MEATmarket - Covent Garden, WC2

I’m going to have to use the word meat a lot in this review.  It can’t be helped so I’ll apologise in advance.

 

MEATmarket is the latest venture from the guys behind MEATEASY, MEATliquor, and MEATwagon.  Market see’s a return to the fast food style of service of wagon and easy which in my books is what it always should have been about.

The food was amazing at liquor but for me the sit down service felt very much at odds with the dirty burgers and hard liquor flying out of the kitchen and behind the bar.  Don’t hate me when I say this but if I’m going to queue for an hour to sit in a restaurant and eat a burger I’ll do it at Burger & Lobster.

We walked into Market for lunch on Tuesday and I was surprised to see how quiet it was.  It's a bitch to find so I guess people were still working out where it is...

Giddy with excitement I order a Dead Hippy, the Chilli Poppers, a drink and then part with fourteen of my hard earned pounds.  McDonald’s prices it’s not but this is a quality burger and you get free refills on the soft drinks so I drank my weight in coke to make up for it.

The burger was spot on; the Dead Hippy is the meatwagon equivalent of the Big Mac.  Two patties well charred from the grill, juicy and medium rare inside, topped with oozing American Cheese, shredded lettuce, chunky pickles, and that signature bun that just holds it all together.

I quickly forget the price as my friend and I descend into a grunt only form of communication.  The rest of the afternoon is lost as the soporific meat sends me slowly into acoma and my productivity at work falls through the floor.

Takeaway Update - I've been back a couple of times now and standards are pretty consistent; surprisingly so when you consider that you can get in and out quite easily in under ten minutes.  If I'm completely honest I'm burgered out now at this point...

The Double Bubble is basically what every burger should be though; paired down and simply meat, cheese, sauce, onions, and pickle.  You can see from the photos that's it travels fairly well, wrapped in foil to keep it warm it was every bit as juicy as it should be at my desk as it would have been in the market.

I really wanted to love the Corn Puppies, mini spiced hotdogs dunked in corn batter and deep fried, but the heavy batter and weirdly sweet, smokey, and spicy hot dog meat really lets them down.  Lots of people are raving about them but for me you shouldn't fuck around with a hot dog too much.

Try it now before everyone works out how good it is and the tourists take over!