Camden BBQ — Restaurant in London

Careful! Self-tipping in this place!! Food unspectacular.

What a stuck up way of looking at the customer? After confronting the waiter that this is a bit weird that he judges his service to me himself, he admitted it felt strange in the beginning but as other TOURIST places do the same it is OK. True I had this before, but it seems only places with unspectacular food and service think they are the greatest and tip themselves.

This place is on the other side of the street from Camden Market, where 23 year old kids cook with enthusiasm and fun the most amazing things out there and then I get at Porkys a burger that was unspectacular and fries that had the stale charm of the global fast food chain down to the same cut. Camden Market should really be the biggest boost of energy to present something a bit more pepped up then this.

But to the tipping. The 12.5% tip is voluntary the waiter explained and would rather have an unfriendly conversation then just wiping it. He wanted me to tell him to remove it.

The tip is a simple social interaction where the customer decides that he got something better than what the price is and more importantly that one feels welcome in a place and thanks for the extra positive feeling, atmosphere, vibes……. one was allowed to experience as a guest.

It appears entirely absurd to me that self-tipping could create a friendly relationship to me as a customer when I cannot just show the mediocredness by tipping low or not at all and go. Why putting the customer in the position to demand the removal of a voluntary charge? This makes even a neutral situation go bad. Sure, it was assumed that I am a TOURIST, which I am not, that would never come again anyhow. But what does this say about the management.

These small food places pup up at the moment because customers value the personal touch and expect a safe place of trust and not a restaurant sneaking charges in the back door like a phone company that decides to slip a charge in because the client might want to see cat pictures on the iPhone. Something like this just happened to me and complaining removed it. Great view of me as a customer…

So my only wish to Porky’s is! Think of me as a neighbor and likes you so much that I want to give you a tip. I am sure your turnover will rise way...

Camden BBQ, previously known as Porkys, has simply the best smoked chicken wings ever, Onion rings, Mac and cheese “yum” The past few weeks I’ve been sampling various dishes and cocktails and honestly this is one of the best places to eat in Camden.

As mentioned the (Buffalo Wings with their famous hot sauce and served with celery and a blue cheese dip is sensational)

I also tried the Buffalo Chicken Burger Spicy buffalo sauce, jalapeños, and blue cheese. Free-range chicken thighs marinaded in butter milk and fried with spiced breadcrumbs, served in a bun with iceberg lettuce, tomato relish, wow delicious. I also took the opportunity to try the (Kung Pao wings, covered in asian spicy BBQ sauce, coriander and crispy onions)

I don't know why thought I could eat so much but I also had the fully loaded fries, be careful if you don’t like Pork because it come with it but Alex made sure she warned me so my serving was without the pork.

The serving was amazing and I could not finish it alone. All of those flavours excited my tastebuds, it was truly delicious.

The atmosphere in this branch is so very camden, beautifully laid out and spacious with plenty of space between tables. You can sit outside as the whole front opens out into the street, or for more privacy you can sit in the back in the well lit outside area.

The bar has a great range and the staff make amazing cocktails. The staff are great and very attentive and friendly so you fell well looked after. All in all I really enjoyed the food and will be back with friends.

How to get there, if you come out of Camden Town underground, turn right and walk towards the market, walk over the bridge and keep going and its opposite the entrance under the railway bridge. Let me know what you think of the food i would love to hear your feedback, i loved it. I took a few photos of my experience...

3/5 is perhaps a generous score but the buffalo wings were nice and I love a good buffalo wing. Happy hour was decent value for money by today's standards and the chips were good. Those are the positives.

We had to ask for BBQ sauce at a BBQ restaurant after being offered ketchup or mayonnaise... baffling. Even then it tasted like McDonalds BBQ sauce. I've toured much of the deep south. Carolinians would have seen the red flags a mile off.

The waitress incorrectly took our main order but it was rectified by another server when she brought our food. Beers had to be chased about 10 mins after ordering and were incorrectly plonked in front of us without identifying which was which. Given that it was the same waitress that took our order, we were a table of 2 and the restaurant was barely half full... That's pretty poor. 3 competent servers could have dealt with a full house but the staff here were either new to the job or just didn't want to be here.

As for the food. The pulled pork didn't taste smoked. I saw no indication of smoke in the colour of the pork. There was no bark or variation in texture. It was just a plate of pork mush with a light BBQ flavour that tasted no different to the oven ready rubbish you can find at most supermarkets. The baby back ribs were slightly better as they'd clearly been through a smoker but not long enough as there were chunks of fat that hadn't rendered, therefore they were too tough and the seasoning on them was too sharp if they were aiming for a dry rib. I've had fantastic dry ribs in Memphis, these were miles off.

London really lacks good American BBQ since some restaurants have closed and the likes of Bodeans quality has dropped. This place isn't a contender whether it's Camden BBQ or its previous iteration of Porkys....