The Brass Rail - The Salt Beef Bar

foodbymark

Amongst the best salt beef in London... at a price 14th September 2008

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We made a Saturday lunchtime visit to Selfridges for a spot of (luxury) grocery shopping. I'd been to Selfridges many times as my dad used to take me there when I would go for lunch with him when I was kid and he worked in the area and I have since continued to visit these places for over a decade and I've seen the "carvery" change it's location once. It did not turn out to be as busy as we had expected and although an orderly queue had formed when we arrived it was nothing in comparison to the ridiculous queue for Yo Sushi neighbouring it. We were at the Salt Beef counter within 10 minutes and ready to make our orders.

The main menu consists of Salt Beef and Beef Tongue in various bread choices such as traditional rye, bagels, foccaccia buns etc. and my girlfriend and I both chose the 1 whole Salt Beef sandwich on rye with mustard and a pickle. £6.95 each plus 50 pence for the pickle. Ouch. A real punch in the stomach and kick in the... But, the salt beef was tremendously good, juicy and succulent and delicious in two slices of fresh, soft and fragrant rye bread accompanied by a monster of a gherkin.

Brick Lane and Brass Rail, although both as brightly lit as each other, that is where the similarity ends. And by comparison they are really chalk and cheese. As far as this review goes, Selfridges beats Brick Lane hands down on taste but you can't beat the value of a bagel filled with salt beef from Brick Lane. And that's where I'm going to cycle to right now.

chrisp

OK but well overpriced 13th August 2008

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There is a theory often put forward by environmental campaigners that tackling road congestion by adding lanes or widening roads is counter-productive, because the volume of traffic actually increases in proportion to the space it is given. Having barely survived a weekend trip to a pedestrianised Oxford Street I can confirm the same is true of pavements and human traffic. I have never seen so many people squeezed onto one road, screaming back and forth in an uncontrolled riot of baby buggies and yellow Selfridges shopping bags.

My bright idea was to attempt lunch in the busiest part of the busiest shop on the busiest shopping street in the country, 3 weeks before Christmas. The Selfridges Food Hall can be crowded at the best of times, but on Saturday it resembled something out of a Hieronymus Bosch painting as all of London appeared to have developed a simultaneous compulsion to sample English Stilton and gawp at the lobsters on the fish counter. The queues for all the food outlets were huge at around 1pm, so we decided to try a little bit of Christmas shopping and return when they might have died down. A very difficult hour later we returned gasping and broken to the food hall, having managed only the purchase of a jar of hand wash for our own bathroom in all that time. I don't know how anyone else was doing it, but I could not get comfortable enough to be a consumer in the midst of such chaos. I resolved to buy all my Christmas gifts from the internet, and if I missed the physical abuse of high-street shopping too much I could always punch myself repeatedly in the face with my free hand.

To add insult to very real injury, The Brass Rail turned out to be overpriced and rather mediocre. The salt beef was a little on the dry side but reasonably tasty, and the rye bread was nice and fresh, but the bagels (they spell them the American way here) were dry and £4.50 for half a salt beef bagel is extortionate when you consider a whole one from Brick Lane is about £2.50. Pickles again were OK but 50p each.

Not wishing to take any more chances, we headed for Claridges for dessert. This may seem a little extravagant but given my state of mind at that point I don't think I could have coped with anything less - medicinal purposes, you understand. The £15 "Dessert Bento Box" was a plate of four exquisite little preparations including rice pudding, hazelnut ice cream with some sort of pastry, chocolate and raspberry cake and multicoloured macaroons. We sipped on drinks and melted into the leather armchairs in a quiet corner of the most luxurious hotel in London, and eventually the hidous memory of Oxford Street faded away.

topruss

The Brass Rail - The Salt Beef Bar 23rd June 2008

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Great but soo exspensive . for the best and cheapest try the bagels shop on brick lane

shelo9

expensive salt beef 17th June 2007

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I won't rave on about Selfridges and how wonderful it is, as most media publications do that on a weekly basis. However the food establishments in the best department store in the worldTM need to be reviewed as some are good and some are plain awful and they are based in a convenient location in central London.

The other day I tried out the Brass rail as I had a craving for a salt beef sandwich but didn't feel like trekking to Brick lane.

You can get salt beef put into four kinds of bread. I chose the “classic” rye bread with garlic. You are asked if you would like mustard (English or something else) and a gherkin to accompany it. The prices are really high considering what you get. For one piece of bread with salt beef inside you pay above £4. The bonus is that you do get a free glass of water when you pay for your meal, which was nice touch, as you don't seem to get offered tap water in London establishments without begging for it.

You can sit in the bistro area or next to the window looking out towards the beautiful people.

The sandwich was good, but the prices too high for what you received. Lovely location though.