Model Market - Alaskan Gold Rush - Bierschenke

Friday 20th June - I've been struggling to tear myself away from the football for the last couple of weeks, so most of my trips have had to involve at least a screen somewhere in the background, a World Cup comfort blanket of sorts.  Thankfully, Model Market (Street Feast's new hangout in Lewisham) offered just that, a couple of cheeky screens tucked away, in case I felt an urge to bet on which team might be thefirst to have 3 corners.

But that's enough about football (for now).  Model Market is so fantastic that I didn't even notice the 7 goal thriller going in between France and Switzerland in the background.  Those clever Street Feast chaps have transformed an abandoned 1950s indoor & outdoor market just off Lewisham High Street into a buzzing street food night market, complete with 5 bars, and a "micro-diner" for every trader.

The vibe is reminiscent of their Dalston Yard site with a bit of the Brixton Village lanes thrown in for good measure, but the addition of custom built diners for every trader has taken the night market experience to another level. With a trip to New York & Chicago coming up, I'm worried that I might be leaving behind something more exciting at home! From shandies poured in a hair salon (coming soon) to slow-smoked BBQ in an old record shop, Model Market has a little bit of everything.  A rooftop suntrap is soon to be added too.

My advice: get there early, get a table in one of the diners or bars (the Winyl bar - wine and vinyl - is a good shout), bring a lot of friends and settle in for the evening. Rotate on excursions for food & drinks, come hungry and try and get a little taste of everything.

It is open every Friday & Saturday from 6pm-1am for the foreseeable future.  Entry was free for the opening weekend, but it is usually £3 after 7pm, just like at Dalston Yard opposite Dalston Junction Overground.

I can't recommend Street Feast highly enough, I don't think there's a better way to spend a summer evening in London at the moment.  Both Dalston Yard & Model Market are doing their bit to give New York a run for its money.  Long may they continue.

I have put more photos up on Matt The Tumblr - check them out here: Set 1 / Set 2 / Set 3

Street Feast #DalstonYard 2014 from Tweat Up on Vimeo.

Saturday 21st June - With a busy night of World Cup football ahead, I squeezed in an afternoon trip to Shuttlecock Inc's Alaskan Gold Rush popup.  Pimlico Gardens became an Alaskan settlement for the day, complete with live music, fishy demonstrations, treasure hunts, con-men (magicians), food tastings and bourbon cocktails.

The afternoon was an entertaining family affair with actors staying firmly in character.  Various activities could earn you money or gold to exchange for drinks at the saloon bar.  I sold out a 7yr old in hiding in $500,000 as well as earning some more cash through horseshoe throwing and guitar playing.

The food offerings were delicious including some gravlax on sourdough with juicy yellow tomatoes and more, and a tasty plate of Alaskan black cod which apparently gave me more than my weekly dose of Omega-3 oils.

Most of these photos are again up on Matt The Tumblr - click here.

The evening session was for over 18s only - a four course fish feast, gambling and dancing at the saloon bar, live music, story telling round the campfire and more.  I'm sure it was a huge success judging by the afternoon, but I had a date at a German bar that I couldn't be late for...

Bierschenke in Temple was a great spot for watching German games over the last few years, but they recently decided to move to a much bigger site in Liverpool Street which opened last week.  Anticipating huge crowds for Germany vs Ghana at 8pm, we arrive at 4pm and set up shop for the evening.  As expected, Germans started flooding in around us, which made the surprisingly tense Argentina vs Iran game even more entertaining.

Bierschenke ticks all the boxes - steins, rauchbiers, lederhosen, schnapps, sausage (Sepp) platters etc. A pair next to us impressively dispatched an enormous roasted pork shank, but it was no match for our ridiculous £60 sausage platter.  A busy kitchen led to an epic 90 minute wait for it, but our waitress kept us happy with beer schnapps (whatever that is).

German beer halls always seem to have the friendliest folk in, and we were very matey with our neighbours by the end, mainly thanks to a pack of stickers I was carrying around.  An end to end 2-2 draw kept the everyone on the edge of their seats (especially the brave lone Ghana fan in one corner), although all we were really after was a German yellow card and 9 German corners before the end of the match for some of our silly bets to come good.

Rauchbiers and Steins

Sepp Platter

Beer Schnapps

Bierschenke is probably the best spot for watching Germany games in London, but it's also great fun without sport in the background. Best enjoyed with a big group of friends, don't expect a quiet night!

Stay tuned for a post soon charting all of my trips to various nationality bars during the course of the World Cup.  

Whilst we're on the subject, does anybody know where all the Costa Rican fans hang out?

City of London Distillery Bar - Rotary Room - Far Rockaway

Tuesday 22nd October - Ahead of Halloween this Thursday, I was invited to a preview evening of spooky drinks at the City of London Distillery Bar, hosted by the London Bar Consultants.  Nate Brown and Lewis Hayes are an experienced pair who first worked together in The Living Room in Manchester.  Nate has since had a big hand in setting up the London Cocktail Club chain, whilst Lewis has worked all over, including as the Bar Manager at Ronnie Scott's (best seat in the house, and free jazz piano lessons).  

London Bar Consultants - Nate, Lewis and Alfie

At CoLD Bar, they have decided to train up some bartenders from scratch, as they want to get fresh ideas from people who haven't been in the bar trade their whole working lives.  Our bartender for the evening was Rob, who got the job after seeing an ad on Gumtree!  He had no bar experience before, and after only a few months is now the brains behind their special Halloween menu, The Horrors of Gin Lane.

Gumtree Ginster Rob

The special menu will be available from Thursday 31st October to Saturday 2nd November.  There are 6 one-off cocktails available, all at £9.50, as well as some deadly Blood Shots (more on those later) for £3.50. Taro and I started off with a Poison Apple which isn't listed on the menu below but will be by Thursday.  It was possibly the best drink of the night - a spicy fruity concoction laced with gin and garnished with a miniature toffee apple.  The poison refers to the fiery pepper tincture which has more and more of an effect as the drink goes on.

We worked our way through the rest of the menu, moving on to an Eye-Ball Martini (complete with a hideous lychee & blueberry eyeball garnish), a Black Cat (a very boozy sweet iced coffee with a liquorice cat tail) and the Witches' Brew (served as a potion in a bottle).  The Tom Collins Cadaver is filled with "blood and guts" and topped with chewy edible maggots, and the Blood Bath involves making a trick or treat choice which I won't spoil.  Rob has had a lot of fun with the presentation, but has also made six dangerously drinkable cocktails along the way.  Try them all!

With the cocktails all sampled, it was time to move on to the Blood Shots, all made with City of London Gin.  Rob lined up a worrying number of glasses - Nate & Lewis were getting involved, as were seasoned drinkers Wilkes, Su-Ling, Andrew (Motley Spicer), Alex (Yelp) and Gavin (Blood, Sweat and Fashion). You can select Type A (redcurrant), Type B (plum), Type O (tomato) or mix A and B together to get Type AB!  The Bloody Mary style Type O was the winner for me, but they were all tasty.  I would imagine that tables are booking up pretty fast for this one off ghoulish gin event so email info@londonbarconsultants.co.uk to secure a spot.

If you can't make it to their Halloween event, there are plenty of other reasons to come - 217 in fact. CoLD Bar must hold the London (or even world) record for stocking the widest range of gins.  There were 217 when we visited, but there are probably even more by now, as they are visited every week by new distillers handing over sample bottles.  What makes this all the more impressive is that they have a distillery on site, run by Master Distiller Jamie Baxter, where City of London Dry Gin is distilled.  It shows a lot of confidence to force your own gin to compete against every other variety in the world!

Jamie was on site that evening, and was kind enough to give us a quick tour of his distillery, talking us through the process.  Tours are open to the public between 12pm and 3pm on the hour.  You can also sign up for masterclasses and even make your own batch of gin if you so wish!  Jamie has plans to release a second gin with more spices to form the base of the City of London Gin brand, before getting a bit more experimental next year.

Jamie Baxter - Master Distiller of City of London Dry Gin

Last thing to mention is the Connoisseurs' Collective, a new membership club (one-off £50 fee) from the London Bar Consultants for CoLD Bar which gets you all sorts of discounts and invites to special events.  Most importantly, every time you order a drink, you get a shot of the gin used neat on the side for your sipping pleasure.  A no-brainer for London based gin fans.

Connoisseurs' Collective

I dragged myself away eventually and scampered across town to meet flatmate Maggie who has sneaked up to 4th place on the Team List Leaderboard with a series of late appearances.  We dropped in to the Rotary Room, underneath Rotary Bar and Diner near Old Street.  The Rotary Room is usually a members only bar, but we were on the guestlist for Tweat Up Meet Up, a chilled evening organised by Street Feast and Tweat Up to say thanks to all traders, workers, and bloggers for support during the first "Summer of Grub".  Cans of Camden Hells Lager were on the house, so we grabbed a couple and found a table.

It's a good looking bar, with attractive mismatching lights and mirrors all around.  The fairly-lit walk to the bar (down a staircase that is open to the elements) is reminiscent of the Gin Store at the Merchant Yard Street Feast site.  It is a shame that Rotary is only a temporary establishment, but hopefully they are going to relocate somewhere nearby.  Try and talk your way in before it disappears!

Now that the clocks have gone back, and storms are raging, it is time for the street food vendors to move indoors.  Tweat Up and Street Feast have just announced their winter project called Hawker House down the road from Broadway Market, which will run on Fridays and Saturdays for 6 weeks starting on the 8th November.  They have managed to get a 2am late license which they have never had before, and these guys know how to throw a party.  They have swapped the Gin Store for a Whisky Bar (complete with a Random Whisky Generator for the indecisive), and they will also have a Hot Bar serving up heart-warming cocktails.

They will have competition in the form of Night Tales, an alternative night market that is setting up shop over two floors of a car park near Dalston Junction.  They will also have hot drinks as well as a Mezcal mezzanine, and a Negroni station.  They have secured some excellent street food vendors including BAO and Patty & Bun, and are open Thursday-Saturday every week (starting one day before Hawker House on November 7th).  The setting sounds magical with canopies, warm lighting and planted trees, and the space will also house a WWII bunker hosting "weekly live visual art and a series of interactive exhibitions".  There is more than enough room in London for two excellent night markets, and I look forward to going to both of them!  If you can't wait til next week, there is also Kerb's Halloween Hellraiser event this Friday (1st November), 6-11pm in King's Cross.

Anyway, I digress! Maggie and I decided to grab one more drink elsewhere since we were far from home, so we walked for a few minutes to get to Far Rockaway on Curtain Road, a Queens NY inspired bar and diner covered head to toe in urban art.  We stuck to Camden beer (pale ale this time) and had a wander around.  The arty bartenders were keen to show us their favourite pieces, which is a good way to break yourself in when there is so much to see.  It is a big site so it could have ended up looking a bit tacky, but they have carried off confidently, and as a result it's a fascinating place to drink.

There are lovely little touches all around, including security cameras dressed as vultures, skateboards lining the ceiling, and bottles adorned with faces looking out at the street.  If you ask nicely, they will show you in to the private room which is full of some pretty risqué art from Saki & Bitches which you can see on Wilkes blog here - NSFW warning!

There are some interesting bottled beers, though they are fairly pricey so you might want to stick to draught.  Food-wise there is plenty to choose from, including 18" pizzas, burgers and sandwiches. You should be able to find a table as it is huge, though I can imagine it will get crazy busy here at the weekends.

There is one particularly cosy section that feels more like a café, with a wall of comic books for you to pick and choose from.  It looks like they have a vast collection, though I'm not an authority so I can't really comment any further than that.  I highly recommend paying Far Rockaway a visit, but don't expect to sit still!  It might be best to go during the afternoon on a Saturday or Sunday for a drink and a good look around, or perhaps some quiet time with one of their 4000 comics.  

Thanks to Su-Lin Ong for the CoLD Bar invite, and to London Bar Consultants and Tweat Up for the complimentary drinks.  The two prairie oysters from Nate were possibly a tad unnecessary after all the blood shots!  Who knows how many more they had after I left.  Taro picks up just 1 point (but a very fun one), and Maggie gets a speedy 2.

Street Food Europe - Jolly Butchers - Ruby's - Ridley Road Market Bar - Hops and Glory

Saturday 28th September - If you read my last post (see here), you will know that I spent the night of the 27th on a luxurious Ploum sofa in Hoxton after a night of bar hopping with the siblings.  I would normally opt for an epic multiple night bus journey back to Battersea, but I had tickets for Street Food Europe in Dalston the next day, so I decided to stay East.  I had some time to kill when I woke up, so I watched the first half of Spurs vs Chelsea (with Russian commentary!) in a lovely little pub with a countryside feel called The Baring. They even have their own football, cricket and rounders teams.  They are recognised by Camra as a top community pub with excellent beer.

With Spurs comfortably 1-0 up, I made my way over to Dalston Junction to meet Natalie and Lauren (Leading List Ladies) for an afternoon of street food.  This was effectively a special edition of Street Feast with traders from all over Europe competing (confusingly) in the British Street Food Awards.  We bought £6 tickets in advance which gave us entry as well as a pint of brewery fresh Meantime lager and an Aperol Spritz.  Dalston Yard was looking as photogenic as ever, with colourful mobile kitchens of all shapes and sizes filling every nook and cranny.

We dove straight in to the food, starting off with some mixed gyoza (dumplings) with wholesome fried pearl barley from Dorshi which was delicious.  It lasted all of two seconds so we moved on straight on to Heisser Hobel from Berlin who were serving up Kässpätzle, freshly cooked noodles with Bavarian cheese, black pepper, chives and crunchy fried onions.  This ended up being our favourite dish of the day, and Lauren went back for seconds.

Heisser Hobel's Kässpätzle - Best Overseas trader and our favourite

I could go into great detail about many of the traders, but I would only be copying and pasting from the British Street Food site.  Click here to read some really interesting stuff about everyone that turned up.

Clockwise: Ginger's Comfort Emporium, Dorshi Sushi, El Taco Truck and Wild Rover sauce

Ginger's Comfort Emporium (last year's winners) and the pink El Taco Truck from a tattoo artist from Stockholm

Clockwise: Buskruid, Bunsmobile, Chinampas (juice served in bags) and Katie & Kim's Kitchen

Next up, we munched on some tasty Torta Fritta (traditional fried dough puffs with pork cold cuts) from Gurmetti, an Italian Deli truck - hopefully they won the Best Moustache Award.  We also had a Venison and Giant Couscous Wrap from Wild Rover Food, who travel around Scotland with their 1961 Land Rover and pop-up ex-army kitchen.  We tried to cash in on our Aperol Spritz but they were low on Prosecco so we went for a pint of Meantime instead.  Natalie showed her Team List pedigree as she came away from the Aperol bar with a half-used drinks voucher that was lying around.  

We went for a wander to decide on our next move and came across a Kamm & Sons cocktail bar which was giving away some tasters of their Sunshine Mary (a Bloody Mary twist) and Summer Tonic.  Kamm & Sons is a Ginseng Spirit made with 45 botanicals in a similar way to gin.  The main ingredients are ginseng, fresh grapefruit peels and manuka honey.  It was created by Alex Kammerling and is currently creating quite a buzz in London.

Kamm & Sons Montage

We decided to get back on the food, and Natalie and I went for a messy Belly Connection Heartbreaker burger from Tongue and Cheek.  Natalie struggled slightly and ended up covered in burger juice - you would think she might have learnt by now! Tongue and Cheek's "No Lobster Roll" made with cod cheeks was very popular and went away with the Best Sandwich Award.  The Aperol bar had been restocked with Prosecco so we cashed in - remarkably, none of us had ever had an Aperol Spritz before.

Aperol Sprtizes? Aperols Spritz?

We couldn't leave without some dessert, and we had been eyeing up Tinderbox's Plum Crumble.  They deservedly went away with the Best Looking Mobiler Award, and their food was very attractive too.  So much so that another foodie photographer scampered up and started snapping away.  I correctly suspected that it was Giulia (caught red handed below) who runs a foodie photo blog (check it out here) as she is often putting up photos for Street Feast events.

Heisser Hobel (left) and The Tinderbox (right)

Snapped! Visit Giulia's blog here - http://mondomulia.com/

A lot of the traders took a short break around 17.30 before opening back up for the evening session, so we decided to make a move.  Street Food Europe carried on to Sunday as well, with the impressive 13 year old entrepeneur Stan taking part selling his snow cones - find out more about him here.  It was another successful event from the Street Feast / Tweat Up team - they are taking a short break now whilst they come up with a site for Autumn/Winter feasting.  They are hopefully launching something near Old Street on November 1st.

I had keenly booked us in to Ruby's for 18.15 and so we powered up towards the Jolly Butchers pub to fit in a quick half.  The Jolly Butchers is the sister pub to the Crown & Anchor in Brixton (read about my trip here), which basically means that they have an awesome beer and cider selection.  They were even named as one of the 10 best pubs in Britain by the Guardian, though that was in 2011! They had a tempting range of beers in when we went, including Brewdog, ELB, Dark Star, Rogue, and Anarchy.  It is possibly the furthest out List place that I (a South West Londoner) have made it to so far (not counting Paris!) - it must be close between this and The Big Hackney Day Out.  Flatmate Maggie (famed for her late arrivals) texted at this point saying she might join us around 20.30.

We had to rush off, as we were due at Ruby's cocktail bar down the road.  Ruby's was one of the first places on The List but it was just a little too far North East for my Battersea ways.  I am glad we finally made it, as it is a cracking little bar.  It is on Stoke Newington Road, but you may well miss it if you don't know what you are looking for it.  It is underneath an old cinema sign, which they have creative control over and change fairly regularly.  When we arrived, the door was shut, and we were in the process of knocking on the wrong door when a kind local told us which one to go for.  Having rushed over from Jolly Butchers, it soon became apparent that Ruby's didn't open til 6.30! I could have sworn I booked for 6.15, but after a bit of Twitter searching, I was proved wrong - rookie mistake for an experienced bar hopper.

Booking was pretty unnecessary since we were the first ones in, but I had no idea whether a queue formed early, or whether everyone else usually booked it up, and we didn't want to be turned away.  Anyway, that allowed us to sit at the bar, always the best seat of the house, with a barman per person ready to serve us! They were still setting up, and were fairly entertained by how punctual we were.  If we had arrived later, we might have missed their warm up music, a hilarious funky album of unreleased 70s porno music called Cream Streets by Pornosonic, written as a mock soundtrack to a non-existent movie - you can buy it on Amazon here! Our ever innocent List Leader misheard it as Paul O'Sonic - bless.

Ruby's have just launched their new Autumn menu so we worked our way through a few of those, plus some old classics.  We started off with Gone with the Bees (Cachaça, St.Germain and Honey), English Garden (Gin, Apple Liqueur, Apple and Rhubarb Juice & Mint) and their classic Blackberry Mojito (presented in a milk bottle).  All 3 received the thumbs up and we took our time enjoying them as the place started to fill up.

We carried on chatting with the amusing bartenders who were also a joy to watch up close (especially "Frank Turner" man according to the girls).  One slightly bonkers drink called Lucyfer on the new menu (involving bourbon, chambord, curacao, apple & chilli) is named after a fun customer who came in demanding something odd.  Hopefully Paul O'Sonic will make it on to the Winter menu.  They kindly gave us some tasters of their chilli bitters (which packs quite a punch) used in the Chilli Apple Martini, and the walnut bitters used in Japanese whiskey inspired Kurimi.  They also let me sample an incredibly bitter Negroni twist involving Fernet Branca, Cocchi Americano and bitters, before it was sent to the man that ordered it.  It was too bitter for all of our tastes, but the customer seemed very happy!

Our final round consisted of Fig Fall (muddled fig, bourbon, vanilla), Fog Cutter (rum, cognac, gin, orange) and the Chilli Apple Martini (with vanilla infused vodka).  The place was really busy by this point, and we started to feel like we should let some newbies have a go in our seats.  For some reason, we made Lauren rush through the end of her spicy Martini, which left her mouth on fire for the walk to the next stop.  Every drink was delicious, and the bartenders were very engaging.  Frank Turner man gave us some top tips for where to go next, and we decided on Ridley Road Market Bar which was mysteriously absent from The List.

Ridley Road Market Bar is tucked away at the far end of quiet Ridley Road.  To reach it, you walk past a deserted row of fishy market stalls (very similar to Brixton and Peckham) but have faith because there's nothing fishy about the bar.  There was a fun crowd in taking advantage of the bargain £5 Ginger Mojitos. They have tonnes of plastic glasses ready to go with limes waiting to be muddled inside, attractively lined along the bar.  We got ourselves three of them, and settled on a sofa in the corner to do some people watching.

We got into a conversation with a couple next to us, who were celebrating buying a house by spending their remaining tenner on some ginger mojitos.  Lauren and I instantly warmed to them as they started mocking Natalie's incomprehensible Northern pronunciation of any word with more than one vowel in - moors, year, poor etc.  The bar was busy but very relaxed, and I would be here all the time if I was a local.  London needs more cheap and cheerful places like this.  There is DJ and dancefloor, plus street food outside which rotates  I believe.

We decided to squeeze in one last place before making the long journey home.  Flatmate Maggie finally caught up with us at 21.30, travelling all the way from Sheen for a couple of drinks in the Hops and Glory on Essex Road - Team List dedication.

Hops and Glory is a relatively new craft beer bar (opened December 2012) which also operates as a bottle shop, selling beers 25-30% below their retail price.  It's a cosy boozer with beautiful décor - having a piano always gets a pub bonus points.  The beer selection was interesting and we particularly enjoyed Liverpool Beer Co American Red and Windsor & Eton Brew 545 Wheat Beer (a collaboration with Natalie Reichert from Meteor Brasserie in France.  They also have a superb bottled beer list, and a beer-influenced cocktail list including Shakey Pete's Ginger Brew designed by Pete Jeary from Hawksmoor.  The food didn't look too shabby either, and Big Apple Hot Dogs were available when we were there.

It is another great Islington pub (thanks for the heads up from Foodie Islington) which makes me want to move closer to Upper Street.  That said, Battersea has it's fair share of top notch taverns - stay tuned for a pub round up soon. 

Lauren and Natalie pick up 5 more big points and Maggie gets another cheeky 1 to keep her in the mix on the leaderboard.  It is currently London Cocktail Week so hopefully I will have plenty of new places to report back on soon.  Will this be the week that sees Natalie make it to 100 points?