“Its pronounced Bee Eat Street” I insist to El Food Two. “Theres clearly a dot between the B and Eat, and obviously its all about eating”
El Food Two is not so sure. But none of that matters, what really matters is, what is the word on the B.Eat Street? The word is food, lots of food, and a side helping of beverages to wash it down with.
B.Eat Street is a new project from the same minds who brought you the ‘Friday Food Fight’ and ‘Junkyard Golf’. Both temporary, pop-up, if you like, ventures situated in the Great Northern. Now they’ve taken the best of the food and drink, got a load more junk, and built a whole street. Hopefully they have picked the best junk they could find, as this street is set to stay around forever, or at least until it remains profitable.
The street is open for you to visit right now, but the El Food Brothers were lucky enough to get tickets to the preview event last week. In the words of the street itself, we got given plenty of ‘Free Shit’. If you are worried this might have gone to our head a bit, remember we did have to queue up quite a bit, and we couldn’t convince Bart of Bart’s Dog Kart to make us a special cocktail. The El Food Brothers are still bloggers of the people.
After our first queue of the night, soundtracked by a brass band playing ‘Rudy, A Message To You‘, we get handed our “Free Sh*t”. 2 drinks tokens, 4 food vouchers, and a lucky cat. We spend the whole night, along with the rest of B.Eaters, trying to find out what secret thing the lucky cat gains access to.
“Right, I need a drink” we say, as we head to the very first place we see upon entering the street, ‘Milk of Burgundy’ (Is that a sex thing?) A couple of spirt based drinks are swiftly in hand and we hit the street proper to get some ballast.
We end up in our second queue by chance more than anything. The queue turns out to be for ‘Eat New York‘ who specialise in bagels, New York style presumably. I’m soon asked by a friendly member of the team what bagel I’d like. Taking the recommendation of the ‘Grill Melt Bagel’ ‘Its got a bit of everything, meat and cheese’. Which Sounds right up the El Food Brothers street.
Obviously we are getting sample size bagels tonight, but it still manages to impress, packing a wonderful taste bomb into a tiny parcel. This was a real stand out for the night, and has cemented ‘Eat New York’ as one to watch for the El Food Brothers.
As tasty as the bagel is, we want more, and chose our next place by it having the smallest queue at this point. We head towards ‘Bali Beach Hut‘ and ask a guy munching on a rice based dish if its any good. He affirms its worth a go, but also to try the ‘beef sandwich things’. 2 beef sandwich things it is.
We get handed 2 little parcels, that look nothing like beef sandwiches, more like a little pasty. Theres a pot of dipping sauce, which we promptly dip our meat in, before popping it in our mouths. This proves to be the dividing factor of the night as all I can now taste is ‘hot’ whilst El Food Two says it wasn’t really very spicy. Either way, they failed to impress either of us following the previous delight. Maybe we were just expecting more?
“Right, I need another drink” I proclaim. I can see a lot of people walking around with the red cups only seen in American teen comedies. The piles of ice protruding from them seem like a really good idea to my slightly warmer than usual mouth. We soon realise that ‘Lucky Lucky Late Bar‘ is the place for the cocktails, and head upstairs for our first time at B.Eat Street.
Is this where we can use our lucky cat? A girl at the bar is already trying that as we approach, no luck, ironically. We order a couple of ‘Highball’ cocktails anyway, at the bartenders recommendation. Featuring rum, some fruity stuff and topped off with a lot of ice and a chewy sweet. They do the job of cooling down my mouth and keeping us in the party atmosphere. Plus everyone else has one so we feel a part of a movie, fittingly for the decor of Lucky Lucky. I’m not sure I’d pay the £7.50 for one of these though.
After all that, we are on the look out for the best food we can find, and despite the biggest queue of the night, it has to be ‘Big Grillie Style‘. As a frequent visitor to their stall on Picadilly Gardens, this is by far the main attraction of B.Eat Street. Sharing their spot on the street with Bart’s Dog Kart, which we have deduced are responsible for the amazing looking nachos we’ve been coverting most of the night, its a double whammy.
Team work on the El Food Brothers part makes short work of the queues and we sooon have handfuls of nachos and ‘Ice Cubes’, our chosen grilled cheese for the night.
We expect the best from Big Grillie Style, and even though they were rushed off their feet on the night, our Ice Cubes did not disappoint. Chosen for the pastrami, which gives the Ice Cube a strong peppery taste, you also get blackened green peppers, caramalised onions, cheese sauce and vintage cheddar pressed into a neat bread based package.
We let our server go wild with the toppings for our nachos from Bart’s. We got plenty of cheese sauce, onions and hot sauce. I’m not sure what the green stuff was, but it certainly was a pleasant feature which needs further investigation. A surprise hit of the night, if the nachos are this good and aren’t even Bart’s focus, their hotdogs must be something special.
And that was it for our 4 food options for the night, or was it? Fancying something a little sweet, and letting the couple of drinks go to my head a little, I decide to try my luck at ‘LekkerEat Dutch‘. I offer up my Lucky Cat sticker in return for a waffle. I’ve never wanted a waffle as much in my life, having seen all sorts of toppings on offer. Fair play to Lekker they are happy to take my sticker and I let them choose my toppings, piling on the chocolate sauce, M&Ms and powdered sugar. The waffles really hit the spot and I can highly recommend for those with a sweet tooth.
Of course we couldn’t hit everywhere on the night. We missed out on ‘Jerk MCR‘ although we did sample a small bite from our other guests. Its on the list for a future visit.
We also completely missed out on Indian Canteen. Time, vouchers, lucky cats and queues conspired to keep the Indian treats away from us this time.
Whether its a Beat or a B-Eat Street, it looks like its going to be a huge success. Its great to see guys like Big Grillie style moving on to bigger things, and the El Food Brothers will be sure to take our ‘Feet for an Eat on the Street’ on a regular basis. Oh and they have a giant dinosaur, which if you think about it, is really a mini dinosaur.
B.Eat Street is open right now, from 11 am to ‘late’ (2am or 3am day dependant) with food going on until 10pm. What are you waiting for?