‘Uncle’ no more, this is barbecue you can (usually) eat with chopsticks.
A Chinese-American barbecue restaurant might initially sound like a plot point from an episode of King of the Hill. Or it might conjure up images of fusion-ified dishes, from char siu pulled pork to five spice ribs. The reality at Hon’s BBQ is a lot less obvious and much more subtle.
The barbecue at Hon’s hews closely to Texan tradition, but with some Chinese flourishes in places. Despite their self-applied and rather generic label of ‘Asian’, think of it as Texan barbecue with a Chinese accent.
Hon’s originally started out as a residency within thinly-veiled hipster bar All My Friends, when it was known as Uncle Hon’s, literally across the road from its current home on the first floor above Crate Bar. The current menu at Hon’s is very similar in places to their old residency menu – where applicable, I’ll include notes and photos for comparison.
Starters and side dishes at Hon’s
Although Hon’s chosen beancurd in its tofu starter was pleasingly firm/semi-firm, the promised braising left little impact on the palate.
Small-grained steamed white rice came topped with ginger and scallions. All of this was bound together by beef dripping, making this already enjoyable side dish eminently memorable in its own right. It’s certainly evolved from the rather forgettable shallot-only version that had been available at their residency.
A cool and refreshing salad of tomato and melon had the benefit of fried shallots. Their crunch added some textural variation.
Fairly bog standard mac and cheese had been livened up with the addition of lap cheong, wind-dried cured sausage – a Cantonese staple. Although the amount of lap cheong was on the meagre side, there was still enough of it that the sweetness of each pearlescent morsel came through. This sweetness felt right at home amidst the creamy melted cheese.
Firm French beans not only came in a lightly-spiced XO-style sauce, but had a smoky wok hei to them.
Smoked meats at Hon’s
Hon’s pork belly was a superbly well-constructed porcine parfait. Dimpled skin and squidgy, corpulent fat gave way to reveal tender swine flesh. A sweet, vinegary sauce complimented the pork’s natural sweetness. Meanwhile, the tanginess of Chinese-style pickled radishes, and the tanginess of what were possibly capers, helped cut through the oinky richness. It’s all certainly more flavoursome and more consistently moist than the comparatively plainer peach tea-glazed pork belly from the residency.
Ox cheeks were succulent and tender with a peppery bark. It’s leaner than the brisket at Texas Joe’s, so its lack of fat and connective tissue compared to that cut gave this one a subtly distinctive mouthfeel. Leaner than brisket, but still hearty. Sharp pickled onions helped clear the palate. This was one dish that was largely unchanged from Hon’s residency days.
Slabs of lamb breast started out with a firm bite that became a gentle chew. This almost rind-like bark soon gave way to the tender and lightly fatty meat underneath. That fattiness had a gentle citrusy astringency to it that was addictively beguiling.
A second portion was just as good as before, albeit with a touch less chew and bite and a bit more earthiness to it. The key difference between the current version of this dish and its residency predecessor was the wise decision not to imitate the texture of pulled pork. That pulling had greatly diminished the textural joys of the residency verson.
Sichuan beef short rib was gutturally satisfying. The bark had a caramelised sweetness which melded neatly with the reasonably strong mala numbness of the crunchified Sichuan peppercorn. The tender beef was not only slick from the rendered fat and connective tissue, it had a meaty umami and a light touch of smoke. The biggest change compared to the residency version, apart from a more consistent level of mala numbness, was that the beef had been sliced for easier eating with chopsticks.
With the duck pancakes, the kitchen at Hon’s didn’t attempt to replicate the taste or texture of either Cantonese or Beijing roast duck. Instead, it largely took inspiration from the Sichuanese dish of tea-smoked duck, which is an interesting contrast to the American tradition of smoking meats. Although shorn of fat, the smooth sheaves of meat were still sumptuous with their gentle sweetness and touches of smoke and umami. The shoehorned-in pancakes and hoi sin sauce on the side arguably got in the way of appreciating the poultry’s splendid qualities. This is another one of the few dishes at Hon’s that remain unchanged from its residency equivalent.
Hon’s spare ribs have few rivals in London. The toothsome bark seamlessly gave way to swineflesh that was umami, gently sweet and blessed with a hint of smoke. Each one of these layers peeled away from each other, and from the bone, with ease. It was very similar to the residency version. These are what the pork ribs at most other London barbecue restaurants want to be, in their most aspirational of dreams.
Odds and ends: the vegetarian main and the dessert at Hon’s
Having a vegetarian main at a barbecue restaurant may sound like a schoolboy error. But, when eating in a group, no-one should leave their vegetarian friends out in the cold (even if another restaurant would ultimately have been a better choice).
A seemingly monstrous-sized chunk of cauliflower was actually perfectly manageable. Its firm, muscular form was a fine conveyor for the smoked corn sauce. The latter did remind me of corn chowder, especially the type sometimes found in Japanese vending machines, with its gentle sweetness, although it never approached the mouth-coating creaminess of a full-on chowder.
Hon’s lone dessert is a set mango pudding that’ll be very familiar to anyone who’s ever had one from this gelatine genre. It’s not going to set the pudding world alight as it was only mildly evocative of the fruit and the touch of coconut had to be helped along by a grating of desiccated coconut. It was fine and certainly better than its forgettable residency forebear, but it was never going to displace mango sticky rice as my favoured mango-based dessert. Given the relative richness of the smoked meats, a refreshing mango and sago pudding may have been an even better fit.
The Verdict
Hon’s serves up some stonking barbecue that easily ranks among London’s best. One of the keys to Hon’s success, apart from the kitchen’s obvious and well-honed skill with a smoker, is that it has a distinctive identity of its own. So many of London’s other barbecue restaurants trade on chintzy faux Americana decor alone, as if that were a virtue in itself, or as if it could somehow hide their thundering lack of smoking ability. The superlative nature of Hon’s smoked meats is a consequence of their tasteful, nuanced embracing of their Chinese heritage, from Sichuan and Xi’an to Hong Kong. There isn’t, as far as I know, anything else quite like it in London. As special as Hon’s is, I hope this restaurant isn’t just a one-off, a lone light in the darkness. But rather a sign of things to come, the beginnings of a revolt against samey bbq mediocrity. I guess time will tell, one way or another.
What to order: Everything…
What to skip: …except the braised tofu.
Name: Hon’s BBQ
Address: 1st Floor, Unit 7, The White Building, Queen’s Yard, London E9 5EN
Phone: none listed
Opening Hours: Wednesday-Thursday 18.00-23.00. Friday-Saturday noon-16.00 and 18.00-23.00. Sunday noon-18.00.
Reservations? essential.
Average cost for one person including soft drinks: £82 approx.
Rating: ★★★★★
