Kopparberg Urban Forest, 2nd July

A couple of years ago Kopparberg had a pop-up in Shoreditch called the unestablishment which I thought sounded good but never managed to get to. This summer they’re back, creating an Urban Forest round the back of Dalston Roof Park. Well, perhaps not so much of a forest as a woody clearing in a glade, or even a treehouse, but there’s wood, there’s greenery and if you go up in the canopy, there’s a lot of leaves so I guess it’s sort of creating a Swedish forest vibe. There are a couple of street food vans to stave off hunger, serving buffalo wings and pulled pork – Joe’s Buffalo (Stephen had some of these and preferred them to Orange Buffalo – bigger wings) or various jerk wraps and plantain from Mama’s Jerk. I had the chicken jerk wrap, which was bursting at the seams and was really good – hot sauce was hot, chicken was nice and crispy in parts and the mango pineapple mayo was a nice, sweet touch.

Fika, the Swedish bar/café on Brick Lane have also got in on the act, having a stall and providing us in the “VIP” canopy (yes, I got a wristband and everything) with some Swedish canapés. We had some smoked salmon and cream cheese and some beef with a sweet jam on thin rye bread (I think) which was very nice. These were spoiled a little by savoury beetroot cakes which had a nice flavour but a pretty horrible, claggy texture and meatballs which were, as Stephen put it, like the very worst burger. I didn’t even eat the whole of my half. It was dry and with a weird taste. Having nosied around twitter I suspect they might have been elk meat, in which case, I am not a fan of elk.

Being hosted by Kopparberg, they had several of their ciders and some cider cocktails on the go. The cocktail we tried with elderflower cider and tequila (I think) was delicious. So was the cider for that matter. I like Kopparberg cider. It is light and refreshing and they have some lovely flavours. I think we had elderflower and maybe even cloudberry. The problem is, after one or two it just gets too sweet to keep drinking throughout the night. But I guess that's where the cocktails come in. And of course there's beer.

This is the same area where Night Tales was held for the first time, except that where there was a bar, there is now a stage and a dance floor. If you like intimate gigs, then this is really a great space to go to. If you’re prepared to wait it out you can be less than an arm’s length from whoever is performing. And they’ve got some pretty good action lined up. We saw Kelis, who was fab, treating us to most of her hits in some form or other (be that remixed or just a burst of chorus) as well as her latest single. Her DJ was amazing too, pumping some excellent tunes before Kelis herself came on and the party continued long after the show was through. The other acts might not be quite on the superstar level that Kelis undoubtedly is, but they’re still pretty good – NYPC (formerly New Young Pony Club) and Lucy Rose among others will be gracing the stage. And it’s all free! Just arrive early as when Stephen popped to the loo at about 8 they were operating on a one-in, one-out policy. Oh, and you might want to pee before you get there – toilets were a bit of a rare commodity! My boyfriend and several others were herded by one of the doormen practically all the way up to Dalston Roof Park to go because the queue was so long.

If you like cider and live music, or even just want a cute place to party (So Fresh, So Clean and Supa Dupa Fly are both hosting their clubnights there) then head over any Thursday to Saturday from now until August 2^nd.

Mother Kelly's and Dead Dolls Club, 13th June

Bethnal Green used to be a pretty scutty place. But then it seemed that Shoreditch sprang a leak, with cool new bars and restaurants (Sager and Wilde, which I may have mentioned once or twice, Clutch) springing up on Hackney Road, which joins Old Street to Bethnal Green. And this spread further with Satan’s Whiskers opening on Cambridge Heath Road, and that has now been joined by the new home of the Dead Dolls Club, plus the redevelopment of the arches by Bethnal Green station. And so now… well, Bethnal Green is still pretty scutty, but you get the impression that it might not be for long.

Putting aside how I feel about the spread of Shoreditch to the east and what that might mean for rental prices in my area, I’m pretty happy to have so many lovely new places a mere stop away from my flat.

On Friday the plan was to go to the Dead Dolls Club to see Kansas Smitty’s jazz band and maybe stop in on the Craft Cocktail Co on the way. Which is what I thought we were doing as we approached an open arch I hadn’t seen before, stocked full of bottles. On closer inspection they were beer bottles, not cocktails and actually we had discovered Mother Kelly’s, which could easily become a favourite of mine even though I don’t like beer.

This place is a beer kingdom – they have six fridges with bottles of all kinds available (to drink in or take away for a 25% discount), and on top of this they have 20 more beers and ciders on tap! They serve one red wine, one white, one champagne, and keep food to a minimal but well-chosen offering of meat and cheese boards. I tried a bottled cider I hadn’t had before and followed this up with a white wine just to see how much attention they’d paid to it. It was unusual – very fruity and verging on sweet, quite soft and round. Very different to the wines I normally drink but not unpleasant. The beer on draft is served in 2/3 pints in the main, but they're priced accordingly so you're not getting gypped.

We then headed up to the Dead Dolls Club at about 10 pm, which is when I knew the band were meant to be taking to the stage.

Dead Dolls Club

And so, to another arch, namely The Arch, where Dead Dolls Club are in residence for the foreseeable. You step through its little café-like foyer and into the main room.

At first, we were underwhelmed. There was no one in there and the whole place felt sparse and cold. I’ve been to the Dead Dolls House and the original Dead Dolls Club and was expecting something more homely, the same stencils on the wall, the same feeling of being in a quirky parlour. I was disappointed. This felt like what it was - a railway arch.

But still, we took a seat and got a couple of cocktails and waited while the band warmed up. I had an espresso martini (if you follow the DDC on Twitter, you’ll know they’re quite proud of them) and Stephen had an old fashioned. We were both very pleased with our drinks – mine had a very strong coffee flavour that completely threw me off how much alcohol was in it. After three of these I was pretty sloshed and I don’t say that often about cocktails. I probably should have had some of Checkon's chicken to soak it up - we saw people chowing on buckets of the stuff and it looked pretty good. Stephen stuck to cocktails the whole night, having a julep and a negroni to follow up.

Kansas Smitty finally took to the stage and didn’t waste any time in whipping up some liveliness. They are a jazz band in the speakeasy, 20s-40s sense, not in the strokey-beardy 60s beatnik sense and they were brilliant! They followed up their frenetic start with something a little mellower but in general the whole set was up tempo and got people on their feet.

The place had begun to fill by this point. I don’t know if people were filing in specifically to see the band or if this just happens to be when the DDC gets busy but with the crowds the space came into its own. It’s clearly a place for dancing and merriment, rather than refinement, and the sparkly lights and humongous glitter ball now made sense. We had noted the rather utilitarian chairs and fixtures but who cares about those when there’s dancing to be had. I understood their thinking now.

We loved the band and were having a lot of fun – so much so that our original plan of getting the last tube home went out the window. Of course, this doesn’t mean quite so much when we were only a ten minute bus ride from home, but it is meant to illustrate that we liked the place. 

Galvanisers' Union, 11th June

I couldn’t make either the opening of the Galvanisers Union nor its kitchen launch so I was ostensibly invited to come and review the food last night. So I shall talk about the food which was fine, but in my opinion isn’t the real draw of this pub.

The Antic group have slowly and stealthily been taking over London in the last few years. It would be insidiuous and creepy if they weren’t so good at turning out proper boozers you want to come to again and again. If you’ve noticed a long-neglected building suddenly getting a new lease of life, chances are it’s been taken over the by Antic crew.

Ok, so, the food... We happened to have the whole dining area to ourselves because, well, it was a Wednesday and The Galvanisers isn’t exactly in the throng of things. We didn’t mind though. The place had such a cosy character that even with only the two of us in there it didn’t feel empty.

Now, I don’t mean to denigrate the food at Galvanisers Union, I just want to set it in context. This is a pub and what they’ve got on the menu is pub food in the original sense of the word, not in the poshed up gastropub sense of the word. That doesn’t mean it isn’t somewhat refined but it’s stuff like fish and chips and pies and of course a Ploughman’s! The most expensive dish is a salt beef bun for 10 quid so the prices are excellent. 

Stephen for some reason decided to be girly and order the ham and egg salad, and I had the pie which was chicken and leek. It came with mash and parsley liquor and then we also got some frickles to share, mainly because I just loved the word.

Saying ham and egg salad belies what it really was – it was ham hock croquettes with boiled egg on leaves with pickled veg such as radishes, gherkins and little cauliflowers. It looked ever so pretty set down but they seemed to have made the mistake a lot of places make with salads in making it very insubstantial. Stephen kept referring to it as a starter because it was so tiny. More leaves please! And more of those really lovely pickled veg! I know people order salad because they're trying to be healthy - but that doesn't mean they don't also want to feel full after eating it.

My pie was a lot heartier. When I first punctured the pastry I thought it was mostly a watery filling but actually there was quite a lot of chicken inside, enough for me to share with Stephen without begrudging him when he had finished his salad and was still hungry. The liquor was lovely and the pie was tasty. The mash could have been a little more indulgent but then again I’m never going to say no to more cream and/or butter!

The frickles were fabulous. They are beer battered (fried) pickles and they are done with such a good light touch that the batter didn’t overpower the taste. There seemed to be two kinds – pickled onion rings and battered slices of gherkin (my favourites) and the dip they came with was very tasty. That didn’t last as long as the pickles did!

Dessert finished me off as I had a ridiculously rich stout and chocolate mousse with cakey stuff at the bottom. I loved the chocolate pretzels and brownie it came with but think it would be even better if the mousse was sprinkled with them or even if they were dotted throughout. Stephen had the St Clements syrup sponge cake which was very sugary, sticky and delicious. Stuffed!

We then went over to the bar for a relaxing drink after. They have a fairly decent selection of beers (several ales including Meantime as well as stuff like Heineken etc) and quite a few ciders. They were happy to let me have a taste of one that was 7.5% but it had a weird bitter taste and a musky smell so instead I had a milder 4.5% one. There is a mix of sofas, cushioned chairs, or a central bank to sit at and the whole place already has that lived-in local feel that Antic accomplishes so well. It was by no means packed and because of its location it is unlikely to ever get too rammed (it is right on the A12) but it’s clearly meant to be a neighbourhood pub and that’s what it feels like.

Both Stephen and I were really enamoured with the place. I’ve been to Farr’s several times and The Old George and I feel the same way about them. The look may be somewhat manufactured but it really works. They also had board games and it was the kind of place I could imagine whiling away a few hours and actually playing them. They’ve installed a screen if you want to catch any World Cup games, though they’re also keeping the dining area footie-free and the screen will go once the World Cup is over. It’s that kind of place – the focus is on being social – they don’t want to turn you into a bunch of zombies staring at a screen.

It took us less than 10 minutes to get home on the bus so even though it’s not quite our neighbourhood, we may just adopt it as our local anyway.

Hand of Glory, 22nd March

I could feel my friends' patience dissipating the longer we walked up the residential street towards a destination they muttered 'better be worth it'.

Well, in my humble opinion it was. Brought to you by the same people who run the Shoreditch institution Dreambags and Jaguar Shoes, this is a homely yet polished new pub which, yes, is kind of in the middle of nowhere in terms of nightlife happening around it. Which is fabulous if you live along Amhurst road and want a nice place to go for a pint, not so great if you're coming from Bethnal Green or Dalston. And it's also pretty good in terms of not being absolutely rammed. We got there at about 10 pm on a Saturday night and there was plenty of room for us to perch at the bar, although all the tables had already been filled.

There are lots of wicker animals and horse's heads all over the place, giving the whole bar a slightly pagan festival feel. This is in recognition of the pub's name - Hand of Glory - which is some kind of cursed or magical dried and pickled hand of a man who has been hanged. This bears out a tenuous link to the fact that there has been a pub on this spot for yonks and that the surrounding area used to be fields and rural stuff (like most areas of modern day London compared to the 1800s) and I guess the Dreambags lot are somewhat macabre. But anyway, I'm quite macabre and the aesthetic pleased me. 

It also pleased me greatly that they had proper cider on tap not just a few bottles of Kopparberg in the fridge. I like Kopparberg but I can only drink one before it gets too sweet.  I had a couple of Burrow Hills, part of their 'Deathly Ciders' range at the relatively (compared to Impeared Vision) alcohol light 6%. They also had a range of ales and beers which kept my male friends happy. They conceded that the place was, in fact, a pretty cool pub. Exonerated!

They have Fleisch Mob in residency in the kitchen but we had just filled our bellies at the last night of Hawker House so had no excuse to try any of their stuff. (For the record I had some pork ribs from Hot Box and shared a burrito from Kimchinary. Both amazing.)

If you're somewhere around Stoke Newington/Kingsland Road, or even Hackney Central and don't mind a bit of a walk for quality and a place you can hear each other as well as a bit of space to spread out then you should definitely wander up to the Hand of Glory.

Find the menu & restaurant information on Zomato