When I heard on Twitter that MEATliquor was opening in Brighton, and it was 50% off for the first week, I cancelled all my plans and headed into Brighton. Handily my hubby works in Brighton so we decided, in an effort to beat the queues, we'd go straight after he finished work. Located on a shabby looking street close to the North Laines, it's about a 10 minute stroll from the centre of town.
We turned up at MEATliquor at about 17.20 and just walked straight in, we even got to choose where we sat. This was a great start. Queuing for food is not my idea of fun.
The poor waitresses looked a little harassed, and took quite a while to take our order, but that is to be expected on the second day of opening. Waiting to be served gave me a chance to have a good look around. Densely patterned wallpaper, neon signs, abattoir-esque plastic curtains and metal tables all added to the feeling that we were eating in some kind of industrial butchery meets underground punk club.
As I wasn't driving I had a cocktail, I think it was called Summer of Love. It was nice but didn't blow my socks off taste-wise. I'd love to have tried some others but it was a school night. I had great cocktail envy looking at other tables.
Much to the Waitress' amusement we ordered a lot of food. I imagined most people would do this, but apparently not. We went for a good selection of sides, some hippy fries and a burger each. This all came on a tray lined with paper, not just thrown on but actually done rather neatly. I love digging into food without any cutlery, although hubby seemed a bit perturbed.
The bingo wings were a huge portion of chicken wings, deep fried until crunchy and then thrown into a hot sauce. The sauce was sweet, sour and spicy all at once. I loved it. I was also astounded at how the wings managed to stay crunchy but saucy at the same time. Mind blowing. As hubby is a pescatarian I had all the wings to myself and when I couldn't finish them I was very tempted to just lick the sauce off them all. Equally as nice was the blue cheese dip with actual chunks of blue cheese.
I was most excited about the deep fried pickles. I love pickles. These were big slices of pickle dipped in batter and deep fried. They did exactly what they said on the tin. Very tasty. We also ordered massive onion rings that were almost as big as my head. I only managed one of these because I was starting to feel a bit overwhelmed by all the deep fried batter I was consuming. Perhaps we should have ordered either these or the pickles.
There was almost an argument when it came to ordering fries. I'd have loved to have tried the chilli cheese fries, but as hubby doesn't eat meat we went for the hippy fries again. I loved the tangy hippy sauce and tonnes of sweet caramelised onions piled on a portion of fries easily big enough for 2-3 people. The main problem was having ordered so much food these went cold quite quickly. Hubby didn't eat much of these as I think the idea of digging in with his fingers didn't appeal, but like a savage I enjoyed picking up piles of fries, with onions and sauce dripping off of them.
Then came the most important bit. The burgers. Exciting for non-meat eaters, MEATliquor Brighton not only has it's mushroom and haloumi burger, but also has a selection of fishy things. Hubby had a Fish Sandwich. A lovely fresh bun with lettuce, tartare sauce and a deep fried, battered piece of white fish. The fish was moist and flakey, maybe the nicest posh fish finger sandwich I've ever stolen a bite of.
I, rather unsurprisingly, had the bacon cheeseburger. Rather than pokey out bits of bacon, the bacon came as a crispy disk on top of the burger, a revelation. I was surprised at how the soft tasty bun managed to support such a chunky, juicy burger right until the last bite. The burger sat on a nest of lettuce and generous chunks of pickle, which caught all the burger juices after each bite. The burger itself was cooked on the rare side of medium (perfect for me, but I know this would be too pink for some of my friends) and just oozed tasty meat juice. About 3 bites from the end I thought that I was going to explode but it was so delicious I just struggled on. This led to a rather embarrassing, slow waddle back to the car.
I really enjoyed this naughty burger meal, although probably due to all the deep fried things I ordered and simply eating too much, I had awful heartburn until the next day. As it was 50% off it was stupidly cheap at £25 for the two of us. Even paying full price would have still felt like a bargain.
We left before 7pm and there was already a queue forming outside. Although it was an awesome burger I'm still not sure how I feel about queueing outside. Okay at this time of year, but there will be some chilly burger-lovers in a couple of months!!
8/10
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