The Smoke Haus is a south Wales-based American diner. It has locations in Swansea and Cardiff (Mary Ann St, Cardiff CF10 2EN); the latter, and more-recent outlet, was the destination for our lunch for three.
I had the ‘Smoke Haus Pulled Pork Hoagie’, billed as a “smoked shoulder of pork slow-roasted for 12 hours, pulled and served in a hoagie roll with dry slaw, baby gem lettuce and apple sauce.” As with everyone on the sandwich menu, it was served with ‘slaw and skin-on fries. My companions had the ‘Slow cooked brisket deli sandwich’ (“served in toasted bloomer bread with red onion, cheese, sweet mustard, pickles and Russian sauce”) and the ‘Philly Cheese Steak’ (“pan fried wafer thin top side of beef topped with melted Emmental cheese, sweet fried onions served in a hoagie roll”). Other US-themed sandwich choices included the Reuben, the Elvis Po Boy and the Texas Link Po Bo. I rated mine the best; though it was all very tasty meat. The Smoke Haus is a very welcome addition to the Cardiff food scene.
The American influence at The Smoke Haus extends to portion size. You are likely to get served more than you can eat. The table next to us were making good use of ‘doggy bags’. You don’t have to treat it, as their website encourages, as “a challenge not for the fainthearted”. There are Brits we know living in the United States who assume they are going to get fed twice when they go into a restaurant: once at the table and again at home from the take-away left-overs (though some people apparently do feed their pets). I did eat most of my lunch at The Smoke Haus, and just demoted my next meal to a light supper.
The “challenge” at The Smoke Haus extends to the desserts. If you look past the ‘Mississippi mud pie’ and ‘Chocolate oreo sundae’ on the menu, you will see ‘The Smoke Haus Ultimate Dessert’, which comprises “a huge bowl of Vanilla ice cream, banana ice cream, marshmallows, doughnuts, chunks of pecan brownie, fresh banana topped with squirty cream, chocolate and toffee sauce.” We passed on this.
And talking of donuts, The Smoke Haus has contributed to the growing trend for pushing the burger boundary with its ‘Donut Burger’. Admittedly, some of the buns that fast-food burgers are served in are very sweet, but the Donut Burger (as served by The Smoke Haus, though it is also served in other burger joints) takes the burger in a different direction in that the donuts are glazed and the cheeseburger patty with grilled streaky bacon is served with a sweet sauce. This breakfast, dessert or stupid burger variant, depending on how you view these things, attracted some (not unwelcome) media attention. The thick stacks of the other The Smoke Haus burgers come with (not always helpful) US-themed names, such as ‘New Orleans’, ‘Southern Comfort’ and ‘The Hog Father’.
Also in the news recently was the ‘Yorkshire Pudding Burger’, served by the north of England based Rift & Co chain, described by the Independent as just the latest in a line of “stupid burgers”. It was inspired by the Donut Burger. I am wondering where the Welsh burger needs to go from here. Should the lamb patty lie between bara brith or Welsh cakes? Incidentally, an indie burger outlet has opened in Scotland called ‘The Silly Burger’, though the burgers it serves are very sensible and down-to-earth.
The Smoke Haus menu features pulled pork and pulled lamb. The term ‘pulled’ was originally restricted to pork, to describe the process when a potentially tough cut of meat (e.g. shoulder) is slow-cooked at low temperatures so that it becomes tender enough to be pulled or easily broken into small shreds or pieces using, for example, a fork. This process can also be called shredding. Its recent prevalence on menus is due to modern US-led marketing initiatives. In addition to pork and lamb, you can now see pulled beef (i.e. shredded beef brisket), pulled chicken and pulled duck on menus. In fact, KFC have predicted that 2015 will become “the year of pulled chicken”. I suspect that other critters will soon also be “pulled” (e.g. goat and rabbit have been cooked this way for centuries). As shredded meats feature in all the world’s cuisines, the possibilities for jumping on the pulled bandwagon appear endless. However, as the innuendo element is lost when you pull anything other than your pork, I think its marketing value may have climaxed.
Christopher Hooton in The Independent on "silly burgers":
Felicity Cloake on KFC and pulled chicken in The Guardian:
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2014/sep/02/kfc-2015-year-of-pulled-chicken-seriously-fast-food
No comments:
Post a Comment