MEATLiquor Brighton: Review

Meat Liquor Brighton Review Menu 108

Burgers: the eating out craze currently sweeping through the urban outfitters generation. But not just any burgers; *real* burgers. I’m talking wagyu beef wannabes with brands burnt into brioche buns. Pick your choice of gourmet toppings, add a side of super skinny fries and seat yourself with your bespectacled friends and chat about your beard growth.

London has been overtaken with a plethora of restaurants specialising in these meaty beauties; Opera, Hache and numerous Byrons are just some that we’ve sampled. Until now, in Brighton we have been well served by Troll’s Pantry, Grubbs and now Burger Brothers. But last night came the ‘game changer’: the opening of the MEATLiquor Brighton in a very bold position on London Road.

For those of you not familiar with London Road, it’s a shit hole of crusties, pound shops, low end super markets, charity shops and greasy spoons. It’s not somewhere you want to be at night, and it certainly isn’t a destination of culinary choice. But, I guess the rent was cheap, the atmosphere edgy and the location equidistant between tourist hell and student heaven. Thus is born MEATLiquor Brighton. A couple of months in the making, this dark, dingy, abbatoir-esque interior with pounding music and neon lighting certainly looks the part.

Seated at our aluminium topped table complete with condiments and kitchen roll, the menu looked like you might expect; no nonsense, straight to the point: burgers, sides & cocktails. No diet coke here, sir. We ordered a selection of everything (including the ‘no more than 2 per person’ cocktails) and quickly received both drinks and sides.

Meat Liquor Brighton Review Sides 107

Yes. That’s a lot of sides. Chilli Cheese Fries, Hippie (a mustardy sauce with a kick) Fries, Normal Fries, and yeah, onion rings complete with an entire bloody onion in each. Definitely good value for money so far, and definitely way, way too much food before our burgers had even arrived.

We also tried some of the specially selected Brighton ‘Fish’ dishes (because everyone who lives or visits Brighton loves fish) – some cajun shrimp & some coconut shrimp. Very nice. All very, very bad for you.

Unfortunately, when our burgers arrived they looked so good we ate them without taking photos. So I guess you’ll just have to go and try them out. The boys decided it was a contender, if not, the best burger in town; but most had had 3 cocktails by then and were buying into the great atmosphere. I had a Chilli dog, which although looking and tasting like a heart attack, had some extremely good flavour and was a nice change from a cheese n bacon burger.

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The overall rating? Would risk heart attack again. I’m sure in 6 months it’s going to be full of tourists or 16 year olds dressed like Madonna from the 80′s, but if it still serves the same food, then that’s OK by me.

Khaki & Camo feat H&M, Oasis & Zara

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Back to black tights it is, then…

Ok I’m secretly quite pleased that the weather has taken a turn for the worse as I have loads of new Autumnal clothes that I want an excuse to wear.

This camouflage pleated skirt from H&M is a bargain at £19.99 and it covers two AW13 trends in one go: Camouflage and leopard (well, it kind of looks like leopard print!). I did have it on with a black t shirt but decided to go CRAZY and wear this khaki one. I found out later that it was pretty see-through but nevermind, I was in London so no one could laugh at me.

I searched high and low in M&S for the rose pink coat that everyone’s after as I thought it would look pretty good with the khaki. Obviously, Westfield was sold out (that is one large mall, ladies) so I came home empty handed, but I still have my dusky pink Zara bib necklace & Oasis bag to go with this outfit.

Camouflage Skirt HM 091

Booth Bruce Glasses Bad Hair 094

Oh yeah, new glasses. At a highly reduced price due to a bit of Googling, haggling and price matching. You like? I definitely think it’s a good colour for me.

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Khaki Tshirt – Oasis (old)
Camouflage Skirt – H&M
Bib Necklace – Zara (out of stock)
Boots – Office (old)
Bag – Oasis (old)

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Glasses - Specs Brighton

Zara Pink Rose Necklace 092

So that’s that. I stopped myself maxing my credit card on Boden today, but I imagine that it won’t last for long so see you soon for some more Autumn purchases!

Ps. I most definitely need a hair cut. Fringe or no fringe??

Minted Lamb & Feta Burgers | Recipe

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So, this is a new type of post for me… moving scarily near to being a lifestyle blogger. Let me know if you hate it!

As you can see above, I cooked one of the recipes from my first HelloFresh box (read more about my new eating regime). This was my 2nd favourite recipe this week, biting at the heels of the Sea Bream.

So, without further ado, I’m going to very quickly give you the ingredients you need to cook this great and not-all-that-bad-for-you dish!

Serves 2:

1 Cup Onion (sliced)
1 Gem Lettuce
3 Radishes
3 Tbsps Spring Onions (chopped)
3 Tbsps Fresh Mint (chopped)
3 Tbsps Feta Cheese
200g Lamb Mince
2 Burger Buns

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1. Slice your onion
2. Chop your gem lettuce
3. Finely slice your radishes
4. Chop your mint
5. Slice your spring onions

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6. Heat 1 tbsp of olive oil in a saucepan on low
7. Add the onions, 1/4 tsp of salt, 1/4 tsp of sugar to the saucepan
8. Put a lid on the saucepan and leave to stew for 25 minutes

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While the onion is stewing…

9. Pre-heat your grill
10. Grab a bowl
11. Mix the lamb mince with 2 tbsps of mint and 3/4 of the spring onion
12. Crumble in the feta and season well
13. Without mashing it up too much, make 2 burger patties with the mixture

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14. Heat 1 tbsp of olive oil in a frying pan on medium
15. Add the burgers and cook for 4 minutes on each side
16. While the burgers are cooking, Grill the baps lightly
17. Mix the spring onion, radishes & lettuce to make a side salad and sprinkle over a tsp of olive oil, salt and pepper
18. Toss in the mint

There you have it! Serve your burgers on their baps with the stewed onion and side salad. Enjoy.

How easy was that?!

Until next week, when I will bring you more tails of joy courtesy of HelloFresh

My Top 5 Perfumes

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Christian Dior – Addict eau Fraiche
Marc Jacobs – Daisy
Marc Jacobs – Oh Lola
Diesel – Loverdose
Lancome – La Vie Est Belle

Just a quick one today – my top 5 perfumes this year.

I was lucky enough to get the bottle of Diesel free, and I really bloody like it! Normally I’d shy away from Diesel as I believe in beauty houses as opposed to fashion houses (what a snob) but this smells great; not too sweet.

Christian Dior is a favourite of mine, the classic Addict fragrance is one I’ve been wearing since I was 18 and the eau fraiche was an attempt at me moving away from it. But not very far.

The rest I’ve already covered – they’ve also got a lot of press and rightly so!

What’s your signature scent?

Hello Fresh: A New Eating Regime

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Me and my man have been struggling recently. We are both (now) busy people, him with a successful web agency (no, he didn’t design this site, jerk!) and me with a challenging new role at my current agency. We also live in the centre of a cosmopolitan city with a plethora of restaurants, cafes and, ruh-roh, takeaways. Add both of those together and you get our incredibly unhealthy eating habits which include being on first-name terms with certain pizza delivery drivers.

Bad, eh. Then the other day I saw something about HelloFresh, a service a bit like Graze except you get a box with 5 full-blown meals worth of food and recipes.

What really appealed to us though was the variety of food which was available in the box the week we signed up. Not only do we love food, we love trying new food and cooking fresh, healthy meals without the effort of 1. having to think of them and 2. having to get all the ingredients and 3. having to remember to cook it seemed too good to be true.

So we got our first box. And wow, are we impressed! We just made our first meal, a Tabbouleh salad (which looks to be the weakest choice, mainly because I’m not a Halloumi fan) and you can see the result below!

HelloFresh Tabbouleh Salad With Halloumi 089

So we’re going to try this out – 5 meals for £50, all portion controlled, all fairly healthy, interesting and tasty. All the ingredients are delivered straight to our door from independent outlets which also appeals, I love supporting local business and the quality was way better than even Waitrose has been offering recently.

I got £20 off my first box – if you want £20 off yours too (and you can only have 1 box so no recurring contract) then use discount code AVRQ2B at checkout.