WARNING: This post contains meat, chicken to be precise, and lots of it.
In the wake of the London Bloggers Picnic, I drunkly woke up to realise I'd been given a goodie bag from Bonne Maman and inside, alongside a jar of my fave cherry jam, was an envelope with a very sweet note from Alexandra from Zomato with a voucher for Clockjack enclosed, a restaurant serving chicken in all its glory. It's a miracle I made it home with both of these treats, I tend to lose my inhibitions after one or two glasses of prosecco or any alcoholic beverage. Gone are the days of boat racing and drinking my weight in guiness at uni (yeah guiness, weird student drink of choice but it happened!). Anyway once I'd recovered enough, Dan and I headed to Picadilly to visit Clockjack.
We actually booked this table at the very last minute, as we were supposed to meet some friends for dinner elsewhere but their trains were delayed so we ended up just meeting for drinks after. Starving, I realised I had the voucher from Alexandra in my purse, so ringing Clockjack up I told them about it and asked if they had any tables for 'like now?!'.
They did and soon I was supping on an iced tea watching the football, while Dan was in total heaven. A restaurant serving tasty food with the football on, I think it's his dream date. For me, I just wish you could order from them so I could get a gallon of ice tea right now, it's so hot today. I'll be honest, when I found out our local pool was closed today for maintenance I almost cried, I had my swimsuit on and everything. On reflection, I should of 100% checked it was open first, but back to Clockjack (there's going to be a lot of back to Clockjack's in this post)!
Clockjack has a very relaxed feel, we were instantly put at ease by our waiter and struck up conversations with the guys next to us at the high bar style tables. The decor is industrial meets college hang out with a wall made up of chicken pun posters. The staff were totally cool about the football being on and there were quite a few people just getting drinks, it all felt very friendly like we'd just popped into our neighbourhood bar.
We over ordered. It was inevitable. We were super hungry so it had to be a whole chicken...between the two of us. Alongside all of the sauces (ranch, bbq and gravy), sweet potato fries, sweetcorn with bourbon and honey, and grilled veg which consisted of pepper, courgette, aubergine and fennel antipasti. There was way too much food, we did well to polish off all the sides but took over half the chicken home in a doggy bag. This led to a traumatic experience at Summer Tales where they wouldn't allow us to take our chicken in when we met our friends for drinks afterwards and the bouncer demanded I threw it in the bin. Luckily the lady at the entrance came to our rescue and said we could leave it with her in the nick of time as I was preparing my whole you want me to throw perfectly good food away when kids are dying of hunger speech. I get that they want to increase their business, but it also makes me mad, think of the children! Rant over, back to Clockjack!
I saw some other chickeny goodies floating about, including wings, burgers and pulled chicken buns which looked amazing, but I knew we'd made the right choice when our whole chicken arrived, it was one sexy looking bird. The movie star of the menu, it wasn't all looks there was real deliciousness going on. Faced with succulent chicken that fell off the bone Dan and I became animals. Tearing it apart and stuffing our faces with chicken dipped in as many sauces as possible. My favourite being Clockjack's Jalapeno hot sauce which I need to try and recreate. It was spicy and sour, and oh so good. If they become a chicken chain that starts marketing sauces, like the one that shall not be named #periperi, I would buy shares, it's that good.
But let's not forget the sides. The sweet potato fries were perfect and great to dip into the creamy ranch sauce. Although at first I was a bit disappointed to find the grilled veg was cold, actually it was really refreshing. I wasn't a fan of the sweetcorn it was just too sweet for me (the clue is in the name). However, my foodie in crime wolfed it down, as a sweetcorn connoisseur he loved it.
Ultimately you know you're eating quality chicken when you go home and are not sick. Something that unfortunately happens quite a lot with me and chicken, and something you probably didn't need to know about and I shouldn't have put in this review. Oh well! It's a learning experience for us all, back to Clockjack! We had a great night, Dan would have stayed the whole time if I didn't force him to leave. Our total bill came to £45, including a couple of craft beers which I think is pretty reasonable especially with us eating the equivalent of four people's dinner between two! Chicken in hand, I was a very happy customer leaving Clockjack.
Do you ever get doggybags from restaurants or do you think I'm being super greedy? It seems like it's becoming more acceptable from my experience at Clockjack and Big Easy BBQ & Crab Shack. If anyone has any restaurant recommendations for places that just do one food really well let me know. I've had my eye on Bao so need to get there quick!
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