Meat Market

You have no idea how excited I am about this new venture from Yianni the genius behind the Meat Wagon and Meat Liquor.

I’ve been pretty obsessed with Burgers since I started reading Daniel Young and Burgerac and I’ve progressively gotten more passionate about tracking down the very best and most authentic burgers that the capital has to offer.

I’d been hearing all sorts of good things about the wonderful chilli cheeseburgers that the Meat Wagon was selling, but unfortunately because it was in south London I never actually managed to get myself down there to try one. Then, catastrophe, the Meat Wagon was stolen.

Thankfully for us burger obsessives, a plan was quickly hatched that saw the upstairs of a derelict pub get taken over for the seminal #meateasy. So for a short couple of months the only place to be of an evening was New Cross, stories of crazy queues, wild cocktails, klaxons, burgerettes and those motherflippers abounded from blog to page. The vicarious thrill of experiencing all this real time through twitter had me, on several occasions near breathless at my computer screen.

Sadly #meateasy was always going to be only for a limited period of time. But as a blessing for us devotees of the burger chase, along came Meat Liquor. Exploding into central London, just off Oxford circus. There were rumours of new menu items, fountains of Franks hot sauce flowing freely onto crack like chicken wings, a dark almost windowless room with even darker corners for people to indulge their dead hippy fetishes away from prying eyes. Largerita cocktails chasing beers chasing shooters chasing grease slicked trays of chilli fries like some debauched Ouroboros of hedonistic joy.

Then there were the queues, snaking out of the door and into the street, indeed the two times I ventured near there was such a clamour of activity outside the doors that I actually balked, having to make last minute plan changes while resolving to return when it was quieter.

Then, quite out of the blue came Meat Market, swaggering like a priapic gunslinger into the fetid touristic swamp that is Covent Garden. God knows that those of us who work nearby have been clamoring for something better than the Wagamamas and Fire and Stones that have here to for been our only choices.

So leaving no pun unturned Meat Market has arrived to save our lunches and preach the gospel of the burger to the masses. Offering take aways to those desk bound aficionados, and tooth janglingly sweet meth amphetamine like Miami Vice slush puppies for those brave enough to take on the pink and cream swirl of ice cold alcoholic electro joy. White Castle riffing newcomer the Black Palace offering a whole new strata of fried onion happiness while chilli poppers supposedly do just that. Seriously just thinking about visiting Meat Market brings me out in cold sweat slick of excitement while I’m having minor palpitations over proposing to my colleagues, what will undoubtedly be a lunch like revelation of Damascene proportions. 


(photos from @foodstories flickr stream, I hope she's ok with me using them as I really like her blog and have often wanted to cook some of the recipes she posts)