Smoke Yard Kitchen

Sold out at Bitten Street!

Tuesday 17th March 2015

With the promise of the warmest day of the year and 1,800 plus signed up to attend on Facebook, our first event of the year with the fabulous Bitten Street crew had the makings of a good day!

Setting up in the grounds of the amazing Oxford Castle Quarter, It was great to see familiar faces but also some new ones as we were joined by Lord and Lady Food and Crumble Shack for the first time and by two of London's finest street food traders, Dosa Deli and Bill or Beak.

We had two new dishes on the menu, 12hr smoked brisket with mustard and dill potatoes, fried egg, smoked hot sauce and crispy shallots, and smoked pork shoulder tacos with cider vinegar slaw, crunchy puffed pork rinds and smoked hot sauce! Which one would be the best seller?

As the enticing aromas began to permeate the fresh spring morning, sure enough the first of the hungry masses began to meander their way around each of the stalls, trying to make the unenviable decision of what to try first and wondering how they were going to possibly fit it all in!!

First to break were a group of young lads who headed for one of Lord and Lady Food delicious burgers and very pleased with themselves they looked too and they happily chomped away!

And then it started, just after 11am "are you open yet?" our first customer of the day and the first pork taco sold. Then another, and another, and another as a small queue began to grow and grow. So, pork tacos is the favourite today we thought but then it was brisket, and another and another and stayed that way until the brisket sold out completely! One guy even asked if he could try some of the scraps from the chopping board!

We reckon the secret weapon might have been the fried eggs! As we went along the queue to tell people the brisket had sold out a few asked have you still got any fried eggs? And so now a new dish was created, pork tacos with fried egg!!

Word came through that Lord and Lady food were the first to sell out, followed by Secret Pizza Society, while all the other traders had a steady stream of hungry mouths to feed! As sure as eggs is eggs (sorry), we sold our last portion of pork tacos just after 2pm, just under 3 hours of constant trading!!

Brilliant, we couldn't have asked for more, just a shame we didn't have more food to sell so as not to disappoint those who had queued for so long. But with Bill or Beak, Toro Poco and Dosa Deli still going strong their wait for delicious food was not to be in vain!

As we began to clean down, we popped over to Happy Cakes in the hope that they still had some of the maple syrup and bacon cup cakes left, only to find Jacqui from Bitten Street eyeing up the final few!! Luckily we managed to snaffle a couple and bloody lovely they were too!

Reflecting on an unbelievably busy day, I think we were all amazed at the turnout, we had hoped for a good day but this was more than any one expected. We can only say thank you to all those that not only came along to support us and the other traders, we really do appreciate it!

All in all a great day and we can't wait for the next Bitten Street!!