Keen to explore as many areas of London as possible, perfectly happy to eat a TON of food, more than excited to meet one of my favorite bloggers, I jumped at the chance to be Katy’s Plus One at a party thrown at Pump in Shoreditch. After both of us failed to read where we were going, we panicked a little upon the realisation that this wasn’t a bar, but essentially a (large) collection of street food stalls. In a disused petrol station (hence, Pump). And it had rained ALL DAY.
Luckily I was already having a bad hair day. Even more luckily, it seemed to stop raining by the time we’d gotten out of Liverpool Street and found the venue.
After refuelling ourselves in Pump’s bar area (pun intended!), we planned our attack.
First up was two mistakes. The first was going for the same thing, from the same place, thus reducing the ability to try EVERYTHING. The second was what we tried. Seafood by los Moriscos was serving up seafood (predictably) in a brioche roll. Sounds good, smelt great, looked yummy. It fell a little bit flat unfortunately. We were expecting battered seafood, we got plain grilled. It was a little bland, a little rubbery and could have done with a good grind of salt. The aioli was good (sorry W!), I enjoyed the mix of tentacles (I’m not at all squeamish about the suckers!), but I didn’t enjoy the combination of seafood and brioche. Not for me unfortunately, and Katy wasn’t in love either…
We upped our game and decided to share food.
And next up was my favorite bit of the night. I’m a HUGE lover of fried chicken, from the standard KFC to glorious Mother Clucker, so I couldn’t resist trying my first ever Korean Fried Chicken from Makimayo. Um, YUM. We tried the version smothered in a spicy mayo-type sauce with crispy onion and I genuinely wanted it to last forever. The spicy sauce was just hot enough to slightly burn, the chicken was blisteringly hot and fall-apart tender, the coating crunchy and salty. I’d go back for this alone!
The final savoury dish was made up of sliders. Not sure any mini-burger-type sliders though, these were pulled meat in all it’s glory. We got the mixed plate from Pulled by los Moriscos , which came with one each of pulled beef, lamb and duck. The duck was my favourite, though it was a close call between that and the lamb. We reckoned the beef would have been lovely had it not been so spicy!
We finished off by splurging out on a Bubble Waffle. Each. We both ended up choosing the nutella-banana combo (because NUTELLA), and it was the best decision of the night. Crispy, fluffy, warm, chocolately and healthy because fruit (right?!). Nosteagia sure know how to do their waffles!
Pump is open until late every day of the week, so if you’re in the area, head over and grab something yummy. I spent the whole of my last week fighting the temptation to go grab some more chicken…
A fab night – yummy food and lovely company! What’s the best street food you’ve tried?