Barbecoa

Post Pitt cue we are on a mission to find the best meat/pulled pork in London. Last night our quest took us to Barbecoa, the Jamie Oliver / Alan Perry Lang love child that specialises in meat...pure and simple.

Pre cocktails were had at Madison on the roof of One New Change it was a gorgeous sunny evening and the crowd was a sophisticated post work affair with a buzz of the first proper summer night of the year.

Come reservation time we headed to Barbecoa literally mouths watering from the amazing smells of Madison tapas lingering in the air. We didn't have far to go as the restaurant takes up a hefty space on the ground/1st floor of the Shopping complex.

We opted for arrival cocktails on recommendation of the waitress...who unfortunately then immediately came over to ask if we were ready to order. After perusing the menu pretending we were going to order anything other than pulled pork and melt in the mouth beef we opted for the pit pulled pork and pit beef, served with coleslaw and beans respectively.

I had heard the pork scratchings were amazing so we ordered these as a cocktail aperitif, they were extremely satisfyingly crunchy and a bit mushy in the right places. The portion was also enormous and we couldn't stop eating them. Unfortunately we would later come to regret this.

Longest bit of crackling I've ever seen

The food arrived really fast (arrival cocktails weren't even finished and we aren't slow drinkers...), good news is it all looked great. We split the two meals between us and I tucked into beef. It looked like a steak consistency but as soon as you touched it it fell apart deliciously. My actual phrasing was "this beef is ridiculous", and it was. I'm not a huge fan of kidney beans but these complimented the beef and were delish.

Pulled pork, waffles and coleslaw

Pit beef, smoked kidney beans

After this I was really looking forward to the pork with high expectations. I went for a huge mouthful (ladylike) and although it was good I was a bit disappointed. My expectations were too high. It was very sticky sweet honey BBQ delicious as it should be, but just not as roll your eyes back into your head and let out a little groan as Pitt Cue was. The coleslaw wasn't even on the same plane. The pork was also accompanied by a waffle, strange combo that kind of worked but I would have preferred a more delicious coleslaw that stood on it's own right needing no requirement for waffles.

We were stuffed pretty quickly as the portions were huge so we opted for a breather and another cocktail. The waitress came over one too many times to ask if we were finished even though our cutlery wasn't in the 'finished' position. She got the hint eventually. There were hundreds of staff milling about and although the restaurant is big there were potentially too many for this time in the evening (8-9ish)

Overall not as good as Pitt Cue in terms of food, atmosphere or value for money, but still a bloody good bit of meat.

Atmosphere: 2.5/5
Food: 3.5/5
Drink: 3.5/5
Overall: 3/5

If it was better value for money the overall would go up, the view alone deserves an extra half of a point.

This is actually the view from Madison

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