Meat Liquor

http://www.meatliquor.com/

 I have been meaning to try Meat Liquor for quite some time now. I have read mixed reviews, some saying they dislike the lack of plates, some find it too dark and dingy, whilst others are excited by the grunge atmosphere, and greasy American style food.

Now Meat Liquor is one of those 'cool' places that don't take reservations.  There seems to be quite a few of these restaurants and food outlets popping up all over London recently, a bit of a chain-gang going on, not great when you want to plan an evening out I must say.

However despite being in a group of 6 we decided to test our luck for lunch about a couple of weeks ago. I actually almost walked past the whole building, I was about to get out my Google Maps to try and locate the restaurant as none of us saw the sign. I was expecting a door with a stairwell leading down in to the 'basement like surroundings' as I had read in reviews. However after being pointed in the right direction by one of our group members who is an avid fan we proceeded to enter into the dark and shifty diner environment and were surprisingly seated straight away, much to our joy with our work lunch time constraints! 

 

I have to say I was very intrigued by the whole experience. I found Meat Liquor was like being at high school loitering around with the punks and rebels in their invite-only hangout. I loved the bogan atmosphere and the old school rock music, mixed with the smell of grease, ketchup and mustard. The walls appeared to be slashed with graffiti with lots of red, black and off-white. Skulls and bones, sadistic animals and neon lights entertained the walls and we ate with an intriguing image of two entwined female nudes opposite us, tempting to put some off their food...

The menu was straight to the point, about 7 different types of burgers with a mix of American diner style sides and a chilli dog thrown in there for a bit of variety. I had been advised to try the deep-fried pickles, to those of you who aren't used to the lingo these are gherkins. I decided on the Cheeseburger, whilst most went for the Bacon Cheeseburger. We also decided to share the pickles, fries and buffalo wings with blue cheese sauce.

The service wasn't great, the staff walked around like they were non-fussed students who didn't give a shit. However when you did get their attention they did seem to spark back to life. The food came out in good timing, and was served on a 70's style tray, covered in a layer of grease-proof paper, each of our burgers had to be pointed out to us as there was no way we were going to work out whose was whose as they all looked the same! The kitchen roll was definitely needed not only as a napkin but also as your plate. We were all rather grateful that we had the whole roll as more than one piece was definitely required! The burgers oozed with greasy goodness, the soft steamed burger buns allowed you to really squish the insides together and get the whole thing into your mouth for a bite. The flavour tastes just like how it looks as the perfection of an American-style classic burger. Processed cheese, mustard, onions and pickles, some leaves and a big layer of ketchup - sweet.

The the buffalo wings and blue cheese sauce blew my mind!  These also came as a highly recommended side and they did not fail to impress. I was tempted to take all the sauce home as they came serves in little plastic containers. I could eat that just like yoghurt! The pickles didn't really hit the spot, they were small slices of gherkins smothered in batter, which really ruined the tangy flavour of the pickle. They lost their burst of sourness and I think the appeal for these is really the deep fried batter, one of my group actually didn't eat the pickles and just devoured the batter - so probably wouldn't get these again.  The chips were standard shoe-strings (I'm more of a hand cut chunky kinda gal myself) but definitely a necessity with the burger, come-on they go hand in hand.

Meat Liquor was tops; good value for money, fast turnaround and good mix of classic American greasy grub. To top it off I left with yellow mustard all over my face, always a great sign of a great feed.