A new-ish Jew-ish deli

I went to Katz's deli in New York many moons ago. My trusty guidebook informed me the sandwiches featured in 'that moment' in the film When Harry Met Sally, a film I hadn't seen. Tucking into the thick stuffed pastrami sandwich, it didn't take long to figure out what 'that moment' entailed. Pastrami wasn't something I'd given much thought to before that moment, but after that I've been looking for preserved meat hits to satisfy my cravings.

Mishkins, the newish opening in Covent Garden from Russell Norman of Sputino/Polpo etc fame, really hit the mark with it's pastrami. Wow. It describes itself as a "kind of Jewish deli" and the décor is believable, and the vibe isn't as scene-y and showy as its Soho stable mates. The menu is classic Jewish comfort food - combined with sour gin cocktails, perfect for the drab weather we've been having.

I'd been snacking heavily at work (poor form) so we had to do comfort food-lite. We kicked off by sharing a plate of latkes (grated potato pancake), smoked trout, thinly sliced tangy beetroot and fiery horseradish cream. An absolutely perfect combination of flavours - what more can you say? The beetroot was a great texture, slightly chewy and I can't get enough of smoked trout.



For mains we both shared the Reuben sandwich and mac'n'cheese. Mac'n'cheese is one of those dishes I'm generally not inclined to eat out; it's a dish I can do quite well myself and there's something silly about paying £9 for pasta and white sauce. But it was worth it - totally buttery, not too cheesy (no heaps of dyed orange mild cheddar) but rich, and a lovely crispy, crumbly topping. We were circling our fingers round the skillet soaking up every last bit of juice.



And the Reuben, it was really excellent. Juicy juicy pastrami (my dining partner texted a week later saying she was still thinking about it), thickly sliced and generously stuffed between two pieces of lightly toasted rye bread, topped with swiss chesse and a layer of sauerkraut-y Russian dressing. Again, the flavours worked perfectly together.

The cocktails were great - short and strong. Mine, a Negroni, lovely and bitter with all the Campari. Our dessert, a warm cookie and ice cream was unremarkable, but nice.



Overall, it's a thumbs up from me. I'll be back, mostly to eat endless Reuben sandwiches, and to explore more of their menu (Hello lamb and pistachio meatballs!). And more gin cocktails.

Burgers: down south

The search for London's best burger continued, and took me to the South. To Brixton, where a Victorian arcade has seen a new lease of life after years of decline. A community management company has started looking after the arcade, and leasing out the dinky units to small, independenty food outlets.

Over the last year or so, a number of them have had the Jay Rayner treatment – a glowing review from their locally residing national restaurant critic at large. Walking around the arcade on a chilly winter Friday evening, it was clear that his is the golden touch. Kaosan thai restaurant, and Honest Burger, where we were headed, both reviewed by Jay, were completely packed, with clusters of young urbanites gathered outside, waiting for a table to come up. Many of the other restaurants were empty or had just a few diners - but this may rectified now that Jay has done his greatest hits!

The early bird catches the worm, and my friend turning up at 6.20 was enough to bag us a table at Honest Burger. We kept our coats on and didn't drink too much to allow for the lack of heating and toilets. The menu was simple and limited – a couple of regular burger combinations, a special, and a small selection of sides. We both opted for the special – that week, a burger with chorizo and manchego and a spicy salsa of chili, garlic and parsley. They came with a side of rosemary salt hand cut fries, and we ordered a red cabbage and apple slaw to accompany.

The burgers were small, but perfectly formed. They came in a fantastic brioche bun, a good, thick slab of top quality manchego and a thick piece of meaty, smoky chorizo. The patty itself was small compared to the likes of Lucky Chip and MeatLiquor, and not as greasy – a good or bad thing depending on your perspective. It tasted more wholesome, and the references on the walls were about the sourcing of the beef. Quality and er...honesty dominate.  

I think I was most impressed by the fries – the rosemary worked brilliantly, and you could tell that the potatoes were good'uns. The slaw was tasty, but again, more on the wholesome side than the badass greasy diner side. So it's a question of what you want fom yout burger. If you're looking for an honest, wholesome, fancy burger, this is as good as it gets. If you are after the greasy American experience, you're better off with Lucky Chip, Meat Liquor and possibly Byron.

****

While we're on the subject of burgers, I've blogged about Meat Liquor before, but went again with a big group of friends recently. We went off peak, knowing that a table for ten in such a popular eaterie could be hard to come by. We didn't have to wait long for a table, and were well accommodated, and went all out on sides and starters.

The chili cheese fries were beyond amazing, in their entirety, although the regular fries we had as a side didn't compare with those from Honest Burger. The slaw was closer to my ideal – creamier and fattier, and deep fried pickles were a revelation – I even managed to eat blue cheese in the form of the dip that came with them.

I need to square the circle again and visit Lucky Chip before too long. Burgers or bust.

Finger lickin' happiness

I always find it strange when people who know me quite well assume I'm a vegetarian. I mean, I do live close to Stoke Newington, and I am very nice. But have you never heard me rave about meat? I was eating ribs for the second time this week, this time at my desk in the office, and a colleague suggested I might not be keen on them. Obviously they didn't hear me gushing about my trip to Pitt Cue Co on Monday. It was so good that I am going to rave about it here again, and there it is, immortalised on the interwebs.

Pitt Cue Co is the latest in a series of street food type outlets that have been so successful on the streets that they have made it onto permanent premises. MeatLiquor, of course, recently opened in the West End after building up a dedicated following in SE London and elsewhere. Lucky Chip, my personal favourite burger joint, is straddling the gap with a residency in the newly rejuvenated Sebright Arms. And now Pitt Cue Co has opened a dinky little place in a Soho backwater. As with all the best hyped places, demand massively outstrips supply and so getting there early and queueing is absolutely necessary.

We arrived at 6.30 on a Monday and waited about 45 minutes for a table (we could have had a stool after 25). But happily, we were in the cosy bar at ground level and cocktails and craft beers were on the menu. I opted for a delicious New York Sours, expertly mixed. Downstairs there can't be more than 20 seats, all intimately arranged, but enough room to get those elbows out and pick up some sticky ribs.

The menu is simple - there are St Louis ribs, beef ribs, pulled pork and a couple of daily specials. You can have them on a plate with pickles, chipotle slaw, and a side. Or you can have your meat in a roll. And there are other sides, such as spicy chicken wings, or duck hearts with pomegranate. I opted for the St Louis ribs with a side of mash with burnt ends - my dining parnter had a pulled pork roll, and we shared a side of the spicy chicken wings with pickled celery.

My main was just delicious - the ribs were lightly smoky from their long, slow, pitt-smoked cook, and came in a sticky, smoky sauce. The meat was unbelievably tender, and just a little pungent, as ribs should be. The chipotle in the slaw was subtle, but the mash was king of the sides, so so buttery and the burnt ends (the fatty, crispy ends of a smoked brisket) were so so sweet, salty and sticky. Just wonderful.





The wings too were nice - also slightly smoky (hey, they're not cooked on a smoke pit for nothing!) and in a warm, tomato sauce. The pickled celery went well with it.



So you might be thinking we'd be full by this point? I mean, we really ought to be. But you don't wait 45 minutes for a table just for one course. There were two desserts on that day - a snickers mess, and bourbon soaked sticky toffee pudding, with salted caramel sauce and amaretto ice cream. Of course we went for one of each.

The snickers mess was just the ultimate in excess. At the bottom a gooey chocolatey peanut meringue, then with lots of chocolate sauce, cream, caramel sauce, peanut brittle, ice cream. The combined effect was utter artery clogging pleasure. The sticky toffee pudding, more conventional, was equally delicious. The bourbon soaking gave the sponge a nice aromatic richness, perfectly complemented by the salted caramel sauce and the dreamy amaretto ice cream. I'd tell my vegetarian friends to queue up just for desserts. That good.



So Pitt Cue is truly the best meal I've had in 2012 so far. Oh, and did I mention it was about £26 per person all in, with all that food and a cocktail each? I'll be going back for sure. And I recommend you get there early with an empty stomach to make the most of it.

A little slice of Moro

In general trend terms, I reckon I'm about 8 – 12 months behind the zeitgeist chasers, and probably an equal timescale ahead of the average joe. I didn't make it to #meateasy until its closing week, I still haven't been to Polpo or Hawksmoor. I loved the sound of Morito, but it had been glowingly reviewed in Metro, Time Out and the Guardian and the prospect of a 2 hour wait didn't quite appeal.

Now, Morito, as its diminutive name suggests is the little sibling of Moro - the Exmouth Market classic that has been bringing us the most delicious Spanish/North African/Middle Eastern inspired food for many years. I went there a few years ago and still salivate at the thought of that meal. But, unlike big sis, you can only walk-in in the evenings to Morito - no reservations or nuffin.

So I waited about a year and finally got to go to Morito a few weeks back with some chums from work. Chums who appreciate damn good food and sherry. Waiting a year has the benefits of not having to wait 2 hours for a table on the night - we waltzed in at 7 and took a neat table for four.

We kicked off with a glass of fino each - I had a crisp Manzanilla, reminiscing about my recent trip to Andalucia and tasting those salty sea breezes off it. Our first round consisted of jamon croquettes (so moist and flavoursome inside, perfectly crisp outside), a zingy chickpea salad, aubergine purée topped with dry aromatic lamb and pomegranate seeds (oh.my.god - this was amazing - one to recreate at home).

Next up we ordered a deep Portuguese red, accompanied by chickpea stew with chorizo and morcilla (tender and nicely pungent), cured cuttlefish roe (very delicate, fresh and tasting like a mouthful of sea), pimentos padron (nobody I know has ever been served a mega spicy one - is it urban legend?), and molten cheese with quince and walnuts (perfect combination - earthy walnuts, greasy and salty warm cheese and sweet and tangy quince - I could have eaten this forever).

The atmosphere was buzzy, clientelle were quite Clerkenwell (thick rimmed glasses ahoy, but hey, who am I to talk), and the service efficient but warm, with no sense of us being hurried despite it being quite a busy night later on. 

So the wait paid off, but I'm already kicking myself for how many times I could have visited if I'd tried and loved early on. Numerous publications inform me that Peruvian food is so 2012, and that March will see two Peruvian joints opening in London. This time I'll be reporting from the frontline - no more missing out!

Small plates make me hungry

Continuing the theme of small plates (and I even did a tapas evening for friends on Saturday), I wanted to make note of the delicious meal I had at Opera Tavern, on the day I booked my trip to Spain. The Opera Tavern is the sister restaurant of the more well known Salt Yard, and they both specialise in tapas or small plates from Italy and Spain. Getting a table at a few day's notice was tricky - an online booking system makes it all the easier for everyone else to get in there, so we ended up with a very un-Mediteranean 6.15 start time.

The menu covers a range of cured meats, meat off the grill and fish, vegetable and meat based small plates. We staggered our order, savouring a small amount of flavours, musing and then ordering a couple more. First up was a chorizo and squid skewer topped with a tangy pomegranate seeds, cucumber and green tomato relish. The chorizo was clearly top notch and, chargrilled, went perfectly with the meaty squid. Very good.



This was followed by more squid, however, this time as battered rings with battered purslane too. It was my first purslane and a totally new taste, very salty and somewhere between seaweed and spinach.



After all that protein, we craved vegetables. A super green broad bean, tenderstem broccoli, gnocchi and pesto small plate was incredible. The pesto was particuarly fragrant and sweet, and every last spot was mopped up.



I'm a sucker for courgette flowers (and that's all my courgette plants were good for this summer - not the end of the world, seeing as they cost £3 a flower from Borough market) and particularly enjoyed Opera Tavern's, which left the flower attached to the baby courgette and was stuffed with a light, smooth goats cheese and drizzled in honey. Classic combination.



After a board of impeccable quality sliced chorizo, we climaxed on the Opera Tavern's most famous, and perhaps most unlikely dis - the Iberico pork and foie gras burger. It's a diminutive dish, but packed full of rich flavours, a velvety bite, and a perfectly formed little brioche bun. I ate it as slowly as I could, appreciating every last bite interceded by meat, bun, cheese and caramelised onions. Mmm.



We finished on a little plate of truffles, biscotti and a glass of dessert wine. Classy.

I'd definitely recommend Opera Tavern for the food, and it's possible to have a not-too-pricey meal there, although it's definitely in the 'treats' category. Atmosphere-wise, we were in the dining room on the 1st floor, and it was busy without being buzzy. The clientèle were clearly quite well off, but I didn't notice anyone as excited about the food as I was. Maybe that's what it is to be classy, eh?

Even the pizzas are posh

You only have to flick through the piles of take away menus that come through your front door on a weekly basis to see that tastes are more and more sophisticated, even when it comes to the traditional junk food fest territory of the Friday night take away. The game has been upped and you can now even choose which Italian region you want your pizza from, some Indian take-away menus don't even feature chicken tikka masala and you can get dim sum delivered to your door. Of course, you still get menus with yellowing pictures of huge greasy pizzas topped with rubber cheese and rubber meat, but it's hard to see how those places will survive for much longer when you could have it so much better for the same price.

I've been in essay mode up until recently, spending long weekend days in the library, coming home tired and hungry with little energy to cook. This has meant lots of quiet, relaxed Saturday nights with a take away and a couple of episodes of Mad Men. Very young fogey, but a good excuse to try out some of north London's best pizzas!

Firezza is highly rated by an Italian born and raised friend and specialises in pizzas by the yard. Their bases are thick and rustic without being too doughy, but it's all about the toppings. Plentiful, plentiful top quality hams and salamis, huge basil leafs, sweet onions. Yum. The pizzas are actually huge and we weren't able to finish ours', as much as we wanted to, but they did for a very nice lunch the next day in the lirbary.



It's a small chain and there are a scattering of branches across London. Our nearest is by Highbury and Islington tube. There's a cheaper price (£8.50 a pizza) if you pick up, so I sent the boyf out on his bike to pick ours up.

Il Bacio is another small chain of Sardinian restaurants across a small stretch of north London: N16, N5 and N4, with lots of avid fans. The restaurants serve a range of Sarindian fare: fish and seafood dishes, pizzas and pastas, while Il Bacio Express on Stoke Newington Church Street focuses mainly on pizzas. The menu, being Sardinian, diverges from the pizzeria norms, with more sea food, olives, capers, fresh herbs and Sardinia specific hams.



The pizzas were delicious, especially for the topping combinations. The slight trade off for more interesting combinations compared to Firezza was that the topping didn't seem as good quality – the olives were quite plain and the meat wasn't as clearly top notch as that on the Firezza pizza.

Finally on the pizza front, not a take away, but I enjoyed the pizza at the Hideaway bar between Tufnell Park and Archway tube. It's a great little late spot, with a great selection of beers, wines and friendly bar staff who went out of their way to meet our cocktail demands (Mad Men themed!). Their pizzas are reputed to be some of the best 'outside Foreign' according to the Observer, so we were keen to try them.



I had a chorizo and almond pizza, which was a winning combination, Spanish inspired. The chorizo was really good quality, very meaty, the peppers sweet and the almonds gave it a good rounded taste. The base was thin but not too crispy, which was a nice experience if not hugely filling. Still very nice and a great place for a local low key evening if you're in the Tufnell Park/Archway/Dartmouth Park 'hood.

New job, new lunch

Just last week I started a new job at Shelter, so I've moved from the heady well-heeled heights of Muswell Hill to the bustling, urban, trend-setting pavements of the Old Street area. It couldn't be further removed from Muswell Hill's child-friendly cafes and tapas restaurants - Old Street is bang in the epicentre of London's work economy - with offices for massive global corporations, super trendy media agencies and charities all standing shoulder to shoulder with independent cafes, shops and thriving markets.

The Shelter building is right next to Whitecross Street Market, which has stalls serving lunch every weekday, and a full blown food market on Thursdays and Fridays. I was amazed by the scale of the market and the sheer number of workerbees of all walks of life queuing up at their favourite stalls for a tasty lunch to eat back at the desk.



Being a spendthrift Edinburger, I'm usually all about the packed lunch and try to avoid frittering away my money on cold, factory-made sandwiches. But with all this on my new doorstep, I have resolved to treat myself to lunch out once a week (if I'm being good). So last week I went to Luardo's burrito van, which I had read about in Time Out's article on London's best burritos. I joined the (very long) queue and waited patiently, like a good Brit, to place my order.



Back at my desk, I unwrapped the foil and sunk my teeth in. The pork was generously portioned and so tender it melted in my mouth. It was full of fresh coriander, piquante salsa, rich cheddar, rice, sour cream and luscious guacamole. It more than filled me up and had me wanting to try the other fillings, including the beef, which had sold out by the time I got to the truck.



With so many great stalls to visit, I'm going to make my mission to try all of Whitecross Street's offerings a regular feature.

Oh pizza pizza

I finally made it to Franco Manca, which has probably been London's most talked about pizzeria for the last couple of years. You can tell I'm a bit slow on the zeitgeist these days, but it doesn't help that the original branch was all the way down in Brixton and wasn't open evenings. A 'proper' restaurant opened late last year in Chiswick, way out west, and is thankfully open in the evenings for those of us who don't get to hang out eating pizzas on weekday afternoons.

The concept is simple. Super pizzas, made from carefully prepared sourdough, using tip-top carefully selected ingredients, cooked in a mega hot oven for about 90 seconds. The results are fantastic.



The dough is soft but not too chewy and a little crispy on the outside. The mozzarella is organic and from Somerset and has a lovely creamy, milky taste. Mine was topped simply with the tomato and mozzarella and fresh and dry chorizo and a couple of basil leaves. I couldn't have wanted anything more, it worked perfectly. The chorizo was top quality

With a small glass of very nice house wine and service it was just over £10, which is amazing considering the quality of the ingredients and just how utterly delicious it is.

Instead of desserting at Franco Manca, we popped round the corner to the original Chiswick Italian: Foubert's, for their tasty authentic ice cream. Don't bother with anything else there apparently, but the ice cream is amazing.



Mine was choc chip and amaretto, Celia had lemon and hazelnut (sentimental reasons, don't ask) and I hadn't had such good ice cream since I was cooling off by the Adriatic in July. I can still taste the proper chocolate-ness of the choc chips. Mmm.

So all in, Chiswick ain't a bad place for pizza and ice cream, as long as you manage to avoid the swarms of meeja types hanging around High Road House, the West outpost of Soho House and Shoreditch House.

A barbecue for the British summer

My friend Celia and I are on a joint culinary mission. I'm not sure quite what our aim is, but it involves regular dinner dates in central London trying new and interesting restaurants and finding out about cuisines previously unbeknown to us. This week we checked out Koba, a slick and shiny Korean restaurant in Ftizrovia (or, aspirationally, NoHo), my old stomping ground from when I was studying at nearby UCL.

Celia had acquainted herself with the Bibimbap style of Korean food when she stayed in New York, but I was a total newcomer to the cuisine. Koba serves a range of Korean food, including rice and noodle dishes; its speciality, though, is barbecue. Every table has a gas fired hot plate in its centre, and after we had a tasty miso soup, they fired our grill up.



You could order individual selections of meat (including strips of ox tongue!), fish and vegetables to cook on the barbecue, and there are a range of assorted selections too. We opted for the Koba special selection, which included thin strips of pork belly, baby octopus, prawns, beef, marinaded sweet and spicy chicken, and a spare rib.



Sensing that we were novices (and that I have poor motor skills!), the waiters tended to the barbecue in between serving other tables and showed us how to prepare the food. So once a piece of meat or fish is ready, you take it off the grill, dip in some sesame oil, place it in the middle of a leaf, top it with some thin strips of pickled cucumber and then add some spicy bean/peanut satay-like sauce, before rolling the rest of the lettuce leaf around it and eating it like an interesting relative of the dolmades.



The combination was delicious - the smokiness of the meat, the sourness of the pickle, the earthiness of the peanut sauce and the crisp, greenness of the lettuce leaf. The ritual of preparing each item meant there was build up and anticipation and each mouthful stood out.

While it was delicious, novel and fun, it definitely was more of a 'treat' meal at £25 a head. But there were plenty of cheaper things on the menu. Interesting to note that age old benchmark of an authentic eatery - we were some of the only non-Koreans there, so it's a sure sign that Koba offers a taste of modern Korean cuisine if you fancy it!

Sizzling spice and all things nice

Even blogging about making curry was enough to make me hungry for Tayyabs, the Punjabi curry house in Whitechapel. So, with a friend down from Glasgow last weekend, we duly paid a visit.

Tayyabs is known for its sizzling slabs of spicy meat, its bargainous prices, its loud and buzzy atosphere and the fact that you are likely to have to queue for about an hour on a weekend evening for a table. We arrived at 7.30pm on a Sunday and were amazed to find the queue was only half its Friday/Saturday length - with only 30 minutes before we were sat at a table. The queue still snakes around the tables and you can watch the diners faces light up with ecstasy as spitting plates of meat and other chargrilled goodies waft past. Tables of students, families, older couples, city workers and multiple generations of Pakistani families are all united by the democratic pricing and prospect of amazing food.



We started with lamb chops and grilled paneer. The lamb chops were sizzling, spitting and giving off the most amazing smell. The meat was crispy and hot on the outside and beautifully tender inside. They brought out the animal in me as I picked them up and gnawed at them to get every last bit of meat off the bone. The paneer was for our vegetarian co-diner, but us meat-feasters shared a cube of it, which was also delicious.



The main courses followed in quick succession. Despite Tayyabs being a palace of meat, I opted to have the baby squash dish, Tinder Masala. The pieces of squash are tender and juicy and the sauce is powerfully spicy, fruity and rich and topped with delicious caremalised onions. Others had Lahori Chickar Chana, a chick pea curry, and Karahi Chicken. I obviously wangled myself a generous taster of each - all were amazing.



Almost the best bit, though, is the naan breads. We each had peshwari naan (rice, however well cooked, is a mere vessel) and boy are they something else. You can smell the butter on them from the other side of the restaurant and they are so soft, spongy, fruity. Wow. I could eat them for every meal, for every day of the rest of my life (which may be significantly shortened by their butter quotient!).

We ate until we could eat no more, and then some. And exited very happy into the warm sunset bathed streets of Whitechapel to take the newly opened East London Line back to Dalston. I have such a long list of restaurants that I want to try, which makes it hard to justify visits to the same places over and over again. But when the food and experience is as fantastic at Tayyabs, I'm prepared to make an exception.

Tayyabs is at:
83-89 Fieldgate Street
London
E1 1JU

Nearest tube is Aldgate East or Whitechapel.

Nostalgic: Dartmouth Park

Allow me to briefly to be nostalgic about my old 'hood.

Just before we left I noticed an interesting-looking pub open up in the spot of an unwelcoming old place on Highgate Road. On my late cycles home from the library after a day's studying I would catch glimpses happy bohemian types sipping ale, bare bulbs, exposed floors, chalk boards. Oh...to be finished my exams, I thought.

Well, in the brief window between finishing my exams and moving house, I made it to The Southampton Arms. It is a pretty special place - it doesn't have a telephone, you can't reserve tables, it only sells independent UK ales and ciders and pork pies, sausage rolls, scotch eggs, roast pork sandwiches. Nice.

When we rolled in they had already sold out of scotch eggs, so we had a round of pork and cider pie (served with piccalilli) and sausage rolls (served with a light tomato salsa), which were delicious. The pork pie was meaty and fruity, with pastry a million miles removed from those nasty jelly and fat pies you pick up from the supermarket. The sausage rolls also good.



Later on we ordered some pork rolls. Wow. The rolls were so soft and buttery, dusted with flour in a totally old school way. The pork was juice and was accompanied by delicious apple sauce. Though there was only one slice of meat in each roll (not representing the best value for money at £4.50), it was still very delicious.



So if you find yourself on the Parliament Hill side of the Heath on a lovely sunny day, it would be well worth your while to have a post-park snack and pint at the Southampton Arms. It is also much less smug and has much better drinks than the Bull and Last up the road.

Resettled: Newington Green

It's been a shamefully long time since I last posted, but with good reasons - I had exams for my Masters and then I moved house. And now I've done both, it's time to regain a sense of normality. This involves cooking for pleasure, eating out with friends, discovering all the delicious foodie finds in my new area (Newington Green).

The subtle differences between neighbourhoods is one of the things I find most fascinating about London; how a little shift (two miles at most) to the east and the character of the streets and their inhabitants and their cultural and culinary offerings change.

From my house in Dartmouth Park, you could walk 300 metres west and you would find well-heeled but low-key gastropubs fringing the heath. 400 metres west and you would find neighbourhood Italian, tapas, Ethiopian restaurants; bargainous, delicious little secrets. To the west the clientèle were older with more families, to the east young professionals and empty nesters nestled together.

From our flat in Newington Green, there is a more exciting patchwork of differences in direction. A plod north takes you first to a band of Turkish places; okacbasi houses which give out the most amazing smoky smells, to the East lies the multiculti melting pot of Dalston, with West African, Carribean, Turkish and cockney shops and stalls on the high street and in the amazing Ridley Road market. A venture South or West will take you to well-heeled Highbury or Islington, with boutiques, delis and abundant yumminess. So, very well served!

So the first few weeks have been an intensive discovery mission around the new area - the greengrocers, the bakeries, the butchers, the markets, the brunch spots, the take-aways. But there was no question about where our first take-away would be from: Mangal 1, the classic Dalston kebab joint.





Eager eaters were gathered outside, charcoal grill smells wafted out the door. We ordered our Adana kebabs, and each came with a separate salad container and bread. The results were amazing, mind-blowing; even when surrounded by piles of boxes and everything else in disarray. A tasty start to an exciting new chapter!

Soho smoke pit

To celebrate the return of a good friend from a year in New York we went to none other than Bodean's, the all-American 'BBQ smoke house' that popped up in Soho just over a year ago. It's part of a mini-chain with a few other restaurants in London's 'aspirational' neighbourhoods (y'know...Clapham, Fulham, etc.) and was set-up to bring 'the taste, the style, the soul of the beloved Kansas City barbecue to London town'. Or so the story goes.

You enter into a the diner/deli upstairs, which is for more informal (m)eating - TV screens around the room show football games, people eat off trays with their eyes glued to the screens. With a purposefully dull yellow light and the sound of match commentators, it did actually feel like a scene out of some American movie. So early points for authenticity! We got a table in the downstairs restaurant, which is arranged as intimate booths and has a similar all-American vibe to upstairs.

We started with a nacho platter - which had that liquid nacho cheese on it, along with salsa and (squeezy) sour cream, jalapenos and guacamole.



I think generally I prefer real cheese and real sour cream, but maybe this is more authentic of the American experience? I don't know.

For my main course I had Burnt Ends, which are the succulent, charred end pieces of joints of meat (usually brisket) which have been cooked over a smoke pit. They were very juicy, smoky and tender from the cooking process. Served with fries and coleslaw it was a tasty, greasy and satisfying treat. We also enjoyed copious amounts of Bodean's own BBQ sauce, which was very tasty.



For Soho and considering the 'experience' atmosphere of Bodean's, it was a good value meal. The service. The service was good too - even though few of the staff were American, they embraced an all-American attitude to service, which helped complete the experience, although one of the waiter's was a little over attentive and kept popping up to see if we were still enjoying our meal (we were)! I don't have any other smoke pit experiences to compare this to, but I would definitely recommend Bodean's as a good starting point for London-based smoke-seekers.

Middle East, made easy

A few weeks ago I went with friends to check out Le Comptoir Libanais, a new mini-chain of stylish little canteens serving Lebanese food. I think the first one popped up in Marylebone early last year and now there are branches in Bayswater, Swiss Cottage and Westfield. They've already received heaps of praise from the likes of Time Out, and it seems everyone else went to try it months and months before I did, but hey...!

We started with drinks - I had a zingy rosewater lemonade, which was sour, aromatic and refreshing all in one. The others had similarly zingy and flavoursome fruit drinks, such as pomegranate and orange blossom lemonade. Yum.



We shared a mixed mezze platter, which had everything you would expect. Fresh humus, smoky baba ganoush, citrussy tabbouleh, falafel, cheese samboussek, a rice salad and picked vegetables. It was all very nice, but not radically different or superior to mezze platters you would find at other Lebanese restaurants in the neighbourhood.



Next up we had wraps - I had half a chicken taouk wrap and half a haloumi and olive wrap. The flatbread itself was nice, wholesome tasting. Maybe I'm a bit more used to greasy street food, but I felt the wraps could have benefited from smatterings of the magic triad of salad, tomato sauce and garlic yoghurt sauce. In sensible quantities I hasten to add! This would have presented the wraps from being a bit dry.



Overall, it was a pleasant experience - nicely decorated, friendly service, the food was nice and the bill was very reasonable. But I've had tastier Lebanese food elsewhere in London. The Independent's review likened it to a Middle Eastern Carluccio's - I wouldn't go quite that far, but it did seem to be Middle-East made easy - for people who might not have considered venturing into a 'proper' Lebanese eatery. This is no bad thing really - anything opens up people's palates to the joys of Middle Eastern cooking is a good thing. But don't go to Le Comptoir Libanais expecting much more than an introduction.

Russian through London

So it's confirmed; we're moving a bit east to Newington Green in May. My friends who live in NW postcodes are now determined to make sure I make the most of this part of London's offerings before moving two miles east, never to return, obviously.

So today I toddled over to Primrose Hill for lunch with friends at Trojka, a Russian restaurant that is a bit of an 'establishment' among the Primrose Hillbilly types. I love Russian and Eastern European food - hearty stews, sour cream, dill, stuffed things; and then the influences from its neighbours, from Georgia, Armenia, Uzbekistan and beyond. I went to Moscow a few years back and my friend took me to restaurants serving all kinds of cuisines you would be hard pushed to find in Britain, although I've found both Georgian and Armenian restaurants.

The menu at Trojka covers lots of Russian classics, as well as many favourites from around the bloc. Given my love for this part of the world, choosing a dish was hard, but I plumped for a Coulibiak, a hearty pie filled with salmon, spinach, rice and buckwheat, topped with sour cream and dill and surrounded with a sweet tomato sauce. It was a perfect combination of flavours and textures and was incredible value at £7. My friends had Pelmeni (cheese and potato dumpling) and Gypsy Latke (gypsy-style goulash with potato pancake), both delicious.


To start we shared an 'Armenian salad', which was a simple but winning combination of beetroot, grated carrot, avocado, pepper and new potatoes.


I also had a tea with raspberry syrup - which was bizarre but nice. I remember from my time in Moscow that there's a fondness for sweet things - Russian 'champagne' is so sweet that your teeth feel coated after one glass of the stuff. And raspberry syrup tea was actually quite nice. Without milk, obviously.


The service was a tad slow, but it was a busy Sunday lunch (and Mother's Day of all Sundays), but the food was well worth it. The atmosphere was buzzing with a mixed set of Americans and Russians in London, as well as your usual north London bobo types, and the décor was bright and luscious. I would like to go back for an evening meal at some point - try some of their Georgian wines, Russian vodkas and hear the live music.

New brunch options

Our landlady has decided to sell-up, so we'll soon be upping sticks and finding somewhere else to live. I love living where here (Dartmouth Park), but it's exciting to think of all the new foodie opportunities in a different neighbourhood. I've lived in the Tufnell Park area for 5 years and still haven't been to every restaurant - I can now focus my energies on visiting the rest of the places I want to try out, such as Nuraghe, Spaghetti House and back to 500 for one more delicious meal. Incidentally, they're all Italian! Yum.

Today Pete and I had took a stroll around an area we are quite keen to live in - Newington Green/Mildmay. It was a lovely sunny Sunday and all the locals were out enjoying the weather, brunching away, playing on the green. We walked around the local shops, restaurants and bars and found great grocers, lovely little neighbourhood restaurants and nice pubs too. Definitely a go-er.

We had a lovely little brunch at Tina, We Salute You on King Henry's Walk, N1. It was a light, nicely decorated cafe filled with super-laid back educated hipster types reading the sunday papers. I had a (now ubiquitous) flat white and toast with cream cheese, cinnamon and honey, both delicious. The coffee was rich, creamy and fruity almost; the toast smacked of New York somehow - the tartness of the cream cheese, the muskiness of the cinnamon, the sweetness of the honey. Delicious.



We're hoping to view a flat around the corner from Tina's next week, so fingers crossed that we can make this our local!

Fish pie

I have a strange history when it comes to fish. Some of the first solid food I had as a littl'un was fish. I used to adore shellfish - I remember greedily gobbling mussels, clams and prawns from my parents' Cataplana on holiday in the Algarve. But at some point, I can't remember why, I stopped liking fish and seafood altogether. For most of my life, I couldn't stomach the thought of the seas' fine produce, save for prawn mayonnaise, batter calamari and tinned tuna. I tried at various points start eating fish again, but it was only when I was in Montreal in 2007 that I plucked up the courage to order a moules frites.

On subsequent trips to Croatia and Portugal, I tried more and more fish and seafood. In Portugal the seafood was particularly good. We stayed in Sesimbra, a fishing village down the coast from Lisbon, where I ate razor clams, crabs, squid, sardines, swordfish.

And yesterday, after much craving, I made my first fish pie. I cycled over to Steve Hatt on Essex Road, which must be one of the best fishmongers in London. The fish is top notch, so fresh that you can't smell a thing, and Steve Hatt's young lads are incredibly jovial and helpful as they prepare your fish. When the guy serving me sussed I was making a fish pie, his eyes lit up and mentioned his envy to his colleague. Such is the love of fish at Steve Hatt's! They also had a great selection of fish and seafood, including the lesser spotted razor clam. I shall have to go back for some another time.

I decided on a Mark Hix recipe for fish pie, as it looked the most sensible and traditional of all the recipes that Google threw up. Start with the basics and then you can innovate! It was quite a process-y meal - lots of different pots and pans, sieves and collanders, but all of it made sense and contributed to a lovely, comforting pie in the end:


I served it with some dressed leaves and some steamed spinach with butter. The mashed potato and the fish elements probably blended together a little too much. This might because I didn't let the fish mix set for long enough. It was absolutely delicious though - just as homely, fresh and luxurious as you'd hope. The way that the recipe suggests cooking the fish (poaching for 2 minutes, then later cooking in the pie) had the fish just right. I used cod, salmon and smoked haddock (smoked by Steve Hatt himself!) and it was the perfect combination. Might have also been nice to have prawns in, but the tweaking and adjusting I can do next time.



The whole experience of making fish pie has definitely upped my confidence in cooking with fish and I am now ready, eager and willing to try out some more dishes. Smoked haddock chowder next? Mmmmm....