Gin Stock and Psychic Burger

Last weekend was my friend Mo’s leaving party as she goes off to travel for a few months. The shin-dig was held at the Book Club in Shoreditch on Friday night and what a shin-dig it was... 

Now Saturday – after a long needed lie in, I decided to stop feeling sorry for myself/ my head and go off to meet my old uni friend Kat, who has recently moved to London from Newcastle. Sadly the weather wasn’t ideal but it did manage to stop raining long enough for us to venture down to Gin Stock at Street Feast.

We arrived at about 5pm so I think a lot of the major gin cocktail action had already occurred. However despite the rain and the slight chill people seemed in fine (gin) spirits.

I headed straight for the Rotary Bar to sample their £10 pint sized cocktails which I have been reading so much about. I went for the orange Marguerita - a pleasant twist I've never tried and Kat had some kind of fizz thing with artichoke liquor. The bartender was a hoot though and next thing we knew we were shaking our own cocktails. Sadly he didn't let us have them half price seeing as we basically made them ourselves. 

Street Feast is only at it's current location for another 2 weeks. I haven't managed to get down there on a Friday night but its meant to be great fun so definitely try to get yourselves down their. 

After finishing off our cocktails we decided to wander up back towards Dalston and find something to snack on indoors due to the rain rearing its ugly head again. I decided on trying out Psychic Burger - the new residency in Birthdays which was the previous location of Rita's Bar and Dining. I loved Rita's and was pretty bummed when it left but apparently they are meant to be popping up somewhere soon... so now onto the successor - Psychic Burger. 

I'm actually ashamed to say that despite being somewhere called 'Psychic Burger'... we didn't actually have one. Neither of us were hungry enough (I had had a fry up a mere 3 hours before to recover from my Friday), so we went for some picky bits. I had the chilli cheese fries, Kat had plain fries and we shared a coleslaw and some of the pork skin popcorn.  

Now this pork skin popcorn I ordered simply to see what the hecky peck it was. I'm not going to lie... I am a fan of the off bit of guilty pork scratching. An ex boyfriend of mine used to always bring me pork scratchings when I was hungover much to the revulsion of others around me. These though were much lighter and airy - though I think I actually missed the cruch of a proper scratching or crackling. The texture was a bit.... meh. But still perfectly tasty. 

The chilli cheese fries which is under their sides section of the menu is a feast in itself. Cheesy chilli goodness is exactly what I needed. I would definitely not recommend getting this as a side if you are having a burger too!

Now I'm a coleslaw fan - and this one did not disappoint. The veg was supper crunchy and the added extra of toasted hazelnuts was a really nice texture adding touch. 

The space itself has completely changed since it was Rita's. They've added high booths on the sides and a few middle tables - slightly more diner style in fitting with the burger menu. They could possibly do with adding a few things on the walls to brighten the place up a bit but I'm not sure how strict Birthday's are being about these things. Either way I will definitely be revisiting and giving the actual burgers a try soon!

Street Feast

Merchant Yard

317-319 Kingsland Road

E8 4DL

Psychic Burger

Birthdays

33-35 Stoke Newington Road

N16 8BJ