Bennett’s Hill favourite, Buffalo & Rye, has a new menu so myself and two friends decided to hop along and try it out last week.
This American style meat shack, has been feeding Brum’s city centre masses for the last few years. Situated in a real foodie hot spot, with Bodega on one side, Rudy’s Pizza the other and Indian Streatery, Sun on The Hill and Franco Manca over the road, competition is high!
Buffalo & Rye stand out as a unique experience, with a rock and metal sound track, the staff often wear band T-shirts to add to the authenticity of the American style food joint.
We are greeted and seated quickly without fuss, it is quiet initially but starts to build with a hungry and diverse restaurant of diners.
The lighting is low, the ambience is nice and chilled, and service attentive. We start with a beer each, and browse the new menu.
Something you notice is the small print, which explains that Buffalo’s chicken is Red Tractor assured and the pork and beef is all from outdoor reared animals. All food is cooked fresh and the chefs smoke the meats every day – all sounds good so far!
With this in mind I opted for the Buttermilk Chicken burger. All Buffalo burgers are served on a locally made artisan buttermilk bun and these were soft and fresh tasting, they look great too.
Buffalo’s chicken is Red Tractor assured and the pork and beef is all from outdoor reared animals. All food is cooked fresh and the chefs smoke the meats every day – all sounds good so far!
The burger consisted of two chicken thighs in a crispy buttermilk coating, double American cheese, lettuce, tomato and garlic (or jalapeno) mayo). I was pretty hungry by this point and the burger was quickly demolished. The chicken was crunchy, and full of taste with the garlic mayo easing it down. Quite a treat!
As a side I tried the burnt ends, which are cut from the point end of the slow smoked beef brisket. These were deliciously smokey and very moreish.
Ollie chose the House Cheese, which I also tasted. We both agreed this was just how a cheese burger should be, pure meatiness and took a while to work through. The burger consists of Double Herefordshire beef patties, American cheese, burger sauce, lettuce, tomato & gherkins (you can add pulled pork for £1).
Helen worked her way through the Korean Pork Ssam Sliders, which arrived as 3 spicy pulled pork sliders served on a bed of Baby Gem lettuce with fennel slaw on the side. I tried these and were superb, a slight kick and really succulent meat.
We all shared some Korean Street Fries – fries slathered in homemade spicy Korean sauce, topped with coriander & spring onions, and yep they were very hot and spicy, by this point we were virtually full, but wait! There was one more tray to arrive.
As a final chow down our posse shared the Korean Style Smoked Pork Ribs. This rack of smoked pork spare ribs comes in a spicy Korean house sauce with Fennel slaw on the side. We cut it apart and tore away the pork and gnawed away until the bare bones were all that could be determined from our Buffalo feast.
And we were singing, “bye, bye Miss Buffalo & Rye…” don’t worry, we will be back for more of the same soon. A terrific experience and one which Brummies should celebrate more, there is something to be said for getting your fingers all sticky and getting a sweat on.
Review by Nick, Ollie & Helen for Grapevine Birmingham
*photos taken on the night.