Bonfire potatoes

Review: Embers, Brighton

Embers is a cooked-on-wood restaurant in the Brighton Lanes. Most fun is sitting up at the counter, so you can watch the chefs do their thing with the flickering orange flames, the coals and ashes. Sizzling fat etc. The menu is small plate style and they’re really doing their utmost to bring you maximum char …

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Trout

Review: Furna, Brighton

I wonder to what degree my enthusiasm for a menu is guided by the whole experience? There’s absolutely no doubt it has an effect: I don’t have professional tastebuds nor zen-like detachment, so how much I enjoyed the fish dish will be influenced by how much I’m enjoying the whole dining experience. But is the …

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Skewers

Review: Robata, Soho

Today we fancied an izakaya. There’s a good one called Flesh & Buns towards Covent Garden (review here) but we decided to try somewhere new and widen our options: Robata, named for the coal-fired grills used for cooking yakitori sticks. The sticks we chose were: lamb belly, Iberico pork, king oyster mushroom, sweetcorn. The lamb …

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Mead flight!

Review: Apiary, Brighton

Apiary is a smart little bar that looks out of place in the middle of Western Road – it ought to be in a much hipper corner of Brighton. But it’s worth seeking out. We stopped off for drinks on Saturday evening and then breakfast on Sunday, and if I superimpose the two then I …

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Cooking our oysters

Review: Ekstedt at the Yard, Whitehall

Ekstedt at the Yard is one of those restaurants that has gone all-in, put the gas and electric out to pasture, and claims to cook the entire menu on wood. This is why there is a mighty pizza oven just by the chef’s table, ensuring an extremely cosy evening no matter how many layers you …

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Review: Embers, BrightonReview: Furna, BrightonReview: Robata, SohoReview: Apiary, BrightonReview: Ekstedt at the Yard, Whitehall

Crappuccino

Categories:

General Articles

11 June 2013

Is this the worst cappuccino ever? Yes, I definitely ordered a cappuccino.
If you happen upon a cup of coffee perched, pretty much anywhere, unloved and slowly cooling there’s a reasonable chance it’s one of mine. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve bought a cappuccino from a coffee shop – chain or otherwise – and walked on about my business only to find that the first sip is so scorching and vile that I want nothing more than to go back and dump it on the head of the idiot that made it. Instead I leave it on a convenient flat surface. Sorry.

The last was at a motorway services on the M40 where I paid the princely sum of £2.70 for a lovingly made cappuccino. They had clearly taken the trouble of drawing the water fresh from a puddle in the car park, using coffee that had been weed on by cats and then drowning it in milk carefully heated to 250 degrees centigrade in a special pressure-sealed unit to guarantee the most scorched and rank taste imaginable.

And before you say “well, it was a motorway services, what do you expect?” can you please just go for a drive on the motorway in Europe. Anywhere in Europe. Any-bloody-where. And stop at a motorway services for a coffee. It will NOT taste like a tramp tried to drink it first and then spat it back in the cup. I guarantee.

And before you call me a coffee snob, I’m not. I know scarcely anything about coffee, I wouldn’t know a “god shot” if it danced before me in a neon tutu. I’m happy at home with my cafetiere and my bag of Cafe Direct. Heck, I’m perfectly happy with the cappuccino made down the road by the lad at Costa.

Fernandez and Wells can make a cup of coffee and then some.
Of course, when I happen to be in London and stop for a blissful coffee at Fernandez & Wells my eyes do go a funny colour and I get a smile on my face that doesn’t go away for an hour. But my point is: I don’t need that every day. If I need a coffee on my way to a meeting, I just want it to taste okay, thanks. Primarily I want to be able to taste some f*cking coffee in it and not have to worry about second-degree burns to my tongue.

Is that really too much to ask? Apparently so.

Why is it that wherever I go in Europe I can be served decent coffee by spotty kids, wobbly grannies and cheeful immigrants from strange corners of the globe? Do they have special coffee academies across Europe and a rigorous licensing scheme to ensure that nobody can sell you a cup without proper qualifications? Or do the majority of Brits actually like the taste of boiled milk with a hint of old dishwater and I’m in a quirky minority who prefer the stuff that the rest of Europe (and Australasia) gets?

Or is it, more likely, that the very British phrase of “well, at least it’s warm and wet” is being used all over the country, thousands of times every day by people who really ought to go back to the coffee vendor in question and say “this coffee is horrible, give me my money back”? Acceptance of the unacceptable disguised as British stoicism. Bah.

I must get in the habit of taking a few minutes out of my day to tell people when their coffee is unacceptable. Heck, if I sat down in a restaurant and was served the culinary equivalent of these crappuccinos – perhaps a sirloin steak that has been boiled for twenty minutes before being served with yesterday’s carrots and uncooked potatoes – it would be back to the kitchen before you could blink. If they want to (a) take another stab at making it, (b) give me my money back or (c) just say “sorry” and watch me go on my way, that’s entirely up to them. But if we all start doing the same, who knows, we might just end up with a cafe culture in this country, as opposed to a handful of great cafes floating in an ocean of scorched milk stained off-white by a mouse’s piss of dirty dishwater.

Honestly, it really shouldn't be so hard

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Review: Ko Gu Ryo, Staines

Categories:

Rest of UK, Restaurant Reviews

6 June 2013

Kimchi etc.
I have to confess, this is my first time eating Korean Food. But at least I’m confident that it is about as authentic as I’ll find outside of a visit to Korea. The only other customers at Ko Gu Ryo in Staines were Korean, and while we considered our menus a steady stream of twenty or more businessmen came in and disappeared into the back of the restaurant, where they must clearly keep a Tardis as we scarcely heard a peep from them all evening.

The restaurant is small and simply furnished. Service could not be friendlier; it’s a family affair, and the owners emanate all the warm hospitality I remember from travels in Asia. The lady of the house helped us put together a menu, the master of the house plied my brother with ginseng wine in celebration of his birthday.

Black bean noodles prepared in a shiny bowl
So, we began with a few starters. Kimchi is a national staple of Korea, and I really must start making my own: fermented cabbage with a chilli paste, delicious. Caramelised soy beans were good nibbles. There was a very handsome plate of delicious gyoza-style dumplings, a plate of enormous tempura prawns in lightly crisp batter, and a dish of glass noodles with beef that was good but seemed an odd starter. Customary, perhaps? The best starter was a “seafood pancake”, in fact more like a deliciously crunchy seafood rosti chopped into bite-sized pieces.

The table barbecue seems to be another staple of Korean dining, at least in the UK. The mixed lamb was very good, while the thinly sliced beef was tasty enough but such relentless cooking was bound to leave it a bit leathery. Two heavy, sizzling stoneware bowls came with a mixture of seafood, rice and vegetables. All good. The finale was deep-fried pieces of chicken in a crunch batter with a deliciously caramely sweet/sharp sauce pepped up with pepper, garlic and chilli. Wicked pleasure.

KFC, Korean style?
We drank Korean rice wine with our meal, an unexpected white concoction almost the consistency of smooth gazpacho, served in bowls and very delicious. Far too easy to drink, in fact. Good tea was also to be had, along with more typical wines and beers.

Next time I’m in Staines I can’t imagine picking anywhere else to eat. I’ll probably skip the barbecue and look at the more classic Korean dishes, as that’s surely where all the flavour is. I can’t help recommending a trip to Ko Gu Ryo if you happen to be in Staines too. There may be even more authentic Korean food in the streets of London, but there’s surely no more authentically friendly Korean welcome than here. The meal, drinks all in, was less than £30 per head and we left happily stuffed.

Time to open Google Translator...

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Pan-fried coley with egg mayo

Categories:

Lunch or supper, Recipes

31 May 2013

It doesnt take much to make mayo, mainly patience
It’s easy to drift away from fresh fish as a supper item if you’re feeling a bit budget-constrained. You can get an awful lot of bacon for the price of a sea bass fillet! But if you poke around your fishmonger’s counter a bit (not literally, your fishmonger will become grumpy if you touch his pollocks) you might spot some cheaper options. Cod cheeks and cod flaps are good, but even better is a much overlooked fish: coley.

My mum used to give our dogs coley in their dinner as a treat once a week. Not kidding, no more than a couple of decades ago coley was only sold as pet food. Reason? It has a very genuine fishy smell. Now, I know Jamie, Hugh, Rick and co will have taught you that pongy fish is gone-off fish, and in many cases they’re right. But there are a few fish out there who have what you might call natural body odour. Coley is one. Don’t be put off.

What it wants is some robust companions, then it is simply a lovely, moist, flaky, cheap (don’t forget cheap) piece of pan-fried fish. Red peppers, chillies and fresh mayo punched up with the makings of tartare sauce, for instance.

Fish supper

Pan-fried coley and mayo (serves two)

2 pieces coley fillet (200g each)
1 red pepper
1 fresh red chilli
2 eggs*
150 ml light olive oil*
1/2 tsp salt*
black pepper
1 tsp mustard powder*
2 tsp cider vinegar*
1 garlic clove, minced fine
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp capers
2 cornichons
1 handful parsley leaves
* – or 200ml mayonnaise from a jar!
  1. First we make mayonnaise. Or to save 15 minutes, scoop some out of a jar into a bowl and skip to step 4 (but add the minced garlic too)!
  2. Put the egg yolks in a clean bowl. Fry the whites in a drop of olive oil and reserve them. Add the mustard, garlic, salt and black pepper to the bowl. Now begin whisking the yolks and add the oil a drop at a time. Really, one drop at a time. I’ve curdled mayonnaise twice by rushing it, you will too. I usually find a way to sit with the bowl trapped between my legs so I can whisk with one hand and drip with the other.
  3. After a time, could be many drips, the mixture will thicken quite distinctly. Go with drips a little longer, but then you can add the rest of the oil in a steady dribble. Once the mayo has thickened, it won’t curdle. See? Wasn’t so bad. Add the cider vinegar too, which will loosen it up a bit.
  4. Now fry the egg whites, let them cool, then chop up the egg whites, capers, cornichons, parsley and mix them all into the mayonnaise with the lemon juice. Add a bit more lemon juice if necessary to get a consistency you like, and check seasoning.
  5. Slice the pepper and fry in a bit of olive oil, getting some nice blackening on the skin. Optionally: add a splash of red wine and sizzle it down to nothing, this will just improve the the peppers.
  6. Boil a couple of old potatoes and then roughly crush them with some butter, salt and black pepper – roughly crushed is much better with mayonnaise than a smooth mash. Alternatively, splash out on some Jersey Royals and just boil them.
  7. Get a pan really hot, then add a knob of butter and splash of olive oil. Put the coley in skin up for a couple of minutes, then turn it over and cook skin down until just done. Coley is usually a thick fillet, so you should be able to look at the side of the fillet to see that it has all gone opaque (white instead of pale grey)
  8. Put the fish on the potatoes, scatter pepper slices, scatter the very finely sliced chilli, then add a huge dollop of mayonnaise and enjoy!

Muchos gracias to Delia for the basic mayonnaise technique, and for her superb tip: if you are a hasty idiot and curdle your mayo by adding the oil too quick, don’t despair. Put a fresh egg yolk in a clean bowl and start dripping your curdled mixture into it, one drop at a time – if you are more patient this time, it will work out fine and you can carry on with the rest of the oil.

It's brilliant how so many foods, fish especially, are being rediscovered

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Avoid disappointment

Categories:

General Articles

27 May 2013

Restaurants do need to take care of the detail on their menus. You might shrug your shoulders and say “so what if we used the wrong term for a dish, or missed out a comma, that doesn’t actually affect the meal.” I would say, and this is a philosophy I apply to everything in life, that disappointed expectations are much worse than no expectations at all.

When I see that your sticky toffee pudding is offered with “custard ice cream or cream” I get a little excited at the thought of custard ice cream. When you point out that it is really “custard, ice cream or cream” then a tiny hope dies inside me. The sticky toffee pudding might be half-decent, but it’s no longer special (as an aside: banana ice cream, best ever partner to sticky toffee pudding).

Okay, call me monumentally naive but still...

When I see “duck liver parfait and onion parfait” on the menu my metaphorical ears prick up. A duo of parfaits indeed! And I wonder how they’ve made an onion parfait? When I get a piece of duck liver parfait and a dollop of sticky onion chutney, my grump is definitely on no matter how tasty the onions. I’ve had (better) duck liver parfait and sticky onion chutney a score of times, I wanted something different.

Well, I suppose at least 'anchovy lollipops' on the menu was accurate
If my dessert is described “with black pepper tuile” and you don’t have any, it’s worth telling me “we don’t have any black pepper tuile, is it okay with plain tuile?” before I order, rather than serving me the dish with the same plain tuile as my partner’s pud. Because now my heart has been crushed, and I’m left wishing I’d picked something else.

People choose from menus in different ways. Some decide that they want venison and that’s it. Others reject all the stuff they don’t like and finally pick the one safe-ish option. And some of us eye up the list for unexpected combinations or interesting accompaniments. The tuile may very well seem like a support act for the strawberry pannacotta, but it just so happens that the black pepper tuile was the most intriguing element on your whole dessert menu.

Hey, I know this is small beer. But it also doesn’t take much effort to get right.

Of course, these little crushing disappointments are far more likely when eating abroad, with all the tangles of translation. Pork chops with porcini mushrooms sounded pretty good to me, so I rejected the nice looking seafood and went for it. When I got a thin pork escalope wrapped around measly slices of button mushroom I just gave a resigned sigh and started chewing doggedly through. It certainly wasn’t worth an attempt at complaining. This was the Balkans after all, where our friends had found a cheese dish on a multi-lingual menu that was described as “cheddar” in the English section, “brie” in the French translation and “gorgonzola” on the Italian part. If I had asked where the “porcini” were they would no doubt have pointed out the mushrooms and smiled patiently at the crazy foreigner.

But anyway, language barriers aside, please read over your menu twice, and let people know beforehand if an element of their dish isn’t available. Ta.

Mmm... marrow

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Review: Gostilna Pri Lojzetu, Slovenia

Categories:

Fine dining, Overseas, Restaurant Reviews

18 May 2013

Chef Kavcic explaining the menu to his guests
Scene setting. We’re in Slovenia, a tiny country on the edge of the Balkans with Italy on one side and Austria on another. A long weekend is highly recommended, a week if you can spare it, and we’ve found at least one top-drawer restaurant for you.

A meal is an entire experience. So of course the incredibly friendly reception we had at Gostilna Pri Lojzetu was bound to help. From our cheerful Romanian waitress, our knowledgeable and enthusiastic sommelier, right through to Chef Kavcic’s wife who gave us a lift back to our hotel, I have to thank everyone for a memorable evening (and no, I didn’t give any hint that I was a food blogger).

But of course, it all counts for nothing if the food isn’t great. It was very good indeed.

Chef Tomaž Kavcic doesn’t make it easy for himself, finding out what each table is interested in and then tailoring a menu to suit them. That takes confidence, hospitality and a great deal of enthusiasm for your work. No menu appeared at any table, the staff explained everything as we went along, and chef was in and out of the dining room a lot.

Dentex in seawater, on the inside of a wine glass
There is a terrace for sunny lunches, but the main restaurant is a cosy and evocative wine cellar, with that unique wine cellar hum in the air. It’s a romantic setting, a room you’re most likely to be sharing with Italians as Pri Lojzetu is set in the countryside an hour from Ljubljana but only twenty minutes from the Italian border.

We began with a great deal of fun. Neatly set on the inside of an upturned wine glass was a cube of firm dentex (a local fish) set in a clear seawater jelly with garnish. This was a blinding good mouthful. We also enjoyed a little flowerpot of super-savoury beef ragu with a disc of baked pastry and clay on top, the literally earthy flavour going very well with the meat. Oh, and this came with a carnation. The carnation was filled with a zingy jot of herbal brew, a tiny hit that set up the beef nicely.

Beautiful bit of sea bass, and the salt
Our first proper dish was actually the only slight duffer of the night, some very good raw tuna and seabass with a slight muddle of local cheeses, orange dressing and tepid basil foam. Three raw shrimps had a gooey texture that coated the mouth like the morning after. I admit I was nervous at this point: copying fads without the execution?

So I was inexpressibly glad to find perfection in the next dish. Citrus cured beef, somewhere between a carpaccio and a braesola, on top of smooth local cheese mousse and a puddle of soothing pea puree, alongside a warm cube of the most excellent slow-cooked smoky pancetta on a salad of fennel and courgette.

And then I loved our next dish. A perfect scallop, coral and all, served in a sumptuous potato puree with fresh local asparagus. Seasoned to perfection (with seaweed salt? Not sure…), it was the most original use of scallops I’ve enjoyed in ages. This was followed by sea bass baked on a salt “stone”, a technique that was dramatic and also made for the best single piece of sea bass I’ve ever tasted, served with a sun-kissed citrus sauce.

A very odd thing happened after the gnocchi, delicious in a smoky cheese and wild asparagus sauce but rather too big for a tasting menu. We left some, to save room for the main as we told our waitress. Oh no, she explained, if you’re full we’ll stop here. In other words: dishes keep coming until you’ve had enough. It’s an admirable sentiment, but a bit left-field for such a fine tasting menu! We didn’t want to miss out so we tucked the gnocchi away with some difficulty and were rewarded with a modest portion of the foie gras with shredded apple and warm cheese underneath. Beautiful and surprising again.

Dry ice works particularly well in the dark and cosy wine cellar
Dry ice made its appearance alongside the dessert of citrus cream and gin jelly – this time beneath a branch of white blossom and filling the room with the herby scent of juniper when chef poured hot water from a sturdy watering can over it. Well, why not?

Eventually we paid about 70 Euros each for the menu, which is excellent value for such an entertaining and delicious tasting menu served with great enthusiasm and hospitality. The Slovenian wines we had paired with each course were memorably excellent, especially the local fizz that had me fooled into thinking I was swigging some rather good champagne. It’s only unfortunate that local production is probably too small to make exporting sensible. Boo.

At just 10 stone, I myself cannot condone a menu that rewards appetite with more dishes

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