After my lovely Mexican lunch, I thought I would settle down after work, cook up some chicken I had in the fridge and get an early night.
As it turned out, I had forgotten I was going to meet a friend of mine for dinner. We wound up as a four as his mum and his girlfriend came along as well.
We initially tried Dishoom, but the queue was 1 hour and 20 minutes at least and there was not even any space in the bar! Rob suggested Red Dog, which I had been to once before, but as we were walking towards there, he mentioned MEATmission as a possibility. Knowing Red Dog had a couple of tables free as we walked past, we opted to check out the queue in MEATmission. 30 minutes was all and space at the bar – sorted!
Service at the bar was a little slow (the bartender told us they were down a body) but the bartender was great, very knowledgeable and we enjoyed his mixology. Since I’m not drinking for a bit, I had soda with Lime chunks, which was very refreshing.
MEATmission used to be a church, and whilst they had gutted the inside, they had kept the theme with a stain glassed-style ceiling and slightly pew-like benches in the middle.
The view from the entrance (the highlighted bit in red is a WW1 memorial which they’ve kept in place. I think that’s great.)
The view from the back of the restaurant – from our table. Spot the DJ booth!
Our table became free, and we wended our way to the tall tables that lined the back of the room. It was a little dark but manageable, and the music was very good and not too loud. We could hold a reasonable conversation without shouting.
Starters were chicken wings in a Buffalo sauce, and chicken tenders. Being slow carb, I kept to the wings, and they were pretty good. The sauce was lovely, and just enough to coat without being soupy. The meat was tender and very tasty, my only slight criticism was that they could have had a bit more crunch. Having said that I use the Kenji method of making chicken wings when I make them at home and definitely go for the ‘almost burnt’ end of crispy, so I’m probably an outlier.
They’re still the best wings I’ve had since Blues Kitchen did something different with theirs and I stopped liking them.
Mains were an eclectic assortment. I went for the Red Chili Cheeseburger (hold the bun, hold the cheese, sigh) and a side of coleslaw. Some more coleslaw was ordered, along with a mushroom halloumi burger with no bun, a cheeseburger, a Dead Hippie Burger, some Hippie Fries and a greek side salad.
(There should be a picture in here but I had a case of shaky hands – sorry)
My burger arrived and it looked great. The burger was a perfect medium-rare, a little pink inside. It was coarsley ground, which I love and the flavour was deep and meaty and juicy. The red chili was meaty and a little spicy, with the jalapenos a welcome punch of spice every few mouthfuls. The slaw was delicious. Vinegary rather then mayonnaisey it was a great counterpoint to the richness of the burger. Would the burger have been better with cheese and bread? Undoubtedly. But it was still very good. I also had some of the greek salad, and it was fresh and zesty. The olives were really good quality, which I have found is a good indicator of the care put into the food. It’s very easy to skimp on something simple like that, given that most people won’t notice.
Rob had both the Zombie Burger and the Zombie Fries, and said he wished he’d had a different burger, as the toppings were the same on both and he could have done with a bit of variety.
The table service was good. I sometimes struggle with the overly familiar style a lot of these places have (showing my age!) but our waitress was lovely and couldn’t have been more helpful. The only real delay we had was to getting our meal at the end of the day. The final bill came to £90 for 4 people, including table drinks and tip. The bill included a 10% tip and a £1 charity donation, which I hadn’t seen before, but completely didn’t mind.
I would like to come back here on a reset day and go a bit hog-wild. Having said that my current favourite place is Dirty Burger, which is a shortish walk from my house, so I’m not sure I’d make the extra trip to go back here unless I were meeting someone nearby, at which point I’m be round there like a shot!
I may still come back for the Chili Dog, to see how it stacks up against Big Apple Hot Dogs. (See my review here)