Surely by now everyone knows that Hawksmoor is easily the best meat restaurant in London? If you go there for lunch you’ll have this truth made plentifully clear to you thanks to the lunch special’s profuse personality of flavour fireworks and taste titillations.

Hawksmoor has undergone some re-development since my last visit; there is now a greater surface-area for tables. The denizens of London clearly have taste as the restaurant was practically full during our meal. I’m really happy when I see what I know to be a good restaurant doing well. As we arrived we scored some of their excellent Pale Ale and scoped out the menu. A new addition was 500g of 55 day-aged rump steak, which seemed both intriguingly aged and sized, but we were there for the lunchtime-only offering that has generated much excitement in the London food blogging scene: the Hawksmoor beef burger.

Of course, being healthy diners of solid constitution we needed a starter. All three of us chose the Tamworth belly ribs; a much-loved option that has only been below par once during my innumerable visits here. These were a colossal success. They were incredibly tender, with their intense, porky, fatty flavours enhanced by subtle spices. As each bite melted on my palate I felt enthused with the knowledge that my fellow diners and I were fine and noble beings for getting such corporeal and cerebral gratification from the consummately well-prepared bits of what were plainly very happy animals. These were ribs of outstanding quality, so naturally by the time I finishing up there was much sighing, groaning and writhing with pleasure.

Then came the beef burger.

If that picture doesn’t make you want to eat one now I worry, dear reader, for your commitment to the food aesthetic.

Yet, they were better than that picture can communicate. The meat was well-aged cuts from less well-known bits of Longhorn cattle enhanced with morsels of bone marrow, cooked medium/rare to medium so it was still pink and juicy in the centre. When I took my first bite I was immediately aware this was a stupendous burger. It was comprised of impressively beef-driven tastes with plenty of mature meat characteristics giving it a thoroughly deep panoply of rich, complex flavours. A psyche-enhancing, physically-fulfilling, top grade burger-patty.

The burger could be enhanced with one of two choices of cheese. The Stichelton (effectively Stilton made with unpasteurised milk, manifestly a first-rate cheese) I chose added creamy richness and fungal piquancy to the burger’s range of stimulating flavours. Stimulating in a not quite genteel manner if I may speak candidly; there is more than a suggestion of crude smut about the enjoyment of such a piece of food. The roll was indubitably up to standard and absorbent enough to soak up most of the lovely juices coming from the burger.

Hawksmoor may feel they have to put a leaf of some worthless plant and a slice of tomato in the bun just to appease those preposterous types who think plants are an agreeable alternative to proper food, but they didn’t really add to the experience. If you do want to try augmenting the experience without having someone perform an intimate act on your person there is also the opportunity to pay a few fun tokens extra and have some supplementary Ginger Pig streaky bacon added to the burger. Whilst we all greatly enjoy this bacon we felt the addition of it would be gilding the lily and so turned down this offer. You have the choice of either triple-cooked chips (I’d prefer frites, really) or some inane assortment of bits of vegetable matter alongside, which I suppose is nice enough but I was there for significant food.

For a beef burger of such depraved, dissolute, debauched quality they seemed completely reasonably priced at £15 (with side selections). I’ve never had a more utterly wonderful burger than this foray into the oeuvre by Hawksmoor; further evidence that even with more straightforward food the limits of pleasure are yet to be defined or reached. Service at the restaurant was (as ever) friendly, enthusiastic, but unobtrusive. Their wine list continually gets more interesting, there is the top Pale Ale on offer and the scrumptious selections from their 1920s-themed cocktail list are awfully tempting. You cannot go far wrong at Hawksmoor. Unless you don’t like meat, of course (you unhinged, disturbed person).

Contact details: Hawksmoor, 157 Commercial Street, E1 6BJ Telephone: 020 7247 7392

As soon as I had a taste of one of the three real ales on offer at the Harwood Arms in Fulham I felt confident we were in for a good meal; anywhere that can treat beer with such respect would surely do well with food. We were further re-assured by the elegant design of the dining room and the offer of venison Scotch eggs as a bar snack.

Needless to say, we ordered a couple of these Scotch eggs to sample as we looked at the menu; would they be as good as the Hind’s Head offerings? Indeed they were! Very meaty with a perfectly melting egg in the centre. Serving them on a little square of brown paper was perhaps a tad odd, but the sprinkle of salt crystals on top was most appreciated.

The menu had so many tempting dishes we found it easy to order three different starters and main courses between the four of us, only repeating choices that seemed so personally pleasurable it would be almost rude to turn them down. As is the current trend, it generally listed the sources of its main elements. This can sometimes seem a bit pretentious, but it wasn’t out of place on this ingredient-centric menu.

‘Non-Stinky’ Jeff went for one of the daily specials, some smoked salmon with horseradish cream. Smoked salmon is usually an easy ‘opt-out’ dish for a restaurant; they can buy it cheaply from the local supermarket and just dish out the flavourless pap and charge through the nose for it. Not so at the Harwood Arms, this stuff had real character. I was really compelled by my little taste and NSJ, who claims not to be enthused by horseradish, said the cream was a perfectly balanced accompaniment.

Daniel chose salted, braised ox tongue with a cauliflower cheese croquette and pickles. My three dining companions were all a bit sniffy about the cauliflower cheese action, claiming not to like the stuff and saying it might not get eaten. How wrong they were! The smallest taste proved this to be a really top example of cauliflower cheese; even super-anti-cauliflower Daniel ate it with limited moaning. It was finished up with impressive speed. The tongue itself, something I would normally avoid as I’m not generally wowed by it, was very tender and had a really satisfying flavour; so good, in fact, that I would happily order this dish again should it be an option when we return here.

Dan’s and my choice of starter was thrustingly, pulsingly, throbbingly brilliant: snails braised in stout with oxtail and bone marrow. This re-defined the entire snail genre for me. Sure, the classic Burgundian and Alsatian styles with garlic, butter, parsley (and Riesling  in Alsace) will forever have a special place in my heart, but this offering opened our eyes to new possibilities of snail brilliance. The richness of bone marrow and oxtail coupled with the intense flavour of the stout only added to the meaty, grassiness of the snails. The result was a dish which had us grinning with gustatory hilarity and positively chortling with aesthetic mirth. The only disappointing thing about the dish is that there were only six snails; we wanted, no needed more. These really were Snails par excellence. Wake up Alsace and Burgundy, your snail crowns are under threat from a boozer in Fulham.

We felt really rather satisfied with the starters, so expected more good stuff from the main courses. We were not disappointed. Daniel chose a grilled chop and braised shoulder of Lockinge estate fallow deer with crisp garlic potatoes, black cabbage and mushroom ketchup. The chop was served very rare and was unusually flavoursome. The large croquette of braised shoulder had a brilliantly soft texture and a rich, meaty flavour which was further enhanced by the mushroom ketchup. This was a quality venison dish.

NSJ and I ordered glazed leg of Gressingham duck with smoked ham hock, split green peas and and crisp potatoes. The duck was so tender it yielded to the slightest touch from a fork; totally scrum-tastic too. This piece of duck sat on the crisp potatoes, which were nice enough, and they were on top of the peas and ham hock which were mixed together in a decadent melange of loveliness. NSJ and I were totally content with our selection. Then we tried Dan’s option.

Beef cheeks stewed in ale with clotted cream mash was an inspired choice by Dan. Beef cheeks are super-fashionable at the moment and the Harwood Arms are clearly at the bleeding edge of food trendiness. The cheeks themselves were stewed to the point that they almost dissolved on your palate, releasing super-beefy flavours of richness and complexity. These were mind-bendingly good things to be eating. Mash is a good accompaniment to stewed meat and this one had both the required light, fluffiness and the much appreciated rich decadence. The lump of clotted cream on top of the mash was an amusing addition, and it added more of that lovely, lovely dissolute character. We all thought this was the best main course and I will find it very difficult to turn this option down should it be on the menu on our next visit.

We are generally not terribly thrilled by desserts in most restaurants, but all but one of the offerings on the menu seemed interesting and as cleverly constructed as the preceding courses. We ordered four different desserts and passed spoonfuls of them around so we could all share in the experiences. There were moans and sighs of pleasure from all around the table.

Daniel chose baked custard with stewed Bramley apple, cider sorbet and Grassmere gingerbread. The custard had a good vanilla character and the cider sorbet and apple gave it a fresh, invigorating feel rather than making it seem heavy, ponderous and overly sweet. The ginger character of the gingerbread was quite fresh and intense; good if you like ginger, I don’t.

Dan went for a buttermilk pudding with pears and raisins poached in mead. The buttermilk pudding was creamy and attractively flavoured with a very agreeable consistency. The raisins were powerfully characterful, but Dan found it hard to discover any pear in the dish. This was a bit of a pity as the inclusion of pear was what had drawn him to ordering this dessert. He still loved it.

My bowl of warm marmalade doughnuts were real comfort food. The sweet but light doughnuts had marmalade in their core and they were quite scrumptious when dipped in the provided bowl of whipped cream. It was good cream rather than the thin, watery, rubbishy cream normally associated with pub desserts; good cream can make all the difference in making a dessert delectable rather than merely average. I was quite pleased with the portion size. There were enough doughnuts to pass one each to my fellow diners with enough left for me to horse down with great satisfaction. I really was satisfied; I rather like doughnuts and these were truly superior examples of the genre. I was sad to eat the last one; I would happily have eaten a bowlful even more epic in terms of size.

The final dessert was NSJ’s sticky toffee and date ice cream with caramelised brown bread and lemon curd. I loved the rich ice cream, sweet and crispy brown bread slices and agreeably acidic lemon curd. Yet, whilst each of these components were awfully jollity-augmenting in themselves, they worked together synergistically to create a downright complete dessert experience. Yet another bull’s eye from the Harwood Arms kitchen; there had been many during our meal.

With an embarrassment of riches on the menu and each dish executed with not only a high degree of competence but also definite élan it is easy to see the hand of The Ledbury in this establishment; they have the one of the same owners and their chef is an ex-Ledbury geezer. It is also not terribly surprising that the Harwood Arms has a star; high praise indeed for a gastropub. Although to be honest, this is only euphemistically a pub; even though they have tremendously well kept real ale on offer most of the floor area is taken up with dining tables with little space dedicated to the committed drinker. But when the food is this good who cares if the booze hounds are cramped with nowhere to sit? The wine list was short and very reasonably priced for London. Among the  wines of interest was a Mac Forbes Pinot Noir (albeit the generic) and as we love his wines we drank a bottle of this with much gratification after we had finished our thrillingly lively beers.

The service was friendly but unobtrusive. They did get a bit rushed when the restaurant was full, but it wasn’t too difficult to collar a waiter when we needed to. The prices are closer to a one-star level rather than a boozer, but when we got the bill it was once again remarked upon that quality dining is one of the most under-priced recreational diversions one can engage in. The Harwood Arms has our most enthusiastic recommendation as a destination for food of an obscene pleasure quotient.

When we stepped out of the pub one of the wilder locals was waiting to bid us goodnight.

Contact details: The Harwood Arms, 27 Walham Grove, SW6 1QR Telephone: 020 7386 1847

My sister sent me three novelty types from Australian jerky. It seemed only reasonable to compare and contrast them all together in one session. The pictures show each packet with a few pieces of jerky on top. These are all described as ‘the great Australian taste’; just how great it is we shall see…

Kangaroo jerky

When opening this the slight aroma of rotting cardboard was released, which did not inspire confidence. This aroma was also coming from each piece of jerky; this did not make me want to put any in my mouth. But I did, and by arse did I wish I had not. It had the texture of wax-soaked cardboard and the flavour was much the same but with a strong character of decay. Chewing it was hard enough as it kept releasing more of the filthy flavour and as I was in company I didn’t feel I could spit it out. By arse, I swallowed something this grim; I felt sullied.

Emu jerky

This smelled even worse, not just rotting cardboard but also a quite pronounced decomposing meat character. This went beyond ‘well hung’ in terms of its off flavours to reach the awful heights of ‘horribly decayed’. With my stomach still churning from the filth kangaroo jerky putting a piece of this malodorous vileness in my mouth would be a challengingly nauseating experience. By freaking arse, the taste of this thrashed the kangaroo offering in terms of ghastly favours of total horrifying severity. My to my chagrin it was quite strongly flavoured; more than a tad irksome as the mouldy meat flavour was making my stomach churn with every second I had this terribleness in my mouth. I closed my eyes, pinched my nose, thought of England and swallowed

Crocodile jerky

There is no nice way of putting this, but it looked and smelled like congealed vomit. Congealed vomit that has gone more than a little rancid. I really didn’t want to taste this, not only because I didn’t want to hurl but also because I thought I lacked the necessary skills in derogatory language to accurately slag it off. However, I thought if I described it I may be able to prevent someone else from making the mistake of putting some in their mouth so I broke of a tiny piece and began chewing. By all that is repulsive and abhorrent the rotten taste of sick this possessed challenged the imagination with its revolting character. I’ve eaten some really horrible food in my time, that visit to the Quick burger joint is a good example, or anything from the Woolwich loony bin, but for as long as I have my faculties I shall avoid crocodile jerky like a dose of particularly colourful dysentery.

When we heard this Argentine meat restaurant did not have properly dry-aged steaks on offer we wondered if we should be cancelling our table. After a taste of their quality meat action we were terribly pleased we didn’t. Constancia is a serious destination for the lover of top-grade meat.

As we walked in we could smell the powerful aromas coming from the charcoal grill. This had pride of place right in the middle of the restaurant; an altar ready to accept meaty offerings. Generally, the dining room was quite attractive with minimalist dark wood tables, modern leather chairs and the brickwork on the back wall painted a livid red. This struck me as a good environment for eating meat.

The menu at Constancia is short and focussed; themed on bits of meat, of course. There were some wines listed in it but we fancied beer. I was very pleased they had Peroni Red (it is so rough when you swallow it you can feel it doing you good) as one of an ample selection of beers. We sipped our beers and waited. The delicious smell of sausages and meat grilling on the parrilla made our mouths water and our desire for meat ever more intense.

First up on the starter front came some Empanadas, Argentine beef pasties. Fresh from the fryer these were terribly hot, but the flavour was just fine. a tasty, very meaty filling with a bit of paprika heat inside a compellingly crispy pastry shell. 

My other starter was an Argentine Chorizo; it was very piggy with finely ground, rather cured meat. Its already considerable depth of flavour was further enhanced by grilling on the parrilla. The black pudding (aka morcilla)  Dan ordered had a great texture, not too liquid or slimy, and tasted like a top example of black pudding. When a restaurant can produce top-flight pasties, sausages and black pudding you really know the the evening will not be wasted.

The final starter, chosen by Daniel and ‘Non-stinky’ Jeff, consisted of slices of Iberico pork tenderloin with some pointless salad attempt; why bother with these bits of ephemera? The Salsa Criolla crudo, a sauce with finely chopped onion, bell pepper, tomato, garlic, parsley and vinaigrette, was a new and pleasant experience. We also emptied a rather small pot of Chimichurri sauce. This was very much on the mild side.

Steaks were an obvious choice for our main courses. Daniel’s fillet steak was tender with a good crust, and quite a lot of flavour for a piece of fillet. It was also a pretty serious size, it looked like half a Chateaubriand.

Dan and Jeff went for sirloin steaks and what a top option they turned out to be. Satisfying moist meaty flavour was just bursting from them; every mouthful was a piece of carnivorous delight. I was also enthused by their remarkably tender texture. Much like Hawksmoor’s sirloin they nearly matched the tenderness of the fillet steak, whilst still having that extra beefiness we love sirloin for.

These were really grown up steaks, to be enjoyed by the lover of visceral, life affirming good times. When you have pieces of meat that are this good it does make one wonder how vegetarians can even exist.

We ordered two portions of chips to go with our top-drawer meat action, one bowl of them would have been enough as they were quite large and not, if we are honest, much more than competent. Sod the chips, though, we came for meat and it was delivered.

The meal was well-lubricated with plenty of beer and we didn’t hold back in the amount we ordered, yet the bill was only half as much as a typical evening at Hawksmoor. Constancia’s meat is not quite up to the stellar heights of Hawksmoor, but is clearly better and cooked far more skilfully than at any Argentine steakhouse we’ve been to anywhere in the world. All in all, a hoopy gustatory party of lewd pleasure. A ‘must visit’ establishment if you like terribly good meat.

Contact details: Constancia, 52 Tanner Street SE1 3PH. Telephone: 020 7234 0676

I’ve raved about Hawksmoor so many times that you, my dear reader, may think that you’ve heard it all before. But Hawksmoor have not let me down in terms of providing content; they have two new side dishes which I feel enhance the meat-tastic experience of a trip to Hawksmoor no end.

First up are the double fried eggs. I’m told this is a somewhat Argentine thing to garnish your steaks with, I had no idea. I loved my couple of fried eggs  and dipping a bit of excellent steak in their yolks. Delicious!

The second new side order was stunningly wonderful: roast bone marrow. The bones are cut lengthways so it is easy to scoop out their gelatinous, rich, flavoursome goodness. Moreover, at three pounds per serving they are much cheaper than Restaurant Saint John’s offerings (the only other place I know of in London that regularly serves this dish), and by arse the Hawkmoor version is distinctly better too.

An epic steak of the very highest quality is only improved by goodies like these; I also felt improved when eating them. This is food that expresses itself as being hilariously visceral and gratuitously biological fun.

Last night we went to Hawksmoor (clearly London’s best meat restaurant); the food was, as ever, amazing. I was very pleased to see they have added roasted bone marrow to their menu as a side dish, it was super-scrummy. It the pictures our hosts took come out alright I’ll post them here with some pithy comments.

Some of my dear and much appreciated readers may recall that I am trying to shed some fat from my somewhat corpulent frame. You may not think that eating massive steaks is going to assist in the ‘becoming thin’-game. You’d be totally right; if I did eat like that every day I’d be such an impressively massive lard-arse that I’d be at risk of undergoing gravitational collapse and becoming a blackhole.

However, I have been skipping lunch most days and when we feel we can manage it then there is no dinner either. If there is very good food on offer, such as Hawksmoor’s abso-tmesis-lutely brilliant slabs of meat action, I will immerse myself in the experience and enjoy it. But if the choice is between inferior food or no food I have the strength to fight off the hunger and go for the lower calorie action. We still eat reasonably healthy things (my breakfast this morning was an orange), but eating less is clearly the most successful way of losing the lard. Has it worked? Since the end of November until up to about ten minutes ago I’ve lost 12.3kg, and I feel this merits the ejaculation, “RESULT!” followed by the slightly smug comment, “I have done well.” Our super groovy Wifi enabled scales beam my mass and percentage of body fat to a webserver which presents this data as graphs on a website; makes it very easy to track that reducing progress.

This weight loss has resulted in me now moving from the ‘obese’ category to being merely overweight. Certainly I recognise I am still on the porky side, but these categories based on Body Mass Indices should be viewed with suspicion. Some of the problems with using BMI to spot trends and draw conclusions from them are dealt with in this excellent piece from The Register. The ‘downright weird of thinking’ fellows they report on, who say we should be short as being tall wastes energy, are dismissed with ease and humour. 

12.3kg, yeah! Well done me, indeed. Just seeing the line on the graph drop as my weight gets metabolised is a great incentive to keep going. I’m clearly bloody-minded enough to hold back on food when necessary: the will-power kid! As well as being irritatingly pleased with myself about this weight loss I am also terribly proud of the partner losing even more. Well done us!

I’ve reviewed Franco Manca, Brixton’s brilliant pizza establishment, already (go here for the review). I don’t really need to repeat all of it, but it is worth re-iterating that their pizzas really are of wonderful quality and very affordable. It is a great place to stop for a quick lunch, which we did today with our lovely friend Katie. As you can see in the last picture , she was well up for diving right into her pizza.

My choice of pizza was one of their home-cured Gloucester old spot ham offerings; quite delicious. It looked like this:

The partner had a pizza topped with fresh and dried chorizo; he was most satisfied with it.

Finally, Katie had one of the daily specials: a quattro stagione. Her enthusiasm for quality pizza is plain for all to see!

If you want a quick lunch, or a really high-quality pizza, or preferably both you will find Franco Manca delivers the goods. We shall return many more times.

Last night we dined at London’s newest two-star: The Ledbury. It was totally compelling. We were hoping to have pictures of every course to embellish a detailed review. However, in their moodily-lit dining room both our cameras failed to produce any even remotely pleasing snaps of the evening’s loveliness. Consequently, rather than subject you to a long, bleak expanse of text I’ll be brief and deal with general impressions and highlights of the meal.

We chose the tasting menu as the price was little over the a la carte choices and it had dishes we would have wanted to order anyway. All the dishes were elegantly presented on quite pleasing tableware, usually with an array of little nibbly accoutrements around the edge of each plate. Every dish was quite wonderful, intelligently prepared from the very best of ingredients; two courses really stood out for me.

Firstly, squid risotto with Sherry and cauliflower. ‘Squid risotto’ needs some explaining. It was not made with rice, but with bits of squid cut into rice-sized pieces. The texture was extremely risotto-like, but it tasted mind-expandingly brilliant. The Sherry was in the form of foam and enhanced the squiddiness no end and there were impossibly thin shavings of raw cauliflower stacked at the end of the plate. This was one of the most wonderful things I have ever eaten; a stunning, fantastic re-imagining of risotto.

The second dish which rubbed my rude bits (aren’t they rude?) was the shoulder of Pyrenean milk-fed lamb cooked for twenty-four hours with confit shallot. The half-shallot was cripsy and flavoursome but the lamb… oh the lamb… Rarely have we eaten such skilfully prepared lamb. Its texture was mesmerising, meltingly tender so it almost dissolved in your mouth releasing a rich array of captivating tastes. Quite extraordinary.

The wine list was one of the best I’ve seen in London. The mark-ups were not excessive for a two-star, each bottle being approximately double retail prices. It was certainly packed with many highly-desirable wines which were usually in the realms for affordability, and there were plenty of keenly-priced, more ordinary wines for the less rabid oenophile.

I cannot fault the service; they were charming, friendly and helpful, running the course of the meal with inconspicuous ease. It is not a large restaurant, but they seemed to have staggered the arrival times of their diners very effectively so that at no point were the staff over-whelmed. It was a relaxed, perfectly paced meal.

The Ledbury is clearly one of the top dining establishments in London, and I thought our meal there was one of the very best I’ve had not just in Town, but anywhere. As far as the cost went it once again confirmed our view that fine dining is an under-priced  source of gratification. If you want inventive, compelling food with top wines in a pleasing environment you would do well to get a booking at The Ledbury.

Contact details: The Ledbury, 127 Ledbury Road, W11 2AQ. Telephone: 020 7792 9090

It was rather cold when we set off for our trek across London to Broadway Market, our quest was for the highly recommended banh mi stand there. Banh Mi 11 delivered the goods in terms of excellent Vietnamese sandwiches even if they took a while to prepare.

Banh Mi 11 are part of the Ca Phe Vietnamese coffee stand, located in a little courtyard half way along Broadway Market. This gives them space for some seating. They start serving banh mi at 10am, but as we got there a bit early they gave us some Vietnamese green tea as we waited to keep us warm on the bitterly cold morning. Then we got our banh mi

First up was a quad meat special. The banh mi lady apologised that the bread was smaller than usual; apparently it was made that morning and it had been so cold the bread hadn’t risen properly. It didn’t matter as we found the bread to be crispy and flavoursome. All the usual goodies of pickled carrots and radish, cucumber batons, coriander and (not quite enough) chillies. It was powerfully meaty with a good pork liver character from the pate. Quite delicious, but (as I said) a bit lacking on the chilli front.

Our second sandwich required an even longer wait as they cooked the pork to order; additionally it took a while for them to finish building and firing-up their barbecue. When it did finally arrive this Imperial BBQ banh mi was well up to standard. The pork was perfectly grilled and (this time) seasoned with a decent amount of chillies. Worth hooning across Town for, we thought.

In summary, very good banh mi were on offer at Banh Mi 11. The bread was in a league of its own, but the fillings were not quite up to the standard of Baguette and More in Greenwich. However, if Broadway Market is in range for you it would be a mistake not to go and try these, just don’t turn up too early on a cold morning. There are other foodie-tastic stands in the market as well.

As we have now tried the offerings from six banh mi establishments it is interesting to note the variety in the standard recipes. Banh mi 11 had red peppers and very little umami flavour, we like the umami character.

We were supposed to be going to Mon Me for lunch today, but (pleasingly) I have been asleep for the past twelve hours.

Find Banh Mi 11 on the web or really with-it people (like me) can follow them on Twitter.