Beigel Bake

Being drunk is not an excuse to eat crap

When I’ve put London food obsessives in the position of defending their high praise for the rubbery salt beef at the Beigel Bake on Brick Lane they’ve invariably blamed their lapse in good taste on drunkenness. It’s open 24 hours. It’s quick. It’s cheap. It’s filling. Blah. Blah. Blah.

Likewise, discriminating young Londoners who, when within three Chardonnays of sober, wouldn’t be caught dead with a Tesco tomato in their organic jute carrier bags can be seen stuffing their reddened faces with questionable kebabs from an Upper Street shop that recycles its moulded and fully cooked meat, unrefrigerated and unprotected, for hours at a time.

At the risk of sounding like a drunken pensioner, things aren’t what they used to be, at least not for me. [Read more...]

2 October 2009 By Daniel Young 24 Comments

Filed Under: London Tagged With: Arahova, Au Pied du Cochon, bagels, banh mi, Beigel Bake, Belleville, Brick Lane, Florent, Junior's, kebab, Montreal, New York, Paris, pierogi, pop-up restaurants, Schwartz's, souvlaki, St-Viateur, Vietnamese, Wo Hop

Beigel Bake’s salt beef as rubbery as ever

If I can prevent just one of Brick Lane’s nocturnal foragers from yielding to the temptation of a Beigel Bake hot salt beef sandwich my move from New York to London will have proven a success. I appreciate that the Beigel Bake is a London institution, a revered relic of the Jewish East End and a valued 24/7 resource. But the thick slices of salt beef layered on its sandwiches are so rubbery and springy you would think the beef briskets were sourced from Michelin – its tyre/tire division, not its restaurant guides. Taking on that sandwich is an exercise in chew-aerobics, with precious little support from the sadly limp rye bread. The few molecules of moisture remaining in the congealed meat are instantly sponged by the bread. In this instance a beigel is better, preferably without the salt beef. [Read more...]