Getting Low & Slow in London

A stressful week at work meant two things:

1.  No blog posts since last weekend.
2.  Looking forward to a trip to visit family in London this weekend.

I'll gloss over the first thing; in all honesty I had originally predicted that I would lose interest after six posts, so I wouldn't have been surprised to never put anything else here.  Luckily, point two gave me something I felt was worth writing about.

Over the last couple of years I've been getting more and more enthusiastic about US style barbecue.  This summer I picked up a Weber kettle in a sale and had a few goes at ribs, pulled pork and brisket, as well as the more usual British sausage and burger barbecue.  Managing to serve up a passable attempt at some of the above have fed the addiction, as did the excellent Bristol Grillstock festival, where talented BBQ teams from across the country (plus one from the US) served up truly mouth watering concoctions to the hungry masses.

One of those teams represented the London BBQ restaurant chain "Bodean's".  So, as I was in London anyway I thought a visit to their full time premises was worth investigating.  The nearest one was in Soho, about two minutes walk from Oxford Street, and we were going there to do a bit of shopping anyway.

The restaurant is pretty unassuming from the street, and even once you're in the door it could really be any other restaurant.  Upstairs is what they term a deli, with the restaurant proper downstairs.  The menu ticked most of the boxes I was expecting: ribs, pulled pork, brisket, chicken, plus a range of steaks and burgers, plus an unexpected treat - burnt ends.

I went for a half rack of baby back ribs, plus some pulled pork.  The fries and coleslaw weren't really that important, but I suppose a meal of just meat wouldn't be too healthy.  My wife had the burnt ends and some pulled pork, while my brother in law kept it simple with just the pork.

This isn't a food blog so I'll keep the evaluation short: the pork was good, but not the best I've had.  The ribs were very tender, but didn't seem as flavourful as either the ones I've done myself or tried at Grillstock, the burnt ends were very, very good, with a nice dose of sauce and a really good texture.  The Bodean's own hickory BBQ sauce was ace, giving the pork a bit of tartness which I appreciated.  I was impressed; it is one thing for me to cook a couple of racks of ribs on a weekend, but these guys are catering for hundreds of people a day, and doing it well.  Low and slow barbecue is never going to be the easiest style to cook in high volumes, but Bodean's have done a good job of it.

I may never go for another meal at Bodean's, but I'd encourage anyone else to give it a go if they're nearby.  Better still, get a kettle grill and have a go yourself!