Meat Uneasy

I've suffered a grave blow at the hands of a meat patty and I'm finding it hard to recover.

Having spent most of the year banging on about the genius of Yianni and Co's Meateasy/Meatwagon burgers to anyone who would listen, last night I found myself chewing a mouthful of disappointment. And it tasted just like Mcdonalds.

These are harsh words, I know, and it pains me to type them (me being the biggest fan of the pink, charred, juice running down your chin experience that was the original Meatwagon burger). When they popped up in New Cross earlier this year, I was there once a week. I loved the food (which was consistently brilliant) but I equally loved that the burgers came with a side of effortless cool (I tried to make that sound as ungeeky as possible but saying cool is not cool). The space was genuis, the cocktails that came in old jars magic, and the vibe, well it made you want to get pissed and dance like you just didn't care.

So, having made the pilgrimage to The Rye in Peckham (one of the current venues for the MW crew) to re-aquaint myself with my favourite food experience of 2011, I'm sure you can imagine my expectations were pretty high.

And they were shot down.

This was supposed to be a quick, non-rant post so I wont go on. I will just say this. The patties were smaller, with no sign of pink in the middle, the iceberg lettuce soggy and the plastic cheese (which seemed cheerfully kitsch at Meateasy) less ironic when it's the only thing you can taste.

I sincerely hope that when I return (I don't give up that easy, particularly if there's meat involved) last night's hiccup was a mere fluke of the grill. Otherwise Peckham is going to see a few tears.