In the eye of the steak

Steak has been featuring very heavily in my nightlife over the last few days. I suspect this has more to do with being friends with Fletcher than a muscle mass enhancing diet (indeed it would appear to be more of a campaign to pile on the pounds).

Last night I had an impromptu meal at La Pampa Grill on Northcote Rd. This used to be the standard bearer for steak but it has fallen waaay behind Gaucho and my old pal (and chef Ramsay's new pal) Alberto's Santa Maria del Sur. Unusually I opted for sirloin over rib eye, for novelty value I had 2 fried eggs popped on top (I say novelty, everybody was ordering with eggs), some papas fritas (wedges) and veggies, washed down with the house red (£15 and actually very drinkable). Not a bad meal but they have deffo had better days; their chimichurri was very odd, like nothing I've ever seen but I found it pretty average.

On Monday night I cooked myself the best steak I have ever prepared. Much to my annoyance I have never been very good at cooking steak but this time I fucking nailed it. Here's how, steak from the Ginger Pig (rib eye, £8.50), brought to room temp with bruised rosemary and thyme, salt and pepper. A pan with bit of butter and then cooked doing it a la Hugh; turn every minute and season on each turn. Sure it wasn't that healthy, why do you think it was so bloody good?!

And on Saturday I found myself, quite by accident, in Gaucho - not my fav Piccadilly branch sadly but the one by Smithfield Mkt (we couldn't get a table in Smiths, well we could but Fletch refused to stay as they only had 1 type of steak on offer in the wine room floor). The accident occurred on a day of accidents, I never meant to launch myself into an all dayer but it just felt right, the sun was shining, I had walked to Borough Mkt (to get Monday's steak amongst other goodies) and I had zero chores to attend to. I have to admit I had a cracking time boozing with Fletch n' Carters; the Old Red Cow was a real find and The Three Kings by Clerkenwell Green is a belting little boozer too. At Gaucho I drunkenly tucked into a rib eye with chips, spinach and my fav side there; peas, bacon and onions. I also had the cheesy Colombian bread, fooking luv that. Should I mention that one of the diners individually spent over £100 on wine?

Butchered

A couple of week's ago I had a fantastic night out at The Ginger Pig.

This isn't some boozer but indeed a butcher and farm shop belonging to my all time favourite butcher at Borough Market, The Ginger Pig, just off Marylebone High St.

About 12 of us hacked a pig to pieces under the guidance of Barry and Borat. I would at this early juncture like to question their sanity, letting 12 toffs use a cleaver, a bone saw and a knife that goes through pig as though it were soft, slighlty melted butter cannot be sensible - every time they passed one of the boys a cleaver I feared for loss of limbs and perhaps life.

After an interesting chat about how people bend the rules to call food organic (it can still lead to animals being treated badly) and how free range is often far superior we watched Barry cleave a pig's head in half and were instructed to finger its brain, which we did like an anxious, slighlty giddy 13yr old.

We then got cutting, sawing and cleaving - it was slighlty nervous as you were called upon to hack through a section in front of all the boys. Everyone had each others back, move your fucking finger man went out the warnings and a hearty round of applause was given on completion.

After this group autopsy you are given a cut of pork to bone and smear with garlic, fennel seeds, pepper and salt - and boy oh boy are you encouraged to layer on the salt. Barry also spends a long time telling you how to get the perfect crackling - don't let it get wet. Get it out of all packaging, even paper and let it go uncovered for a couple of days in the fridge. If it's still a bit wet, then just saturate it in salt, obviously you should score it too (not too deeply otherwise the fat will bubble up, making it wet). You then take this wedge home and have the home roast pork of your life and I can assure you the crackling will be sensational. The worse part about preparing the pork is that you have to tie it up, now it's well known I am a fucking malco, somehow I did eventually tie my beast but it was very much a hybrid of the 'simple' method we were shown.

After getting hugely frustrated by attempting to tie up the pork, relief arrives in the form of here's one we did earlier. You're given a plate with 2 huuuuge slabs of roasted pork, a piece of crackling the size of your palm, a slab of gratin as big as your hand, carrots dripping in melted sugar and butter and shit loads of roasties - all with lots of white wine. Simply sensational.

It costs £125 and I have to say whilst that is an intimidating figure it is well worth it, you're there from about 6.30 till 10, Barry and Borat are top lads, the food you have is far, far superior to that you will have at home or in any pub and of course you get to take home a huge beast which can feed 6. Oh you also get bread and butter pudding but we could barely wedge that in.

I strongly urge you to sign up but they flogged 70k's worth of vouchers at Christmas so there is likely to be a bit of a wait, they also do beef and lamb courses, I'm deffo gonna sharpen my knives for them.