COMPETITION: TWO TICKETS TO THE ALLENS OF MAYFAIR BUTCHERY SCHOOL

I have a real soft spot for food brands which are often neglected because they have become too familiar. Ask me for my favourite sherry and it will usually be a glass of Tio Pepe Fino, the original and in my opinion, still the best. Ask me which gin I drink and it will be Beefeater, made in London since the 1850’s but now often overlooked in favour of boutique distilleries who infuse the spirit with everything from the tears of a fallen angel to black pudding (actually that could be a good idea)

There is a reason why these brands have been around for ever and it is because they are usually bloody brilliant at what they do, refusing to kowtow to trends and sticking to what they have always done, crafting a great product in a time honoured fashion.

Which brings me, in case you were wondering what the point was to all of this, to today’s competition. Allen’s of Mayfair is one of London’s oldest butchers and the oldest in the country still residing on the same site. In 2006 the shop almost folded when the holding company went into administration. It was saved by the intervention of two former butchers and the owners of Rare, Justin Preston and David House who have spent the last three years returning it to its former glories.

For those of you who have not been there, Allen's is a butcher's shop as you remember they used to be and definitely worth a visit. As well as supplying superb meat to the restaurant trade and the public, Allen’s now also run very enjoyable butchery classes. They are not cheap affairs, costing £100 a pop, but are fun and very hands on. Now, they have been kind enough to offer the meat obsessed readers of Dos Hermanos, the opportunity to join one of their classes in February and to get down and dirty with something which once bleated, mooed or oinked.

We have two tickets to give away and to win all you have to do is answer the following question.

IN WHICH YEAR DID ALLEN’S FIRST START TRADING AT THEIR CURRENT SITE IN MAYFAIR?

The closing date for the competition is 15th DECEMBER 2009. Please submit all entries via the Dos Hermanos contact details with ALLEN’S OF MAYFAIR COMPETITION as the subject heading.

One entry per person, please. I cannot enter into correspondence but will confirm the winners, selected at random from the correct entries, soon after closing date.

Good luck.

EATING FOR BRITAIN: MY GRANDMOTHER MADE ME A WELSH FAGGOT

OK

Let’s get it out of the way. The term faggot, comes from the Welsh word Ffagod, which meant bundle. Quite how that relates to the strange offaly meatballs that are one of the great foods of Wales, I am not sure. Perhaps it is because traditionally they were wrapped in bacon.

Whatever, they were another taste of my childhood that I was determined to try in Wales. They are also known as “poor man’s goose” or “savoury duck” and, like haggis in Scotland, they were a way of using up offal and the cheaper cuts of meat in times when money was hard to come by. Rather like now, in fact.

My grandmother used to make them, well of course she did and would serve them in the traditional way, with peas and a highly vinegared mint sauce and the thought of them in a bowl with a good ladling of rich onion gravy sploshed on top is one of the best food memories of my younger days.

So, of course I had to try and find someone who made them while I was on my journey and who better than Neil James, of N S James & Sons whose Faggots were voted the best in the country by The True Taste of Wales judges and whose traditional butcher’s shop is considered one of the finest in the UK.

This is a butcher’s shop as they used to be. With its own abattoir at the rear and most of the meat coming from a few miles radius, the classic cuts of properly aged meat are guaranteed to make any real flesh lover’s heart skip a beat. Thick pork chops with a half inch ribbon of fat, brisket rolled ready for slow roasting, lamb kidneys protected by a covering of their own fat and rows of free range chickens. Alongside the meat a display case of food prepared in Neil’s kitchens, hand raised pork pies, black puddings, sheets of belly pork cooked slowly in his mother’s Aga so the crackling bubbles to a perfect crunch and, of course best of all, trays of his prize winning faggots.

When I arrived as planned at 8am, Neil was already hard at work and had prepared the ingredients to make this Welsh classic. Laid out in the workshop, were trays of belly pork, lamb breast, pigs liver, fresh onions, breadcrumbs and Neil’s secret spice mix. Neil doesn’t use as much offal as some, because he finds the strong taste puts some people off. The fresh onions provide all the juice the final dish needs.

The meat is minced with the onions and then minced again, this time with the seasonings and spices. Then, Neil deftly shaped them into cricket ball sized rounds and wrapped each in a rasher of Gloucester Old Spot bacon. I had a good too but obviously, as with my attempts at making Welsh cakes, the resulting mess was enough to almost bring him to tears. Still between us, we managed to fill a tray with a dozen specimens of fine faggothood.

Neil wrapped them up and placed them in a freezer box for me to bring home to London with me and then gave me a tour of the abattoir, where small numbers of animals are killed for local farmers in an efficient but unstressed environment. It shows in the meat and, as Neil gave me a tour of the meat lockers filled with Monmouthshire lamb, Old spot pork and Welsh Longhorn beef, I could easily understand why he gets people driving up from London and Bristol to buy meat from him.

Back home in London, I soon had the spoils of my visit baking in the oven and the very first mouthful was like stepping back in time, the texture and tastes are everything I remembered.

I may not say this very often, but I am rather proud to have a bit of Welsh in me.

BEEF: HOW MILK, MEAT & MUSCLE SHAPED THE WORLD (UK EDITION)

In the middle of 2008, I posted about a splendid book I had been asked to blurb. BEEF: HOW MILK, MEAT & MUSCLE SHAPED THE WORLD

A well researched and hugely readable book on matters cattle related, it is filled with lots of worthwhile information for anyone who likes a good steak (obviously not MPW based on HP's recent visit) and I was particularly taken with the excellent chapter on Spain

Now, it is available in the UK (click link above for Amazon) and is definitely one to put in your basket.

GARUFA: MEAT ME AT THE CORNER

My mother always taught me to be polite.

I hold doors open for people, I always say “please” and “Thank you” and I have been known to help people cross a busy road even if they didn’t want to. “Manners maketh Man” she would say and she was right, polite is a good thing.

Well…….. not always. There is a politeness about a certain levels of restaurants in London that is beginning to get right on my wick, particularly places representing the cooking of nations known for their appreciation of life and their vibrant cuisine.

Too many places now are almost apologetic in the way they present food and neuter menus to avoid offending customers, removing some of the best dishes and ingredients because they think that the fraidy cats of good old London town will run squealing into the streets at the sight of a tripe taco or a brain curry.

DH were discussing this at some length as we stared down our mixed Parillada at Garufa, a relatively new Argentinean steakhouse in Highbury. It’s not that the steaks were bad, they weren’t. The meat had decent flavour and they had been cooked rare as requested. It was all just a bit, well, here’s that word again. Apologetic.

It had started well enough. It’s a pleasant room, although we were pleased to be near a radiator when a chill blast swept through every time the door was open. Our server was friendly if a bit hapless not even knowing which cut of steak was which on our mixed grill. Our starters of empanada were even good enough for us to immediately order another portion after our first bite.

But, these places are about the steak and at Garufa they were just, well just too polite. I can forgive the fact that they were not up to the levels I experienced in Buenos Aires it would be silly to expect them to attain such heights. But a great Argentinean grill should conjour up some level of excitement for the meat being served, the burning embers under the grill spitting up flames, the full on seasoning of the flesh by the grill master and the presence of fat without which as HP says “it just becomes dead protein”

It’s culinary theatre and the presentation of the mixed grill with its challenging cuts of steak, plump morcilla, spicy chorizo, crisp entrails and melting provoletta is, at its very best, worthy of a round of applause. Our last supper at Santa Maria in Hackney received just that. At Garufa, we just gave a bit of a weary shrug as we surveyed the tiny cuts of rump, fillet, rib eye and loin and shared out the undistinguished black pudding and chorizo. Their small electric griddle was hidden in the kitchen as if they were ashamed of it and, of course there were no chitterlings that would be far too scary. Even some decent patatas bravas did nothing add to an experience that did little to justify a place in the memory banks.

It’s not cheap with a cheap bottle of Pinot Noir and a shared dessert of ice cream nudging the bill over £90 for the two of us. Too much for a neighbourhood joint and particularly for one that only confirmed our opinion of so many of London’s restaurants

THE BUTCHER & GRILL: NEITHER ONE NOR THE OTHER

There are lots of bad restaurants in London. Lots of them. But, The Butcher & Grill abuses the privilege. It may have only been open two weeks but it has to go high up on the list of places to be avoided like one would the opportunity to deep throat a Bubo victim. It’s that horrible.

London, it seems finds it incapable of offering a decent steak. Oh, there is Santa Maria and a couple of Pope’s Eye’s but they are all located in places that decent people don’t want to tread to often. The rest? They may offer meat of decent provenance but, to quote Woody Allen, such small portions.

A few weeks ago, after a great Sunday lunch at Ransome’s Dock, Dos Hermanos sauntered past The Butcher & Grill. It was having a pre opening “ Family and Friends” day. The principle seemed sound. A butcher out front and a grill room in the back. Kind of like the places I have been to near the slaughterhouse in Brussels where you choose a chunk of meat, they grill it and serve with chips and a glass of beer. Nothing better.

HP had his doubts, but I thought it was worth a try even if it was a schlep from home. So, when a chum invited me to join him tonight, I gave it a go. Once again, HP was right. London, again, has just got it terribly wrong. This restaurant not just misses the point of what it should be offering, it gets in a car and drives fifty miles in the wrong direction to make sure if misses the point. I just can’t get over how bad it was.

After an “ interesting” journey around some of the industrial estates of South London, we arrived and parked just in time for our 8.30pm reservation and hd chance to look at a fairly sorry looking butchery counter and display. Now, I did not expect The Ginger Pig, but the quality of the meat here looked very mediocre. Pork with a thin layer of fat, flaccid looking veal and bright red beef.

We were shown to what must be the smallest table for two I have ever encountered. A table that even my four year old niece would have been hard pressed to use to host one of her imaginary tea parties. The gaps between the table were tiny too which proved interesting when my sturdy friend tried to squeeze in so he could see the rest of the room like a girly would want to.

Then came a 15 minute wait for anyone to come and take our order. This happened to me once at a solo lunch in NYC. I got so pissed off that I actually phoned the front desk to request a server which certainly got their attention. I begged my friend to do the same tonight, but, just before we thought the delay permitted such oafishness on our part, our server arrived.

She was chirpy if slightly misinformed. We had had plenty of time to look at the menu and I was chuffed to see a 20oz T- Bone on there. My dreams of a decent piece of dead cow were crushed though by the news that the T-Bone was off, Instead, I had to order a miserably small 8oz rib eye. I asked for it rare and with a char. “Black & Blue?” she asked “ why yes” I replied suddenly delighted that she at least knew the right language of steak. But, running a grill room and being out of the main event so your punters have to settle for second best is like running a whorehouse and then sending the guys into a room to do their own thing with a copy of the Victoria Secret catalogue. I CAN DO THAT AT HOME !! It cost less and I don’t have to come South of the river.

I asked if I could order a larger cut of the other steaks but was told that this was out of the question. It certainly was as by this time, the butcher bit was closing. I guess they just change the name to The Grill then.

My friend ordered the Barnsley chop. When he asked for it rare, he was informed that “ we can’t serve our pork rare” Mmm? That’s all well and good but a Barnsley Chop is Lamb. The opening two weeks did not include staff training then?

To begin with, I ordered a Duck Rillette while my chum ordered Dry cured bacon with broad beans. His was fine. Mine was one of the nastiest dishes I have ever eaten (or indeed not eaten and you know how disgusting something has to be for me not to finish it ) To all intents and purposes sawdust with a duck flavouring. Dry, crumbly and utterly inedible. I left two thirds. We pointed this out to our server. I am not sure it quite registered and I don’t think it was deducted from our tab although I am not sure as I did not pay.

The main courses arrived. The Barnsley Chop was tiny. On the menu it said 14 oz. I would have loved to have weighed it uncooked. I am sure it was the weight they say but both my chum and the table next to us who had ordered the same looked very crestfallen when it arrived. I am not surprised. A good Barnsley chop should be at least two cutlets on each side. My steak arrived but was certainly not black and blue. It was rare, I will grant you and it tasted quite nice, but the outside was a uniform grey as if it had just been tossed in a pan rather than grilled. Other steaks came to other tables with a decent cross hatch of grill marks so I have no idea what was happening here.

Pictures of the sides can be found in the dictionary under the word “Perfunctory” Chips were too fat, so crisp on the outside too floury on the inside as is the nature of chunky chips. Mushrooms tasted slightly stale to me like they were pre prepped and warmed through. They could not manage to ruin some green beans although God knows given time, I am sure they could find a way. Of the four sauces, the Bernaise and Hollandaise were both pretty good. The salsa verde and sauce vierge were really not.

More haplessness on the puddings. My cheesecake was dry as a bone and crumbly. My chums orange cake came without the advertised Tarragon syrup. When he asked if he should be getting some, the server said that it did not come with anything. He challenged this and asked to see the menu and she then said “ oh, you’re right, it is just that it never has done yet” So, having tasted it, that’s a few hundred lucky souls who have not had to taste this cloying syrupy disaster although they have had to put up with dry as old leather cake. Quid pro quo, I guess.

We just asked for the bill. With a couple of orange juices and two glasses of red wine and some mineral water, the cost was a not inconsequential £85. A lot to pay for a meal that is little better than a Harvester without as many visits as you like to the world famous salad bar.

As we left, the duty manager asked us what we thought, so we told him. He took it on the chin and said that they had only been open a short while. The classic restaurant excuse. If they are still bedding in, why charge full whack?

It reminds me of The Marquess Tavern when they said the same and I said “ I am bedding in a new credit card, so I can only pay you half”

Mind you, half of what we paid would still have been too much for this “meal”

I realised on the way out the model they were copying, Mitch Tonk’s successful Fishworks chain.

I think they have got is spot on as they are over priced and crappy too.