Scum Bag Traveller

Food busking in deepest darkest south London

It’s not often scumbag traveller gets invited to taste some delicious creations by a street food genius and then gets asked to write about it so when my HQ received the memo I was shipped out ASAP. I was given a short briefing about the chef providing the food and entertainment. It was going to be John Quilter AKA The Food busker and that french’s would be providing the sauces and condiments. Since my first posting to Fort Bragg back in 88 I have been obsessed with hot dogs and mustard so was pleased to know I would get to enjoy a little reminder of my time stateside, and this time I wouldn’t need to worry about confidentiality statements or assault charges on peace loving hippies moaning about the war.

I wandered down to the real street food market at the Southbank centre and used my cover as a travel/food blogger and introduced myself to the head honcho himself. John Quilter, I interrogated him ‘softly’ using techniques I have perfected over the years and gleaned valuable intel from him.

He has been in the food industry for a while cooking in various restaurants but became disillusioned with always being in the kitchen away from his customers and also the fact that food has become so exclusive.  He wanted to find a way to bring good quality food to the masses without it being seen as something only for the food snobs or the elitist so started cooking backstage at festivals and gigs and also creating his own street food stand to showcase his culinary skills. The concept is simple, He cooks and you pay him what you think its worth. He regaled me with tales of making scotch eggs for Robert plant while he was cruising around in leather trousers and nothing else and many other great cooking stories.

After a brief intro we were seated and then the show began. John has a passion for cooking and using good quality ingredients and it shone through, the first dish he prepared was a chicken, bacon and mushroom hot dog, served with french’s mustard and t sauce. It was fucking delicious. Normally hot dogs are made from processed meat and condom like rubbery skin. His hotdog was a real sausage and combined with the mustard was a real treat. Easily the best hot dog I have eaten in a long time.  Next up was the food busker kofta – wild boar & venison Kofta with pomegranate & turnip juice dressing. He mentioned he had used his own interrogation techniques on the various Turkish restaurants around dalston to get the turnip juice dressing recipe. I was impressed. The Kofta was a revelation and brought back memories of my time on the Turkish, Iraq border doing raids on munitions stores. Whenever we would make it back safely into Turkey after one of these missions we would go out for Kofta, beer & girls  so it wasn’t only the kofta making me feel warm and satisfied inside…

Next up was the Jacobs Ladder organic beef burger with stichelton cheese and rocket. The name of the burger endeared it to me, as I relate to that film immensely due to the nature of the film and the effects of government meddling with soldiers in a warzone. I have been there myself and its not pretty, but his burger was a thing of beauty. The meat was amazing, so flavorsome and combined with the cheese and French’s sauces smothered over it I could of happily died right there and then but we still had a few more items to get through.  I won’t bore you with every item but one of the highlights after all the food we had was a 10 yr old oolong tea to aid with the digestion and also a little caffeine pick me up from the heavy meat we had just inhaled.

Overall the food busker’s stall serves great food, he has kick ass stories to tell and the quality of the ingredients shines through. Plus the Busking aspect means you wont ever get ripped off. Coupled with the massive selection of French’s sauces on offer you will find something to smother your juicy piece of kofta or hot dog and won’t be going hungry next time you need to head off for your next black ops mission.

Over and out.

Pizza roulette at HELL

My friends at Hell Pizza UK managed to source the ‘one of the hottest chilli sauces known to man’ Blair’s 3am Limited Reserve  -1,500,000 - 2,000,000 scovilles of pure heat.

To put this in perspective: 

Tabasco sauce & Jalapeno peppers : 3500 –8000 scoville units

Birds eye chillis (the little green chillis): 50 000 – 100 000 

Law enforcement grade pepper spray 1,500 000 – 2,000 000 

The Blairs 3am sauce we used: 2,000 000

1 teaspoon makes 4.5 L of extremely hot chilli sauce

The geniuses at Hell decided a great way to try out the chilli sauce would be to create game called pizza roulette where you put 2 drops onto one slice of a pizza, spin the pizza and everyone takes a slice. The person that gets the chilli slice loses, in more ways than one.

They needed expendable guinea pigs so recruited us as they needed to be sure it was indeed the hottest chilli sauce known to man and it didn’t cause heart palpitations, increased blood pressure, extreme diarrhoea or projectile vomiting.

The scene was set and we removed the lid of the bottle, taking extreme care not to have any contact with our skin.

Once we had de-cantered it into an eye dropper, we instructed the chef to make a pizza and put 2 drops on one of the slices. While waiting for the pizza to cook, we calmed ourselves with booze and fake bravado. Once the pizza arrived the nerves started to kick in though. I love chilli and hot sauces, but the warning on the label had put the fear of god into all of us.

We spinned the pizza and watched as it slowly came to a stop.

We all reached in and grabbed a piece. I bit down expecting my mouth to explode in a fiery cocktail of spiciness but was pleasantly surprised. I looked around and everyone else seemed fine as well. 4 pieces down, 4 to go.

We all reached in tentatively and grabbed another slice, I decided to gun mine as I wanted to get it over with. Result, no chilli, no burning asshole the next day, just delicious pizza. I looked over and saw the owner of the bar, Scott started to cough and splutter, his face reddening slightly and beads of sweat appearing on his face.

He started to moan quietly and proclaim ‘holy fuck its hot’ but he kept eating and like the trooper he is, finished the slice and suffered silently. It didn’t seem that bad, although he was saying it was getting hotter and hotter. We decided we had to try this sauce so got the chef to make another pizza for us to try.

We went for the Grimm – chicken, apricot sauce, cream cheese and pine nuts. Normally my favourite but this beast was another story. It came piping hot out of the oven, and we all reached in. My friend Connor looked at his with a mix of fear and repulsion on his face, and uttered ‘Jesus its curdled the cheese on the pizza’ we bit in, Siang was the first to go down,

he started sweating, reddening and coughing, it then hit me and I was lost in a blaze of watering eyes, burning mouth and light headiness. Connor on the other hand started to squirm in his seat, liquid started leaking from every orifice he had and grasped at his chest.

I was in a reasonable amount of pain, but seeing my good friend Connor in this situation was hilarious. I have never seen a man in so much pain over eating hot sauce.

He managed to finish the slice, but once done begged for a glass of milk to quench the heat.

After recovering from this ordeal, we decided we needed to test other uses for this hot sauce so suggested putting it in a shot. Siang poured a shot and put one drop in it, it just sat in the top, looking ominous,

I took the shot down in one go swished it around in my mouth. The heat slowly started to take over my mouth and soon I was coughing and spluttering. As the minutes passed the heat seemed to increase in intensity until soon it was almost unbearable but I managed to compose myself and quenched the burn with copious amounts of beer.

In summary, Pizza roulette is great game, you can have lots of fun with it, especially if your friends are not seasoned chilli eaters. The pain is quite intense but who said life doesn’t hurt sometimes. I recommend it to any chilli lovers and scum bags out there.

Viva la scum bag.

MEATliquor - Adventures of a carnivore in london.

MEATliquor

Monday 27/03/2012

Humidity – 67%

 

We entered MEAT Liquor  and were ushered towards the bar. We were immediately greeted by murals of pigs, wolves, bears and naked women.

The restaurant was dimly lit with red neon lights, reminding me of seedy strip bars, or of the opening scene of ‘Irreversible’ in the gay sex club where the man’s face  gets smashed in with a fire extinguisher.  The combination of murals, lighting, music and atmosphere all worked really well, and I immediately felt like I could eat or party here.  The waitressess were all attractive woman, with sullen expressions, but I think this was a façade as once you started chatting to them they were all very friendly & helpful, plus did I mention hot?

We ordered cocktails at the bar, the drinks list was extensive and all the drinks quite inventive; they had a martini served with egg & bacon and a Southern Comfort cocktail mixed with apricot jam.

I sampled a delicious fresh strawberry and gin cocktail called ‘Time of the month’. My companion made crude jokes about how it was her time of the month and I could have had it for free. It disgusted me immensely but I finished my cocktail regardless while pretending to perform cunnilingus on it.

Next on the menu was the House Grog which is so strong they only allow 2 per person per night. It was also delicious and caused the same companion to tell me she was ‘wasted and its only 6pm on a Monday’.

After deliberating over what to order we settled on the chilly cheese fries, onion rings, deep fried pickles; I ordered the Philly cheese steak, while my companion ordered the Dead Hippe.

While we were waiting for our food, they announced that two of the waitresses would be partaking in the triple chilli challenge  - having to eat a chilli cheese dog, chilli cheese burger and the chilli cheese fries in a race against each other.  We crowded around to watch these two young, beautiful women gorge themselves on cheese, chilli and meat.

It was a disgusting yet strangely appealing sight. One of the girls was struggling with her food and I think they ended up having to bring out a bucket for her to vomit into. It was not an ideal event to watch while waiting for your own food to arrive, but I still am very keen to partake sometime.

Once our food had arrived, we tucked in and destroyed it. The chilli cheese fries were massive - covered in chilli con carne and melted cheese, the onion rings were like none I have ever encountered before – massive and crispy, and the deep fried pickles were actually amazing. The burgers were on another level, the meat was all served medium-rare, you could taste the quality of it, and although the burgers were not massive they were just the right size when combined with the starters.

After we had finished our food we ordered one last round of cocktails and the meat and chilli sweats took hold. I was dripping sweat and felt ready to explode but it was worth it.

In summary, if you are in London and want hot waitresses, rock ‘n’ roll, great burgers and amazing cocktails head to MEATliquor. If you want a romantic candle-lit restaurant don’t read my blog. Lastly, if you are a chav, go to Nandos.

Viva la scumbag.