Buen Provecho, Waterloo

In wondering just why it is that some of the street food stalls in London are so far ahead of their competitors in their relevant fields (try finding a better burger than the #meateasy bacon cheeseburger, go on, I dare you, or for that matter a better Chocolate Fudge Sundae than Choc Star's) it's tempting to conclude that certain types of cuisine just lend themselves better to this kind of arrangement than others. Small-turnover, "fast" (ish) food, heavily dependent on an individual's passion for their own chosen cuisine and with an attention to detail on ingredients and method that borders on scary, the humble burger has been transformed by the #meateasy treatment because the pace and freedom of street food allows and encourages experimentation, invention and sheer, bloody-minded obsession. Somehow, sometimes, in a restaurant environment, where the link between the chef and the customer is hidden behind fixtures and fittings and 12.5% service, that magic and passion is lost.


But this post isn't about the #meateasy. Around the back of Waterloo station, a humble taco stall is doing for Mexican street food what Yianni did for West Coast burgers, and is surely destined to be just as popular. Buen Provecho is the work of Arturo Ortega Rodriguez of Mexico City who, according to Timeout, came to London six years ago and worked briefly in a hotel before setting up his own mobile operation. Like the Meatwagon when it still existed, he moves about a bit - my friend Helen found him in Elephant and Castle, of all places - but nowadays can reliably be seen Mondays to Fridays, midday until "whenever the food runs out" on Lower Marsh St market. The small menu is displayed on a chalkboard pinned to the back of his tent, and contains what at first glance is a familiar run-through of Mexican dishes - tacos, quesadillas, nachos - all at sensible prices. I ordered a selection of 3 tacos (£6) and was told to help myself to the toppings out on display - a chunky, bright green guacamole, an onion and chilli salad, and a mysterious house salsa which Arturo sells by the jar. Before we go any further, how many times in any Mexican joint in London have you been allowed to "help yourself" to as much guacamole as you like? And instead, how many times have you been charged 50p extra on top of your stodgy £6 burrito for the privilege of having any guacamole at all? Buen Provecho were already in my good books, and that was even before I'd eaten anything.


From the left, we have, first, Adobo con carne, not-too-tender but hugely flavoursome strips of beef in a subtle smoked chilli sauce which was quite unlike anything I'd had before. I want to describe the sauce as "oaky" but this description doesn't go far enough - it was dense and woody, rich like the smell of an antique wardrobe, and coated the beef thoroughly without either being too oily or too dry. The guacamole I'd chosen to dump on top (I'd like another go at choosing toppings, I think - I can probably do better) seemingly consisted of little more than great buttery coarse chunks of avocado and a few bits of coriander, but had a greater hit of fresh lime than any other you can get in London and was utterly magnificent. Next along was Pollo con mole, moist strips of slow-cooked chicken in a great mole sauce that made me finally realise what all the fuss was about mole - faintly chocolaty, spicy and umami-rich - and topped with the tinglingly fresh house salsa, of which I won't even begin to guess the ingredients but will say I am going back for a jar of it the next chance I get.


But best of all was, on the right, the pork pibil, unbelievably tender strips of pork in a spicy orange (the fruit and the colour) sauce that was just so mind-blowingly good I actually laughed out loud, on my own, as I ate it. It's very difficult to describe why it was so brilliant without resorting to meaningless hyperbole, but there was just something about how fresh, how - bear with me - alive (in a metaphorical sense obviously) it was, and topped with a crunchy red onion and chilli salad which added texture and fire, it added up to what must be a definitive version of this famous Mexican snack. Certainly, if there's a better one out there, I'll eat my sombrero.

My only regret is that I didn't order twice as much, and in fact looking through the menu more thoroughly now I'm back on the computer I can see the 'Meal Box' option which may be a better way of getting as much of that pork pibil down my neck as possible for £6. So next time, and of course there will be a next time, very soon, I will be a bit more confident (read: greedy) with the toppings, perhaps pick up some cream of chickpea soup as a little starter, and make sure I have a long leisurely lunch hour to ensure nothing comes between me and my food. For a fraction of the price and fanfare of certain other hugely overblown restaurants in London, Buen Provecho is producing the greatest Mexican food this side of the Yucatan, and is single-handedly responsible for restoring my faith in this most poorly represented of cuisines. Go, and enjoy it while you can before history repeats itself and Meatwagon-style fame descends on Arturo Ortega Rodriguez.

9/10

Arturo can be found on Lower Marsh Street market from mid-day until "whenever the food runs out, usually 2:30-3pm", Monday to Friday. He is also available for private catering and can be reached on 07908 210311.

#meateasy bacon cheeseburger picture linked with kind permission of Ross Bruniges.

The Fire Station burger, Waterloo

You will find very few bigger advocates of London dining than this blog. Even 6 years since I moved down from Liverpool I am frequently pleasantly surprised by the variety, skill and passion of London restaurants, if not quite so often by the prices. But it's also fair to say that I spend most of my time thinking about, writing about and organising my life around food and eating out, and with research (and let's face it, borderline obsession) eventually comes a trained eye for a decent menu, a kind of food sixth sense which steers me away from anywhere touristy or chainy or indeed anywhere likely to be mediocre, overpriced or a combination of the two.

But what would your experience of London's restaurants be like if you weren't armed with thorough research? What if, like any number of the millions of tourists London hosts every year, you had nothing to go on other than a nice looking space, somewhere near a major port of entry, with a reassuring menu of modern standards? Can you really blame any hapless tourist for dismissing the food here as rubbish after he or she made the honest mistake of sitting down in the nearest All Bar One or Angus Steakhouse? On Saturday I had a terrifying glimpse into the alternative reality of London dining when, meeting friends for drinks near Waterloo, I fought hard against my better judgement and paid for a "burger" at the Fire Station.

First things first, this was not a cheap burger. At £9.50 it's at what I would call the upper end of acceptable for a sit-down restaurant burger (the superb Hawksmoor burger notwithstanding), and with this price comes a certain weight of expectations - that the meat will be premium, the patty competently cooked, and the sides generous and/or good quality. Any hope that the sides would be any good were dashed with the use of the term "fat chips" on the menu, but what the hell I thought, I can just leave them.


I could probably write a number of paragraphs on why this burger was just so, so awful, but I'll try and keep it brief. The meat, first off, was very odd indeed. It smelled very strongly of raw beef, but slightly stale raw beef, a bit like the whiff outside a closed butchers shop on a Sunday. It was also both dry, as if it had been overcooked, and quite pink, something which should be impossible so perhaps the less I know about how this bizarre effect was produced the better. Salad was nondescript and slathered with far too much cheap mayonnaise, and why they had decided to put the tomato relish in a separate pot I couldn't tell you. But worst of all, the bun - a bland floury bap better suited to a cheese and tomato sandwich than a burger - was so over-toasted it splintered apart on the first bite, rendering both its texture and its purpose as a vehicle for the beef completely unsuitable. And yes, the fat chips were dire - huge, flat, wobbly and reeking of old oil, they slumped across the huge plate like a pod of lugubrious sea lions.

The important thing to remember here is I wasn't going out of my way to find a bad place, I just happened to be with friends somewhere handy and open and near the station, and I ordered some food. And it occurred to me, as my dismal burger in its crispbread bun splintered and shattered into a thousand pieces in my hands, that this is what eating out must be like for a good number of London residents and tourists. If you're not a food obsessive, you won't know that just around the corner is Masters Superfish or the Anchor and Hope and you'll order your crappy £10 burger and hate it and then tell all your friends that London food is rubbish. And that makes me sad.

Way over on the other end of the burger scale, however, better news. Byron Hamburgers, of whose existing product I still have niggles with but are nevertheless well worth their very reasonable price, have teamed up with master butchers O'Shea's of Knightsbridge and produced a brand-new 8oz premium burger. Little details have emerged of this exciting new venture, but it will be available from this Thursday exclusively at the Wardour St, Kings Road, Kensington and Gloucester Road branches and chances are it will be well worth checking out. I'll see you there.

Fire Station 1/10

Thanks to @gastro1 (Dino) for the Byron tipoff

Update 12/01/10: I'm not entirely sure of the difference, but I've been told by Byron that the meat is in fact coming from O'Shea's of Knightsbridge and not Jack O'Shea's. I'm as confused as you...

Masters Super Fish, Waterloo

It's a cliché, and one you will hear often repeated by Northern expats around these parts, that you can't get a decent Fish and Chips in London. Of course, given that deep fried fish and chipped potatoes is hardly the most complex takeaway food, there are plenty of places in London that do a pretty passable F&C, and equally, like anywhere else in the country there are far, far more that do a terrible one. Given that, in the interests of my pocket and my pulmonary artery, I'm not about to try every chippy I come across in the capital just in case it turns out to be good, I did a bit of research and last Saturday turned up at Masters Superfish in Waterloo at the very 'Northern Chippy' time of 5:30pm.


Considered one of the few "real" chippies in the capital (along with The Golden Hind in Marylebone and Seafresh in Victoria, amongst others), Masters has built up quite a reputation amongst foodies and bloggers and I was quite excited to see what the fuss was about. First impressions of the room were pleasingly authentic - plain, no-nonsense décor with a little takeaway hatch on the way in and - delightfully - like any good Northern chippy a wall containing fading pictures of faded light entertainment stars who have popped in for a photo opportunity over the years. The menu was slightly more extensive than I was used to up north, with more premium options such as Dover Sole and Halibut alongside the traditional Cod and Haddock fillets. We all went for fish and chips.


First up was served a free plate of prawns each, which were sweet and tasty but some of our party were put off by the orange eggs - it must be the time of year. Also dished up extra were some lovely tasty pickles: a large white onion and a sweet gherkin, top marks again for those.


Fortunately, the Main Event, when it arrived, didn't disappoint either. Lovely crunchy chips in all sorts of sizes, and a healthy slab of flaky white fish covered in a dark, dense batter. If I'm going to be picky, the fish was probably slightly overcooked - the extra crunchy batter wasn't to everyone's tastes, and the fish was just a smidgen on the dry side - but these were minor quibbles and I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy my plate of food.

I'd be happy to call Masters Superfish my local chippy, and once you add in the London markup it wasn't too expensive either. It's understandably popular, and although our fellow diners in the early evening consisted of an elderly couple and a table of Japanese tourists timidly extracting their fish from its batter and eating it separately, I am told the queue can stretch out of the door. In an area of London becoming famous for its varied and excellent dining options (The Anchor and Hope, Meson Don Felipe), Masters can hold its head high. I'll certainly be back.

7/10