Written by Peter Brooker in Food & Drink on the 1st June 2015

The queue to get into the Dalston Street Feast was not only long and unexpected, but inert and anarchic. The sound of laughter from the other side of the fence was dinned by the smell of grilled cheese chiming to my empty stomach like an Indian hypnotizing a Cobra with a flute. Once in, I was up for breaking records. I was so ravenous I would have eaten panda burgers and koala burgers, even if it was the last of its kind in the animal kingdom, I would have put it in a bun, doused it in chilli sauce and made it extinct.

The Dalston Street Feast has set up its stalls for an epic 22-week long spring and summer season, and is home to a roll call of over 50 of London’s best street food heroes. There's plenty of booze stops between food stalls to help you get your buzz on too.

I got a couple of pints from the Kamm Shed and got into it with a guy after I nudged a few fingers of beer he was carrying whilst weaving through the crowd. Here's a word to all ass-wipes who act like Begbie when someone bumps a hit of beer from there glass accidentally. “It’s just beer, it’s you walking into me, and when we're huddled in like Emperor Penguins, accidents will happen. And why not just take a couple of hits from your drink so you're not trying to get an exact 568 millilitres of beer from the bar to your table. Thank you.”

Back to the food. If you're looking for tips then I recommend the Viper Wings from the Orange Buffalo tent. It's hot, filling, and you feel like a Viking ripping through the meat with the juices dripping through your beard. The Yum Bun is worth the wait with a variety of Taiwanese fillings including succulent roast duck with hoisin and roast ginger, chilli and garlic tofu and fragrant shrimp with lime and coriander. The servings are small so if you're on a date, don't share, you'll only end up resenting each other for not feeling satiated after. One to miss is the Bleeckers St Burger. Queued for 30 minutes and got a distinctly average burger. The sweet potato fries were fair-to-middling and overall it’s like the last Indiana Jones movie; you wanted to like it, you waited long enough for it, but it just turned out sloppy. 

Other venues now open are the Model Market in Lewisham, with Hawker House in East London and Shoreditch Yard in the works.

We attend the hip foodie destination to give our review on What's Hot at the Dalston Street Feast 2015.