London Foodies: 5 Things You Need to Eat This WeekBy Alicia Grimshaw
Calling all London foodies! Don’t waste your money on Easter chocolate and multi-packs of Creme Eggs. We’ve hunted down the best places to spend your sweet cash this week – knives and forks at the ready:
1. For a New Easter Feast: Smoking Goat
What: Forget Easter eggs and bready delights – the Smoking Goat, the best Thai barbecue restaurant in Soho, have crafted a special feasting menu for Easter weekend. The banquet is available from Friday 25th – 28th March and features some of their famous sharing dishes and a whole host of tasty delights.
Why: The feast includes whole smoked aged saddleback pigs, aged for six weeks and smoked over sweet chestnut wood with fish sauce, palm sugar and chilli for a smokey, spicy flesh. There’s also curried crab – quartered whole crab topped with a rich aromatic massaman curry with salted curry leaf and roasted chilli, duck offal laab – a northern Thai classic, fattened ducks are aged for two weeks to give the mince an intense flavour and is served with roasted rice spicy salad and Tam Som Oh, a pounded pomelo and chilli salad.
Where: 7 Denmark St, Soho, London, WC2H 8LZ
Photo Credit: Paul Winch-Furness
2. For a New Collaboration: Yard Sale Pizza x White Men Can’t Jerk
What: Yard Sale Pizza is back for another one of it’s unmissable ‘Love ins’, collaborating with East London’s jerk chicken aficionados, White Men Can’t Jerk, for a one-off jerk pizza – believe us, it will rock your world. The Just Jerkin pizza will be served from Thursday 24th March through to Bank Holiday Monday 28th March. Grab em’ while they’re fresh out of the oven.
Why: The pizza is a dreamy combination of thin slices of WMCJ’s signature smokey BBQ jerk chicken laid out on a jerk gravy base (mixed with a little of Yard Sale’s slow cooked tomato sauce), fior di latte mozzarella, callaloo leaf, and pineapple scotch bonnet jam. The pizza will be served with optional WMCJ house pickled scotch bonnet peppers for those who want to turn it up a notch.
Where: Yard Sale Pizza, 105 Lower Clapton Road London, E5 0NP
3. For a New Dinner Option: Absurd Bird
What: Absurd Bird is a Southern US inspired gourmet chicken brand which launched in Spitalfields earlier this year. Expect a range of different meaty cuts, along with their Easter Special: rooster. Meatier, more flavoursome and bigger than your average bird, Absurd Bird are bringing back the rooster with a bang.
Why: Served in two tempting options, devour their famous burger – a cockerel patty, marinated in the their secret sauce and smoked in-house. It’s served on a brioche bun with Montgomery cheese, bacon and chilli jam. For those with a larger appetite, feast on a bucket of cockerel, this is no KFC, this is AFC – a full bucket of drumsticks, wings and thighs, in a variety of styles. Choose from sticky BBQ, garlic and parmesan, spicy or glazed. These cock wings are given that distinctive Absurd treatment and are also smoked on site.
Where: 54 Commercial Street, London, E1 6LT
What: This month, modern steakhouse STK London has launched a new pre-theatre menu, offering everyone the opportunity to sample the restaurant’s contemporary American menu paired with its unique high-energy vibe. The three-course menu will be served from 5-7pm throughout the week, providing theatre goers with the perfect warm up to their night’s entertainment.
Why: The pre-theatre menu offers a taster of the STK London’s signature dishes, to start sample the lil’ burgers, delightful bite size burgers made from prime Japanese Wagyu beef, topped with STK’s special sauce, black truffles and a sesame seed bun or the swordfish ceviche, served with young coconut and a citrus pepper sauce. For mains choose from the 28-day aged USDA prime rump steak, roast black leg chicken served with black pudding and sage and onion pudding or crispy seabass with gnocchi, greens and pancetta. For dessert, try the classic sticky toffee pudding served with vanilla ice cream and salted malt caramel. Sign us up.
Where: ME London, 336-337 Strand, London WC2R 1HA
5. For a New Opening: Bukowski Grill
What: BBQ joint Bukowski Grill has just opened its third and biggest restaurant in the middle of Soho. Head for weekday breakfasts, softshell crab brunches and ribs for dinner. They specialise in modern American cuisine, using the finest British produce around.
Why: The menu is pure gluttony, everything has the same moreish, finger licking taste to it. Finger bowls are indeed provided. We say order the 72-hour beef rib with tobacco onions, no knife required, for a melt in the mouth meaty delight. And no regrets. Their burgers are just glorious – our pick being The Mother – two patties with double gloucester, streaky bacon, red onion chutney, tomatoes, lettuce and homemade mayo. Chug down a cornflake breakfast for a proper nostalgic kick.
Where: 10 D’Arblay St, London W1F 8DS
Photo Credit: Paul Winch-Furness