Beer & Buns

I met two friends here on Tuesday evening, when Beer & Buns has a 2-​for-​1 offer on draft beer and cocktails. It’s actually quite a good promotion, starting at 5 PM with no end time, so you don’t feel pressure to get there early. I arrived close to 7 PM and the place was still relatively empty, and we had our choice of a few tables and did not encounter a queue at the bar. I can imagine that when busy, it could be a pretty hard place to get served (I guess by virtue of being a pop-​up, the venue may not have been intended for a bar). Beer & Buns is on the first floor above K10, a Japanese restaurant in a modern glass building near Broadgate Circle that is totally deserted in the evening. Once upstairs, it’s pretty dark as the windows are mostly blacked out, but there are some long tables (like a beer hall), some round barrels that act as high tables, a foosball table, a pinball machine, and some stools against a window ledge that get the only bit of sunlight. For something that calls itself an izakaya, I thought the décor would be more authentic. In practice, it is as authentic as Ippudo, which is to say, not at all.
We were offered samples of the cocktails (a margarita and a strawberry daiquiri), of which I definitely preferred the daiquiri; the margarita was far too sour. Instead, I went with Asahi draft beer, which was £4.50 for a pint — not cheap so was rather glad for the 2-​for-​1 offer! That’s the only beer that you can get with the offer, as the other beers were all bottled, so you don’t actually get much of a selection. I tried all 4 types of the buns, which are 2 for £6.50. The chicken karaage is marked as the special, but I thought the pork belly was much better. The aubergine katsu is quite unique as well. I had a bite of my friend’s sweet & spicy chicken wings, which I thought were ok, but nothing remarkable. Overall, I think this is a cool concept, but could have been executed much better. The hirata buns are one of the hottest things in London right now, and there are a handful of street food stalls, the veteran Flesh & Buns, and the new restaurant Bao that do them. After I had the beer and tried the buns, it got a bit boring. I wouldn’t be in any hurry to come again.