Bar Kick

Bar Kick is friendly and happy - a ray of sunshine in an area infested with humourless ‘style’ bars.
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Treacle - View all reviews by this user
Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 8
Sunday, November 04, 2007

After a day of business in the city, and sitting in my trendy, clean, new, sparse hotel in this part of Shoreditch Street across the road and down a bit, on a lonely night away from home, my thoughts turned to my grumbling stomach and need for some beer in an atmosphere where I could read my paper and feel comfortable, with good food.

A simple task .....one might think so ?

The what was meant to be a short walk from the hotel (St. Gregory's) to Liverpool Street station to buy the said newspaper was longer than expected, but I had noticed on the way a number of eateries and 'gentleman’s clubs', which just seemed to not meet the criteria for the evening. Perhaps the assumption that I could eat somewhere in a pair of jeans and sit quietly so close to Liverpool Street was just too much to ask.

Having been in a suit all day, I was buggered if I was going to keep this on (even though I was wearing a pink shirt and cufflinks that day) so that I could go and eat in some of the restaurants I had seen (bouncers at the ready) which seemed to be full of those 'city folk'. Don't they get into trouble getting home at night after a few jars and using their suits as cigarette smoke filters.

This just would not do. Surely there would be nothing further 'up' Shoreditch High Street with my back towards those restaurants I had eliminated around Liverpool Street. I mean, it all looks a bit dark up there and the rubbish piles did not look very welcoming.

The street ambience went a little industrial and derelict, with some empty bars and restaurants (just keep going, don't look interested, there must be something up here before I get to Stoke Newington !) until I walked past somewhere with a throng of people inside of 'normal' disposition, and lots of scaffolding on the exterior. Hang on there's a bar here, what was going on ? What was this place ?.....are those table football games ? Oh yes, B-A-R K-I-C-K.

Straight to the bar...what no pints ? OK from my reserve list, a bottle of your finest Corona please. Pulling up a stool to survey the scene, I just could not put my finger on what this place was or trying to be. Whatever it was the atmosphere was warm, Mediterranean warm, with young and not so young (self included) , walls painted with coffee stain, a cacophony of chaos for the eyes, and those table football games, real ones too, of a vintage not seen since Butlins 1979. The tables people were eating were off were surely not those I used to eat off in my grandmothers, when Formica was new. Perhaps the pool table and one arm bandit was downstairs ? Would the real BAR KICK please stand up. This was going to be an adventure.

Feeling now more at ease and comfortable, and perched at the bar, another beer followed the first, and thoughts turned to what food I could possibly find offered in a place like this. The blackboard menus around the kitchen servery included ingredients and dishes which, to be honest, I had never heard of, despite twenty years of worldwide travel.

This was not going to put me off ordering something and it was obvious that this place was genuine and honest, and those ingredients were there not as means to impress. It didn't need to impress. It had done that already without trying.

After pretending to know what I was looking at and attempting to be making a considered choice, I stepped forward, asked the most polite and attentive waiter seen since the Romans (or food distribution service engineer to be pc probably)....'what's the Kick Platter' . He started to describe it to me, and I picked up on only a few words...cheese, cold spanish sausage, bread. SOLD. I was sure I would enjoy, and enjoy it I did. Although I was a bit uncomfortable eating long bits of lettuce with my hands, which felt a bit too unusual. The apple pie to follow was non of your Iceland or supermarket open box types. This was a pie made from apples (and something else I could not put my finger on), having it with cream and some thinly sliced strawberries topped it off nicely. A couple more beers, the sports section read, and I was done. I had managed to control the wobble and loose legs, and keep the table on an even keel and not falling part with great thigh strength. The same (and only) food waiter offered me anything else in the same helpful and polite manner as throughout the meal but it was time to leave and head back to the contrasting hotel I was staying.

2 bottled beers, main meal, dessert for £16. You heard right £16.

I had gone back in time to my student days in London when I would find these these places without even trying, in this little bubble of time in an unexpected part of London hitherto unseen and easily missed. Would I find it again? Was it my imagination? Perhaps it would be like in those films when the first person I take there sees not the BAR KICK that I went to but an empty space, with an old lady walking past saying to us that the building there was bombed during the war, as she sniggers to herself menacingly. Similarly in time perhaps Pret a Manger will muscle in on this little gem , as the Liverpool Street city splurb contaminates Shoreditch High Street.

BAR KICK was a breath of fresh air, in an otherwise sterile world of chain restaurants, pretentious restaurants, 'city' restaurants, and global menu restaurants, anything else is just too expensive surely for the other half.

Go to BAR KICK and find out how the other half live, eat and drink in London, and feel it.

I'll be back.
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Alan Williams
Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 10
Thursday, December 14, 2006