Review: Tendido Cero, Chelsea

Croquetas

Croquetas

This is the “more informal tapas bar” to the high-end Spanish restaurant Cambio de Tercio over the road. But the apple doesn’t fall far etc, and we still have fine white linen and tapas that have been cooked and presented with the soul of a fine dining chef. Not that I’m complaining about comfy chairs instead of hard-bottom stools and people coming to top up your water for you.

Their tortilla is top notch, gooey on the inside but just firm enough not to be silly, perfectly seasoned too. Their “famous” jamon croquetas have a silky cheese interior and very delicate shells, not at all oily, but for me I’d just love more generosity with the ham. We also have some very friendly chunks of morcilla de burgos, topped with halves quail eggs and sitting on a spicy tomato paste. Jolly good. Finally along the trad lines, we have deep fried strips of calamari and aioli. Again, a very delicately crispy batter and squid that is still a perfect al dente and not at all chewy, very good with a squeeze of lemon.

Parsnips

Parsnips

My favourite two dishes are the more elaborate concoctions. We have roast parsnips with an aubergine puree and nut pesto. No charring on these parsnips, they are soft and golden with a sweet flavour, complemented by the smoky-sweetness of the aubergine puree and pepped up by the roasted nuts and bright green basil. This is a really splendid veg dish and very generous. Finally, we have a beautiful pluma iberica, very pink in the middle and blackened around the edges with a dark and sticky glaze. The roast pineapple chunks served with it are a perfect juicy sweet-sour accompaniment to basically some of the best pork you could ever hope to chew.

So for tapas it probably was £35 each before drinks, but it was very good tapas in convivial surrounds. The wines by the glass average around the £10 mark, so don’t be expecting a cheap glass with your meal. For myself, I actually prefer the places like Jose and Barrafina that seem to cleave more closely to the relaxed tapas culture that inspired them (not necessarily much cheaper, mind you), but if you want to feel more spiffy then Tendido Cero won’t disappoint.

Pluma Iberica

Pluma Iberica

Review: Speedboat Bar, Soho

Suckling pig

Suckling pig

To be honest, this Speedboat Bar review could be a copy-and-paste of Plaza Khao Gaeng, which is by the same folks. And that’s no bad thing, I’d love a branch of their kind of punchy, authentic, in-your-face Thai cooking down the road from me! I’d love one in every town I visit. Of course, I should probably just up and move to Thailand. But until then I’ve got Plaza Khao Gaeng and Speedboat Bar to keep me happy.

As the name implies, they’ve gone proper kitsch with the decor. It’s all unashamedly Thai gold-and-pink meets sports bar neon and team shirts. The menu isn’t a copy of Plaza, so we enjoyed a bunch of new dishes we don’t see there.

Black pepper sea bass

Black pepper sea bass

First thing we get is chicken skins with zaep seasoning. These are crispy little chunks of scrunchy goodness with a really kick-ass spicy and citric seasoning on ’em. Loveable bar snacks. Then we have black pepper stone bass. The dark inky colour of the sticky glaze-sauce gives a clue as to just how much black pepper has been packed into this and it’s a lot. The fish is sturdy and carries the hefty punch of chilli and peppercorns well. Alongside this we pick a salad of mustard greens and Chinese sausage, with a fierce dressing of citrus, chilli and peanut. I just love the weird sweet-fake-pork taste of preserved Chinese sausage. Our final dish is a Chinese New Year special (because it’s Chinese New Year this week, duh), some beautifully cubed roast suckling pig belly with golden squares of the scrunchiest crackling on top. It’s dreamy meat, very simple but perfect, just so show how seriously good their cooking chops are here.

I’d say you’d put together a feast here for £25-30 each, before drinks. The drinks are great fun, as you’d expect, though this time we were staying sober and went with their excellent Thai iced tea.

Speedboat Bar

Speedboat Bar

Review: The Flint House, Brighton

Courgette salad

Courgette salad

Ah, Brighton’s Lanes! There’s the North Laine, north of the main street, and the Lanes, between the main street and the seafront. Both of them full-to-the-brim with independent eating and shopping, much of it quirky and left-field, many of them doomed to fail within a year or two, to be replaced by a fresh bunch of folk with brave new ideas. That’s half the fun: if you only visit once a year, you’ll always find a slew of new things to look at that weren’t there before.

The Flint House is fairly new, but it’s by Ben McKellar who has been building the little Gingerman group of restaurants for maybe twenty years now. Flint House is in the heart of the Laines, and it’s a small plate place, with the by-now-familiar influence of Asian ideas and ingredients all over the modern British menu. It’s all bloody good stuff, though.

Ox cheek

Ox cheek

First up, some snacks. Pickled shiitake in a big ball of crisp tempura batter is obviously just filthy goodness, but they’ve got great fry-technique here and there’s nothing oily, the taste is clean, hot from the fryer. The sweetcorn fritters are if anything even better, the batter this time a deep nutty brown with the taste to match, good jalapeno mayo to dip in. But then the smoked anchovies on toast come along and blast these great snacks into last week! Smoked, the anchovies are less fierce than usual but packed with flavour. The green sauce is kinda salsa-verde-ish. The toast is focaccia, lovely springy-crumbly texture and so very good.

Smoky char-grilled mackerel, the skin all crisp and black, does very nicely with a dollop of smooth dark brown spicy pear puree and a bit of celeriac remoulade. We also have a salad of raw courgette ribbons dressed with pine nut, mint, feta and aleppo chillies, a really punchy combination on the cool background of courgette. The block of everso-slow-cooked ox cheek in panko is just about the best thing ever, the meat just so soft and immensely beefy in flavour. It’s on a lake of shiny miso emulsion with a chilli heat that is absolutely packed with sharp umami flavour.

We’ve got no room for pud. This blast of full-flavoured small plates with plenty of punch, sweetness, bitter notes and umami is more than enough. Maybe £35 each before drinks? There’s a good drink list here, full of interesting stuff. Flint House has immediately become one of our go-to places for when we’re next down in Brighton.

Smoked anchovy on toast

Smoked anchovy on toast

Review: Tatale, Southwark

Hummus and plantain

Hummus and plantain

I fondly remember having a meal in the Africa Centre maybe twenty years ago, when it was in a completely different location. It was the first time I tried chicken gizzards (and decided they weren’t very interesting) and there were mice running around on the floor, which deeply concerned some of the diners.

The little Tatale restaurant in the new Africa Centre near Southwark couldn’t be more different. It’s an informal dining room in the atrium of the centre, stone and clay colours and textures. The staff are friendly and helpful. The menu is five fixed courses with an option on dessert and two choices of main.

Peanut and rice

Peanut and rice

First up is a really excellent black bean hummus, warmed with chilli and red palm oil, served with beautifully crisp little plantain chips that are insanely moreish. This is followed by little ackee croquettes. Ackee is a really hard fruit to describe, having a texture when cooked a bit like very firm scrambled egg and a slightly sour-fruity flavour that doesn’t really equate to anything else. Anyway, the croquette is beautifully soft and delicious, sharpened up with scotch bonnet mayo and lemon.

Next is a peanut soup called “Nkatekwnan” with a dumpling of sticky mashed rice coated in sesame seeds in the middle. The soup is warm, earthy, nutty and works very well with a little rice added to the spoon. What I’m really enjoying here is lots of flavours I’m unfamiliar with, but all cooked with skill and balance.

Delicious stew

Delicious stew

We try both mains: the black-eyed bean stew with fermented locust bean and various other good things in it, and the buttermilk fried chicken wings. The stew is full of flavour but, again, I’m really struggling to describe it with familiar equivalents. Hearty, but also tangy and full-flavoured. The whole plantain in the middle is sturdy and barely sweet, a really good eat. The chicken wings are in gorgeously crisp and crunchy batter, not oily at all, and pepped-up with some African chilli peppers in the mix. Nothing refined here, just very tasty. The same is true of the yellow rice that accompanies, a bit buttery and mixed up with sticky little sultanas and lots of crispy fried shallots, it’s just heavenly rice.

We try sharing a cheesecake for pud, a soft and creamy bowl with diced fresh apple and dill creating a really nifty flavour in there. But we’re struggling… hummus, plantain, ackee, panko, rice, peanut, beans, plantain, batter, rice… this is a feast of starches and you will waddle out of here.

For £35 this is a splendid meal and I’m keen to go back. The drink list is small, but they do a good burnt orange negroni and there’s Supermalt on the menu so you can’t go wrong.

Chicken and rice

Chicken and rice

Peppercorn sauce

Just in case you’re making a steak…

1 big shallot, fine diced
3 tsp black peppercorns, 2 tsp pink peppercorns
20g butter
big pinch salt
2-3 tbsp brandy
200ml beef stock
2 tsp mushroom ketchup or worcester sauce
100ml double cream

Dry-toast the black peppercorns, then crush 2 tsp of them. Melt butter and fry the shallot and all the peppercorns for 5 mins or so until the shallot is soft. Add brandy and cook until the brandy has basically all boiled off. Then add stock and seasoning, bubble for 5 mins or so until you’ve reduced by about half. You can stop here until you’re nearly ready to serve, then while your steak is resting after cooking just stir in the cream and heat up for 2-3 minutes.