Natalie for keeping me company throughout all the eating. Coming up this week: MY BIRTHDAY, Rebel Bingo and Pop up Ping Pong! Please leave comments especially if you have any exciting List ideas or you have been to one of those places after reading the blog. Thanks for reading!

Flat Iron - Mark's Bar - Mizuwari

Wednesday 6th March - It's been a busy end to the week, rehearsing the awesome Verklarte Nacht with KSO for a concert last night and attending Feast on Friday (get your tickets for today before they are all gone) so Wednesday seems like a long time ago.  Let's see what I can remember...

I thought it was time to start ticking off some of the Soho places on the List having made a start on Shoreditch and after defeating Battersea last week.  First up was Flat Iron Steakhouse in Soho.  I met up (at about 6.15) with Natalie, Ali and Felix (who put in a solid first performance before he departs for Afghanistan, rivalling Max's pre-Mexico efforts last week) in an effort to beat the queues, but by the time we were all there the wait was already between 60-90 minutes for a table! Luckily though Flat Iron has this covered as downstairs there is an underground cocktail bar selling pre-dinner drinks and St. John's doughnuts  (there's nothing wrong with a bit of pudding before your main course).  The £2.50 doughnuts were delicious - we went for a rhubarb filling (piped in to the dough in front of you).  The craft beers from Redchurch brewery also went down a treat. We didn't sample the cocktails but they use interesting spirits such as Chase Rhubarb Vodka and several made by Few in Illinois - thanks very much to Daniel behind the bar for giving us a taster of the Few Bourbon which was pretty special. Before we knew it, our table upstairs was ready...

The ordering process is pretty simple - how do you want your steak (go for rare) and what sides do you want?  That said there was a special burger on offer but as first timers none of us could face not getting the steak. They generously provide free popcorn (which seems to be everywhere at the moment?) whilst you wait for your food, though this would perhaps be better put to use in the bar downstairs.  The sauces were all tasty and the dripping-cooked chips were good but the main show is the steak and it doesn't disappoint. You get the satisfaction of using a mini meat cleaver to cut it up, which helps to make it last that little bit longer!  The steak itself is £10 and sides are £2-4 each. It was well worth the wait and I will definitely go again (if I get through some more of this uber-long list first).

That is not me.

We headed off in search of a bar and decided to see if we could get in to Mark's Bar tucked away underneath Hix restaurant on Brewer Street. It's not advertised on the street itself so walk through the giant restaurant door and you'll see a neon sign pointing down the stairs.  We had to wait for about 40 minutes to get downstairs which wasn't ideal but it did give us time to peruse the inventive cocktail menu and make up our minds before heading to the bar. There are queues because they don't let it get at all crowded downstairs which is great once you make it in and gives it a member's club feel. It's also not as pretentious as the waiting times and cocktail menu suggest with a truly random mix of music playing in the background and a bar billiards table on offer.

Bar Billiards at Mark's Bar

I went for the Shipwreck Blazer (served hot) which contained beetroot molasses and 10 year old cider brandy aged in barrels reclaimed from a shipwreck on the Dorset coastline.  Natalie's Stiff Upper Lip was also interesting containing green pea-infused gin,  ginseng spirit, cider vinegar, nettle cordial and smacked mint. The cocktails are fairly pricey at £10-£12 but the quality is very high and the menu is extremely varied - worth a visit!

Felix and I decided to squeeze one more place in so we headed down the road onto Old Compton Street to find Mizuwari - a Japanese Whisky Bar that has recently opened underneath Bincho. We were greeted by the knowledgeable Niya who gave us very detailed tasting notes on the Yamazaki single malts, Hakushu single malts and Hibiki blends.  Whisky cocktails are on offer too but we decided to try the Yamazaki and Hakushu straight up - both were nice but the Hakushu edged it.  They also provide bizarre free Bincho-tan water that is filtered through high-grade charcoal called Bincho (which is left in the carafe for you to see).

They don't take reservations and apparently it gets busy very quickly at the weekends but it was pretty much empty when we went in at 10pm. It's a great little place to go for something a bit different especially at the end of an evening, and it is a must for whisky drinkers, but beware you will run up a pretty hefty tab quite quickly. Thanks to Team List - Natalie, Ali (Flat Iron, Marks) and Felix (Flat Iron, Marks and Mizuwari) - Natalie takes the lead with 7 trips to her name.