Being basic with Bernie

When I first met Stealth, many years ago now, I considered her to have impeccable taste. Not just in the choosing of friends, but also when it came to eating and drinking. As time has gone on I have concluded that this may have been a somewhat misguided assumption. 

While she is still the only person whose mother left a loaf of M&S rosemary and potato bread, a leg of lamb and a pot of caviar in the fridge when they went on holiday, I have realised that culinary skills are not always hereditary. (I do have to admit, though, that I’m pretty sure no one could made an off-menu individual stuffed crust pizza quite as perfectly as Stealth used to, and probably a good reason our friendship endured throughout our teenage years…).

So it was with some surprise that I found an image in my Instagram inbox of a sandwich that - unbeknown to Stealth, the sender - was vying to become the most Instagrammed thing between two slices of bread. She had captioned it 'I need this in my life'. 

Not only was Stealth voluntarily showing me interest in eating something exciting, I also knew that you could find said sandwich in the Arcade Food Theatre. The new food court housed on the ground floor of the Brutalist Centre Point building. You don't need to tell me these things twice.

It’s taken me so long to get around to writing this (partly because of how I felt in the following days, for reasons you will see shortly) that Grace Dent has already got the boot in. So you could probably save time by reading the reprise of her visit. Clearly her account doesn’t feature any nugz though. So, if you have an interest in chunks of deep fried poultry, then read on.

For clarification, they don’t sell spicy nuggets in the Food Theatre, although there is a Maccy D’s across the street, where I picked up a sharing size box for Stealth after she had sent me another message before we met up. This time of the poster advertising them in the window of the McDonald’s on the Walworth Road.

Inside it's now a shiny labyrinth of concrete surfaces and confusion., with various concessions with counter seating, or central tables if you want to mix you meal up and try a few different things. There didn't seem to be any staff to bring food to the tables, but they were very eager to try and remove things we hadn't finished with yet...

Thankfully Stealth managed to get us both a beer (available from the central bar, the end bar is for cocktails only, or so she found out after queuing there initially), before heading up to the stairs to TOU, housed on a level described as 'incubation-focused mezzanine', to procure the fabled sandwich.

And here it is, in all it's wondrous glory. You can see by Stealth's reaction that she didn't quite know what to be happier about, the katsu sandu or the big box of contraband nugz I had pulled out of the bag, literally, to surprise her with while she was gone (and also because I was concerned all my things were going to be irreparably imbued with the smell of chicken).

Nugz safely stowed in her rucksack for now, we cracked on with the main draw, the, as she had described it in a message to me 'delicious fatty pork sandwich'. AKA the Iberian Katsu Sando, made with toasted brioche, slow-cooked and deep-fried Iberian pork neck, shredded cabbage, raspberry brown sauce and xo shallot sauce. 

In all honesty, looking at that list of ingredients how could it possibly not be an incredible butty? And indeed it was. Sweet, salty, fatty; a joyful marriage of fat, crunch and carbs. Was it worth 14 quid? Well, the three bites I dispatched my half in worked out at about £2.30 a mouthful. Make of that what you will.

This time it was my turn to order and, as it was a Tuesday, it seemed remiss not to grab another round of beers and eat some tacos. These were the pastor version from Pastorcito, the latest off shoot of the El Pastor family.  Twenty-four hour marinated pork shoulder and caramelised pineapple, carved from a rotating spit served with taquero salsa, white onion & coriander. Good, if a little underwhelming and, at seven quid for two, hardly a bargain.

While many of the dishes served at Arcade were to be on the bijou side, the bowl of guacomole, also from Pastorcito and served either with chicharrones or totopos (obvs, I chose the former), was pretty vast. Although it may have proved that we really belong to Generation Z, instead of being Millennials, as there was so much avocado we couldn't even finish it.

While eating our giant bowl of guac and putting the world to rights, we moved onto a bottle of white. Which we quickly made short work of.... It was when discussing what to drink next that I, retrospectively, feel the night somehow turned into one of those Fighting Fantasy role playing books I was obsessed with as a child. If you roll an even number, down a pint of water and go home for an early night. Roll an odd number and have a look at the cocktail menu....

Of course the odds were against us, as we were soon enjoying one of their Chocolate and Cherry Old Fashioneds. Made with cocoa butter washed Bulleit bourbon, sour cherry liqueur, demerara sugar and chocolate bitters, garnished with a cherry and so good we quickly ordered another one each.

This was followed Followed by a Pine Negroni with Tanquery 10 gin, lavender vermouth, pine liqueur, and Arcade bitters. Which, thankfully, carefully straddled the line between being reminiscent of a disinfectant or a drink. It was also pretty strong.

While waiting for our drinks to be made (thumbs up for both the bar tenders that served us at the end bar, who were both lovely) it seemed remiss not to order some pudding from near by Lina Stores, an offshoot of the Soho stalwart.

This was their cannoli stuffed with ricotta and adorned with pistachios and chocolate chips. Very good, pretty substantial - even when you have to share it with your fork-wielding friend - and yours for a fiver.

While the negroni had subtle lavender notes, Stealth's next beverage choice, the lavender soda, was proper full on granny's drawers level. Unsurprising, as it was made from Old Curiosity Lavender gin, lavender cordial and soda, finished with a sprig of dried lavender.

The floral flavour was nicely offset by the special edition nuggets, which we had cracked into due to excessive imbibing and started to covertly tuck into, aided and abetted with a dunk into the accompanying spicy nugget sauce. Worth a try, but the young pretender can't match up to the original.

We finished with our fifth cocktail of the evening, a Honeyflower Flip, made with walnut pampero rum, wildflower honey, coffee, milk, lecithin, and bitters, and which reminded me of drinking Baileys at Christmas. Sweet, creamy and good fun this was entirely superfluous after all that had come before and all the more enjoyable for it, The perfect nightcap, for a perfect night.

I made my train, sans leftover nuggets, which Stealth took and then taunted me with by sending a picture of her polishing the remnant off. As envious as I was, what I really wanted was an individual stuffed crust pizza.