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.