Andina - Shoreditch

1 Redchurch Street, Shoreditch, London, E2 7DJ

Every cuisine seems to get its fifteen minutes of fame. I'm sure I've said that many times before, but it's true. Peruvian had it's spell of glory last year and/or the year before. It's on the wane now - or at least it is based on anecdotal Twitter evidence.

Andina is a Peruvian restaurant that appeared at the height of the glory. A very sensible thing to do: strike while the iron is hot, way before ASDA start selling Peruvian microwave meals and the hipsters flee faster than Lib Dem voters on polling day.

If I wanted to be a proper food blogger, I should go to these place when they're at their hippest, queue in the wind, rain, and boiling-hot sun just to get some pics up on Instagram way before anyone else.

But I'm not, so I didn't.

By the time I finally visited, the wave of euphoria had swept through and most people I know had been and gone.

That's probably for the best.

Perhaps during the height of the hype these guys were on fire - or that hype was so great everyone was blinded to any issues. Regardless, I was fairly disappointed by Andina.

For a start, the staff seemed a little clueless - not for the first time in a Peruvian restaurant, I might add. Our waitress either couldn't hear us or couldn't understand us, we were bombarded with drinks and dishes that weren't ours, and getting hold of water was like trying to squeeze it from a stone.

Not great really, on what was a reasonable quiet Tuesday night.

The food wasn't fantastic either. I expected some flare to the dishes - something to really set them apart and justify the wealth of praise. I didn't find much.

The duck ceviche sounded interesting, but it could have been any meat really - the delicate taste overwhelmed by whatever the sauce was.

The octopus delivered some wow. Served as a whole tentacle on a small plate, it captured that look of an alien that only an octopus can manage. Impressive and tasty. Is that too much to ask from the other dishes?

I didn't photograph much of the rest and I'm not going to write about it either. Meh sums it up pretty well. The Pisco sour was very good - the best I've had, in fact - but I'd recommend anyone visiting to stick to the drink and skip the food.

Do I have to summarise? I'm not sure. I'm suppose I do for those one or two who scrolled to the bottom of the article. Overall, Andina was average at best - and I really really wanted to like this place, especially after all I heard. Parking was ample.

Yard - Shoreditch

140 Tabernacle St, Shoreditch, London, EC2A 4FD

When I started this blog, the aim was to review restaurants in fewer than two hundred words and focus only on those restaurants that I would recommend people paid a visit to. A short, snappy, happy food blog. Well, I talk a lot and rant even more, so it was inevitable that the reviews would grow in both length and negativity. 

This review will appeal to that editorial ideal and remain short; however, it'll definitely be the least favourable review I've ever written. 

Shoreditch is a fantastic place for food. Street after street of excellent restaurants, pop-ups, and food trucks. The self-proclaimed 'famous' Yard pizzeria, two minutes walk from Old Street station, is not one of them. So far from it, in fact, that the place moves through depressing and swings back round to humorous. Visit if suffering from crippling depression and you'll leave with a smile on your face, a spring in your step, and your sides hurting.

I could focus on the shabby (and definitely not chic) decor, the reek of desperation that comes from plastering your walls with adverts to hire the yawning chasm of a restaurant you can't fill with diners as a party venue, or the food that tasted as bland, awful, an uninteresting as the cardboard box the take-outs are served in - but I won't. Instead, I'll pick on the one item that sits beneath your nose the moment you sit down and which sums this place up perfectly.

A small plastic basil 'plant'.

What in God's name was someone thinking when they picked it up, bought it, transported it, and placed it on the table? Which self-respecting pizzeria considers that to be a positive or even necessary addition to their establishment? 

If I owned the place, I'd have the manager horsewhipped the length of Old Street and probably beyond for allowing such a tasteless piece of utter rubbish to grace the doors of my restaurant. And if it was the owner who chose the thing, my advice is to close the doors, eat the keys, stuff your face with Toblerone, and drive to Stranraer with no shoes on.

Perhaps it was the manager, and perhaps this is his or her idea of a little joke or warning. A comment on the lifeless food to come.

Halfway through the meal, we noticed a couple on one table clearly going through a break-up. It must be hugely depressing to be dumped while eating at a restaurant this bad, although if Yard is the sort of place he brings her on a regular basis, she was probably hugely relieved. 

Eyre Brothers - Shoreditch

70 Leonard Street, London, EC2A 4QX

Think of Shoreditch and think of meat by the bucketful, pop-up stalls in car parks, hotels selling coffee, and a mile of Vietnamese restaurants on Kingsland Road. The idea of fine dining is something held further north amongst the pushchairs of Angel or further South amongst the suits of Moorgate. But there are actually plenty of places offering polished silver, black shirted waiters, proper wooden tables, and natural light - Eyre Brothers is one such place. A smart Iberian (read tapas) restaurant on Leonard Street, you’re best visiting when someone else is paying and when you’ve planned a stereotypically Spanish afternoon.

Visiting at lunchtime and hearing a pin or two drop in the restaurant, the bar seems the best place for this agoraphobe. Here you can choose from a short tapas menu that features such delights as slow cooked pig cheeks in red wine. The desire to simply stop there and order five of those dishes is a difficult one to repress, but then they do have casseroled belly pork two rungs down, so it’s a good idea to read on. The meal can be slightly stodgy if you order before the bread basket arrives. The small white rolls are moorish and perfect for wiping around the finished casseroles, soaking up every last drop of the fatty, tomatoey, garlicky goodness. Even after the sobrasada (pork paste on toast) and the pa amb tomaquet (tomatoes on toast), just one more roll was needed to finish wiping each dish clean. 

Pork isn’t actually mandatory at Eyre Brothers and the delicate anchovies, fried peppers, and prawns provided a good palate cleanser between each mouthful of meat. As does a small sip of sherry - that afternoon siesta looking ever more tempting. The prawns arrived nestled between strands of green plants, which I managed to knock deftly aside. I presume this garnish was purely decorative. The boquerones (anchovies) were slightly more challenging, my fat clumsy fingers struggling to retrieve the breakable fish without picking up the accompanying garlic and walnuts - both non-meats, but they tasted surprisingly good.

A place like Eyre Brothers, with it’s refined dishes, crisp white napkins, and lack of craft ale shows that Shoreditch can offer cuisine above that of the half-foot burger, the bucket of diablo wings, and child-sized steak. It’s a taste of things to come, possibly, as the suits from the City edge ever closer to the trendy trendy streets of Silicon Roundabout.

Tramontana Brindisa - Shoreditch

152 Curtain Rd, London, EC2A 3AT

First dates can be excruciating. Sat alone to my left the empty chair of a table for two, a cry for pity from the rest of the room. To my right, both full yet so diametrically opposed that he’d use the table for chess, while she’d use it for lines. No-one was having fun. They should have all gone home; but instead, they stay and persever. She might yet show, he might yet prove to be interesting, and perhaps the bathroom has a nice clean flat surface anyway. 

Someone could make a good TV show out of first dates. Every cringingly embarrassing moment caught on camera and yet more editorially engineered to enhance the effect. Until they do, I’ll just keep watching live dates, safe in the knowledge that when I’m on a date my suave failure to pronounce foreign words of any kind and the slick African themed pocket square protruding from my blazer pocket negate the chance of embarrassment. I am simply far too cool.

Sat between the chess player, the drug addict, and the loner at Tramontana Brindisa, I was overwhelmed and my imagination ran wild. Who knows what libellous backstory I could have constructed for each of them had I ploughed through more glasses of cava without eating dinner. The food, however, was too distracting. Blood red steak and blood red pork (it was supposed to be like that) sat alongside a cheese pasta ‘thing’ - like a lasagne, but just pure cheese - breads, and a variety of leaves. 

As with all tapas, my mind is addled when there is more plate than table in front of my eyes. I pick a spoon or forkful from each and mix the flavours, unable to distinguish between any of them as they melt and swim across my tongue. Pork, steak, cheese; steak, cheese, pork; cheese, pork, steak; broken only by bread and the odd green stalk. A tapas smoothy, with every ingredient good. A lazy review, yes; but certainly true. A creme catalana followed, studded with strawberries; with a bowl of custard, caramel, and the sweetest of all the fruits, how can you go wrong?

I left Tramontana Brindisa with my head spinning slightly from cava, my heart weighed heavy by meats and custard, and my Africa themed pocket square dangling from my pocket. Exactly how you should feel emerging from a good meal. As I wandered past, the loner since joined by a girl, clearly in a relationship of some years, and the other date? Pawn to queen's knight 4.

Mien Tay - Shoreditch

122 Kingsland Rd, London, E2 8DP

There's a lazy beauty in eating Asian cuisine that you don't often find in any other: allowing someone else to order for you. With English, French, and Italian, you'd choose your own food and it would seem almost perverse to allow someone else to choose for you. Perhaps tapas isn’t included in this sweeping statement, but there you usually have a voice in the group decision. Three times in the past week my dinner has been chosen by someone else. Malay, dim sum, and Vietnamese. Each time, I occasionally nodded my head or said ‘spicy squid’ just to pretend that I had an opinion and show that I was still breathing.

At Mien Tay on Kingsland Road I was more than happy to let someone else order, my head spinning from an afternoon of drinking and clouded by the stench of fish sauce that greeted us upon opening the door. And I do mean stench. It’s not a great introduction to a restaurant really, a strong pungent smell. Anywhere else, I would have left; but I had been warned in advance, the diners already seated weren’t bothered, and I was quickly distracted once the first of ten dishes landed on the table. Nothing at Mien Tay could be faulted, even the tofu pancake was good. Soft shell crab in a spicy batter, fried quail with a spicy dusting, summer rolls with a spicy dip. My tongue grew progressively more numb with each new dish. Not in a bad way. This wasn’t the spice that has you bleeding heat, not even the spicy that leaves you dripping in sweat. A gradual warming - good as the fake Spring was rapidly disappearing and I had no socks on - and definitely not enough to ruin the more delicate flavours of the star dish: a whole baked seabass. No real spice here, just a flavourful infusion of herbs and lemon grass - at least that’s what I could taste - and spoon after spoon of delicious light white fish. A dish so disgustingly healthy, I could feel it replacing the lost brain cells of the afternoon.

Judging by the endless newspaper clippings in the window and the fact that the restaurant has expanded into the neighbouring site, this is popular place, no mean feat given the endless Vietnamese competition on this street. Don't be put off by the take-away-like exterior or the smell when the doors open, take a friend who knows what they’re doing, sit back and wait for the seabass.

Amici Miei - Shoreditch, London

28-30 Kingsland Rd, London, E2 8DA

I had Italian lessons once. Perhaps not helped by my copy of the textbook being twenty years out-of-date - Steffi Graf and Pavarotti having been replaced by David Beckham and Rihanna in the game 'Name the celebrity' - I learnt piacere, and that's all. Buying Crocodile Dundee on DVD would have been better value. Luckily, I'm well practiced in the technique of pointing like a monkey at the food I'd like to eat. And regardless of what the constantly winking waitress thought, I wasn't on a date, even if the girl in question does have form for leaving me waiting in restaurants like a stood-up singleton. This time she was ten minutes late. More fuel to the fire of revenge. I've decided on a speedboat through her wedding cake. James Bond style.

Amici Miei on Kingsland Road was where I sat alone. I ordered myself a glass of pin-ot grig-ee-o and decided on a delis-ater pizza. Pronunciation, perfect. This is not the place to sit alone. A small sea of tables for two, candles twinkling, with barely enough light for an Instagram shot and a large glass window exposes diners to the street outside. For the single man, there is nowhere to hide. People pass and gawp, their expressions cracked with sympathy for the lone zoo animal. I point like a monkey, eat like a monkey, and look like one devoid of any companionship too. She's in big trouble. That speedboat is going to take out the altar, vicar, groom, and the father of the bride.

Pregnant style cravings have seen me wolf-down pizzas galore across the capital in the past month. Amici Miei rates highly amongst those. Crispy base, ample mushrooms, and for a pizza with no tomato (my fault for not checking the small print), not too dry. The night was all about the pudding though. Perhaps not sweet enough for my childish tastes, but the polenta cake with custard was a properly good pudding, one that a monkey like me can dig at with a spoon and not feel the least bit conscious about. Custard dribbling down my chin and the second spoon stolen to prevent her from joining in, the waitress shook her head as she cleared the clean bowl away. This would have been one date not progressing to a second. It's fine, I'll find a girl who isn't late and come back again.

Old Fountain - Old Street, London

3 Baldwin St, London, EC1V 9NU

Old Street roundabout is the poster child for UK tech. The looping arms of the ad hoardings, the swirling taillights of a lengthy shutter speed. Squint and it's Blade Runner. In the cold pale light of day, that shine wears off though. The roundabout, just a maintenance yard covering a warren of tramp alleys and the claustrophobic station beneath. Even the beach ball bailed.

Perhaps an analogy for Shoreditch - a shiny tin-foil facade stretched across the ruins of 20th century London - or perhaps too many drinks with lunch at the Old Fountain; but, if that wafer thin analogy of Shoreditch holds true, then the Old Fountain is the reverse. A 1980s style pub (how would I know?), complete with worn green carpet and old men perched on stools nursing a half-pint through the various stages of evaporation, hides a modern menu, active Twitter account, and an ale list to kill for. Again, a CAMRA award or three hang behind the bar, but no Old Peculiar here, I’m drinking the evolutionary craft beer that is Zenith (4%) from Summer Wine Brewery.

Dotted with a few suits, a couple of local types, the old men at the bar, and a visiting couple from up North looking for a McDonald’s (dream on), at lunchtime the Old Fountain has a quiet atmosphere where two reprobates in the corner talking loudly disturb everyone. After two pints of Zenith, we didn’t care, although once the food arrived we quietened down. Eating a fairly standard salt beef sandwich, with fairly standard pub chips, I looked on in envy as an entire portion of duck confit large enough for two was consumed by one. Jealousy doesn’t begin to describe it, but I had the choice. I made my bed, and lay in it. I can’t complain. On a return visit - and there will be one - I’ll avoid the sandwiches and drive into a main. The only way to go.

The Jones Family Project - Shoreditch

78 Great Eastern Street, London, EC2A 3JL

Reviewing a restaurant can be hard when you like the people involved. To criticise a place for a lack of imagination or bland food, for instance, can be difficult when you've met the people who make a living from crafting the dish or promoting the place. Then again, criticism is supposed to be constructive, and any reviewer who turns a blind eye to the bad and comments only on the good due to matters of friendship is going to lack credibility, eventually.

Not that I'm skipping along arm-in-arm with the folks at The Jones Family Project, you understand. I've emailed them, tweeted them, and (now) met them (briefly) in person. However, it does make criticism all the harder to write. Luckily, I don't have to really.

The Jones Family Project delivered on what they had promised at their opening party. Steak served on a stick now came large, charred, and perfectly medium rare from the depths of their 500 degree Josper Charcoal Oven. Not quite the Fred Flintstone t-bone I once witnessed in Sao Paolo, but getting close. The recommended sides of macaroni cheese and grilled sprouts - served separately - were also damn good, even though I completely missed the avocado and nuts in the latter.

A comment has to be made here on the drinks. Flawless, they really were. An amazing vanilla scented red wine, everyone's favourite pretentious drink - a negroni - and glasses of calvados to finish. After that, I could still stand, but only just.

Now, unfortunately, I have to finish on a negative - for me and for them. In that classically English way, when asked for comment on the pudding, I nodded and replied that everything was fine. Pure Mark Corrigan. However, I lied. Sorry. Perhaps it was the friendliness of the staff and the quality of the food preceding it clouding my judgement, or perhaps just cowardice. Needless to say, the puddings weren't great. The overly large dish of chocolate mousse and a small loaf of brownie just lacked the refinement and flavour found in the rest of the meal. It was a shame, because everything else had been of such great quality. If they work on this I've no doubt gluttons from the four corners of London will be trekking here for dinner, often.

Gourmet San - Bethnal Green

261 Bethnal Green Rd, London, E2 6AH

Everyone knows the scene. It's The Deer Hunter and De Niro and Walken play Russian roulette, sat at a table in a small dark room, surrounded by Vietnamese gamblers and hustlers. Pistols, bullets, and red bandanas at the ready. The private room upstairs at Gourmet San had a similar air. It was empty, save for two flies circling the lightbulb, but it was definitely a room ready for something suspect, and if not roulette then storage for an ill-gotten whale or some unfortunates bedroom. The duvet sticking out of a locked cupboard strongly suggested the latter.

This is a classic Chinese restaurant. From the outside there is no indication of the level of quality within - you could find that hideous sweet 'n' sour gloop coating every mouthful or the greatest damn pork hoc this side of Oxford. Luckily, as the name suggests, Gourmet San was gourmet. Ignore the flies, the duvet, and the grit on the floor, and avoid playing roulette with the menu, which included such memorable dishes as duck's tongue with chilli oil, spicy mix of lamb sinew, dry fried pork intestines, and cucumber with jellyfish. Oh, and if you're vegetarian, be careful - our green beans came with pork. Instead of these traditional delicacies, we went for the slightly safer options. Lamb skewers with fennel seeds, squid rings, rubbery rubbery squid flaps (one to avoid), various pork with chillies, and beef fillet with hot pepper. Plates and plates of delicious food, sticks and sticks of sweet skewers, enough to feed ten people, plus beer, and we paid the outrageous price of £20 each, including tip.

I wouldn't advise heading here with any fewer than four people, but if you do, leave the belt and bandana at home.

The Jones Family Project, The Three Crowns, The Reliance - Shoreditch

Various near Old Street

I wasn't going to mention The Jones Family Project - a new bar and restaurant opening this month on Great Eastern Street - as I attended a pre-opening party*: not necessarily the best indicator of food, service, or ambience of the place once open. The enthusiastic and polite staff, steak on a stick, and the surprisingly smart interior (yep, The Metro was right - the suits are coming to Shoreditch) changed my mind. I'll be back to try it properly, just keep the dates wrapped in bacon away from me.

Waiting for the party to start freed up some time for one of my favourite pastimes - sitting. Or more specifically, sitting in pubs. The Three Crowns and The Reliance - both crawling distance from Old Street Station - are two great pubs. The former - another smartly dressed venue - gives up more floor-space to food than it does to the bar, creating a cosy atmosphere when busy. There are plenty of seats though and if you can't get a table, you can perch on a stool at the window playing count the fixies and 'spot the red chinos' with the passing traffic on City Road. 

As for The Reliance, I've treated it as a pre-dinner boozer far too often. It just has the look of a pub that pulls a good pint, but if you asked for some food they'd have to blow dust off the microwave. A glance at the chalk-board revealed an enticing menu though - I really should eat there soon.

*Disclaimer: drinks and nibbles at the pre-opening party were provided free-of-charge.

MEATmission - Hoxton Market

314-15 Hoxton Market, London, N1 6HG

What more can be said about burgers? That now ubiquitous food that has swept through the streets, appearing in every restaurant, every market, and everything in between. Don't mistake me, I like burgers. I've eaten many - many good, many bad, and still have many more to go in London alone. I've just run out of words for them, and I think others have too. At their best, they're rare, juicy, flavoursome, often sweet, accompanied by great tasting condiments, sauces, or other that light up tastebuds; at their worst, they're grey, soggy, stale, smothered in limp lettuce, and drowned beneath cheap ketchup. Surely that's enough?

I can't then comment much on the burger at MEATmission. That's my fault, not theirs. It was a burger. Cooked well, of a good size, and definitely not soggy. Perfect for one of our party who relished the thought of a burger, fries, 'genuinely real' Coca-Cola, and presumably the shinny booth we sat in as well - to complete the American look. Not that MEATmission is Yankee themed, but a burger is American to anyone from outside of London.

The unassuming door to MEATmission betrays any hint of what lies within, to the point where, if it weren't for the large luminous letters, you'd be forgiven for thinking the place closed. Inside, the illuminated imitation stained glass ceiling creates dark corners where diners hide, smearing their faces with some of the messier burger options on the menu, and swigging from litre+ jugs of beer and cider. The bar is a spider-like forged metal monster, crazily disorientating with the number of taps that hang from it. Essentially, it's Shoreditch distilled in to a single venue.

And needless to say, MEATmission has to be experienced, if only for that ambience.

Red Dog American Sandwiches - Hoxton Square

37 Hoxton Square, London, N1 6NN

The greatest innovation of the last 300 years, if true. Pub hearsay tells me that the sandwich was the invention of a gambling Earl who wanted to hold his dinner in one hand, freeing the other for his cards.

Today, aside from a Pret no-fat-and-all-air 100 calorie bread-based slice, you'll struggle to find a sandwich small enough for just one hand. Meat, cheese, tomato, salad, pickles, condiment, and 600 calories more, a sandwich is dinner, cut in to four hand-held pieces or wrapped in enough paper to hold a small dog.

Those at Red Dog American Sandwiches - an offshoot of the Red Dog Saloon, just around the corner on Hoxton Square - come ready sawn in two. I'd expect this from a country where sandwiches are measured in feet not inches. The calories matched the stereotype too. The Philly cheesesteak oozes grease from every pore. Strange then that they bothered to wrap it for the very short journey from the counter to the table. While the bottom half of the bread, saturated with grease, will always disintegrate in seconds, wrapped-up the top half sweats its way to oblivion. The result is a swimming pool of grease, encased in paper, with remnants of bread, beef, and cheese floating on the surface. They should serve it with a straw.

Tramshed - Shoreditch

32 Rivington Street, London, EC2A 3LX

According to the Metro, Shoreditch has lost its edge. No longer the refuge of dead-beat artists clawing an existence from the gutter, where carrying a lowly iPhone 3 would get you mugged, Shoreditch is now a candy land for the affluent, with Liverpool Street suits wandering up for lunch at a high street eatery or over-priced poncery. These days the Gucci-clad thieves won't give you a second glance unless your iPhone 5 carries an 's'.

Perhaps Shoreditch has lost its edge. I've no idea. I haven't worked here for that long. What I can say is that I'd rather trade edge for security, impoverished artists for cash points, and salmonella for quality food. Shoreditch is awash with good places to eat. Of a lunchtime, you can glutton your way from Old Street to High Street, and back again, on cheap eats, eye-watering bills, and everything in between. Try doing that in Harlesden.

Just off the glutton trail, tucked down Rivington Street, is a surprisingly large hall that is Tramshed. Owned by a renowned chef (Mark Hix), with a Damien Hirst centre-piece, and occupying a building that could house no less than a hundred wannabe Yokos, Tramshed is everything the Metro must hate.

Tipping its hat to edgy credentials, at Tramshed you can dine almost exclusively on steak and chicken - I presume a vegetarian option is available, but they'd probably have to blow the dust off it first. The litmus test - steak and chips - was passed with flying colours, although I would say my steak was slightly more medium than rare. Bonus points too for being only the second place I've visited which serves Oxford Sauce. I just don't understand why this delicious, spicy brown, anchovy infused condiment isn't more widely available.

A series of sides accompanied our meal, but having foregone the recommended Oyster Ale (5.5%) in favour of champagne, I really can't remember what they were. I do recall the pudding, although I challenge anyone to forget a bowl of molten chocolate served with marshmallows and donut batter for dipping. I can also recall the envy felt for my friend's chicken and steak sandwich. Half the price of my meal and looking just as filling, if not more tasty, with crisp pieces of chicken skin poking out from each side.

When you next wade through the endless high street chains clogging the streets of Shoreditch, lamenting the disappearance of all those oh-so-trendy artists and violent muggings, turn to Rivington Street, visit Tramshed, and within minutes you just won't care.

Fish Dog - Shoreditch

5-7 Rivington Street, London, EC2A 3DT

Perfection is a rarity. No matter how good a meal is, there is usually a negative aspect to be found. Service, ambiance, and three courses - a restaurant has many opportunities to make a mistake. On this basis, street food has it easy: serving only one course reduces the likelihood of failure by a factor of three. Then again, street food has a plethora of discerning customers with a propensity for passing comment on Twitter, as well as a host of competitors for comparison in close proximity. Almost perfect isn't good enough if the guys next door are offering something better.

Perhaps it was the last of the summer sun, the lack of queue, or the timing of their tweet ('firing up the fryers'), but my visit to see Fish Dog in R3D Market was nothing short of perfect. For those who don't know this highly rated London street food, Fish Dog is part of the Mark Hix food empire, compressed in to a small yellow van. While the name may conjure images of fish wrapped in a sausage skin, Fish Dog is actually just a slightly different take on standard fish and chips. Moist, flaky white fish fillet is battered and served in a hotdog bun atop a line of mushy peas. Fresh, golden crisp fries sit alongside, and you're welcome to as much as tartar sauce as you can eat. Aside from being washed down with a beer, lunch doesn't get more perfect than this.

Burger Bear - Shoreditch

5-7 Rivington Street, London, EC2A 3DT

(This review also appears on Hoxton Radio)

When it comes to meat, the pig is the most versatile of animals. Chop, steak, bacon, hock, cheek, belly, rib, shoulder, knuckle, trotter, the list goes on. But what about bacon jam? Has anyone ever heard of that? I certainly hadn't, not until a blogger on Twitter sent me in the direction of Burger Bear.

Appearing three days a week at the #R3D Market, just off Rivington Street, Burger Bear is another of the many many burger stands in London - someone should really create a map. However, Burger Bear stands out from the crowd, sitting as it does in ninth place in the revered Young & Foodish Top 10 Burgers list, and based on my sample of the Grizzly it's worthy of its place.

The Grizzly is a fat piece of meat, charred bacon, and a melted cheese slice, topped with bacon jam, and sandwiched in a no-nonsense bread roll. I've probably forgotten one or two ingredients, but the essence of a great burger is in the flavours merging together so well that the components can't be easily distinguished, just a hint here and a hint there. There's nothing worse than biting in to a burger and tasting the separation between dry meat, cold lettuce, and sickly cheese. It's the only thing a bad burger does well.

The exception to the flavour rule comes in the form of the bacon jam. Such a strange, smoky yet sweet substance - a bacon chutney almost - the taste of the jam is distinct from everything else within the bun and is moreishly delicious. What else would you expect from what is essentially distilled bacon?

Competing in the fourth round of the London Burger Bash in early November, head to Burger Bear soon, sample the bacon jam, and you'll understand why they should make the finals.

Urban Food Fest - Shoreditch

Euro Car Parks, 163-175 Shoreditch High Street, London, E1 6HU

(This review also appears on Hoxton Radio)

Street food is booming. Any bust, if suffered, won't come from a lack of demand; rather it will come from council restrictions, red tape, and intervention (see the sufferings of Kerb's Gherkin pitch) and, quite possibly, the weather. 

The British weather doesn't do much to aid the success of street food. It's clear that demand exists as affluent and discerning folks, young and old, are keen to spend money on novel foods of the highest quality. However, it's unlikely they'll want to nibble chicken from the bone in minus temperatures or scoff a pulled pork roll in a force 10 gale. The best soy marinade and hot sauce be dammed. What would help vendors respond to the weather would surely be support from the local authorities. Reduced rates in winter months, temporary shelters, and the use of covered spaces, for example, rather than arbitrary cease and desist orders for what seem to be popular markets. 

The weather killed my first attempt to visit Urban Food Fest. What started as a July drizzle turned to a monsoon and we dived for cover beneath Yalla Yalla's tin roof. Thankfully, this time, after another 24-hour deluge welcoming the arrival of Autumn, the rain clouds parted to reveal a beautifully clear bank of far drier clouds over East London.

Occupying a small car park, just north of Shoreditch High Street Station, next to a petrol station and opposite a strip club, Urban Food Fest is not in a scenic spot. But it is accessible and the crush of brightly coloured food trucks squeezed together in a tight laager blocks out the ugly surroundings, leaving you to gape at the bewildering choice on offer.

Closing my mouth and wiping the dribble from my chin, I opted for the vendor with the shortest queue. Clearly, Shoreditch residents live on the edge, but not close enough to try frogs legs and sweet potato fries from Geaux Cajun. It's a shame because the legs are like small tender pieces of chicken, clinging to a fragile bone, coated in a hot dry dusting of spice - simply delicious. The fries are a nice warming accompaniment, too delicate for fingers, great with a forkful of coleslaw to cool a previous mouthful of hot frog.

The second course was the goal of my quest. Once again, Twitter provides a useful marketing tool for vendors. No sooner had Busan BBQ tweeted about their double-fried chicken in sweet sticky chilli, than I had the date down in my diary. We went for a soy marinade in the end - those frogs still tingled my tongue - and the chicken arrived in a dry, almost tempura-like batter, piled in a paper tray above a small dribble of the marinade for some dipping action. An excellent choice alongside a cold beer. 

Tempted next by an Argentinian empanada, I realised the limitations this would pose upon pudding and went instead for a final course of yet more batter. Lightly sugared with a chocolate dip, churros from Churros Garcia is one of those foods I could eat continuously until caught by a heart attack. They really should light their stand up though. It's red in colour, but doesn't stand out when compared to the artwork-cum-pizza-wagon that is Streetzza. As darkness descended, it resembled a vacant pitch between the empanadas, steaks, and mushrooms on either side.

With Yalla Yalla just two doors down, Urban Food Fest gives residents and visitors to Shoreditch options come rain or shine on a Saturday evening. It's a good place for a snack, three course meal, or, if you get your drinking hat on, the start of a night out. With dates listed each Saturday until October 12th, get down there soon before the weather turns uglier still.

Yalla Yalla - Shoreditch

186 Shoreditch High Street, London, E1 6HU

In Sergio Leone's The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, Lee Van Cleef sits in "the old Hacienda" shovelling down some indeterminable stew from a clay plate. Using only his right hand - his left free for the inevitable gunslinging - this is the next step up from pretty cool eating; which is, presumably, über-cool eating.

The closest I had ever come to achieving this pinnacle of cool was eating an open burrito from a tray at Benito's Hat in Kings Cross Station. However, the constant announcements about trains to Peterborough just killed the atmosphere.

Rolling our horses in to Shoreditch on a Saturday evening, and having made the wise decision to side-step Urban Food Fest prior to the largest deluge this year, we pitched in to Yalla Yalla. Here, as the rain hammered against the corrugated iron of this trendy lean-to opposite The White Horse, I sat on a wooden bench, eating from a small platter, right-hand clutching a plastic fork, left-hand ready for some gun-fighting-action, or rather holding a Almaza (4.0%).

Thank you Yalla Yalla! This was the atmosphere I'd always wished for. And although a cuisine separated by some 3,000 miles of ocean from Mexico, the Beirut street food this insanely yellow-fascinated street-stall dishes up was spot on. In order to sample as much as possible, I opted for a Street Platter: a mix of chicken, pitta, tabboule, hummus, and some form of samboussek. Mashing it all together with a plastic fork gave a perfect mix of succulent meat, moist salad, and tangy tangy cheese. Washed down with a cold but slightly gassy beer, if Angel Eyes were alive today he'd be hunting for his gold here.