A couple of weeks ago I took a team of chefs out for a day
of street food at Broadway Market in London Fields. It is one of my favourite
markets and if I lived closer I would spend most of my time there.
Authentic ‘Street Food’
It’s one of the oldest markets in London and the whole street is closed and
filled to the brim with traders selling everything from vegan food to authentic
goat curries, hog roasts, amazing cakes, cheeses, salt beef and so much more.
Warm drinks on a cold day
Initially the idea of spending the whole day out and about instead of sitting in a nice warm Michelin - starred environment, sipping Cloudy Bay and gorging on goose liver did not initially appeal to the entire group but I knew the promise of booze would tweak their interest. We started with an apple mint and rum cocktail (‘Hot Jamaican’), served in a jam jar.
Initially the idea of spending the whole day out and about instead of sitting in a nice warm Michelin - starred environment, sipping Cloudy Bay and gorging on goose liver did not initially appeal to the entire group but I knew the promise of booze would tweak their interest. We started with an apple mint and rum cocktail (‘Hot Jamaican’), served in a jam jar.
Great food served quickly
Our next stop was ‘Yum Buns’ in
the overflow playground market. It was a tough choice between this and ‘Home Slice’,
the pizza place next door where the Chef brings his own wood-burning oven on
the back of a trailer, but I am an absolute sucker for a pork bun! ‘Yum Buns’ serve
traditional steamed pork buns with hoi sin sauce, spring onion, pickled
cucumber and chili sauce – delicious! The pork was perfectly crispy and the bun
was soft and light with the amazing perfume of the bamboo steamer it had been
cooked in. Feeling a bit full but on a foodie mission, we enjoyed a
beautiful salt beef sandwich: juicy salt beef sliced to order right in front of
you, layered up with pickles and mustard on a caraway bloomer – divine! We then
downed a Vietnamese coffee to keep us energised for more.
Delicious desserts
For a palate cleanser I went for cake, not the usual choice but such a tasty treat. We visited the ‘Violet Stall’; Violet has a bakery not far away and bakes some truly amazing cakes! The owner is Claire Ptak who used to be pastry chef for Alice Waters iconic restaurant ‘Chez Panisse’ in San Francisco. I went for the salted caramel chocolate cake, which was a tricky choice to make due to their amazing selection of goodies including Pumpkin Whoopee Pie and Red Velvet to name a few.
For a palate cleanser I went for cake, not the usual choice but such a tasty treat. We visited the ‘Violet Stall’; Violet has a bakery not far away and bakes some truly amazing cakes! The owner is Claire Ptak who used to be pastry chef for Alice Waters iconic restaurant ‘Chez Panisse’ in San Francisco. I went for the salted caramel chocolate cake, which was a tricky choice to make due to their amazing selection of goodies including Pumpkin Whoopee Pie and Red Velvet to name a few.
The best burger?
Again in need of a pick me up I slung down a Flat White from
one of the 5 or so fantastic coffee stalls and headed to the final stop of the
day, ‘Lucky Chip’. Lucky Chip boasts the reputation of being one of the best
burgers in town and I needed to find out for myself. They do a couple of
variations of their burger but I wasn’t in the mood to mess about and went for
the standard cheese burger.
Now this is the only burger van that I know in
which you place your order, take a seat or wander off and come back when your
burger is ready - in our unfortunate case this would be 30 minutes later! So we
sat and waited, had a drink in a jam jar, ripped into each other the way you
would imagine you would when you get a bunch of chefs together around some
garden furniture in Hackney and just stared in envy at all the people whose orders
were coming out before ours. But then the moment came, this “shiny beasty
burger” was put down in front of me and it didn’t matter how cold I was, it was
here! I went in with some French’s mustard, which I personally couldn’t live my
life without and started to tuck in - it was worth the wait! The burger had
been cooked to a medium cuison on a flat top grill, the cheese was perfectly
melted and there was plenty of it and the bun had been finished off using the
water and closh technique to make it ultra shiny and soft. I have had some good
burgers in my time, and I like to think I make a pretty mean one myself, but this
one was up there among the top 5.
Eventually we peeled ourselves from the already slightly morphed
garden furniture and started our journeys home. Aided by a few more drinks
along the way, we made our way towards our stations of choice.
The right food for the occasion
Don’t get me wrong I love fine dining and spend a near fortune
on travelling around eating at the best restaurants and in some cases heading towards
‘stalker status’ of the world’s best Chefs but on this occasion it wouldn’t
have suited! Sitting on soft furniture with dim lighting and amuse
bouches does not suit every occasion and for this we made the right choice. Sometimes
I want to eat pork belly on a child-sized bench, or a salt beef sandwich on the
floor outside estate agents with a great bunch of chefs, drink syrup-like
coffee on tiny stools, relive past horrifying events, make fun of each other
for hours on end and use whatever language I deem appropriate when describing an
old CDP’s banana-sized hands.
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