Category: Food

Yo, YO!

YO! Sushi aftermath

What role can a few cheap televisions and a motorcycle have in establishing of one of the most successful restaurant chains in the world? A pretty big one, actually – when setting up YO! Sushi with almost no financial backing or investment, Simon Woodroffe was able to negotiate extended payment terms with a supplier based on the fact that he had the support of Honda, Sony and All Nippon Airways. Years later he remarked that, actually, these brands had only provided him with some very limited sponsorship. To the tune of the items mentioned above, in fact.

Despite these humble beginnings, the chain is now sixteen years old and I can’t imagine that any of you haven’t been to one…which makes my task – reviewing the original YO! Sushi restaurant – a difficult one. So what’s the angle, I hear you ask? I was attempting to convert a sushi hater. In many respects, my girlfriend and I are a perfect match – we both love Americana, we both act as if we’re about sixty years old and we’re both total foodies. Except for sushi. Despite my efforts to get her enthused about sushi, she remains completely ambivalent about it. So, my mission was to show her that there’s more to YO! than just some cold fish.

YO! Sushi pork ramen
Pork Ramen

The original Soho YO! is a little different to the average department store incarnation of the chain. While these tend to be open and airy, the original is darker and feels more tucked away – you definitely get more of a sense of Orientalism and ‘otherness’. I can’t think of a better example than this than the fact that you have to wave a fan to attract the attention of servers, rather than just pressing a big red button as in most YO!s.

katsu selection

I rolled out some of my longtime favourites, like Salt and Pepper Squid (‘Ok, I like this one.’) and a Katsu Selection (‘That bit tasted like a Chicken McNugget, but the rest is amazing.’). We also tried a couple of newer dishes like a Beef & Garlic Teriyaki dish that was out this world and Ramen, which is to Miso soup what Sheldon Cooper is to Ryan Gosling. The former did cause some trouble with chopsticks (‘You better not post that picture.’)…

chopstick struggle

but ultimately resulted in smiles all round.

YO! Sushi blog

We came away very content and very full – clearly, people who complain about being hungry ten minutes after eating sushi aren’t doin it rite. Either that, or they’re not dining on the dollar of the almighty YO!bot. Thanks very much to the team for inviting me down – I’m pretty sure we’ve managed to convert the little woman which means we’re now, if anything, TOO compatible. If you haven’t been down to the Soho YO!, I thoroughly recommend it – it is the original, after all, and original is always best.

A Night With Jack Daniel’s…

Last week I turned 25. I didn’t take it well – I spent much of the week muttering about how I’m less than halfway to death, but more than a third. But then the Universe threw me a bone. In a case of perfect timing, I was invited to a VIP (don’t ask me when I became a VIP, I don’t even know when I became an IP) party hosted by Jack Daniel’s. ON MY BIRTHDAY. I don’t know about the rest of you, but Jack Daniel’s was my go-to drink of choice when I was 15 (or 18 if my mum is reading this). As I got older, the grandiose notion came into my head that I should branch out and become a whiskey connoisseur. Another of my grandiose notions was learning to spell the word connoisseur.

So, I started working my way through the whiskey selections at local bars and supermarkets – Canadian Club, Jim Beam, Seagram’s, Jameson’s, Maker’s Mark, Knob Creek (prompting massive lolz when I was still a teenager…) to name a few. But I was never able to settle on ‘the whiskey’. That is, until a few years ago. I’d nonchalantly asked for a whiskey and Coke while, no doubt, trying to charm some girl. What the bartender handed me can only be described as ambrosia…or maybe that was the girl’s name. I asked him what whiskey I was drinking. His answer? Jack Daniel’s. I felt like one of those movie characters who chases after some snotty girl for years, only to realise that his next door neighbour (probably played by Anne Hathaway) was the love of his life all along.

Anyway, back to the party. After the Christmas tree made of Jack Daniel’s barrels, pictured above, was erected for the first time outside of Lynchburg, Tennessee it was time to drink. And drink we did. But as well as drinking, I also spoke to Randy ‘Goose’ Baxter, Phil ‘Weejie’ Whitaker and Mark Lonardo about the cult of Jack Daniel’s.

Me and Goose

You might think that the use of the word ‘cult’ above is an exaggeration. Trust me, it’s not. Fans, many of them decked head to toe in Jack Daniel’s merchandise and some even proudly bearing JD tattoos, had come from all over to meet the Lynchburg three. Most of them also asked for photos with the guys and to have their bottles autographed by them. I asked Goose if any of this came as a surprise to them. ‘I have to say…not really,’ he replied coolly. ‘Lynchburg is a town of 361 people that receives 280,000 visitors every year. We’ve come to realise that a lot of people think we’re a pretty big deal.’ Weejie, who spends much of his time tasting batches of Jack Daniel’s, modestly added the following – ‘We realise we’ve got something pretty good here. Now we have just have to make sure we don’t mess it up…’ Unfortunately, he wasn’t all that interested in doing a job swap with me.

I also asked about how JD deal with transitioning between being a brand favoured by people like Frank Sinatra and hard rock legends to Ke$ha, Rita Ora and One Direction. The answer was that they…well, don’t. Although they’re aware that a huge range of different artists, writers and drinkers are JD fans, they never let it affect their overall image or their ethos. It’s perhaps worth pointing out that JD have used the same agency since they started advertising, and rarely change their messaging. Over the years, countless brands have claimed that they are more than just a product and that they’re ‘a lifestyle’. I get the impression that Jack Daniel’s are too humble to ever make such a claim, yet they’re probably most deserving of it.

Jack Daniel’s barrel tree, the finished product.

Wingman

A couple of weeks ago I headed down to The Old Truman Brewery to check out a Shep Fairey exhibition (to be blogged about soon) and, since art makes me pretty hungry, I decided to grab some wings from The Orange Buffalo while I was in the neighbourhood.

With most wings being slathered in butter and Frank’s hot sauce, it’s difficult to go wrong with wings. However, it’s also difficult to do anything…different. Orange Buffalo, however, do just the latter by serving up a range of different sauces (everything from Original and the devilishly spicy Viper to a sweet, spicy Mango Chilli…). All of them are scratch made from fresh chillies, with not a bottle of Frank’s in sight.

Undoubtedly, the best wings I’ve ever eaten are those at Hooters. Given my passion for equality and gender issues, it might come as a surprise that I’m a huge fan of Hooters (having eaten at a lot of them, all over the United States). Yes, I’m aware I probably should find the concept pretty distasteful, but I love it. I’m probably just blinded by my unfailing love for Americana, but it’s so much fun to eat there and everyone is so friendly and cheerful…kinda like if Disneyland made strip clubs. In the past, people have called Hooters an outdated relic and campaigned for them to be shut down. I once heard someone on the radio comparing it to a restaurant called Meatballs, where men in Speedos serve plates of spaghetti. ‘HOW WOULD YOU FEEL THEN, MENFOLK?’ she yelled. Simple – I wouldn’t eat there. (Unless the spaghetti was really good.) While Page 3 is, to some extent, shoved in everybody’s face, the same can hardly be said of Hooters. If you don’t like it, don’t go. Plus, it’s all about the food anyway. And to those who scorn that idea, I once saw two grannies in there with their grandchildren. Barring any possibility of geriatric lesbianism, I defy you to explain that one.

Outside of the US, the best wings I’ve had are at Red Dog Saloon, in Hoxton Square. I find the wings at Bodeans a bit too cumbersome, not to mention lacking spice, and those at Meatliquor much too dry. The wings from Orange Buffalo are easily on par with Red Dog’s – the deep frying process leaves them a little crispier than I would prefer but, overall, they’re fantastic. In case you’re in any doubt as to whether I enjoyed them, check out the picture below. It’s a well known fact that the messier you get during a meal, the better the food is.

Project Lean, Part One: How to lose a pie in ten days

Looking like a One Direction cast-off, circa 2008

It will probably come as a surprise to no-one that I’ve never been much of an athlete. While I have no-one to blame for this but myself (and maybe one or two bad genes) I can’t help but feel that in this respect, among others, I was born on the wrong continent – as a youngster, the only sports I showed any promise in were baseball and basketball. Typical me. Of course I would be good at two sports that the British school system showed (at the time) almost zero regard for. So sports slipped off my radar, leaving me to spend all my free periods listening to Dashboard Confessional and Thrice CDs and thinking about growing a flicky fringe rather than spending them in the gym or on the court.

My failure to make a mark on the world of sports is one of my biggest regrets. But now, it seems I have a second chance. A Maximuscle project challenging guys to get stacked in three months was recently brought to my attention by the lovely Amy, of Wolf Whistle, and I signed up. First step was to take all my measurements, which are posted at the end of this post if you’re interested (I have no secrets now…), so I could measure growth at the end of each month. Never did figure out how to measure my cup size though.

I also wrote a food diary for my nutritionist (that’s right, I have a nutritionist! Eat your heart out, Patrick Bateman), Gareth, who talked me through some diet choices and workout tips. So, I pledged to ditch a lot of the junk food in my diet and am now eating chicken, lentils, eggs and spinach like they’re going out of fashion.

My body goal has been the same since I was about 16 – look less like Edward Norton in Fight Club and more like Brad Pitt in Fight Club. With a renewed commitment to making it happen, not to mention a BOATLOAD of Maximuscle products…

…I felt like maybe I could finally make it a reality. But somehow, it still didn’t feel like quite enough. The gym is a place of performative masculinity – how much you can lift is equated to how much of a man you are, and you’re never ‘done’ with increasing how much you can benchpress. Hence bodybuilders devoting years of their life to lifting more and more weight…While there’s no doubt I’ll be benchpressing more at the end of three months, setting a particular weight target to hit didn’t feel quite right – it felt like too arbitrary a measure by which to define success or failure.

Maybe it’s because I’ve been thinking about my youth a lot (my 25th birthday is this month and I’m having a mid-twenties crisis…) or maybe it’s because I’ve been watching too many One Tree Hill reruns, but I’ve been playing a lot of basketball recently. I think I’m still as good at it as I used to be…though I’m not sure you’ll see me in the NBA anytime soon. But there’s one thing I could never do on the court as a kid that I always wanted to. Despite my height, I never came close to being able to dunk. There’s something incredibly powerful and majestic about watching someone tear through the air and smash a ball through a metal ring. It’s practically poetry in motion. I had found my target – to be able to dunk by Christmas.

For now, these Hyperaggressors are my weapon of choice on the court.

Two weeks in and things are going well – I’m lifting more, and more often, jumping higher and eating better. Well, except for that Nando’s yesterday. But even that failed to give me a food baby or make me feel sluggish, so I’m hoping that I’ve supercharged my metabolism enough to be able to cope with an occasional treat. I even have a bit of a sore arm from hitting a punchbag awkwardly yesterday. Imagine that…me with a sports injury. ME. My dad would be so proud. Well, not my dad; he bakes and drinks pink Prosecco. But someone’s dad.

As for what posts come next? Well, that’s kinda up for grabs. I may have sweet-talked the beautiful people at Nike into sending me some Hyperdunk+ shoes, which I’d be using to measure my jump progress, but they’ve yet to arrive. If there’s anything you guys want to see me write about on the journey (diet tips, what exercises I’m focusing on…), let me know in comments or on Twitter. That’s it until next time, wish me luck…

Measurements:
Chest – 38″
Biceps (untensed) – 10″
Waist (at hips) – 34″
Shoulders – 43″
Thighs – 20.5″

Review: MEATliquor, meet suckers.

I’ve been waiting to try Meatliquor for months. Like real, honest to God, months. It is, therefore, just possible that my unrealistic expectations compounded with obscene amounts of Twitter hype mean that I’m being a harsh critic. Still, it took twice as long for us to get our meal as it did for the Titanic to sink. And that’s never a good start to a review.

We arrived at the restaurant at 7pm on a Thursday to find a queue of around 50 people, which took an hour or so to clear. This wouldn’t have been so painful if the queue hadn’t been full of hipper-than-thou douchebags looking at each other’s trashed shoes and trying to decide who was the most boho. The very air was thick with breathy murmurings about new underground German techno nights and places to get the deepest V-necks known to man. But that was fine, I’d expected all this.

meatliquor
Meatlqiuor Interior

On entering the restaurant, it was much smaller than I expected. I had been hoping for a pseudo-derelict Gotham City-esque ballroom (note to restaurateurs – build this, and I will come every night.) but instead found a large bar whose decorators seemed to have used Charles Manson’s Tumblr for inspiration. Still, I get what they’re trying to do and it works, especially alongside the eclectic musical mix of bass heavy tracks by artists like Kele Okereke and Joy Division.

We ordered our food – wings, bacon cheeseburger, dead hippie (a double patty burger) and fries to share. And then we waited. And waited. And waited. Everyone else’s food was arriving, so we questioned whether the order had gone through. It hadn’t, and another waitress offered us cocktails on the house. We went for a Donkey Punch (lol), a fizzy gingery concoction, and a Mai Tai that were both amazing. Like ‘The Savoy’s American Bar amazing’.

A generous helping of wings eventually arrived (though they still took about fifteen minutes after we lodged our complaint) and they were…fine. I don’t see how people can go wrong with wings, but these were far too dry for me. Still, I was just glad enough that our food was on its way. Or was it? Around an hour later, we had to complain again (hello, more free cocktails) and it quickly became apparent that the order for our burgers hadn’t gone through. Fantastic.

meatliquor 2
Dead Hippie Burger

Another half an hour later, our burgers arrived in the hands of an extremely apologetic waitress (not our original waitress, who seemed to be avoiding us…) who told us that our entire meal was being comped, which was nice. Again, the fries were…fine. I regret not going for the jalapeno covered chilli cheese fries, because what I got was only just better than McDonald’s fries. Mind you, I do like McDonald’s fries. The burgers were admittedly pretty good, but no better than a great diner burger. After waiting around for three and a half hours, I expected a lot better than a great diner burger. About three bites in, I realised that I wasn’t even really hungry anymore. Hunger had tagged out and gone home, and that feeling in my stomach was now just disappointment. We left the restaurant close to midnight in a haze of more apologies. Although not one of them came from our original waitress.

Ok, I get it – apparently it’s now ‘cool’ not to offer reservations. But if you insist on doing that, at least make sure that every customer receives service that’s efficient, lightning fast and friendly beyond belief. The service we received (from our original waitress, at least) was none of these things. Sorry I’m not toe-ing the party line and raving on Twitter about how amazing Meatliquor is, but it’s really not all that. It’s just…fine. Try the Hard Rock Cafe instead; fewer hipsters and you might get home before midnight.