Rita's Bar and Dining were resident at Birthdays from the end of last year up until this weekend. They are moving on to pastures new and that was just the prompt I needed to get in gear and get up there. (I hear they're likely to pop up again in a similar area but still it was a good excuse to go.)
Rita's is doing 'dirty' food, that ever trendier, ever popular 'cuisine'. It's everywhere, being done to various degrees of success (Success: Pitt Cue, Epic fail: Wishbone). Rita's as you will probably have heard is way way at the top end of the scale.
It's simple food but it is terribly effective. I tweeted shortly after my meal that I'd had the best chicken burger I've ever had and that was no word of a lie.
The chicken burger arrives in a brown paper bag which is gimmicky but still fun. It's certainly got some heft to it once you take it out of the bag due to the slightly sweet yet quite dense brioche bun. On a bed of lettuce with a mayo sauce that had a hell of a kick, the burger itself, made of a battered chicken thigh lies. Conjure up in your mind all the great words to associate with good chicken and you'll be spot on. Juicy, succulent, well flavoured. All of that. Tender? Mouthwatering? Yeah, add those too. It was just a shame there wasn't a bit more of the actual meat. I missed it once it was gone.
We also ordered a side of macaroni cheese to split. And that was great too! Most of my experiences with mac n cheese have been ubercheesy, heavy creamy dishes hence deciding to share. But this was done with an incredibly light touch. And on top a fresh salsa that was almost like a mousse. It was gorgeous.
Before that we'd chosen some bacon brittle from the snack menu. It was a bit too sweet to fulfill the role of a starter but in and of itself it was a tasty thing to consume. The bacon worked the way salt does in chocolate and caramel - counters the sweetness and gives it a depth of flavour. Would love to be able to buy bags of that to eat. I'm a big brittle fan.
And then, finally, we had to share a dessert of course - chocolate pie with clotted cream. Stephen thought they skimped on the cream, I thought the pie didn't even need it - it was an added luxury when the pie itself was so light and yet full of flavour. It was like eating a mousse in pastry.
Add to that a couple of reasonably priced drinks (mine a frozen 'rita at £6.50 - one of the cheapest cocktails I've had in a long while, his a beer) and it was a no-muss-no-fuss yet hugely satisfying meal. I'll go back in a heartbeat when their new venture arises.
I went to Birthdays last night sober. I think this was a mistake. I think Birthdays is the kind of sweaty hole that you have to turn up to fairly inebriated, and then continue to numb your brain cells so that you can ignore pesky things like temperature and people bumping into you because they are snogging so copiously that they’ve failed to notice you, and instead concentrate on the reason you’ve come here. Last night the reason was a gig, on other nights it could be a DJ or club night.
Birthdays is a new venue on Stoke Newington Road, owned by Vice. Currently, upstairs is dominated by Rita’s Bar and Dining, which was very busy when we got there. Downstairs is the where the gigs and parties happen. It’s really rather small, which could be a good thing for seeing a band, but it’s also narrow, which means that even though it’s small, it’s quite hard to see anything unless you are right at the top end where the stage is. Or very tall. I am not so we moved to the front where half the space was being occupied by an older ‘gentlemen’ dancing around overly enthusiastically to the music. There’s always one.
The sound was pretty good though and I did enjoy the gig, though it does get very, very hot in there. My hair was already sticking to me when the support band was on (ie fairly empty). Once the Fixers came on (the headliners) it was getting unpleasant, and this is when I began to wish I was drunk so I wouldn’t care.
This isn’t a venue I would rush back to, although they do have quite a lot of live music on, at bargain prices. The gig last night was £6.00 and there were two support acts as well as Fixers. After the gig was over, two girls seemed to take to the decks and started blasting hip hop (weirdly, considering the type of music the Fixers play) and then followed immediately by some house. I don’t know what time it closes, but it seemed like quite a lot of people were up for staying out on a school night, and Birthdays were about to cater to them.
I will, of course, be coming back at some point, just to sample the food at Rita’s, because it sounds great and has been getting amazing reviews. The throngs upstairs confirmed that this was a place I need to try, before they move on to pastures new.
And, after having said all that, if they have more bands I like, the place might grow on me. Having this on the bar has already helped worm its way into my affections:
