Eating with my hands

My good (crazy, utterly insane, and totally admirable) friend Stephanie was in London last week, preparing to do the Tough Guy obstacle race....

Photo: Tough Guy

So to get her nice and ready and protein-ed up, I took her to Meat Liquor, a burger bar in Marylebone that I had read about and been wanting to go to. Actually, she just happened to be staying in the area and I had no idea if she ate meat or not, so it's a good thing she did.

It's a bit of a funny place. Apparently, one of the owners (two guys named Yianni and Scott) had a pop-up meat truck last year and another pop-up of sorts, called #Meateasy, in New Cross (I was told his original truck was stolen); Meat Liquor is his permanent location. 

There's also been, apparently, a trend to American-style food in London. A friend of mine suggested that this is because the English haven't traditionally liked eating food with their hands, but it's becoming more widely accepted and liked—hence the increase in burger bars and Mexican taco places. I can't believe this is true, though, because another English girl I met told me one of her favourite foods is SANDWICHES! And there is definitely a sandwich culture here—and not just for children. Supermarkets, bookstores, cafés: they all sell sandwiches. Also known as "sarnies."

Photo: Found on Flickr, courtesy of a guy named Toban Black... who, get this, happens to be Canadian and posted the photo because he was also surprised by how many SANDWICHES there are here!

Anyway, Meat Liquor is definitely a take on an American diner, but the décor (dark, with red blood paint splashed all over the animals painted all over in black) is, IMHO, much more slaughterhouse-inspired. The food is served on cafeteria trays and there are paper towel rolls (which they call "kitchen roll" in the UK) instead of napkins. 

Regardless of what you think of the space (and the clientele... a bit too "City"—banker type boys—for my liking), though, the burgers were very tasty. I also tried deep fried pickles for the first time! I thought they'd be whole pickles in a crumbly, chicken finger-type batter, but these ones were sliced pickle in a thicker batter (almost like the outside of a spring roll). But very delicious.

Don't be surprised if you visit me and we go here, too.