I love The King and Queen. It’s a huge pub, with a wonderful beer garden in which I’ve smoked hundreds of cigarettes and embarrassed myself in hundreds of drunken discussions.
I’m there with my friend, talking, shooting the shit, setting the world to rights. The sharp crack of pool balls and the hum of sports serves as our backdrop, as the smell of gloriously fried pub food starts to waft over the punters. My nostrils flare, my eyes close, and I begin to float towards the kitchen.
We sit in a little corner, watching the students being all young and unbothered, reminiscing. Old indie rock plays in the background – we sing along with No Surprises and Somebody Told Me as we nurse our first couple of Amstels.
I order some small plates, my review proving the perfect excuse to cheat on my diet guilt-free (ish). My beer belly tingles with slavering anticipation as I order at the bar, another couple of beers in hand.
First, some firecracker chicken.
I love spicy food – smoking has dulled my tastebuds, only standing to attention when something deafeningly painful rakes across them. The firecracker chicken promised THREE CHILLIES OUT OF FOUR on the menu!
Not a hint of a tickle, none of the expected bite – it doesn’t leave me scorched, doesn’t tease my little English lips. I’m left fiending for that capsicum high. The flavour, though, is great, a savoury and sour marinade leaving the chicken un-dry and tender. I’m really glad it wasn’t deep fried, too. If this was all battered, you’d lose the nuances of the marinade, the sour/ salty/ umami goodness of the “firecracker”.
It’s served with home-made aioli. It’s rare that English cuisine uses enough garlic (our deadly phobia of garlic breath is why the French do everything better), so this aioli punching me in the teeth was a welcome surprise.
Next, I order falafel. Partly because I’m eating with a vegetarian, and hoping she takes some of the calorific burden (she doesn’t), and partly because falafel is THE default veggie option, and yet so easy to get wrong.
Sadly, go wrong they do. The falafel is not only not up to scratch, it’s worse than supermarket falafel – crumbly, dry, and dull. It’s served with pickled red cabbage, but just absolute heaps of the stuff. It’s pickled without nuance, pure unseasoned apple cider vinegar wincing against my tonsils. The balance is all wrong, the dish feels like a tick box – ‘oh, we’re in Brighton, we’ve got to have some falafel.’ It leaves my taste-buds blue ballsed, high and dry, desperate for something more unhealthy.
My final dish is teriyaki tempura cauliflower bites. These are great, served with chillies and spring onions, and plenty of teriyaki sauce. The best thing was that they were whole fried florets, with only a little batter coating the top. This gives it that crispiness, without just being a ball full of oil as tempura can often end up as. Cauliflower is one of the greatest junk foods ever when done right – fried cauliflower can easily rival fried chicken. It keeps its texture, with a great contrast between flesh and batter. It’s one of the great advances that vegetarianism has brought to our society – unhealthy vegetables. Unhealthy vegetables are my favourite genre of food. English cuisine has long destroyed vegetables by steaming and boiling them relentlessly, but done well these strange green little creatures are one of the greatest things you can put in your mouth.
The food is fine – some of it good, even – but The King and Queen for me will always be somewhere to get absolutely mashed with a bunch of people shouting at some football match.
Some things are more important than a Michelin star menu. Some things are better unpolished.
I sit in front of empty plates, stroking my beard and writing notes. My lovely friend sits bemused, neglecting her journalistic duties and munching happily on cheesy garlic bread.
“It’s good!”
Of course it’s good. It’s cheesy garlic bread.
Some people just have no critical eye.
