Sometimes it happens and there's just nothing you can do about it. A new club, restaurant or venue opens and everyone proclaims it to be the greatest of its kind, ever. It's
happened before while I've been here and no matter how much I and others have said the
other location is by far more superior and more authentic, the establishment with all the marketing money comes off as being the better venue of its trade.
This, I feel, is the story of
MEATliquor.
I went during a weeknight, immediately after work - no problem with the queues that everyone keeps going on about. Don't show up past 7, or don't leave it to be a Friday night meal. Obviously that's when all the eager trendy people start flocking to what they only heard was the next best thing. I got there around 6.30 or so and it was fine. Get in, have a few drinks (and by few I mean 1 - £4 for a small can of beer, £9 for a mason jar of what was effectively a margarita) and browse over the menu.
Don't be upset that you can't see the menu on the website, that's just part of MEATliquor's disappointing charm to get people wanting more. They have 4 or 5 different burgers and a few other American type sandwiches. I went for a Philly Cheesesteak, because again, I'm craving all things that I never ate that often at home, and as always the boyfriend went for the thing that I would otherwise get if I wasn't skeptical of the place (a burger). We also had wings as a starter.
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| MEATliquor - Hot Wings |
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| MEATliquor - Philly Cheesesteak, burger, fries |
The Good: those hot wings were pushing on hot, so that was good. French fries were pretty tasty.
The Bad: I have never, in my life, seen a Philly Cheesesteak look like that. I didn't realise it was OK to just pass off steak as mince meat (ground beef). I must have missed that memo. And FFS that's an ungodly amount of green peppers. I pulled about 1/3 of them out but there were still too many to find the actual meat section of this sandwich, making the peppers really over powering.
With the wings, though it was labelled as bleu cheese dip, I know they just went out and bought some ranch dressing. Don't mess with me and these wings, world!
So I feel the cheesesteak served is one of those 'Expectation/Reality' moments. I was expecting something closer to below
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| mmmmm I miss steak-umms |
Notice the thin slices, not chuck ground beef.
The Interesting: All this being said, it is an interesting venue to look at inside. I'm not really sure why they painted it the way they did. It looks like a cross between a slaughter house, and the house of someone that wants to slaughter people. Weird scribbles on the wall, red drips of paint everywhere, very odd.
The Worse: Normally if I have a part of my meal that I didn't enjoy, at least I know the bf has enjoyed his. In his words, 'It was alright, but nothing worth queuing for'.
And there you have it.
As we left the building, a queue that did not exist only 2 hours prior was indeed wrapping around the block on a weeknight and we were half tempted to tell them it wasn't worth it. But there wouldn't be any point, the media monkey has turned his tricks and enough people are intrigued by the place to keep it in business for a while. Maybe that'll give them enough time to suss out what American food is, and I'll try the standard any-country burger instead of the American 'delicacy' next time.
MEATliquor can be found at:
74 Welbeck Street
W1G 0BA
Nearest Tube:
Bond Street
Ariel on Google+
