Mason & Taylor, Shoreditch

Mason & Taylor might be mostly about the beer, but you have to also love it for the entertainment factor in watching all the people outside trying to find the front door. I tried pushing in the window and did at least 2 laps before I worked it out. Try walking in with dignity after you've head butted the window.

Fortunately, it's worth the humiliation. Mason & Taylor is a craft beer and real ale bar, which opened in December 2010. All beers come from independent brewers, there are 12 draught beers and ales on tap a "seasonal" list of 40 bottled beers which changes every 2 months. You can now even work through tasting flights of three or six 1/3 pint glasses.

However the Sunday lunch is also a winner.

At Ms L's birthday lunch recently, the 3 boys shared a gargantuan shoulder of roast Herwick lamb which came out in proportions that really could have fed all 5 of us (it's recommended for 2 or 3 at £65 total). Just the sight of it was the cause of much excitement, but it was also gorgeously tender, pink and delicious.

My roast chicken was equally fab and juicy (£12.50). Both came with hefty servings of crisp and fluffy duck fat roast taties, parsnip, carrots and sprout tops (and mine with bread sauce). Ms L seemed just as enamoured with her roasted artichoke veggie roast.

TPG - always a dessert traditionalist - felt the Eton Mess should not have been messed with, being made with cranberry rather than strawberries, and so he opted for the terrific chocolate pud - insanely rich, but nothing a good slosh of cream couldn't help with (£4.50-£5).

Aside from the Sunday roast, M&T's food is generally served on smaller sharing plates. We grazed a couple of months ago over some beer and wine in the evening - while there's nothing overly remarkable, the combinations are simple and tasty - like scotch quails eggs with sauce gribiche, caramelised pear, walnut and Cropwell Bishop salad, wild boar sausage and beetroot mash and ginger beer battered squid with cucumber dipping sauce. The grazing plates (all priced around £3-£6.50) are good, although the Sunday roast tops them for me, and the evenings are mostly about something decent to nibble while you focus on the beer.

Mason and Taylor is light and airy, with wooden tables and chairs and big floor to ceiling windows right round - a seat by the corner window had us basking in the glow of Sunday afternoon sun, watching Shoreditchians dancing in the streets to the jazz down the road. The staff are equally sunny, and prices are very reasonable - we paid about £30 per head for a whole afternoon of feasting and drinking.

If I lived in Shoreditch, this would be a regular Sunday afternoon haunt.

Mason & Taylor, 51-55 Bethnal Green Road, Shoreditch, London, E1 6LA (Tel: 020 7749 9670)

Hawksmoor: The new brunch & weekend roasts menu. And THAT infamous Hawksmoor burger

"We almost didn't put that on the menu - we thought "who'd have steak and half a lobster for breakfast?""

Will, co-owner of Hawksmoor, and I looked over in unison at TPG, a man up to his elbows in rib eye and lobster meat. There's always one in every crowd.

Hawksmoor is a steak house in East London famed for serving up great quality British beef, grilled on charcoal to blissful perfection. All meat is sourced from the Ginger Pig, and steaks are, patriotically, from Longhorn cattle, reared in Yorkshire and aged for around 35 days. On Saturday, we were there to test out the first trial run of Hawksmoor's new breakfast menu. Thus, the need for TPG to conduct a comprehensive investigation of the hefty surf 'n turf option.

The weekend brunch menu revolves around quality meat products and bears the usual array of Hawksmoor's staples - the steaks, the infamous burger - and some fabulous new additions such as my Sausage and Egg HK Muffin (£8) or (for £30) the full English for two - comprising a bone-in bacon chop, sausages (pork, beef and mutton), short rib bubble 'n squeak, grilled bone marrow, trotter baked beans, Bury black pudding, roast tomatoes, grilled mushrooms and endless thick slices of dripping toast... all with an onion and bone marrow gravy.

The HK muffin had wooed me from afar, practically wolf whistling from across the room on someone else's plate. It tasted as good as it looked. Two runny fried eggs are piled into a lovely thick grilled muffin bun with a spicy flat sausage made from pork, beef and mutton, all topped with Ogleshield cheese. The only slightest critique I can offer is that the sausage was slightly too "spiced up" for me. I added Ginger Pig bacon, which is the closest thing I've had to the best of Australia's mouthwatering bacon in this country.

TPG's steak was so sublime it made us seriously weak at the knees. Perfection. He had it medium, as recommended by our helpful waitress for the rib eye cut, to really get the fatty marbling melting through the meat. If you're a steak and eggs man, this one's for you. TPG saddled it up decadently with a half lobster (add 12 quid), which was slightly overcooked and rubbery. Still, nothing could detract from our adoration of the rest of his plate.

We teamed up our selections with some of HK's renowed fabulous drinks. I was feeling fiesty so opted for the Bloody Mary #10 - made with a refreshing cucumber hit and the bite of horseradish. Loved it!

TPG, predictably, could not go past the cornflake milk milkshake. That's right folks - the cornflakes are soaked in milk overnight, drained (there are no "bits" in it) and then the milk is used to make the ice cream for what is undoubtedly THE BEST FLAVOURED MILKSHAKE in the entire universe. It's even knocked Shake Shack's salted caramel from the top of the perch. This seems to be some variation on similar shakes offered at my beloved Momofuku Bakery in New York - an ingenious addition to the breakfast menu.

We eventually retired, content and bellies full, to the bar to watch the masterful hands of Shaky Pete at work. Pete is not only super friendly, but a cocktail guru. He whipped me up a refreshing ginger brew in no time - ginger, lemon, beer and other secret ingredients giving it a sassy sorbet texture. It's like the best shandy you've ever imagined. Highly recommended.

TPG obviously felt he needed to show his sophisticated side after the milk shake, and chose a superb armagnac. Layers of chocolate, toffee and other delights wafted up to the nose and romanced the palate. Gorgeous. We are hunting down a bottle for home (if only TPG had not washed since he wrote the name on his hand).

Pricing on the new day time menu seems fair. It's not a dirt cheap breakfast, but you're getting top quality ingredients, perfectly executed at a very reasonable price. It's good value. Even better was the pricing on Saturday since we were trialling the menu at a 50% discount to allow any kinks to be ironed out before the official launch this week on 13th March (although I've quoted the full prices here).

The worst thing about the new weekend brunch menu is the complete inability to decide what to have - what can't you live without? Other new lunch options include the roast beef (roasted on charcoal and finished in the oven to achieve that "roasted on a spit flavour") with dripping roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, carrots, greens and bone marrow & onion gravy. My stomach just rumbled while typing.

And, of course, there's the Hawksmoor burger. We had devoured one recently (Valentines Day doesn't get more romantic than this) and it certainly lives up to its reputation.

Gloopy, loosely packed meat from Longhorn cattle (a range of cuts) is enriched by globs of fatty bone marrow in the mix. A simple salad, pickles, mustard mayo and simple brioche bun are, idyllicly, the only distractions from the main game. On this occassion I was surprised to find the bun a little too much on the dry side (while some dryness is required to stand up to the juices, the bun seemed to lack freshness). However, flavourful, rich and decadent, the burger was up there with my all time favourites, and can only be rivalled in London by Goodman's (which is of a completely different style, but similar quality, as reviewed earlier here).

For £15, the burger comes with a choice of triple cooked thick cut chips or a gem salad. A no brainer, surely. Although, this time we went for one of each. I'm a fan of thick cut fries, and not afraid to say it. These were expertly cooked - crunchy on the outside, fluffy on the inside. The salad was the real surprise here - there were no regrets for forgoing the second serve of chips. Fresh and mixed with chopped spring onion and zesty herbs. It was a tasty refresher.

So now I have an embarrassing schoolgirl crush on 2 London steak houses - Hawksmoor and Goodman (reviewed here). Service at both is super friendly and knowledgable. Hawksmoor feels more laid back and breezy, and a little less like a gentleman's club - although I've only been during the day. Its breakfast rocks, its burger is divine, its steaks are pure heaven from a grill. And it serves a white hot cocktail to suit any occassion - that's my kind of place. I can see myself becoming quite the regular here. Shaky Pete, save me a seat at the bar.

The weekend breakfast menu officially launches on 13th March 2010. It's going to be a winner. Bloody Mary #10 with your steak and eggs, anyone?

Hawksmoor, 157 Commercial Street, Shoreditch, London, E1 6BJ

Pizza East, London

Last night, we sat down, looked up, and came face to face with a firing squad of 7 burly pizza makers and their shovels.

Pizza East opened on Friday in the Tea Building on the corner of Shoreditch High Street and Bethnal Green Road. It's a huge industrial space of steel, exposed concrete and naked beams and pipes, softened by elaborate light fittings and friendly service.

Its speciality is thin, 10 inch base pizzas with toppings ranging from the rustic to the elaborate. I went for the veal meatballs, sage, cream and lemon pizza (appealing to my memories of gourmet travels in Piedmont) while The Peanut Gallery branched out with the prawn, tomato, garlic, spring onion, marjoram and chilli option recommended by our waiter.

Both pizzas looked like they had been slapped around the head a little, as all good pizzas should. The ingredients were somewhat sparse, but the flavours (particularly of the veal pizza) packed enough punch while retaining subtlety in all the right places (lemon on a pizza is surely a potential minefield for disaster, but our Pizza East bakers managed to dodge the traps). The key to good pizza is all in the base - limp, lethargic, half-hearted excuses for a pizza have no place in this world. The thin base here was crisp and strong, although the prawn pizza was slightly burnt around the edges.

With our pizzas, we shared a salad of wild rocket, shaved fennel, almonds, parmesan, lemon and extra virgin olive oil - it looked a little dry but wasn't dry on tasting even if it could have done with a little more parmesan.

Other dishes on offer include an antipasti selection (especially tempting given the raunchy hams hanging over the bar, beckoning one's taste buds), tapas style starters (eg. wood roasted mussels, fennel, garlic aioli) and large mains cooked in the wood oven (eg. porchetta, cannellini beans, kale, fennel apple sauce).

For dessert, we couldn't go past the hot cinnamon sugar doughnuts and Valrhona chocolate - although I'm now kicking myself we didn't try the salted chocolate caramel tart as well (what were we thinking?). The doughnuts were as delicious as they sound. The chocolate was spot on - unlike the sickly versions often on offer at your average churros joint. The doughnuts were light and fluffy which The Peanut Gallery (a doughnut connoisseur from way back) thought ideal, although I would have liked a little extra gooeyness.

We had prime position seats at the bar facing the kitchen and pizza ovens. The live pizza making show was a source for ample entertainment, particularly with a newly assembled cast on display which had only been tested on the neighbours for a few days prior to opening.  There was a little bumping and thumping, and the odd debate regarding such important lessons as the precise placement of anchovy, but generally the routine was already well coordinated and these things added positively to the real life character of the experience.

We arrived quite early at 7pm, having just been to the cinemas down the road ("(500) Days of Summer" is hilarious, by the way). On arrival, there was some twiddling of the thumbs among the cooks, so it was a little discomforting to have the entire line up staring blankly at us while we perused the menu. We felt compelled to give them all a nod and "hello". However, soon things livened up and it was all action stations so, fortunately, we did not feel the need to seek their input on all our conversations for the evening.

The bill came to £68 with a half carafe of wine, dessert moscato and service. A little steep for pizza but we're happy to pay slightly over the odds for the quality and a fun night, as well as a few extras.

Apparently there will be a DJ from Thursdays to Saturdays (which raises alarm bells about the way this place might be heading), and take away will be on offer from December (you lucky Shoreditchians, you).

Pizza East is still teething, but we'll certainly pay it another visit - if it doesn't become too cool for school in the meantime.

Pizza East, Tea Building, 56 Shoreditch High Street, London E1 6JJ