Street Food Archives - BURNESSIE TRAVELS

Luardos

We’re blessed with some fine Mexican food in London these days, and today’s rambling is all about Mexican street food favourite Luardos. A regular on the Kerb circuit for a long time now, Luardos’ van is painted the brightest of pinks, making it unmissable to the eye as well as the stomach.

Shamefully, despite Luardos being around for a whole decade now and parking up a mere 15 minute stroll from me down at Brockley Market most Saturdays, it wasn’t until this year’s Glastonbury that I actually got my laughing gear around one of their huge burritos. Not only was it one of the best meals I’ve ever had at Glasto – and trust me, the food line up alone is worth going for, certainly nothing to be sneered at – Luardos served up one of the best burritos I’ve ever had anywhere.

I’d heard about Luardos award winning tacos in the past – particularly their fish taco, i.e. the kind of taco I have the most time for, but perhaps sensibly at one of the world’s biggest festivals, the team kept things simple with burritos and nachos on offer. Whilst food at Glasto is on the most part excellent, of course there are a few mishaps and some of the nachos I saw on offer were enough to make you cry – dry tortilla chips with a bit of salsa and truly, the saddest amount of cheese. Not at Luardos of course – nachos served with all the trimmings (£7-8.50): cheese, beans, pico salsa, guacamole, hot sauce, sour cream and the choice of the meats featured in their burritos.

And about those choices: well, this is the best part. Options of slow cooked chipotle beef brisket flavoured with star anise, garlic and spices (£8); pulled pork with fennel and orange (£7.50); chicken breast poached with onion, garlic and bay leaves (£8), as well as a meat free vegetarian option (£6.50 – free guacamole, otherwise an extra £1). As you can tell, picking a poison was hard. I opted for the chipotle beef burrito with hot sauce and experienced some sort of Nirvana chomping down on the grass in front of The Other Stage, whilst my friend loved her chicken burrito so much she returned to me a couple of days later raving about Luardos yet again, having just inhaled the the pulled pork version.

These burritos are not only packing on the meat front, but are full to the brim with Monterey Jack cheese, rice, black beans, coriander, homemade salsa and banging guacamole, with the choice of mild or spicy sauce to top it all off – and all of this is homemade by Luardos themselves, consistently committed to serving up the very best quality food to their customers.

Now I’ve seen the light I’ll be heading down to Brockley Market for another soon – I’ve got my eye on their breakfast burrito which is exclusive to the South East London market. All the usual suspect fillings of a burrito but with the added genius of chorizo, fried egg and rancheros sauce. Yeah, I know, I’m salivating too.

Kerb Camden, every day. Mon – Thu, 12-6pm; Fri – Sun, 12-7pm
Whitecross Market, EC1, every week day between 11.30am and 2pm
Kerb Kings Cross, Thursdays between 12-2.30pm
Brockley Market, Saturdays between 10.30am and 2pm

N.B: Check twitter for updates/changes to Kerb and Brockley market dates.

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The Best Burgers In The World

To celebrate the holiest day of the year, National Burger Day, I’ve rounded up The Best Burgers In The World for you to feast your eyes on. Get ready to salivate… TRIED AND TESTED Bleecker St Burger Possibly the best burger in London. At least, it’s my favourite out of all I’ve tried so far. Bleecker …

London Street Food

Bleecker St. Burger

What makes the perfect burger? There’ll be arguments over this one for sure, but for me the top requirement is it needs to be messy, but not messy enough that the whole thing falls apart after two bites. The patty must be juicy, a bit pink and full of flavour, the cheese needs to be cheap and preferably of the American plastic variety: bright yellow and sticky. The bun is up for debate: I love a brioche, but a sesame seeded can also win out. Lightly toasted though, please.

I’m essentially describing Bleecker St. Burger. Named after founder Zan Kaufman’s favourite street in her native New York City, Bleecker St is a prime example of a small scale street food project that has blown up into a cult favourite amongst Londoners, all whilst retaining the passion that originally caused Zan to give up her law career for that big black van serving incredible burgers.

The burger scene in London has gone from strength to strength over the last few years; competition is fierce and there is constant debate over which is the very best burger in London. Before you jump in with your favourite, I implore you to try Bleecker St first. And I’m going to give you a simple instruction before you do: go double. After the first bite of my first ever Bleecker burger I instantly regretted not going double. After all, if you’re gonna do it, do it properly. These burgers sail to the top of many a ‘Best Burger in London’ list based on the quality of the meat that’s used. The beef comes from The Butchery in Bermondsey, where it’s dry-aged for up to fifty days, creating an intense flavour that I can’t recall being matched in another London burger. (Although of course, I am willing to sample dozens of burgers should you wish to disprove this). So yeah, with meat this good, you want to go double. Then add bacon.

Too often fries are pushed to the wayside in the quest for the best burger, and due to this I often skip them. However Bleecker St don’t shy away from their commitment to excellence and the chips are surprisingly good – rough cut and crispy (£3). They also offer a mix of regular fries and sweet potato with a blue cheese sauce named Angry Fries (£4), for those who are after something punchier.

Next time I visit (and it should be pretty soon, the Canary Wharf site is mere minutes from me, what a drag) I’m trying the famed Bleecker Black (£10) – a double patty extravaganza with black pudding cutting through the middle. People call it the best burger in London. I guess I’ll just have to judge for myself. You should too.

Have you had a Bleecker St Burger? Do you think it’s the best burger in London or have you got another favourite that beats it? Let me know in the comments!

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London Street Food

The Cheese Truck

You know those pornographic photos of cheese toasties? No, you do. You know the ones. The ones that are all your drunk-self dreams of (and hungover, come to think of it)? Those pornographic cheese toasties are by The Cheese Truck. This Sunday – on a hangover, appropriately – I finally got to try one.

The Cheese Truck had tweeted their menu for Maltby Street Market, where they reside every Saturday (9am – 4pm) and Sunday (11am til 4pm), so I got to anticipate exactly what choice I was going to have to make. They don’t just do your bog standard cheddar cheese toastie – and forgive me for using the term ‘bog standard’ for something that is, quite frankly, magnificent. They’ve kind of pimped the cheese toasties up a bit, for want of better phrasing. You’ve got your stilton with bacon and pear chutney (£6), queso chihuahua (no, not a dog, it’s a Mexican cheese a bit like cheddar) teamed with chorizo and rocket (£6.50), as well as rosary goats cheese from Salisbury with honey, walnut and rosemary butter (£6) – and that’s all before you get to the ‘bog standard’ cheddar and ogleshield mix with onion (£5.50). Drooling yet?

Having scouted out the menu in advance I was admittedly struggling: bacon is a natural gravitation, but I don’t eat blue cheese. I could get the cheddar with added bacon (oh God), or I could go with something a little more out there – a little more gourmet, if you will, and opt for goat’s cheese. Luckily for me, by the time I actually managed to drag myself out of bed for the hangover cheese toastie of dreams, The Cheese Truck had run out of the clearly popular cheddar option, so I didn’t have do the whole “oh I don’t know; which one do you recommend? Really? But this one sounds awesome too” thing.

The goats cheese was beautiful. The honey and the walnuts added the depth you need to a whole toastie full of soft goats cheese, and it didn’t get quite as scorching hot as my partner in crime’s chorizo number, meaning I could greedily wolf it down almost immediately. I nabbed a bite of the latter and again, no complaints. Big wedges of chorizo sausage and you were never wanting for cheese, that’s for sure.

The brilliant news is The Cheese Truck are hitting the festival scene this summer something fierce, and have got not one but two pitches at Glastonbury this year, one in the campsite just above Pyramid and one in Shangri-La, mecca of the all nighter. Guys, I’ll be seeing you there soon for a cheddar round to see me through another hangover, that you can guarantee.

Goats cheese with honey, walnuts and rosemary butter

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London Street Food

Bread Ahead

Pretty sure I first stumbled across a photo of Bread Ahead’s famous doughnuts on Instagram, or maybe my best friend sent me a screenshot of them (I don’t know what dominates other twenty somethings’ camera rolls, but mine is filled with screenshots of food). On Saturday I finally made the relatively short trip to London Bridge to wander around Borough Market and accidentally spend twice the amount I had intended whilst there. As such, I stupidly only had enough cash on me for one doughnut by the time I meandered my way to the Bread Ahead stall. As ever, I must return for more and also for some of their foccacia, which looked ridiculously good – especially the classic and the individual sized pesto ones.

But back to the doughnuts. Those doughnuts. Crowds were queuing for those doughnuts, edging closer and closer with panic as the trays emptied only to breathe again when they got replenished. Standing nearby were individuals and small groups of friends in silence alike, savouring every morsel of these famous doughnuts. And with good reason. They are magnificent. And I say that as someone who has never even really considered themselves a doughnut person (my time in Melbourne made me see the light). Since I had one shot at this due to my dwindled cash, I went classic. Vanilla cream.

Oh my GOD. Seriously. It was delicious. The sugared dough was light, not greasy at all and HOW MUCH FILLING CAN YOU FIT IN A DOUGHNUT? It was messy. And as I always say, all the best food is. There was so much of this gorgeous vanilla pod cream in said doughnut that after I’d actually eaten the thing, I had (yes, had) to scrape my finger along the inside of the paper bag four times to get all of the cream. And yes of course I ripped the bag for better access; none of this was going to waste.

Aside from vanilla cream they had chocolate (yes please), raspberry cream, jam and salted caramel topped with honeycomb(!) Actually writing this now I’m pretty furious I didn’t get one of those to go. From what I can tell they are constantly coming up with new flavours, too – they recently had an orange flavoured one up on Insta. What’s more, you can even partake in a half day doughnut making workshop at the Bread Ahead Bakery just around the corner, which is just one of the plethora of workshops they offer, including gluten free baking, hot cross buns and a New York bagel and pretzel workshop. The potential to become truly Bread Ahead obsessed is very real. One doughnut and I’m already a total convert.

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London Street Food

Smokestak

Oh my God oh my God please eat this. Please go to Smokestak and eat their meat. I haven’t even tried their pulled pork or their ribs and yet I am saying this with the utmost confidence because if they’re halfway as good as their beef brisket is, you will thank me forever.

I would go far as to say that Smokestak’s Beef Brisket Bun is one of the best things I’ve ever had in my mouth. In my body. In my hands, the juice from the beautiful tender meat drizzling down the side of the charred brioche bun, pickled chillies poking out – a sure sign that this will be a messy meal. As all the best meals are.

Luckily for us mere mortals, Smokestack have the magical ability to crop up in two places at once, meaning that Londoners can take advantage of this brilliant fare in two locations every weekend at Streetfeast’s Model Market in Lewisham and Dalston Yard in, well, Dalston, as well as at various festivals on the summer circuit. Go. Please go. I implore you to go. Take all your friends. Take your date. Take your parents and treat them, because you’re an adult now, and also because you get one of the most delicious things in London in your mouth all for less than a tenner, so really there’s no excuse. I’d pay twenty.

How I paused to take this I’ll never know.

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London Street Food

Horn Ok Please

Let’s get this straight. Street food is awesome. I spent 2011 backpacking, half the time of which I spent in South East Asia. The street food was one of the most enjoyable parts of the region; from Pad Thai in Bangkok, to Pho in Saigon, Murtabak in Sulawesi and these ridiculously greasy amazing pancake things …

London Street Food

Sorbitium

I think we have to be honest with ourselves here guys. The hope of a late summer has all but gone; the nights are closing in much earlier (oh how we complain now but how we will mourn a 7pm sunset come the end of October), I’m prepping my coat for the dry cleaners and …