Amblin' back through Exmouth Market

Exmouth is a rather nice place, of which I'm fond for a number of reasons, but I wonder what it would make of Exmouth Market: trendy Clerkenwell street full of boutiques and gourmet foodshops for the local Guardianistas? I walked back through the market on my way back from swimming, partl because I hoped that De Gustibus would offer me two loaves for the price of one as it was close to packing-up time (they did, so I got a rye bread and an onion rye bread for £1.95). I also picked up some Cashel Blue from Sheridan's Cheesemongers, a stall specialising in Irish cheese. With the rye bread it is making a rather satisfying supper, rather better than the dull pasta + cheese or rice + vegetables that I would otherwise have had.

Not about food - I don't do this often

So David Miliband, a man described by the Guardian, and presumably therefore by the man himself, as 'an Iraq war critic' has become our Foreign Secretary. On a day when a bomb was discovered in the West End, I'm not quite sure who I loathe more: Miliband or the bombers. I know that in many ways one ought to detest the bombers more, but I can't help but think of the dead and the grieving in Iraq and the complicity of people like Miliband who voted for the war. What kind of 'Iraq war critic' didn't have the guts to stand up for a principle in 2003, when scores of his fellow MPs saw what was true and just, along with more than a million people on the streets of London? It's no excuse that he's a politician and that he needed to caluculate what was best for his own future, and for him to now trade on his supposed secret skepticism is an insult to those who took part on what was the biggest political demonstration in Britain's history and, rather more importantly, those who have died in Iraq, Britain and elsewhere as a result of his less than deeply held views.

On a more positive note, my half-day-off was wonderful and after lunch I wandered through town, stopping off to see two sensational exhibitions: Damien Hirst at the Brewer's Yard White Cube and Old Masters at Sotheby's. The Hirst show - which continues at White Cube in Hoxton - is great fun, not least because you queue for to see the bejewelled skull and are then taken into a darkened room by a security geezer who lets you know just how much it's worth and how many diamonds are on its bonce (the second skull above is the fantastic Mexican Skull of the Smoking Mirror of the British Museum). The rest of the show's fun too: a mixture of the silly, the mediocre and the just wonderful (more animals in formaldehyde, including a shark you can walk through and some wonderful paintings of scenes from a hospital). I had always known that Sothebys and Christies were must-visits but had never before had the gall to walk past the doorman to see paintings about to be sold as though I was a potential buyer. I need not have worried as the place was chocker with punters and there was a wonderful rag-bag of Dutch still-lives, Renaissance art and Turner watercolours.

All this was topped-off with pho at Pho (and I now know that you pronounce it fer) and some shisha, on the last indoor shisha cafe weekend..., at Menara, where Number7 and I bumped into the RSN party. London: it's a fun city.

In the hood

Since moving to the X, it has become home to some of London's hottest restaurants. Coincidence, you ask. Hmmm, yes I think so.

None have been more lauded than Acorn House, a mere two minutes from me, which is the current Observer new restaurant of the year and was decscribed by Giles Coren as being 'the most important restaurant to open in London in the last 200 years'. My schtick as I wander up the street is that - however good the place is - far from being the most important restaurant to open in the capital in the last two centuries, it's not even the most important opening within a three-minute walk of my flat in the last year. That honour should fall to Konstam at the Prince Albert, a restaurant so devoted to local sourcing that all the ingredients come from within the M25 (and the food's pretty good too). I do admire the ethical and green credentials of Acorn House, but it just bugs me that it has cornered all the laudatory press for following that path, when at least one other local restaurant had already taken the risk (and I believe that St Chad's, just down the road, also acts as a social enterprise in offering jobs to the disadvantaged, as is the case with Acorn House, which is allied to the Terence Higgins Trust - they share the same building). Anyhow, enough caveats, for even I am impressed that apparently the restaurant generates only one bin's worth of waste each week, which is a hell of a lot less than me...

So what's it like inside? Well, it's a pretty good-looking place, mainly whites, green and wood, which suffers slightly from its long, thin footprint, which means that most tables are in effect simply two sides of a long bench. The issue here is that one person in a group will always be on the outside and it is not therefore that great a set-up for those of us who have issues with people brushing behind us whilst we eat. I may be overstating this as, when I walk past in the evening, the place is beautifully (darkly) lit, and there is actually a fair amount of space in the walkway, so after a glass of wine or two I'm sure one would forget one had such an anal 'personal space in restaurants issue'. This was certainly not a problem for me today as I was lunching solo, as a way of starting off an afternoon of fun. I have to attend a boring conference at work tomorrow, so I decided that Friday would be the new Saturday. I'm off to see Damian Hirst in a mo', but I will now get round to describing the food. Jeez, this guy is beginning to get like all those food critics who end up writing about nothing but the food.

So, the choices at lunch were between soup, salads or pasta/risotto. I went for salads on the basis that it offered a chance to try more things (3 salads for £8, 4 for £10) and also as it seemed more lunch-y than nettle risotto with garlic, which did appeal mucho mucho. The salads I went for were as follows: bobby beans with tahini and toasted sesame seeds; roasted sweet potato, pale miso and faro; early summer artichoke 'erbette'; and spring beetroot and carrot with toasted fennel seeds. Before they arrived, I tucked into two slices of excellent multi-grain bread. When the salads did arrive they made up what was probably the most colourful plate I've ever been served in a restaurant, which rather delighted me. The portion sizes were generous and I am certainly full as I write this, which is both a delight and a relief.

The quality of all the salads was high and it varied, I think, from good to really special. Dish by dish, the sweet potato was good, as it should have been since roasted sweet potato is a good thing, though the miso was barely present, if at all, and the faro just wasn't in attendance. The artichoke was a dish of two halves: when you ate bits which were well-dressed with the herby vinaigrette,you thought 'gosh, delicious', but the drier portions induced musings of 'could be better'. The carrots were just not that special, but the beetroot really was. Now beetroot is the kind of thing one doesn't eat all that often and there is a danger of being suckered into saying something like 'and the beetroot was so good that it expressed the very essence of beetrootness, like vegetables are supposed to in that Alice Waters' restaurant in California', but, as I avoid prentention, I shall say no such thing. It did remind me quite how lovely beetroot can be, though, and it had been beautifully cooked so that the texture was perfect. The bobby beans were just fantastic. Of all the dishes this is the one that I'll try and recreate, since the idea of french beans with tahini and roasted sesame seeds is just such a good one - the toastiness of the accompaniments seemed perfect with the crunchiness of the beans - and I shall ogle this salad as I walk past on my way to work. All the salads - as the menu announces - are served at room temperature, and quite right too.

With a sparkling mineral water and service the bill was £13.84, so not cheap, but pretty fair for a restaurant which really aspires to be a good place, in what it does and in the food it offers. The place the salads reminded me of was La Zucca in Venice, which I would say is the best salad restaurant I've ever encountered by a long way. No other eating place has ever really made me think of La Zucca before, so it is to Acorn House's credit that it is aspiring to such heights.

Guardian article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/food/story/0,,1953988,00.html

On stir fries

Recently I've found myself cooking myself into a right rut, as often tends to happen if you don't cook for others. Evening after evening has featured rice or couscous, along with various vegetables, cheese and sometimes yoghurt. Quick, easy, sometimes tasty, and borrrrrring after a while. In truth the only one of these meals that really worked was couscous with field mushrooms, cheddar and yoghurt. Now that was tasty, but only because the mushrooms were excellent and they cooked really nicely in some butter.

Anyhow, I have decided to work my way out of my rut and am making a stir fry this evening. Back when I really couldn't cook, I coud make quite a nice stir fry, but somehow learning to cook has led to me messing up stir fries when I've tried them. Hmmm, perhaps I really couldn't make a nice one back in the day.

So my ingredients tonight are: garlic, ginger, fennel fronds (sounds good doesn't it - in truth they were the only bits of fennel that hadn't gone off), spring onions, aubergine, carrot and red pepper. Who knows whether this will work. My soy sauce is Kikoman, so that should cover some ineptness, but in truth I am pretty convinced that the dish will turn out to be filling but rubbish. I am semi-tempted to use some tomato puree, but perhaps that would be a bad idea? Chilli sauce seems like a better idea. Hmmmm. Shit, I've now discovered that I don't have any oil of any kind - surely a prerequisite for a stir fry.

Suffice it to say that the finished product looked nothing like the photo above...

In fact, now that I've finished dinner, I can honestly say that my stir fry was disgusting. The only good thing about it was chucking it in the bin and having some avocado on toast instead. I vow from hereonin to only eat stor fries cooked by those who know how to cook 'em.

Guanabana

I am about to try to cook a stir fry - of which more soon - and reasoned that the best accompaniment would be a can of Rubicon Guanabana. I am a big fan of the Rubicon range for a number of reasons and increasingly find that the fizzy guanabana is just what I fancy on certain occasions. If it's not Diet Coke time (after lunch or in a sun-kissed cafe, I wish), Sprite time (chez Number7 and in Indian restos), then it's Guanabana time (after swimming or with Oriental food). I'm not actually sure what a guanabana is, but it has a yummy flavour. And that is the end of this rather banal post.

Easy to mock

In preparation for a light jog through Bloomsbury and Fitrovia to Marylebone Farmers Market, he donned his Nike windcheater and collected his hessian bag from Stroud Farmers Market. Of course he didn't shop at Nike these days, but somehow the brown bag, with its Hayles Fruit Farm logo, counteracted any negative vibes that the Nike apparel might throw off. He had managed to pull off a mix of '90s brand aspirationalism and, er, 2000s brand aspirationalism.

It's easy to mock farmer's markets, going organic and all the other food fashions of middle-class Britain in the twenty-first century, but I can't help but feel that something good is going on here. Jogging to the market my dominant thought was how nice it was to live in a city full of markets and how Sunday has gone from being one of my least favourite days of the week to perhaps my favourite, and how nice a sense of community you get from markets in the city.

Whilst at the market I was on the lookout for celebs and trying to avoid getting poked in the eye by unthinking assholes with giant umbrellas, and on the way back I got to musing on pricing in farmers markets. My guess is that if farmers markets are ever to move beyond being a Sunday treat for the middle classes, then they're going to have to think about pricing in quite a serious way. The one item in the market which crystallised this thought was asparagus, which is of course in season at the moment. Now I know that if I were to go up to Chapel Street Market in Islington (a regular as opposed to a farmers market) I'd pay either £1 or £1.50 for a bunch of British asparagus, whilst I guess that the same thing would be around £1.79 or £2 in a supermarket. At Marylebone it varied between £2 and £3.50. The latter price is just a joke in my book and a real two-fingers to consumers, whilst the former price, which I'd consider to be reasonable for a really great product, is revealing of just how unwilling stallholders in farmers markets are to look at competitors and price accordingly. Now I'm no poster-boy for free markets, but there's a good reason why in a traditional market, more or less all fruit and veg can be found at roughly the same price, with perhaps a divergence of 30-50% max, and quite often within a range of 10-20%. The same cannot be said for farmers markets where many seem to see it as an opportunity to price at what they regard as being the highest possible price that people will pay, reasoning that there is a middle-class feelgood premium which allows them to charge prices which people would not consider elsewhere. What's more we ought to remember that these steep prices are being charged without any middleman taking a cut, so I have little sympathy with those who use farmers markets as a means to raking in excessive profits and ignoring the long-term future of both their businesses and markets in general.

Now this may seem pretty harsh, but the fact is that by shopping on a budget - which I'm obliged to do - I still had a great time at the market and I simply ignored the £3.50 asparagus outlets and the places that charge for salad by the 100g, as if dopey old William is going to fall for that trick. Instead I followed the crowds to the super-duper Manor Farms where all the vegetables are ready-sorted into bunches and boxes, so you know exactly how many giant field mushrooms you'll get for £1.50 (three), how much that punnett of peas will be (£1.20), quanta costa a giant cucumber (80p) and that carrots are 10p each. Now some of these prices are rather more than a regular market but realistically they're pretty similar to those found in supermarkets and I'd much rather give my cash to the farmer and let them have the cut normally demanded by Tesco's. I bought some beautiful looking red and white radishes from them for 80p too and I must say that I'm really looking forward to a lunch based on this haul. I'd also single out Perry Court Farm of Bilting in Kent for praise. I've bought delicious English apples from them in the past and sought them out to get some tiny little Red Pippins, all bagged-up so that I could see that I was getting seventeen apples for my £1.50. The assistant then asked if I fancied a bag of pears on a two bags for £2.50 deal and I went for that after tasting their truly luscious Conference pears. Now I'm slightly funny about pears usually because I like them hard and flavourless, but I even I could tell that these juicy, perfumed fruit were top banana, as they say, so I took the deal and felt I was getting great value. Last-up I bought some raisin rye bread from the Exeter Street bakery for £2.50. Now you may well be right in thinking that the name played a seductive role here, but there was also another good reason why I was prepared to pay extra for a bread which I regard as being the best style of bread in the world as an accompaniment to cheese which is this: the guy was also selling other breads for a quid and on tasting them and the raisin bread it was clear to me that he wasn't pricing the bread that I wanted at the higher price simply because he could, but because this was a pricier bread to make and as a customer you made your choice between a set of products where you could be reasonably sure that the profit margins were comparable across the range.

Now this may seem a pretty mean-spirited attitude on the part of this consumer, but I like farmers markets a great deal and I want to imagine that they can continue to grow and grow so that they become a daily presence on the streets of big cities and little villages, but what I don't want is a situation like that in France - where such things really are a daily fixture but the prices induce a nose-bleed pretty quickly. There there seem to be plenty of punters willing to fork out a hefty premium artisanale, but I tend to think people are mugs for doing so because if farmers markets here are ever really to democratise food production, they can't sustain the variable levels of pricing seen at present and the promotion of niche, luxury goods. A bunch of asparagus just isn't the same as a Porsche or a Tag-Heuer (or whatever the contemporary emblems of dope consumerism are); in the end it's a green vegetable that should cost about a quid fifty a bundle. If you want to drizzle yours in first crop Villa Versace olio, fine, but bog-standard supermarket olive oil and some salt will do me fine.

Warwick - who knew?

The last time I was taken to Warwick, I was apparently an especially truculent guest. On being taken round Warwick Castle, I apparently announced that I was bored and decreed that we could only visit one more of its boring rooms before heading off. I don't know why I'm writing about this as though these things are mere allegations for I remember my rudeness quite clearly! Anyhow, back we went to Warwick this weekend and what a revelation the place is: a truly special Norman and medieval church at St Mary's, lots of lovely Tudor buildings, walks by the river, and a traditional old market where I was able to buy some 'Afterburn' cheddar: packed full of red and green peppers, garlic and red chilli; just the thing for a Ploughman's or a baked potato.

In the evening we almost went to Pizza Express, but then we chanced on a place called Catalan which served tapas until 8pm, which was perfect for us. We went for some excellent patatas bravas, a mild manchego (a good one I thought), some espenicas a la catalana (not as good as Catalan creamed spinach for me), a vegetarian paella (nae bad), some so-so garlic mushrooms and some really excellent olives. A very nice place, pleasant service and a courtyard garden, so I'd certainly go back for dinner if ever I were in Warwick again. I may well be back because more and more I'm coming to see that in spite of the veil of prejudice that lies over the Midlands, it is in fact a pretty wonderful part of Britain, full of some really beautiful historic towns and countryside.

Balti, balti, balti

For some time I have been insisting to the Merovingian and the Carolingian that they ought to take me for a balti when I visit them. A couple of years ago we did go to a decent place called, I think, Shere Khan's on the Stratford Road, but I really wanted to head to the heart of Birmingham's balti district on Ladypool Road: the famous Balti Triangle. Now I know that some would say that this is in fact the heart of balti cooking worldwide - given this idea that the balti originated in Brum - but realistically 'balti' is no more than Indian wok-cooking, often known as 'kadahi' or 'karahi'. Such cooking happens to be amongst my favourite styles of Indian food, so I was delighted when my hosts agreed to my suggestion of visiting Plaza, which I had heard was a rough-and-ready place that was one of the best baltis on offer. Like many such places its BYOB and I was well impressed by the Sikhs on the next table who were knocking back a bottle of whiskey with their balti! We stuck to beer and wine, and then began with some OK poppadums and then some really excellent pakora and onion bhaji. My paneer and vegetable pakora were just sinful in the best possible way: crispy on the outside, and then packed full ofboth paneer and very spicy vegetables, soothingly cooled when dipped in raita. As a main I went for a tarka daal balti. This was one of the best tarka daals I've ever had: pretty dry, with really deep, complex, hot spicing, and a pleasing crunchiness to the lentils. They seemed pretty pleased with their chicken dishes and the onion paratha was also a real treat. Whereas other parathas I've had contained onion in the middle, this one was covered with a layer of onion, spring onion and (much) coriander: not for the faint-hearted, but a perfect complement to my balti. Plaza is most definitely now my restaurant of choice in Bimingham - let's hope the others agree.

In praise of McFlurry

I'm sure I have mentioned McFlurrys in passing on this blog before, but realistically they deserve a post all to themselves. I am about to watch The Queen on 'Monday night is movie night' in King's X and I thought that a bit of ice cream would suit the mood, so I ambled down to the Golden Arches and got me a Caramel McFlurry. Now one thing those who are out of the loop on the Flurry front may not know is that not only are they delicious whippy-style ice creams slavered in oodles of chocolate, but they also tend to be made by fairly bored (I don't blame them) people who tend to fill the pot with as much ice cream and goodies as it can possibly hold, which I like quite a lot. So how, you are surely asking, does a Caramel McFlurry compare with say the Smarties version or M&Ms or After Eight? Weeeeeeellll, I'd say that it's quite near the top, perhaps second only to After Eight which was (I think it was a limited edition) the royale amongst McFlurrys. Mmmm, ice cream: even though I am damn full after a big dinner and then my McFlurry I am thinking of all those wonderful ice cream stalls in Italy with their whipped-up delights, about discovering that Carte d'Or came in Green Tea flavour in Malaysia, of memories of banana ice cream in Romania...

Struggling and enjoying

It may seem slightly bizarre but part of my rationale for starting a food blog was that it would get me thinking about food even more and would help me to lose some weight. For aquite a while this has been pretty successful but, post-marathon, I can feel a few pounds easing there way back, so I'm writing this post as a reminder to myself that for quite some time this plan had been working and can continue to do so again. I've by no means come anywhere close to regaining all the weight I lost, but I'm conscious that I've been indulging in the most futile kind of weight gain lately, which is to unthinkingly just eat more and more of the same blah at home, increasing portion sizes, and forgetting that it was more fun to be trying to eat interestingly, watching those portion sizes and then sometimes going absolutely crazy and writing about it on the blog. OK, hopefully writing about this will have actualised the lesson in some way.

Stroud

It seems apt that post number 100 should be a real celebration of food in Britain. I went to see Rabs and Norm for the night and had an idea that whatever we did on Saturday should be food-related, so I was delighted when Rabs asked me if I fancied going to Stroud farmers market, which she had never visited. I knew all about this market from Matthew Fort in the Guardian and was very excited because he rated it as one of the best in the UK. I usually follow the maxim "Never trust a hippy" pretty closely, but in the case of farmer's markets I guess that I would have to concede that hippies know what they're doing. And in fact Stroud was not nearly as hippyish as I had feared - well, it was less graspingly after your groats than places like Totnes and Glastonbury, and the market stalls were generally run by ruddy-faced farmers and WI-types than back-to-the-earthers, man. Damn, what was that I said about this post being super positive earlier... come on William.

The variety at the market is pretty impressive and the quality - in a part of England renowned for its cheeses, fruit and vegetables - was top-notch. I can't report on all the things I bought as some of the them are in the fridge unopened, waiting for a possible picnic later, but here's a list of what I bagged:

1. Some tasty granary bread from La Parisienne bakery - with a very nice, almost burnt underside.
2. Loadsa broad beans (from the Shambles market just by the farmer's market). Looking forward to having them with olive oil, salt and perhaps a little bit of mint later - or perhaps making a dip with those ingredients and some feta.
3. A banana and walnut cake. I have a lot of faith in the Jane Crumpler - whose firm made the cakes - and even more in Alma, who the packet tells me was the woman who made this one.
4. Some Three Virgins cheese from Godsell's farm. I tried quite a few local cheeses, including some Single Gloucester, but this mildish, creamy, slightly bitter white cheese came out on top. Perfect with a hunk of bread, some butter and an apple. The packet has a picture of Mr and Mrs Godsell on it and I was sold the cheese by the big, bearded Mr Godsell himself.
5. Some cherry toms from the Vale of Evesham, legendary home of some of Britain's best vegetables, and where my grandfather used to drive to in the wee small hours from Birmingham, before heading back to set up his fruit and veg stall in the city.
6. Some good-looking new potatoes, destined for a potato salad.
7. Some excellent olives with basil and garlic.
8. Two courgette plants, which are moving into a gro-bag with my tomato plants today.

I also tried some really good local asparagus yesterday and some apple and pear juice. How nice it is that the days of British people going to places like France and Italy and looking at their markets as wonderfully strange places - compared with our supermarkets - are now gone. Instead, I imagine there are continental tourists wandering through little country towns - or places liek Marylebone in big cities - at the weekend, marvelling at the renaissance of local producers and quality food sold direct by producers to consumers. It's making the Marxist and the foodie in me glow inside.

The secret place

It seems quite apt that I cannot remember the name of the secret place. I can tell you that it is near the north exit of Euston Square tube, that it is green and rather nondescript, that it is near where someone works and near where someone else lives. To say more would be to give away too much. It looks like the lobby of a mid-range hotel when you walk in and what you must do is ignore this - and the many TV screens everywhere showing daytime sport - and order a pancake with roquefort and artichoke hearts. Truly this is one of the tastiest dishes that you will have a had in quite some time: a delicious pancake stuffed with smalln chunks of artichoke in a rich, piquant cheesy sauce, with much, much sauce surrounding the pancake as well as inside it. It also comes with a bowl of decently-dressed salad and another bowl of chunky chips. Somehow this place in the most urban of locales is channelling the spirit of a country pub with its food, and all of the above, with tap water and service, comes to £7.50 a head. All you have to do now is to find it.

Fondue

In the period when I lost my camera, I went to a number of places which I've now remembered deserve blog entries (lucky them!). The first of these is City Limits, a wine bar on the wonderful Brushfield Street: wonderful in that it provides the best view of Hawksmoor's Christ Church Spitalfields. The resto is a cosy cellar and we were lucky to have a nook in the wall which meant the neither b nor I had our backs exposed (I have also begun to acquire the dislike of exposed seating where waiters and customers brush past you all evening, and this is definitely now a real factor in restaurant reviewing as far as I'm concerned - for I still think of the magnificent spacing between tables at Pearl in Holborn, and also of the generous ones like Number7 who don't seem to mind being in the tricky seats). Anyhow, enough of this blah and onto the food. We had a fondue for two which was too titchy and not alcoholic enough - in fact, b rightly observed that it was quite possible that it had been made without wine and kirsch. They mistakenly brought us vegetables, as well as bread, to dip in the fondue, and didn't charge us, which was nice, as was the apple pie we shared, but overall we felt this to be a step down from St Moritz. As well as the food, b v kindly treated us to a good bottle of Muscadet, and I wouldn't want to give the impression that this isn't a fun resto, because it certainly is; it's just that fondue is a demanding dish and you gotta get it just right to really succeed.

Injera we trust

To Shebu with Number7 and b for some Ethiopian at Peacock, that old neighbourhood fave where we could fill ourselves with plenty of injera and spicy richness. Travelling there by car, wind blowing through the windows, all is well, and ohmygosh, Peacock isn't there any more. It has turned into a Lebanese place. Maybe we should go to Abu Zaad I suggested, but this was naysayed by others with their hearts set more firmly on Ethiopian food, so we drove back to King's X, still travelling by car, the wind still blowing, and all was well again. We fixed on Addis, the largest of two or three Ethiopian places on Caledonian Road, and while at first it looked as though we might struggle to get a table, we were found one after a little wait, which gave us a chance to feast our eyes on those fantastic giant trays of injera, onto which are placed all the different dishes. We ordered fairly extensively (with a mid-meal top-up order to ensure we were nicely stuffed): a vegetarian platter that included Atikelt wot (cabbage, potato and carrot), a couple of different lentil dishes (one rich, wet, spicy dish, and one dry, cinammony number - well spotted b, and thanks for the dinner), a yummy spinach number, Ayeb be gomen (cottage cheese with spinach) and some green chillies stuffed with onion and tomatoes. There was more that I've forgotten, but we agreed that it was as good as Peacock, which is high praise indeed as that was one of my favourite neighbourhood restos ever. We were talking about how underrated Ethiopian cuisine is (Sudanese even more so, it was noted) and how there could easily be an Ethiopian restaurant on every high street in the country, and why not because in injera, a large range of dishes with spicing routines which are distinct from other 'hot' cuisines, and an all round earthy, rich, deep deliciousness, there's no reason as to why Ethiopian food shouldn't take off. Until it does, I'm glad that I live within walking distance of three such restaurants.

Hare and the Tortoise

In what circumstances is a poor restaurant meal one which still encourages you to return to try the place again? I was musing on this in bed last night after a rather dissatisfying meal in the newish pan-Asian place Hare and Tortoise in the Brunswick Centre with Number 7. The answer I think is that if the place is cheap you may well be willing to give it another go, and if you think you didn't order all that cannily off the menu, then that too might encourage another visit. I guess that if the resto's location is in a chi-chi shopping centre mid-way between you and Number 7, then that helps too. The plus points of the place are that it really is cheap (a shared plate of veggie spring rolls, two huge bowls of noodles and stuff, plus soft drinks, for £16 inc. tip) and buzzy in a great location. The downsides were as follows: we were discouraged from having our starter as a separate course because it was claimed that the mains would take forever to come (in fact the starter did come first), I was brought the wrong dish (but didn't complain because of the worry about how long a replacement would take) and that the taste of my dish was pretty bland (while Number 7's apparently majored and minored in black bean sauce). I'll be back to try the noodles with satay tofu which I ordered, but be warned Hare and Tortoise, you only have one more chance!

Haein' masel a reet Scottish breakfast

Scotland comes in for a lot of stick on the food front, and I've doled out my fair share at times, but it's important to realise that there are plenty of things to celebrate. For all the rubbishness of the food you're likely to be served in pubs in the Highlands, there are all the great Scottish ingredients (salmon, seafood in general, beef, haggis, veggie haggis! rasberries, strawberries, whisky etc) and there are the great popular foods like super chips with sauce, deep fried haggis, and a super tradition of cakes and bakeries. Unlike English towns, Scotland is still full of many, many local bakeries and this was one of the things I was most looking forward to when I found out I was going to Dundee. My plan was to identify a suitable looking bakery and then head there for breakfast, skipping whatever was on offer at my B+B. Espying Fisher and Donaldson on the day of my arrival, I was pleased that there was a traditional-looking bakery on the walk from my B+B to the university. Not just a bakery, though, but a 'Chocolaterie, Confiserie, Boulangerie, Patisserie' according to their bags, which gives you some idea of how seriously they take these things. I guess those terms conjure up images of a poncey, overpriced deli-type joint, so I should emphasise that this was just a decent neighbourhood bakery with a long tradition of having high aspirations to be on the same kind of level as bakeries in countries like France.

The old-time spirit of the place is reflected on the text on their bags, which I feel like quoting in full because I like it so much:

The premier bakers of the East of Scotland bring for your delight and appreciation the largest selection of Scottish and Continental confections.
Fresh cream gateaux, made from locally produced cream. savoury pies and bridies and assorted meat products. Traditional lines like oatmeal skirlies, mroning rolls, both crisp and soft, and for those with more exotic palettes, croissants, baguettes and crispy French rolls.
Tea fancies in profusion, biscuits and oatcakes like granny made. Border tarts made from butter and eggs and best Greek currants. All to delight your palate.
Try some of our own making of handmade chocolates of superfine quality and flavour. Some made with fresh cream and zestful liqeurs. Creams and fondants, truffles and ganaches, you've never tasted sweetmeats quite like these. Ideal for gifting all the year round..
Our celebrated cakes and puddings are all our own and are guaranteed to please.
Buy from the traditional bakers and confectioners where you will appreciate the best Scottish baking.
Our daily bread is baked today.

You couldn't make this stuff up, could you? I should add that I've corrected some of the grammar, though not all of it! I like the fact that the Continental connection looms large, with the sense of the Auld Alliance with France, missing England out all together, and I should say that the variety of offerings is, if anything, undersold in this blurb. I can't ever recall being in a bakers, home and abroad, where so many things on offer were totally new to me. Have you ever heard of Paving Stones, Dundee Biscuits, Small Highlanders, Abernethy Biscuits, Rolled Oat Bannocks or Perkins Biscuits? There was Dundee cake too, but I went for an Aberdeen Buttery (the Scottish croissant, which is much, much more, er, buttery than a croissant) and some Millionaire Shortbread. The former was excellent, as is invariably the case - and rather crunchier than Aberdonian varieties I've had - and the shortbread only so-so (the toffee layer was really sticky, rather than being set, though perhaps that is more authentic), but the best thing was the whole experience and seeing a deep-seated, long-lasting aspect of Scottish food culture thriving.

The Speedwell Bar

How nice a sign is this one which I saw in the window of the Speedwell Bar in Dundee: You are welcome to bring in baking from nearby Goodfellows or Fisher and Donaldson. 'Bring in baking': I love it! I liked it so much that I popped in for a few Tennent's lagers with a fellow conference delegate called Kent. One of the things I have come to like about conferences is that you always seem to end up meeting interesting North Americans who are keen to extend the conference day through 'shooting the shit' over a few lagers in a bar. I can't say that the lager was any good, in fact it was slightly horrible, but it was cold, the talk amusing, and the Speedwell is a really nice, listed Edwardian boozer.

Tatty memories

I'm not at all sure if something counts as a Proustian moment if it is a premeditated act; in fact I'm sure it does not, so in that case I had a Galloisian moment in Edinburgh, where I set out to eat foods that would allow memories of my time in Scotland to flood back. I arrived at lunchtime and had a bit of time to kill before catching a train to Dundee, so I went into the Prince's Mall, nee Waverley Market, and thought I'd have a baked potato from Spud U Like. My reasoning here was twofold: 1) I had already had a kind of lunch on the plane, in the shape of a cream cheese and roasted vegetable sandwich, so I couldn't be too greedy, and 2) the first meal that I remember having when we moved to Scotland was a baked potato with cheese and onion in a shopping mall. I'm not quite sure why but that potato really marked a new beginning for me and convinced me that Scotland was going to be just fine. The potato itself was huge, and atop the potato and butter was a mound of bright orange Scottish cheddar and rings of raw onion. Wow! did I like Scotland from that point on (I'd had a similar experience when we moved to Exeter for the first time and I well remember the excellent sausage rolls which we had in our new garden).

Anyhow, suffice it to say that present-day Spud U Like is a pretty miserable experience. The cheddar was yellow, which seemed a real shame because one of the distinctive things about Scottish cheese in tatties was its orangeness. Now I know that this orange was simply a food dye and the kind of thing one should now look down on, but what has become of a Scotland where its cheddar is no longer orange? Are you to tell me that lemonade is no longer blue? So I went for a 'Lite Bite' deal, whicch got me a measly potato, some cottage cheese, some chives, apparently, and a titchy Diet Pepsi. Wicked.

Fast forward two days and I am again transiting through Edinburgh, with a bit of time to spare and a belly hungry for foods from my past. So I wandered up Cockburn Street, pleased to see that Fopp was still there, as well as the shops where I bought my Sisters of Mercy shirt and had my nose pierced, and then, what's that smell? My whole body was filled with a deep, rich potatoey smell, so I wandered up the street and was delighted to see that The Baked Potato Shop was still there. I'm not actually sure if I ever had a potato there in the past but I must have smelt those wafts on scores of occasions. This time the reality was as good as the memories I may or may not have had: a giant potato, loads of butter, and pile upon pile of orange cheddar and coleslaw. The bag containing the potato was one of the heaviest single meals I have ever held in my hands. It was truly delicious and the guy in the shop was a really decent bloke, so it was nice to leave Edinburgh with such a good experience.

Oh and

I keep remembering other places which are on my hit-list and it seems sensible to me, if not to anyone else, to use this place as a repository for all the things that my memory forgets. Plus, you will have gathered that any place I put down here is also a form of invitation to my loyal readers to join me at these eateries. Anyhoo, b reminded me yesterday that the takeaway right by Camden tube station, right at the start of Kentish Town Road, makes what are apparently amazing halloumi wraps and that they also have a fine garlic sauce for their chips. A while ago she also tipped Maison Bertaux in Soho as being a place for sensational cakes. Perhaps at midsummer we could have a La Croix du Roi party there?

Brick Lane

For quite some time I've found myself talking about the famous bagel shops on Brick Lane, having never eaten at either of them, so it was great to discover yesterday that the Beigel Shop (Britain's First and Best) walks my talk. We chose it over Beigel Bake: Brick Lane Bakery on the basis that the queue was longer in our pick... the wisdom of crowds and all that. I kind of thought that this would be an OK experience but had no idea that it might be really, really good. First-up, while you queue it is rather like being in an exhibition in a cake museum, because you amble past cabinets full of amazing looking, many very heavy, cakes, including some super looking cheesecake. We decided to go for a classic bagel selection between the three of us: salt beef for the Merovingian, cream cheese and salmon for Ra, and cream cheese for me. Mine was the bargain of the bunch at £0.80 but all of them were terrific value. The big difference between these bagels and those you get in supermarkets was in the great difference between the interior and exterior texture. While this would be pretty uniform in a supermarket bagel, here the exterior had a thin layer of crunch and the inside had a fluffy lightness to it. The cream cheese was very, very liberally smeared into the bagel and was also top-notch: slightly drier and saltier than something like Philadelphia and both bagel and cream cheese had an admirable savouriness. I'll be back to try cream cheese with chives and to stage a festival of cakes.

Five months in

Well, it may have been sporadic at times, but I am now five months into this blog with 88 posts in the bag, which just about hits my target of a few posts a week. Admittedly January was the top month in terms of number of posts, and May the worst thus far, but I shall try hard to make sure that I come close to matching or beating January's total.

As I lay in bed this morning, I thought it might be a good idea to go back to my hit-list of restaurants from January, to see which ones I'd managed to visit, which I still had a passion to get to, and which new must-go places had appeared on my radar since then. So, first up, the places I'd wanted to go to and have now visited are: Neal's Yard, Master's Superfish, Tbilisi and the Monmouth Coffee Company. While Master's Superfish was just so-so, all three of the others were top-notch and I'm sure I'll return to all of them. Of the names on my original list that I still have a real passion for visiting, I'd cite Locanda Locatelli, the famous toasted cheese sandwich guy at Borough, New Malden and Vinoteca. I'd also now like to add Hot Stuff (a very spicy Indian in Vauxhall, recommended by SLN), Falafel King (a joint on the Portobell Road where I've had some great home-made lemonade but never actually visited at lunch time, which needs to be rectified as the felafel look damn good), Tea Smith ( a tea-tasting bar in Spitalfields that apparently has a reputation for converting people into tea drinkers... we'll see... but it looks a great place: http://londonfood.typepad.com/stuff/2007/05/high_tea.html) and Acorn House, the much-hyped, Observer new restaurant of the year, just around the corner from me, described by that ass Giles Coren as the "most important restaurant to open in London in the last two hundred years" - I feel more and more of a grouse every time I see that shit on a billboard outside the place, but must give the retsaurant a go as it probably is fantastic.