Bad Egg, 7th December

Bad Egg has been on the List for quite some time, and I finally made it down. I have to say, it was a little disappointing for me but I wouldn’t write it off completely. We all chose from the burger/sandwich menu. My veggie friend got the mac and cheese burger, my other friend had the chicken burger, and I got the buffalo ribwich.

My sandwich was ridiculous. A huge, square slab of pork belly, breadcrumbed and plopped in a burger bun with buffalo sauce and (somewhere) blue cheese mayo. A delicate leaf of lettuce was almost comical in its pointlessness. I couldn’t taste the blue cheese mayo at all, against the intense tanginess of the buffalo sauce. The pork belly, though tender once you managed to get into it, was a bit tough to crack at first bite and I didn’t think it worked with the sauce at all. I wish it had been paired with a more Asian flavouring like kimchi. My friend and I both ordered fries. Would have appreciated being told that one dish was enough for two.

The mac and cheese burger, however, was pretty brilliant. A circular formation of the cheese carby stuff, it was deep fried giving the edges a crispiness much needed inside a bun.

The chicken burger, too looked great – definitely thigh meat, it had quacamole and a fried egg in it. Apparently the egg made it a bit too squishy and hard to eat but it was finished pretty quickly so I think it can’t have been too bad!

Also pretty enjoyable was this rice krispie ice cream sandwich with salted caramel ice cram and a caramel sauce. I shared with my friend as we were both stuffed but it was so good I probably could have made room for the whole thing. It could easily be too sickly for some but I could handle it. 

This was a post-Alcoholic Architecture treat, Bompass and Parr’s room filled with Gin and Tonic mist. As with all Bompass and Parr things, it sounded better than it really was but I did enjoy it. You have to don ponchos so you all look ridiculous standing in what is quite a small room, while gin and tonic vapour swirls around you and you try to inhale as much as you can in the 45 minutes you have. Apparently you can get 2 to 3 shots worth inside you (and as you absorb it, no calories!) and my friends thought they could feel an effect but I remained unconvinced. 

Delancey & Co, 24th April

Almost every corner of New York has an unassuming shop that almost looks like a newsagents, but from which you can get these immense, amazing sandwiches. There are the standards – your Cuban, your Monte Cristo, or they can whip up a combination of your choosing. We do have some equivalents over here – I would say Basil’s sandwiches is one, but we don’t have exactly the same thing. And I wouldn’t say Delancey & Co is exactly the same thing either but it does have a similar, though more limited, ethos.

Delancey’s does a few things, and, judging by what we had, does them well. You can get bagels (or sandwiches) with smoked salmon and all kinds of cream cheeses and 'load ups' (toppings), or you can get sandwiches with salt beef or smoked turkey, or you can get their signatures – the Reuben or the Bird or the Toky x Delancey - each a prescribed sandwich of salt beef, turkey or smoked salmon.

Stephen and I both got the reuben. I had the coleslaw with cheese and special sauce, and Stephen  had the sauerkraut version. We couldn't really tell which was which but I think we got the right ones in the end. The sandwich was packed with silky, fattily tender beef, with a good slathering of the ‘kraut/'slaw and dressing ensuring things could never get too dry. I loved the caraway marbled rye bread – I think caraway is a great flavour, and I thought it was a really good bread to meat ratio. Stephen dissented, saying the bread was slightly too thick and in the corners where it hadn’t been pressed down perhaps it was, a little, but that is such a minor quibble I don’t even know why I’m mentioning it.

At just under £10 it is by no means cheap but this kept me so full into the evening I didn’t even have any dinner.

It gets the thumbs up from me.