St Moritz

What, as they say, is not to like about fondue? Bubbling gruyere and emmenthal with wine, garlic and kirsch, with piles of bread and nifty forks... I feel myself coming on all Homer Simpson, because I think you'd be somewhat nuts if fondue didn't rock your world... doh!
We had tried and failed to get into St Moritz on Wardour Street a number of times, but booking a table resolved that this evening, and it delivered in all the ways that you'd want it to: alpine wooden walls, Swiss wine, vaguely yodelly-music in the background, a Tyrolean gent checking that all was well, and a giant 1970s cooking pot atop a burner, filled with lightly bubbling cheese of just the right consistency for dipping the bread into. The quality of all the ingredients was good, the service was OK and there was enough cheese to induce just the right kind of leaden-belly-feeling by the end of the evening that we were looking for. It's not especially cheap, but it is one of those types of food that you've just got to have from time to time, and there was a jolly crowd in the house enjoying a really classic dish in just the kind of unironic fashion which it should be appreciated. Try looking at the photos in this posting when you're feeling hungry and tell me that it doesn't look a very appealing way to spend an evening...

A challenge

This is not a blog for "the haters" and I hope that it'll mainly emanate positivity, but there are inevitably moments in a food blog when you're going to want to criticise rather than praise.

What I want to discuss here is the question of restaurants that put you off; places you walk past on a regular basis and think "I cannot see myself ever eating in there". My challenge to myself is first, to develop a list of such places over time and, second, to eat in them if there is ever even the smallest hint that my irrational or rational prejudice against them can be exploded or countered or even nuanced in any way.

First up, Rhum Jungle at the end of Exmouth Market. This is a restaurant I walk past about eight times a week, on my way to and from swimming, and each time I look in I start freaking out at the vista which confronts me: namely the bottles of Hildon still and sparkling water sitting there on every bloody table. It's a Caribbean place and actually somewhere I'd like to go, but not so long as those bottles are there because what they signal, in my mind, is a complete lack of hospitality, which is bad news for a restaurant. If people want bottled water fine, but don't guilt them into it, and what happens with the water on the tables? Is it served as it is, i.e. warm. If so, double aaaarrrgggghhh. One of the marks of classy restaurants, be they cheap or pricey, is if they serve tap water pleasantly and willingly.

Second, Giraffe. Now I know that I'm not their natural constituency, but how can any restaurant brand itself with the slogans "Global food", "World music". Jesus! Serve global food if you will, and play some Baba Maal in the background if that takes your fancy, but don't bloody brand your chain of restaurants around such a sappy, faux-liberal, cynical set of ideas...

Mojo

There's some people's food that you just want to eat whatever they've cooked. They've got a certain mojo in the kitchen and with the same set of ingredients which someone else could eaily ruin, they make something which just tastes good. Once you've identified those who have this mojo, you just have to make sure that you get invited round enough to eat their cooking...

Mr Falafel

So here it is, the best falafel sandwich around. Mr Falafel may merely announce that he offers "The best Palestinian falafel", but it's really the best in London full stop. Located at the edge of Shepherd's Bush market, Mr Falafel is a perfect example of a food-business that succeeds because it is driven by passion. As you can see from the photo the exterior of the hut is covered in posters which detail the qualities of falafel and setting out the ingredients included in sandwiches here; and that's a pretty long list: bread, tahini, fafalel, herb mix, salad, fried aubergines, pickled cucumbers and radishes. The one to go for is the extra-large at £3.50. Whilst waiting for your sandwich to be made you can watch the whole process on a monitor which is hooked up to a webcam which tracks the sandwich construction process.

The best roast potato recipe

B and famiglia N's roast potato recipe/technique: peel the potatoes; fill a baking tray about two thirds full with a mix of vegetable and olive oil, place it in the oven at 200+ degrees for a good period of time, until the oil is very hot; whilst this is going on, boil the potatoes for ten or so minutes (getting them soft enough that a fork can pierce the surface, but not so that it can reach the centre of the potato); drain the potatoes and return the potatoes to the saucepan, shaking them vigorously in the dry pan so that they bash into each other and the pan, generating fluffy edges; heat the front two rings/gas flames on the oven and then carefully place the tray full of oil on the rings/flames and equally carefully add the potatoes to the oil, using a spoon to ensure that all of the potatoes have been completely covered in oil; return the tray to the oven and allow to cook for an hour or so at 200 degrees (you will need to check on the potatoes a couple of times, to see if they are done and also to flip them in the oil). If you get this recipe right the roast potatoes will be sensational, if you only get it half-right they'll still be incredible. Today I slightly under-boiled the potatoes and as a consequence didn't get enough floury, fluffiness working, so they weren't quite crispy enough, but they were still good. Served with Linda McCartney veggie sausages, boiled spinach, salad and celeriac mash with chilli, garlic and onions.

This is felafel week

I feel pretty sure that I am going to be eating a lot of felafel in the coming week, and I also feel reasonably confident that the pictured felafel sandwich from Fatoush Express on Edgware Road, good though it was, is going to be bested twice over. There was nothing wrong with the sandwich but the felafel bar is set pretty high in the Smoke, and although this dish sated a felafel craving, I can't see myself picking FE again over and above other places on Edgware Road like Ranoush Juice. Still, the side order of chips was excellent and I had a feeling that they might have been hand-cut chips, but Number7 thought the crispy markings on the chips came from there having been cooked in the same oil as the felafel. Overall, a pretty good place, if a touch pricey for a sandwich, which doesn't really stand out.

Wish-list

A long, hard, no-pain, no-gain, run this morning, which began in shadowy streets and then opened up into something much nicer on the sunny Thames Path. On the last stretch through Clerkenwell I kept passing restaurants and thinking, "Now that's a place I want to go to", which got me thinking about where I else I really wanted to go, and how it might be useful for a forgetful dolt like me to have a list online of food places he had never been to but wanted to visit. They're not in any particular order and I imagine that I'll add to the list over time:

1. Locanda Locatelli - the restaurant menu I look most longingly at online at the moment.
2. The famous toasted cheese sandwich guy at Borough.
3. St John - loved St John Bread and Wine and would like to give the original a try.
4. Neal's Yard - I can't ever recall buying cheese from there; perhaps I have, but I must get over the slight block I have about going there.
5. Sushi Deli Cafe - a cute looking Japanese cafe near me.
6. New Malden - have vowed for a long time to go to NM and go Korean food shopping and then eat at one of the many Korean places there.
7. Vinoteca - a recommended wine cellar near Smithfield.
8. Gordon's - an olden-days-y wine cellar near Charing X.
9. La Porchetta - pizza chain.
10. Masters Superfish - Waterloo chippie.
11. Tom Aikens or Tom's Diner, or whatever his offshoot is called - the posh one to see whether people who love it or those who hate it are right, the second place because it sounds tasty.
12. Hakkasan - after having truffled edamame dumplings at Budokan in New York, which were one of the top 10 things I'd ever eaten, I am very keen to try what's supposed to be the best dim sum in London.
13. Tbilisi - never had Georgian food before.
14. Mandalay - nor Burmese.
15. Bavarian Beerhouse in London - the name says it all.
16. Restaurant Gordon Ramsay - for set lunch.
17. More Southall - only been to Southall once and want to explore more Indian options there.
18. Ottolenghi - because the food looks so good in photos.
19. Tower 42 - for the high life.
20. Green Lanes - for Turkish food and shopping.
21. Monmouth Coffee Company.
22. Le Champignon Sauvage - OK, it's not in London, but I want to go there.