Flesh & Buns

I lucked out last week and bagged a table for 2 on the opening night of Flesh & Buns, the latest offering from Ross Shonhan (of Bone Daddies).

We settled in at 7pm, the place was already packed and it didn't smell of paint or anything, all was well.  It's much larger than it's Soho sister, and you can actually reserve a table so hopefully this won't become a queuefest.  Though people probably still will.  There's plenty of room for it on the staircase leading down to the dining room, doorway just off of Seven Dials.

We started with the chicken yakitori, nice char, strong plate and a fine start to the meal, £4.50.

Next up came the whimsically named 'chips and dip', chips being rice crackers with shiso avo and tomato jalapeno salsa.  The latter was excellent, really zesty and fresh.  I liked it a lot, but it reminded me of an appalling experience in LA the week before in a Japanese/Mexican fusion restaurant.  Must we?  Anyway, I needn't have been concerned, this is really very well done, not cheap at £6 though*. 

We thought we'd better order some greens and our waitress recommended the broccoli.  Very good shout.  Really quite a kick to it which came from yuzu kosho, something I'd not heard of before, it's a hot and zesty Japanese condiment and I'm going to have to track some down because mixed with mayo this really elevated the humble broc to something a bit special, £5.

And on to the main event, we went for the pork belly buns, there are lots to choose from, steak, fish, chicken, duck, but we were swayed by the pork belly with mustard miso and pickled apple, £14.  It's forked apart and wedged into the steamed buns, then topped with the veggies in the foreground and some extra sauce.  These are soooooo good.  Reminded me of the duck buns I tried at Golden Fields in Melbourne.  Happy to see these appearing on more and more menus. 

One meat selection is enough for 2 but we did find that we needed more buns, these 4 were provided for all that pork, you can order extra for £2.50, but we only got 2 more, so there was still loads of meat left.  Small gripe really.  We drank tap water and then made off for the Odeon to get a Gosling fix. 

I'll definitely be back to try more and I'm very glad to see Shonhan branching out.  Reminds me, now the weather seems to have turned a little, I'll have to get back to Bone Daddies....

Flesh & Buns
41 Earlham Street
Covent Garden
WC2H
8/10

*I dined during the soft opening launch period, so all food was 50% off.