Kicking off the NFL weekend with the best Tailgate in London: Bodeans

It's been a few weeks since the monster Tailgate party at Wembley and since then us Londoners have to find more formal joints to get our tailgate snack on to watch the NFL and college ball.

This weekend Steph and I went into London for the best Tailgate food in the U.K, by far. Bodeans BBQ. We had frequented their Tower Hill branch several times, but surprisingly we have never tried their original Soho branch.


 Foolishly we decided to go there on a late Saturday lunch, thinking it might not be too busy. We were wrong, as it was the weekend when Oxford Street closes to cars, making it even more packed with shoppers galore.

This bustling venue on the corner of Poland Street and D'Arblay in the heart of Soho was full even for customers dinning outside, despite the freezing outside. Thankfully we did not wait too long and found two stools by the window.

Unlike their other branches, this particular Bodeans branch has a quick fire turnover, partly because they are more like a BBQ deli sandwich joint as opposed to a formal restaurant, yet they do have a restaurant downstairs, which they call the Rib Room.

The whole menu looked as appetizing as ever and here you order up at the deli counter. The energetic staff, and the busy meat happy crowd reminded me of busy NYC deli counters in Wall street at lunch time. Once ordered the waitresses then bring them to your counter, where if you are lucky (like we were) you get to have lunch with a lovely stranger who also loves the good tailgate food here. It was helped with the flat screen displaying some college football action.

Despite this joint being famous for their award winning sandwiches, (which all come with fries and a pickle) such as their Boston Butt (slow smoked pork shoulder) or their "Soho Special" (pulled pork and burnt ends), Steph and I just had to go for the mains. Just to let you know, if you go anywhere else in Soho and ask for a "Soho Special"  you certainly won't be getting a sandwich!

Steph and I decided to share main dishes. We opted for the Jacobs Ladder ribs (half slab) and for the other plate we got a mixture of burnt ends and pulled pork, all of which came with the most deliciously salty chips (fries for my American readers) I have ever tasted. I'm not a big fan of chips and rarely eat them, but these were great! The meals also come with a helping of coleslaw, and as nice as that is, we were here for one thing and one thng only: Meat!


The half rack of Jacob's ladder ribs, sounds small especially when I tell you there are just two bones, but this thing is a beast. A massive amount of sweet placed meat, simply peels right off the bone. Like Bodeans say; "You don't teef, to eat our beef," and they are not wrong.

The burnt ends are small chunks of succulent sweet beef brisket, which is my personal favourite from their impressive menu. The pulled pork is decent, but it is always going to come third places amongst these other fine tasetbud delights.

I have their pulled pork before, in the form of their sandwich, and that's where I think it works best. Saying that, if you just  whack a bit of Bodean's own BBQ smoked hickory sauce or their spicier hot chipotle to the meat, you will not be dissapointed.

Just as we were getting our meat sweat on, the waitress then brought over our half dozen of wings that were sitting so deliciously in thier warm BBQ sauce ready to be devoured.  I had forgotten that I had ordered them to begin with, and forgot that the staff at the counter, told me that they would be a little later than the meat.

By this point the waitress knew what was coming. She nodded, I nodded and off she went. Steph was unsure what the visual exchange meant, but seconds later, a takeaway box appeared and a brown paper bag to put in it. I would love to know what the percentage is for the amount of customers who end up with a "doggy bag" is in this joint...It must be high.

After sipping on some imported American Cream Soda, we made room for a little dessert, "but just a little one, and one to share please." So it was a toss up between the Key Lime Pie and the Pecan Pie, and we went for the latter. The dessert was nice, but it was actually quite small. Or rather I should say a "normal" sized piece. After the size of the meat dishes for the mains, the pie, looked tiny, but it was more than enough for us.

After picking up our heavy bag of meat, we also bought a bottle of each flavour of the Bodeans sauces to use at home.

We walked off our monster lunch and dinner in one, along the mad shoppers in Oxford Street. Steph and I were heading in different directions so we said our goodbyes at Marble Arch. I went to see a show that my students were performing in, while Steph went to see her parents. But before that she popped into one of our favourite shops, a funky skate clothing shop. The young assistant took one look at Steph's arm clutching the brown paper bag filled with Bodeans meat and gave her an unusal greeting:

"Ahh noo way. you have just been to Bodeans, I love that place!" Steph couldn't figure out how he could tell where she had been, just from the bag, because the bag itself was plain with no name on it what so ever. So how could he tell?

"I could smell the sweet BBQ sauce!" he told hoping she would share some of her leftovers with him.