Dining Out 045: MeatLiquor
Dinner in East Dulwich.
In March 1994, a writer named Elizabeth Kolbert had an article in the New York Times about a curious British phenomenon known as ‘Mr Blobby’.
Musing on this chaotic manifestation of the repressed British spirit, Kolbert wrote that “Some commentators have called him a metaphor for a nation gone soft in the head.” Others, however, she continued, “have seen him as proof of Britain's deep-seated attraction to trash.”
I mention this a) because it is incredibly funny and I’ll drop a Blobby reference at any opportunity, and b) because the phrase ‘deep-seated addiction to trash’ is something I think about a lot, and could reasonably be used to describe my approach to eating (and, admittedly, a number of my other consumption habits), at least some of the time.
I love so many different styles of food, but if I’m in the market to really follow my heart, if I’m not choosing pizza (as discussed last week with regards to my hangover), I’m going with what we might term ‘TGI Fridays-core’. By this I mean stuff like chicken fingers, burgers, fries, sundaes, fries dipped in sundaes, brownie mountains, pancakes: the food you think of when you think of the phrase “junk food”. I think this probably stems from the treat food I ate as a kid – we were a chicken nugget Happy Meal from the Drive Thru chomped in the car household, rather than a slices of apple one – but also from the fact that everything I just listed there, indisputably, tastes really, really good when you’re in the mood for it.
The face of junk food, however, has changed a little bit over time: these days, the en vogue junky burger is the smash burger. Usually slapped on a glossy brioche or potato roll, with “house sauce” (nobody knows) and skinny, salted fries on the side, smash burgers from places like Supernova, Jupiter Burger, or even Junk in Soho itself, evolved out of the messier junk (or indeed “trash”) food trends of the 2010s.
While I don’t miss the meat fetishism or the weird misogyny or the ridiculous dish names of that era (“I’ll have the Grunting Messy Bitch Fries with blue cheese sauce please!)* I do sometimes think fondly of the way it put the pedal to the metal in terms of just chucking absolutely everything at a burger for a laugh, especially compared with today’s hot, smashed little discs, served in cleanly designed but cynical-feeling riffs on typical burger joint packaging. All of this is to say, anyway, that recently, when I had minor cause for celebration and my initial dinner plans fell through, my mind turned to junk food as it is sometimes wont to do. But I didn’t want the smash burger version, I wanted loaded fries and sandwiches you have to hold in two hands or you’re fucked. I knew I could get these things at MeatLiquor in East Dulwich, so that’s where I went.
I remember visiting the MeatLiquor near Oxford Street years ago – it was all red light, stickers on the wall, tattoo aesthetics, and bottles of beer. The East Dulwich branch today is largely the same vibe – plus ça change – though this place is pretty small and all of the tables are high-up, dive bar style.
I was really hungry when we arrived, so we got to ordering straight away. Between two of us, we picked a chicken burger called the Tower Block**, a Dead Hippie beef burger, which featured, among other accoutrements, mustard-fried patties (you don’t need me to tell you that these slapped). Then we also went for chilli cheese fries, fried pickles***, and a couple of cocktails, because it was Friday.
After a pretty long wait (which, in fairness, was noted: our server kindly threw in a couple more free cocktails for the trouble), the food arrived looking just as glisteningly fried and overwhelming as I’d expected. MeatLiquor still do that very 2010s thing where everything comes served on a metal tray for no real reason, though because we were sharing everything, this actually turned out to be quite handy.
Though I enjoyed all the dishes, the standouts on the tray were the chicken burger – I was really, really impressed that despite there being so much going on with fillings and sauces, the fried chicken remained really crisp and didn’t succumb to any sogginess – plus the chilli cheese fries. Whichever genius decided to whack Cheddar cheese onto these chips first, before using the hot chilli to help melt it, deserves a Pride of Britain award.
Unsurprisingly, I was very, very full after cramming all of this in, but not full enough to deny myself a grotty Pickleback (a shot of whiskey chased by a shot of pickle juice) for the road. The MeatLiquor version is essentially bucket-sized, and I am going to blame my subsequent in-pub karaoke performance – which could probably be described as “barnstorming” – on that particular portion size.
While, of course, it does feel like it’s of a different time, albeit in the recent past, I’m glad that I revisited MeatLiquor and its in-your-face style of food. I’m a bit bored of queue culture, and jauntily curved fonts on packaging designs, and honestly it was novel to eat junk food at a place that isn’t trying to go viral. Was it particularly artful or creative? No, it was loads of shit that tastes good, put together between bread – and that was exactly what I was looking for. In the end, I just left feeling like I’d got what I wanted: my deep-seated addiction to trash sated once again.
*On this topic I would HIGHLY recommend reading this by Thom Archer, written after the recent demise of the Almost Famous chain, about the Dude Food phenomenon of the 2010s and its current permutations. Also, side note: disturbingly, Thom’s piece also refers to Mr Blobby – what does it mean?
**After ordering, we were mournfully informed by a member of staff that the kitchen was out of the hash browns that were meant to accompany the fried chicken, American cheese, burger sauce, slaw and pickled jalapeños in this particular sandwich and, while I responded understandingly, I had the private temerity to actually feel a bit upset, lmao.
***There is so much fried shit in this world and I think that’s beautiful.
Dining Out is written by Lauren O’Neill and illustrated by Lucy Letherland. Weekly reviews are free to read every Thursday, and you can follow us on Instagram here, but if you’d like to see more, you can subscribe for £5 a month or £50 a year, to get extra content every second Sunday.
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