JB’s American Diner on the Brighton Seafront

Just a few blocks down from the Brighton Pier is a hole in the wall restaurant that is easy to miss unless you’re looking for it. JB’s American Diner is only marked by a flat sign on the building, although you may see more people sitting out front if you stroll by on a sunny day – they have room for seating outside!

JB's American Diner, Brighton

Jon and I checked out the place a few weeks ago with some friends for a leisurely Sunday lunch.

Being American myself, I was ecstatic (no exaggerating) just to find a place with some of the admittedly not-so-healthy foods from my homeland. My new guilty pleasure restaurant!

The menu is chock full of the expected American fare: huge burgers and hotdogs, giant portions of fries and onion rings, and yummy milkshakes harking back to the soda counter days of 1950s America.

As you can see, the walls and ceilings are covered with posters of the glamorous old stars – Audrey Hepburn, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe. There are also some…uh…quirky choices in there, like a giant stuffed caterpillar hanging from the wall, and a version of “The Last Supper” starring Batman (of course).

Either way, it adds to the ambiance, and I felt just like I was in an American diner back at home. We ordered a Mexican Burger (filled with jalapeños, guacamole, and salsa), a foot-long chilli hotdog and a side of onion rings, which turned out to be giant. I couldn’t really stomach that much, unfortunately, but it was all the better for Jon and his gaping maw! To keep things as unhealthy as possible, we washed it all down with an Oreo milkshake. As you can imagine, we were stuffed full for the rest of the day!

All in all an enjoyable experience. The food is exactly what you’d expect – huge, well-priced, and full of greasy flavor! Recommended!

The Brighton Food Festival – awesome weather, better food

On Friday we took advantage of the fantastic weather and decided to take a wander down to the Brighton Food Festival in Jubilee Street. The Festival runs for a few days in April and again in September, and according to their website is the largest event of its kind in the South East. By all accounts this event was something of a record-breaker, with about 60,000 people attending over the two days (although I imagine most on the Friday as the weather was unadulterated in its glory).

Big Sussex Market attracts 57,000 foodies to the heart of #Brighton via @brightonargus theargus.co.uk/news/9638052.5…

—
Brighton Food Fest (@brightonfood) April 08, 2012

The first thing that struck us was the sheer number of people. Wall-to-wall humans all down the length of Jubilee Street. We’ve attended many festivals and street events in our time living in / around Brighton but this was by far the most popular.

We started at the southern end of Jubilee Street and picked our way through the crowds and stalls of fantastic Sussex merchants. Our first stop was the truly excellent Burning Desire Foods, who produce a range of hot sauces all made in Brighton. These proved to be a real revelation for someone who has previously existed on Tabasco. The depth of flavour in their sauces is amazing, and offers a real full-bodied burn – think of it as something like a heat massage where Tabasco offers a spicy slap in the face.

Having purchased two bottles (one for home and one for a birthday present) we moved on. Walking the stalls I was really pleased to see plenty of local institutions taking part in the festival. Moshi Moshi was there, as was Sams, and our favourite local cheesery La Cave à Fromage. Small Batch were doing a roaring trade – albeit cheating somewhat as their cafe is located slap-bang in the middle of where the Festival was being held!

For lunch we enjoyed a quite marvellous burger from Garlic Wood Farm, and driven on by our meat-high purchased three gigantic packets of sausages from Rushfields Farm Shop (somewhat embarrassed to admit we’ve polished off one entire packet already).

I was pleased to find Indian food represented in the form of a pop-up curry house and stall from Manjira, from whom we purchased some Garlic Pesto.

To our incredible disappointment we spent so long perusing the stalls we missed all the food demonstrations happening in the Corn Exchange, but our sadness was tempered somewhat by the huge haul of delicious food we had to carry home.