Meatcetera – Acton

THIS RESTAURANT HAS PERMANENTLY CLOSED DOWN!

With their opening on 27th February 2016, Feed the Lion were compelled to bring you a pre-launch review.

Situated in Acton, the choice behind its location seems to be quite a shrewd one given the borough’s promising regeneration scheme that plans on opening a Waitrose in The Oaks shopping centre, as well as a cinema complex. So the potential footfall for Meatcetera could be quite profitable.

Upon entering the premises, our first impressions were one of surprise and amazement over the bold and bright artwork that decorated both walls. Not only was the sheer level of detail something you don’t find decorating the walls of such restaurants/ fast food joints everyday , but it also apparently attempted to tell a story revolving around the history of Acton.

The place was also pretty well decked out too with large, solid wooden tables, and a long and comfy wall seat on either side.

Now, to confirm an internet rumour: yes, the people behind Meatcetera are the same who setup the successful East London burger place (now a franchise), Neon Burgers. As such, it also has a menu which, barring a few exceptions and the introduction of catchy food names, is pretty much the same too. Guess this was a case of ‘if it ain’t broken, why fix it’.

In any case, our overarching question was whether the food would match the panache of the interior decor.

Chocolate and Peanut, Salted Caramel & Bubblegum @ £3.95 each

Presented in classic American-style metal cups, these weren’t quite what we were hoping for as a start.

The Bubblegum flavour came through, but only just. In addition, the texture simply wasn’t as thick and milky as you’d expect from a good shake. In fact, so subtle was the taste, that you could barely pick up that distinct bubblegum aroma we all love.

The Chocolate and Peanut, on the other hand was very thick and flavoursome too, except that the composition was clearly awry. This was simply far too peanuty to the point that it not only overpowered any chocolate therein, but also left that mildly bitter peanut aftertaste. The solution? Required far more chocolate to add that necessary sweetness to balance things out.

The Salted Caramel was particularly disappointing given some of the better ones we’ve had (remember The Meating Room’s). The problem was two-fold: 1) this just didn’t taste like caramel, but rather some obscure candy flavour! 2) Zero salt! The only good thing about this was the consistency.

Candy Shop wings £3.75

And these wings were certainly interesting! So interesting in fact that it reminded us of a Chinese proverb, which actually serves as a curse, that goes something like, “May you live in interesting times!”

Whether these work or not might be open to interpretation and, dare we say, dependent on one’s age. We can see it splitting the crowd for sure. While these brought a smile to our collective faces, we wouldn’t be able to eat any more than two, if that. In our view though, a chicken wing sprinkled with icing sugar will definitely go down well with kids.

Definitely worth a try though for its originality.

Buff Hello wings. £3.25

These were a tasty portion though. Coated in a thick layer of tangy Buffalo sauce, these well cooked and succulent wings sprinkled with chives went down a treat. Our only recommendation would be that these be grilled for a little longer to give them that sticky glaze we’d expect of well made buffalo wings.

Overall though, the wings were big and meaty, which was a bonus.

Chilli Con Carne – Fries topped with fresh beef chilli con carne, jalapenos and American mustard. £3.95

Of the three fries, this is the one to get. The Chilli Con Carne was very well made and was perfect on this cold February evening.

It wasn’t too chilli either, and with the addition of this amazingly sharp and tangy yellow jalapeno sauce which gave it that necessary edge, this had just enough spices to keep you going right to the end. Superb and highly recommended!

Coco – Fries topped with mascarpone, honey butter and icing sugar. £3.95

Again very original. But, again, we have a strong suspicion that this would divide the crowd based on age more than anything else. As you can see, this had large dollops of very sweet mascarpone cheese coupled with loads of icing sugar, and if that wasn’t enough to make you want to book an appointment with your dentist, sickly sweet syrup in which these fries were swimming. Yes, it was fun to start off with, but by the end, you’ll be wishing you were in your early teens, and not your 30s.

Messy – Fries topped with cheese, grilled red peppers, American mustard and jalapeños. £3.25

Naga Chilli (left), Saporito (right).

Not a bad attempt at here. These were far better than the ultra messy mess served up by Meat & Steak, but didn’t quite come together as a coherent whole. With the sweetness of the peppers complementing the heat of the jalapenos, this just needed to be, well frankly speaking, messier… perhaps with the addition of an extra ingredient.

Again, props for trying to think outside the box and delivering food items you don’t find every day. Attention to detail, however, is the key in making these work properly. These two sauce were in house made.

The Naga Chilli was a challenging one in terms of taste. It had a hint of mintiness to it, but what really made this stand out was the intense heat which eventually catches up with you.

The Saporito had a nice consistency to it and a taste that was similar to Tabasco sauce.

Meatcetera is HMC-certified and uses 21-day dry aged Irish bred meat.

Yankee – 6oz beef, American Cheese, Dill Pickles, Fresh Red Onion, Mayo, House Relish. £4.95

This Yankee burger certainly wasn’t cooked to our medium-well specification; it was more medium than anything else.

What is more, you can probably see from the picture that the texture of the patty was simply far too loose and riddled with bits of white fat. As a result, the meat was fairly chewy.

In terms of flavour, then the sweet relish went okay with the pickle. However, the cheese hadn’t quite managed to melt as it should have so remained fairly unpleasant in texture.

Zaal – 6oz Beef, English Cheddar, Grilled Romero Pepper, Caramelised Onion, Sriracha, Mixed Leaves. £5.95

Again, we asked for medium, but what we got was rare.

And as is evident from the main picture above, the cheese certainly wasn’t given the level of care that it deserved – it was still pretty translucent indicating, of course, that it simply hadn’t been properly cooked. The residual heat of the burger didn’t do the trick either.

What’s annoying is that flavour-wise, this was pretty good with the Buffalo-Tabasco sauce flavour coming through well and being complemented by the sweetness of the peppers and onions.

A real pity because this had potential.

Meatcetera – 6oz Beef, Mozzarella, Sautéed Mortadella, Merguez Sausage, Caramelised Onion, Relish, Mixed Leaves. £6.95

On to their signature burger then, and this wasn’t very well executed at all.

For one, the bottom bun was hard, and had a stale taste to it.

What made matters worse though was that the overriding taste of the burger was that of sweetness. The culprit in this case was the overly sweet sauce.

Sadly, there simply wasn’t anything here that might serve as a redeeming factor!

Herby Bird – Grilled Chicken Breast marinated in Mediterranean Pepper and Seasonal Herbs, Mayo, Mixed Leaves. £5.95

This was a pretty good effort considering its predecessors!

It just breaks one’s heart when you’re served a dry piece of chicken, especially one as large and as chunky as this.

And aside from its subtle “herby” taste, not much else going on.

Flappy Bird – Grilled Chicken Breast marinated in Naga Chilli & Sweet Soy, Mayo, Mixed Leaves £5.95

This was far better in taste though.

With a yoghurt based marinade delivering some heat, this certainly had an Indian subcontinent vibe going on.

Easily the best of the chicken burgers we had on the night.

Lamborghini – 6oz Lamb, Aged Cheddar, Minty Mango Yoghurt, Mixed Leaves. £6.95

In spite of the grand name, this was more a Morris Minor than a Lamborghini.

As already alluded to before, the loose texture of the patty along with it being presented well done meant that it was far too chewy for our liking.

And though the sauce or marinade says “minty, mango yoghurt”, we couldn’t taste any of the latter, but plenty of the former. However, who really wants minty yoghurt as a marinade?!

In summary then, the biggest flaws with these burgers, particularly the beef, was the preparation and cooking of the meat. While the chicken needs to be cooked with a certain level of care and attention to avoid it drying out, the same wouldn’t necessarily be true of the beef patties provided they weren’t so loosely textured. The problem here was that the meat was either far too fatty, or exacerbated by the fact that it simply wasn’t finely ground enough. Hence, trying to properly measure and control the cooking of such coarse meat ended up, as we can see from the above four attempts, far harder than they should have been.

The other major shortcoming were with the brioche buns, all of which seemed to taste rather stale as if they’d been left sitting in the open for longer than they should have been.

Taste wise, these require major reworking because they were either lacking in individual flavours, or the individual ingredients for each burger simply failed to marry.

Rotisserie Quarter Chicken – slowly roasted on an open fire rotisserie. Served with roast potatoes topped with a house cheese, spring onions and seasonal roasted vegetables. From £4.25

Although this quarter Rotisserie chicken had a fairly crispy exterior in parts, it seems like the chef had been a little heavy handed with the use of oil. Pleasant enough herb flavour, but lacking in any real depth.

The potatoes were pretty well cooked, but the random sprinkling of cheese was, at least visually speaking, wrong. In terms of taste though, the overall combination of chicken, potatoes, cheese and red chillis made for a tasty mouthful.

Desserts of the Day – Cronuts, Caramel and Pistachio (left), Chocolate (right). £3 each

Their desserts of the day, however, were, if you’d mind the expression, to die for.

Really well conceived, these doughnuts were neither too soft nor too stodgy, but just right.

The Caramel and Pistachio had this caramel sauce that was thick, rich and perfectly balanced in terms of sweetness. As such, even with caramel oozing out of the middle, this was manageable. Alas, the pistachio was, however, lost in translation.

As for the Chocolate, then this was far less gooey in nature, but just as grand vis-à-vis flavours for not only was it chocolatey, but also had a hint of banana running through the background which gave it that extra spark of excitement.

In the end, opinions were divided with one Lion preferring the Caramel and Pistachio, and two the Chocolate.