The Reform Social and Grill - What What! May 2013

Spring! As the first rays of life-giving sun hit your upturned cheeks and the nights recede into long placid evenings with the promise of chilled rose wine. A thousand BBQ's rumble out of garages, the long forgotten, rusty and oil stained armoured vanguard of summer. Spring! A time of salads and green and the lightest of touches. Spring! The perfect time to visit a gentleman's club inspired grill restaurant then… ah. No.. sadly not.

I'd had the Reform Social highlighted to me by a number of people back in the depths of winter (i.e. various points in the last 12 months) and the reports had all said broadly the same thing. Pretty decent food, if heavy on the meat and puddings, and a dark, clubby, cocoon of a space with snug leather seating you could drown in. 

In summary, ideal for a long gentleman's luncheon before the weather breaks for the better... Well I'm no follower of fashion (just look at my wardrobe) and that's why I'd waited until the first fragrant days of warmth and light before pulling on my crushed velvet smoking jacket, adjusting my monocle and finding a saucy young slip of a gel to entertain.

Slotted underneath the Mandeville Hotel just off Marylebone High Street, the hotelish (and not entirely in a good way) bar was our first entry point. The way robustly blocked by a florid and fully padded post work crowd enjoying a discount deal on fizz we squeezed uncomfortably through to the dining room at the other side of the lounge. 

   

Here I was pleased to see a full crowd of mixed ages. My gentleman's jacket wouldn't have looked entirely out of place, but neither were we marooned in fuddy-duddy land. The table of birthday partying hipsters and a gaggle of courting couples dining gave our section of the long dark room a gentle (and genteel) buzz.

Things started very well with a crisp, clean and perfectly cooked duck 'Scotch' egg, wrapped in a pliant and piquant black pudding shell. It clashed with an unnecessary trough of apple sauce, but solo was note perfect.

The mains sadly were less accomplished in their delivery. Both arrived on a generic root vegetable puree, hay cooked hake was a fine piece of fish, but smokier and saltier than a Glaswegian sailors mission. Stuffed lamb breast, a substitution for the stout sounding Angus rose veal chop I'd been salivating for, came as an underwelmingly small and fatty roulade filled with a fishy breadcrumb mix and topped bafflingly with tight and over-battered scampi, an odd mix that did none of the constituent parts justice. A side of pumpkin with chilli and sage gave none of the flavour of either and was verging on undercooked to boot. There's a good looking grill section here filled with some handsomely sourced cuts. I can only blame our ordering for missing them out.

Thankfully there was a knowing hand on the desserts, reason almost to return in themselves. My Bakewell Pudding, a crispy puck of choux filled with tart fruit and covered in thick vanilla custard the colour and consistency of whipped butter. A darkly decadent chocolate and blood orange pot was equally moreish. Given what I saw of the cocktails, I'm tempted to return for a lush's afternoon tea combining the two.

On a slight negative note, there was a noticeable level of fractiousness among the front of house team, commands and critiques hissed not sotto voce enough to be unheard as the harried team flew around us. It wasn't ideal. They were pretty good face to face, just less so when talking to each other.

There's less knowing cool than at that other modern bastions of of 'private member's-chic' like Dean Street Townhouse and Hawksmoor (both of whom definitely hosted planning meetings for this place) but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It doesn't do it quite as well as the aforementioned, but does well enough at a reasonable price that you won't probably shouldn't mind. 

 

New York Tales 2 - A bite of Billyburg - Dec 2012

Manhattan's officially over for me. A weekend in Williamsburg gave me chance to really explore another side of the city I love. I've crossed the East River to graze on a few occasions, most memorably for visits to Peter Luger, the steak lover's equivalent of a trip to the Vatican. This time however I was staying there. 

Slowly but surely, the hipsters have been forced out of the lower reaches of the borough and pushed up into Williamsburg and Greenpoint by the buggies and prices of outrageous gentrification and for the last few years the buzz outside the enclave has been growing about the strip dividing Brooklyn from Queens. With pop ups littering every unused shop front and bars in people's front rooms, It seemed like a good place to start. 

Metropolitan Avenue runs broadly above the L train, the true hipster express, and the line that takes you from Manhattan out to the sprawling Brooklyn suburbs. While it's only a handful of stops until you step out at Bedford or Grahame Ave, it's a world away in terms of style and surroundings. Low rise apartment buildings run all ways in strict grids, occasionally drunkenly bisected by thundering expressways. There's a clapperboard style used along the slight, narrow streets that covers those that don't expose their redbrick to the pale December sun. 

The photos on cult flat-sharing site Airbnb showed part of the story, shot from great angles, perfectly lit. Turning up and realising we were bunking down in the corner of a photographers studio explained why we'd see the best angles before we arrived. 

Still, we weren't here for the five star living arrangements, this is Brooklyn baby, and we were here for a slice of the atmosphere, a pint or two of Brooklyn Lager and most importantly to check out a tip off about the best BBQ in New York City. 

As I've said before, the joy of barhopping in strange cities is that you'll end up with recommendations that you won't find in any of the guide books. And more often than not, you'll be on track for a proper locals night out. Here amongst the hipsters, that means necking artisan craft brews in a speakeasy that resembles a Girl Guide hut before queueing outside (in December) for beef ribs, drinking whiskey out of jam jars like some sort of hillbilly. After that? Well it's got to be pickle backs in Mabels hasn't it? Pretentious, scenester-ish. Fantastic.

Thankfully the steam train of gentrification hasn't yet brought conformity (unless it's in the identikit denizens with their plaid shirts, rigger boots and artful woodsman beanie hats) and you'll struggle to find a Starbux, or a Maccy D's on these streets. Coffee came from San Fran export Bluebottle (also sold at Variety Coffee on Graham), beer was almost always Brooklyn or craft and post 'refreshment' tacos came from one of the multitude of street vans.

And the BBQ? Now that was something special...
 
Queuing down an anonymous chain link lined alley in December wouldn't usually be my thing, at all, but James the barman had been insistent. "Best. Damn. BBQ. In New York". Early doors on a Saturday, we waited over an hour, warmed by a retro hipster body warmer my travelling companion had half-inched from the rental flat, fortified by hard liquor served in jam jars. And it was worth it. 

A huge wall montage covered the cuts and joints of every animal (just for those who didn't know what they were getting into), a chalkboard next to the server gave you the lowdown on their goods, sold by weight. Creamy soft brisket crowded the metal serving tray, stacked next to charred beef ribs, blackened fat crackling under tooth, breaking like ice on a pond to reveal soft and toothsome deep red meat. The sweet and tender pork ribs, burnt end infused beans and soft white rolls to mop and sop were almost an afterthought, the broccoli (you can take my travelling companion out of California...) was a steamed irrelevance. A few more of those jam jars and we rolled, hiccuping gently, into the Brooklyn night. "Best. Damn. BBQ. In New York".


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Michelin quality bar snacks at the Gilbert Scott - July 2012

They've settled down at St Pancras station, all of the builders have moved next door to repair years of damage to the original monstrous carbuncle King's Cross.

Railway restaurants are one of those things we don't seem to be able to get right in this country. They're too often poorly operated by franchises with low to no service standards, just an excuse to rip off occasional visitors. travel in rural France if you ever want to see how these sites could work.

Hearing that Marcus Waring would 'consult' on the menu at the grand St Pancras hotel made me wonder if this wasn't just another, higher end franchise, intent on extracting too much money for substandard fare.

I'd avoided the main restaurant until now, and on the basis of what little I sampled that could have been an error. Arriving mistakenly an hour before my train, I still didn't have time to sample the main menu, but I did have time to sample an excellent selection of bar snacks and a cheeky Chinin Blanc.

The room alone is worth an entry fee (or at least a drink), fully restored to its grandeur. Anchored with an art deco bar, the high painted ceilings carry away the drunken yammering of the herd of estate agents celebrating a deal next to me. Their Veuve-fuelled party lasted until one bold boy 'jokingly' pinched the breast of his female co-worker. The resultant slap couldn't have happened to a nicer man.

Posh pork scratchings are appearing on a number of menus at the moment, and these are the best I've sampled outside Claude Bosi's bucolic Wimbledon gastropub, the Fox and Grapes. Puffed up like chicharon, these bite-sized porcine pillows are subtle and almost refined. Dipped into a tureen of homemade apple sauce, I could eat them all day.

Salt cod croquettes are bigger than I'd expected. Not a patch on Jose, but robust and filling. Excellent bread, fennel seed loaf a highlight, and a decent pull of that ice cold aromatic white brought the total with service in at just under £20. Admittedly more than the traditional railway station sandwich, but worth the extra expense as a treat.

      

MEATmarket - Fast food tales 1 of 3 - May 2012

So it looks like Yanni Papoutsis is coming over all Russell Norman.... Not in the way that frotting filthy resto fan kids might dream about thankfully, but with the launch of another guaranteed hit. A newly acquired space refitted out of the blue that feels perfectly in fitting with its surroundings and makes you wonder how you (or another savvy restaurateur) hadn't found it before.

Let me set the record straight. This isn't an obvious space for a restaurant. It's not an obvious space for anything. It's the echoey, almost open to the elements balcony over Covent Garden's tat-tastic Jubilee Market. Feyne Deining it ain't, but it's a perfect dirty spot for a dirty burger.

The brains behind MEATwagon, MEATeasy and MEATliquor serve up 3 or 4 different double burgers, a brace of pimped hot dogs and a 50's rockabilly tattooed handful of sides are on offer. Simple enough and satisfying enough.

The bun holding the mustard fried Dirty Hippy (house speciality and tribute to the best burger on the planet) is a little lighter than before... I can't explain it, but something has changed. Not for the bad, but different. It survives, just, the onslaught of the sloppy sauce - dripping as seductively as a trickle of hot meat fat can. The taste of the sloppy patty is, as always, superb. I'd injure children to get one of these. Cheese and Jalapeno poppers are tiny spicy croquettes of fried. Perfectly acceptable, but nothing more than a distraction from the main meat, something I've felt about the sides in every iteration from MEATcorporation.

It's not immediately clear who MEATmarket is really aimed at. Is it a greasy, meaty lunchtime standfast for the hipster locals? A tourist tick or one of London's new foodie landmarks? I think that it's somewhere you'll hit up on an evening, after a few drinks in town, when the market has gone to sleep and the rock and roll meat purveyors can let their hair down.

    

Mexi-can't. Failing to eat at La Bodega Negra - May 2012

There's a Mexican restaurant I like in New York. L'Esquina. It's cool (the food has always been alright and the tequilas are amazing), it's cool (they have a secret entrance - no bridge and tunnel, past the cool as hell door-bitch, through the kitchen), it's cool (I've not walked out of there until kicked out, clinging on for another shot, performing bad dance moves as the staff finish at the end of another loooong night). In short, a New York legend. Somewhere I send everyone (I like) when they arrive...

Anyway... I heart this place. And I hear that the owner is bringing the concept to London. Cool..

I was so excited, I began telling friends. Pretty soon a group I'd whipped up into frothy enthusiasm about a night of tequila-related debauchery with a side order of Mexi street food were gathered. It was cool. I was cool. It hadn't opened yet and before you know it I'm bringing my gang. Like a hipster Robin Hood, a rock'n'roll party planner, I get my people to talk to their people and look for a big table on a Saturday night in May. I get the email below back. I win.

"All sorted Rich. Your table is now booked on 5 May at 9.30pm for 8 people. Have fun!" Get the hell in. We're the In Crowd, before the In Crowd realise it.

However things haven't started well. What grew up as a (moderately) undercover word-of-mouth frenzy over the pond arrives here with a fully-formed PR engine. A couple of weeks in and you can't open a style page without seeing models / actors / s'lebs falling out of a cab into the arms of a passing taco. It's sat on a popular street in Soho and the crowds swirl, EVERYBODY knows about the new 'hidden' eatery behind the oh so risque sex shop entrance. Not cool.

And the reviews... Oh the reviews. Poor, mixed or meh at best. Coren was broadly positive, but described the atmosphere as 80's disco try-hard. In between namedropping his guests, it inspired AA Gill to one of the most excoriating notices I've had the pleasure of reading. Wild sea-bass was described as akin to "growing antibiotics on a panty-liner"... If you can pass through the gilded rope of Times paywall it's laugh-out-loud funny.

So when I got a call from the restaurant on Friday 4th, looking to confirm a table for that evening and NOT the following evening as per the email above, I wasn't exactly devastated.

I was annoyed with them initially for right royally bollixing up my Saturday night. Very annoyed. Not cool guys... What the hell are you supposed to do with 8 people on a Saturday night when they've been promised white hot cool tequila dancing and wild crazy off the hook Nooo Yawk times? This was exacerbated by the reservations manager telling me that it can't have been possible for me to have made a reservation for the 5th in the first place, due to a block booking on the night that had allegedly been there since before they opened...

Thankfully, it wasn't a problem in the end... Enough people had read the reviews not to care, and the frothy enthusiasm had diminished in the cold light of several hundred quids' worth of tequila menu. It's probably not even the place I think it is, there's probably been a few mill spent on a diversionary hidden Mexican restaurant so that when the real one opens, no one uncool will know about it... Anyway, we went to the pub instead. Cool.

Ceviche - Second time lucky - Apr 2012

We weren't too successful the first time we attempted Ceviche. A 60 minute wait for our reservation went seemingly unacknowledged in the tiny, packed galley bar at the front of the restaurant and we ate elsewhere, grumpily and late. 

I've got to say though, upon being told of the extent of the delay and the effect it'd had on a long anticipated night out with friends, über amiable host Martin rolled out the red carpet, inviting us back for a return visit on him. True to his word, from welcome to the goodbye we were thoroughly wined, dined and damn near 69'ed. I do love the VIP touch, though it's a shame to only get it when you kick up a stink. The food thankfully, after the hype and the wait, broadly lived up to our heightened expectations..

3 to 4 dishes per person, tapas style, is the recommendation. On that basis you could just get out on about £30 a head without booze. Not bad value for the quality and quantity, but it's not a cheap night out either. The food arrives as it's cooked, in fits, spurts and starts. Such wanton disregard to timing is expected when you're sharing, but it's definitely an experience that's best enjoyed with close friends. You'll need to be close to hear over the din too, it's dark, close and shouty in here.

We took advice on the menu, pulling a selection from each section. Ceviche, the house hit, is a bit of a one note wonder to me. Slivers of seabass swim in a feisty lime and chilli marinade, silken in texture and fresh as hell. As well as this, we go for a mixed seafood plate, sadly this one is a little too similar and I think we'd had our fill by the time it turned up. It was certainly slower than the first to disappear.

The other major food group here is the selection of anticuchos or grilled skewers of varying sorts. Not recognising most of the things they've been marinaded or basted with, we chanced a selection. Beef rump and heart came doused in aji panca chilli sauce, which turned out to be a mild tingling piquancy rather than anything too robust. The best of these served big chunks of salmon doused in a rocoto sauce. For those uninitiated into the world of the chilli, the rocoto also goes by the amusing name of Capsicum Pubescens, a hairy leaved little heatbomb from the west coast of South America. Botany lesson aside, it gave the blackened fish a wonderful smoothly smokey flavour and transforms a prosaic piece of fish into something quite, quite special.

The killer dish for me was a Lomo Saltado, wokfried striploin of beef served with onion and pepper. Sweet and moreishly powerful, you could have told me halfway through that I was eating slow cooked child and I'd have still carried on.

Unlike last time, half the group were steering clear of the booze for reasons transportational and so only Dr Vole and I were able to enjoy Pisco Sours so moreish they had more than a touch of the Columbian about them.

In an ideal world, Ceviche would be a perfect spot for a post work cocktail, washing down a plate of cold fresh seabass and a skewer or two at the bar. Sadly, and subjectively, it's way too busy for that to feel like an option yet, but it delivers further compelling evidence that the independent start up restaurant scene in London continues to thrive.

Where: Ceviche, Frith Street (http://cevicheuk.com)

   

Joseph Leonard, New York - June 2011

Where: Joseph Leonard and Fedora, West Village, New York 

With who: me, myself and I (and a great deal of pig)

It's a quirky and cosy two-level West Village pub that rapidly became a favourite on my recent trip to New York. Partly for the welcome, somewhat for the atmosphere but mainly for the most decadent piece of ham I've ever eaten.

With only seven tables, each the epitome of the ragged-rustic house style, and a slew of bar seating mean Joseph Leonard is an intimate space, perfect for solo diners such as myself propping up the zinc counter or a quiet dinner with close friends. 

A sign of the resolutely local restaurant, they don't take reservations, so get there early or you'll be hovering around the doorway waiting for someone to vacate their place. Tonight being Gay Pride in New York, and Joseph Leonard being situated opposite the Stonewall Tavern in the heart of the festivities, the crowd is a little on the camp side. Someone's gone all in on the stereo and the music tonight (I hope only for tonight) is utter cheddar.. Cindi Lauper into Chaka Khan into Bohemian Rhapsody went wrong...

It's a relatively small menu, no more than 5 or 6 items per course, focussing on seasonal American fare. The aforementioned pork hock is the permanent house speciality. I was briefly distracted by the interesting cheese and oyster selection, a European cheeseboard with a focus on the raw and oozy, but I put that down to hunger and no one other than the barman to talk to. 

Thankfully I didn't pay too much attention to my conversation with the barman, he tried to upsell me the appetiser of the day, a crispy fried medley of dark chicken meat. If I'd taken the bait, I'd have been in the hospital by now. See, the ham hock had been pre-identified as the must have dish, and I'm not a man to let 95 degree heat get between me and a leg of fried animal.

The speciality deep fried ham hock hits with the subtlety of a moreish, porky brick. It's cooked twice overnight, first in brine and then in pork fat before being deep fried. And my god is it satisfying. Served with a caper and a rocket salad that cut through with sharpness but do nothing to negate the salty kick of the hock. Best served with beer, lots of the stuff. Handy considering the selection at the bar, one might think the two were linked.

It isn't the most obvious combination, a bar / restaurant metro enough to feel like the girls of Sex & The City might drop by for lunch, with as macho a main course as I've ever had. New York, city of contrasts, town of meat...

Stumbling out of Joseph Leonard, flushed with the meat sweats and discombobulated. I felt like a chubby Brit who'd just ingested a week's worth of swine. I needed somewhere to go and drink / sleep it off. Luckily the team behind JL have taken over Fedora, a basement dive round the corner and turned it into a low ceilinged macho speakeasy. It has a small but successful cocktail list, and an old fashioned hit the spot perfectly. It has it's own menu, but after the challenge I'd just been through I didn't have the guts to check it out. I would however recommend it for pre or post-dinner drinks.

New menu at Match Bar - Feb 2011

Where: Match Bar, Margaret Street
How much: Small plates for around a fiver each, platters for £14

Come here if: you want to date or meet like it's 2001

One of the original London style bars. Tricked out like a Manhattan cocktail lounge with lowslung seating, exposed brick and tile walls, lighting turned low. Recent renovations have seen the intallation of comfortable booths on the lower level as well as a revamp of the menu, now matching City sister Giant Robot, though if you've been there in the last five years, I'd be surprised if you could tell the difference. 

The cocktail menu is a strong feature. Pages of classics vie with house specials behind the well stocked bar. As many purveyors of high strength liquids they fair less well with the grape and grain, beer limited to a measly selection of three bottles (one of them a weissbier) and wine proffered without comment by grape variety. Whiskey and Amaretto Sours go down well (the latter definitely not my choice) and the dirty martini, a good test of any bar, is competent, though I'm not offered a choice of preferred brand. 

Foodwise, they go with small plates. It's beer fodder at best, hearty, stodgy and male (even more surprising given the office girl and post shop clientele. I'd have thought they'd be crying out for something small, wholesome and Asian, rather than cannonball-esque mini burgers, heavy (though tasty) deep fried rice and mozzarella balls and sharing platters of charcuterie. Don't get me wrong, it's well enough done, though more suitable for soaking up pints than the cocktails more regularly quaffed. Slightly bland crostini and an odd, almost chemical guacamole are best avoided.

The perfect Soho day - May 2010

Where: Fernandez and Wells and Bob Bob Ricard
How much?: £3.90 for a double macchiato and a Pastel de Nata then a shade over £20 for a burger and a mimosa.

This has to rank up there in the list of great places to start the day. The view isn't the best (though on a weekday you get opportunity for a Soho trend spot) but their coffee is well up there, and the charred and slightly chewy puff pastry case of their Pastel de Nata is as good as anything I've had outside Portugal. It's a buzzy little place and, like Soho neighbour Flat White, you'll struggle to get a seat. 
One of the worst things about working in Soho (after the tourists, the dirt, the idiots riding their fixies on the pavement and the chuggers) is that I've stopped appreciating what lies around me. There are some great little shops on the side streets and left to my own devices for a few hours I'll tend to head to Berners Street for Sister Ray records or over the road to check on the sale rail at Jakes Clothing. 
After that, it's down and underneath the old archway from Raymond's Review Bar, past the clip joints and the grot mag peddlars and Diamond Jacks and on to Brewer Street to grab some sushi from one of the little bars down there. I've always got time for a slightly cliched wander through the expensive, but very worthwhile stacks of authentic (but expensive) Italian food at Lina Stores. It's like Spike Island or the first Libertines gig. If half of the celebrity chefs and style mavens who claimed to be in here daily actually were, you wouldn't be able to get through the door.
After that, I'd built up an appetite for lunch. There are a fair few places to chose from but today it was going to be the burger. The burger at Bob Bob Ricard is the reason that exercise exists. Without that, you're lost. Sadly, I appear to be losing... though if I thought that the reward was a guilt free burger at BBR then I'd be spending a lot more time on the rowing machine.

There's a limited menu, mainly classic bistro dishes intermingled with a handful of left field caviar based choices (no doubt a small reminder of home for the Russian owner).

The decor wouldn't be out of place in a top end French railway buffet (assuming that said buffet were decorated with beautiful blue leather seating and staffed by men in salmon pink jackets). The staff were attentive and friendly and while I had to ask twice for the bill, I wasn't exactly in a rush, and could quit happily have sat there all day.

Starting with a sharp yet sweet pink grapefruit mimosa, I eagerly awaited my meat patty fix.

Not that I'm obsessed with the art of burger, but I'd heartily recommend this excellent article on perfect construction. Heston Blumenthal has nothing on this level of obsessive detail. While you're there, check out the equally obsessed Ibzo and his review of another firm favourite burger spot of mine, Lucky Seven. 

The burger arrived cooked perfectly as requested, enough fat to make it silky smooth with little pieces of onion studded through. A nice char on the outside contrasted with the soft bun and the Kraft slice melted deep into the pores of the unctuous patty. The sweet pickles were excellent, and the only (very slight) bum note came from the slightly flabby and seemingly unseasonal tomato.

As I polished off the last morsel, a salmon pink jacket dropped off a warm hand bowl and I sat back in my booth. The glamour of Bob Bob Ricard is a contrast with grimy old Soho, but somehow fits in perfectly.

New York eating - part 1 "casual snackin round Manhattan"

Where: Across the city, 24 hours a day, you can guarantee that someone is eating something..
How much?: You can eat like a prince in Manhattan for a few dollars (or even for free if you hit the right happy hours) and unlike London, much of the best eating can be done on, or just off, the street.

After much deliberation, we, scratch that... I, decided on the important evening meals for the four nights stay (two of these deserve their own reviews) and a number of other must eats.

I won't cover it all, just a few of the highlights. We started most mornings with coffee at Hectors. Jammed under the newly opened Highline like a toad under a stone, it's stubbornly avoided any attempt at the gentrification and pretentiousness that has infested the rest of the Meatpacking district to keep serving the (few) meatpackers still operating.

I wasn't too impressed with the Standard to be honest. Locals queued round the block to experience the 'exotic' joys of an $9 per beer or a currywurst in the Biergarten and the ultralounge, at the top of the Standard, is so cool it doesn't need a proper name or any sort of website. The views were exceptional, but at $20 or more for a competent cocktail, unless you're on someone else's money, I'd advise you to smuggle a beer up the Empire State.

While Northern Mum and Auntie Pat were in town (long story, not as mad as it sounds) we wanted to hit up a decent steakhouse. I've heard bad things happen to people who order well done meat at Peter Lugers, though I've certainly never tried it, so we went to Keens instead. While it ain't no Rules, it has been around (and up and down) since 1885. 

It's a New York steak house in the old style. Dark wood panelling and a loud, macho steaky atmosphere. It used to (back in the wild crazy smoke filled days pre 2003) host the Pipe Club, and the ceiling is hung with examples from some of the reprobates who hung their pipes up here over the years in deference to a wonderful 17th Century tradition I won't explore here, but direct you to their website (when you've read the rest of the post of course...).
I started with a short, punchy Sazerac, a great pre-steak aperitif mixing rye, bitters and absinthe. The Vole had a suitable welcome to New York drinking with a large Tiger Lily almost entirely consisting of gin!

I umm'ed and ahh'ed about their famous mutton chop before agreeing to share a medium rare filet steak. Soft as butter, great charring on the outside, possibly nearer medium than med rare but still a stunning piece of meat cooked perfectly. Sides of hash brown (effectively a fried mash pattie), buttered spinach,garlicky thin fries and green beans. An excellent Key Lime pie finished off the meal and we rolled off for more cocktails and a few showtunes at the divey but excellent Don't Tell Mama on Restaurant Row.

New York wouldn't be New York without the burger and we had a few samples. No holy grail, but some top performers and it really begs the question of how a country can get it so right on one hand, and invent Macdonalds with the other? 
On recommendation from an NYU student, I went for a covert Bacon Swiss at Soup n' Burger on Lower Broadway at 8th Ave and it was good, great for a Brit, but nothing out of the New York ordinary. The juice from the pattie soaked the lightly toasted sesame bun which held up well but didn't add much to the experience. Not much seasoning other than salt from the bacon but it certainly filled a hole. It's worth checking out if you're in this part of town and have failed to get anything from the now universally known Shake Shack on Madison Square Park. We arrived there at 11am and the queue was already to the edge of the park. It can't be that good, and I don't want to know if you've eaten there, and it is. We didn't stop to find out.
Also high on the word of mouth hysteria list (watching the crowds at the lacklustre Beer Garden under the Standard reminded me that this seems to be a NYC habit) is the Magnolia Bakery. Proof of how word of mouth PR and judicious online seeding (oh, and a few appearances in Sex And The City) can work... A two block queue on a hot Friday afternoon. Not interested.

We also tried the burger at the Viand Coffee Shop, a classic little diner that hasn't changed in the 8 years since I first went. A steady stream of locals moved in and out of the tiny space relatively tourist-free despite the Madison Ave location. A perfectly cooked burger (served medium rare without asking) and good coffee too. Pancakes also looked very good.
I'd also recommend stopping off at Taim, a lovely little Arabic themed veggie cafe in the Village. I had  a restorative strawberry, raspberry and Thai basil smoothie combined with a snack of smoky baba ganoush on a slightly charred and obviously fresh pita.
I could go on. And if you ask me, I'll be quite happy to bore you at length. We didn't look for answers to the standard 'best pizza / burger / pasta' question, an impossible task in a city so food obsessed but instead looked to take back a few memories, and leave a few places unexplored for the next visit.