The Tapa Room

Last Friday, I headed up to Marylebone High Street to meet a couple of people for lunch. We went to The Providores & Tapa Room, the London restaurant of Peter Gordon. The Providores is the upstairs restaurant, really nice, I ate there a few years ago, and the Tapa Room is downstairs and a bit more relaxed. The wine list here is full of gems that you just don't see that often so is well worth an explore. We had the Mount Difficulty Pinot Gris 2007, a lovely lemony drop that you should grab if you have the chance. The food is of the "small plates in the middle of the table to dive into" philosophy - heavenly. We had the Pimientos de Padron - another must in my book, chilli roulette, fabulous! The Tapa Plate, which features grilled chorizo, guindilla chillies, marinated olives, grilled artichoke, spiced fig preserves, babaganoush and Manchego Villarejo cheese, those figs were an explosion of sweet and spice. Watermelon and feta salad with pomegranate dressing, basil and toasted sunflower seeds, the perfect palate cleanser. Deep fried New Zealand baby kumara with sweet chilli sauce, smoked kelp and crème fraiche; kumera is something I hadn't heard of before but is like a cross between sweet potato and plantain, I shall search these out myself again. Smoked Dutch eel and Parmesan croquettes with saffron aioli - my choice and so delicious. There is so much more on the menu that sounds so good, but we were defeated by then and split a dessert to go with coffee. The raspberry bavarois and Oloroso jelly trifle with kaffir lime leaf madelines and vanilla cream was a taste sensation. The Oloroso married so well with the softness of the bavarois. The madelines were very nice but could have been a touch more zesty and the coffee was superb.

Well worth a visit in my book but there is no reservation system so get there early or be prepared to queue for a while. I know I'll be back.

Birthday Dinner

It was my birthday recently and I was taken for dinner by my family - asked for a list of places I'd like to go and then not told where we were going.

We arrived at Ambassade de L'Ile, a new outpost of Auberge de L'Ile, a renowned restaurant on the outskirts of Lyon, somewhere I always wanted to eat at when I was there for university but not possible on a student budget.

Ambassade has received some mixed reviews since it opened, generally seeming to focus on the decor, deemed by most to be terrible. I think that, yes, it is over the top and not what one would have at home but it does fit this interior. We were greeted warmly and offered a drink whilst we perused the menu, glasses of Ruinart Rosé in fact and some tasty amuses. We all decided to go for the tasting menu, it is served to the entire table and at £90 for eight courses, it is priced as you would expect. The wine list is a joy. There are some very expensive bins but go to the slightly esoteric areas and there are some very reasonable listings.
All I can add to previous reviews of this restaurant is that I think you should go and make up your own mind. I had a wonderful birthday dinner there, the food was very good, very little I didn't agree with and the place and people are great. They do a £30 lunch menu which I would be interested in trying too.

Go, enjoy and see what you think.

Holly and Otters

Very happy 30th birthday to Gareth.

Much fun was had at Holly Frindle - a beautiful Lubetkin designed house situated next door to Whipsnade Zoo. Jen and I met for breakfast so we could do the last minute shopping and prep, collect the hire car and recover from St John the night before. We met at Breads etc on Clapham High Street, both a little the worse for wear and had some toast and tea. After about an hour of procrastinating and breakfast we had made our lists and set off to do some shopping - on the grounds that we probably shouldn't drive just yet...

We headed off to Moen's on the Pavement in Clapham. It really is a very good butcher. We bought some côte de boeuf, bacon for breakfasts, pork pie, cheese and asparagus. Then we headed a few doors down to Macaron, a really lovely patisserie, for some bread. We then took a little walk over the common to Clapham South to visit Moxons. I'd ordered a wild sea trout and he was beautiful; we also picked up some scallops for an amuse.

Then we headed back to Jen's to drop off the heavy shopping, get a few bits from the local market and then go and get our vehicle. Having accomplished those tasks, we headed to my house to collect all the bits from there and make a couple Pan Bagnat. Pan Bagnat is a Niçoise sandwich, our version was: take a sourdough loaf, chop off a lid and remove the inside. Moisten the crust with olive oil and some red wine vinegar. Layer in the following ingredients - lettuce, tomato, cucumber, olives, boquerones, tuna (I can't remember if there was anything else) and then put the lid back on. wrap this in cling film and weight it down so that it squishes and all the flavours merge - we put it in a bag under a Le Creuset of sausage pasta sauce. Jen made these so expertky while I rushed around packing up stuff. We then went back and picked up everything else before heading to Paddington to pick up the other four members of the group (we were late).

We drove up the M1 to Holly Frindle and upon arrival, unpacked and set about making dinner. It was then we found one of the things we'd forgotten to pack - wine glasses, oops! Dinner consisted of pasta, the fennel sausage sauce, bread and salad accompanied by some delicious red wine - very needed! Games ensued.

Saturday was the day of fun. We breakfasted - I'd made some bread and it over rose during our shopping excursion :

Then we packed up lunch - Pan Bagnat x 2, pork pies, piccalilli and cherries, some wine and water, and headed over to Whipsnade. Lots of lovely animals were seen especially the sealions, the noisy, chatty otters and the 16 week old baby elephant and we lunched. Back home, we set up for dinner. The menu was as follows:
Amuses of Scallop on Chicory with Chilli Jam and Proscuitto
Sea Trout baked in Newspaper with mayonnaise
Cote de Boeuf with bearnaise, asparagus, courgettes and jersey royals
Cheese
Jelly (blood orange and cardamon and lime with grapes) and Ice cream (lemon and basil)









Games ensued:


Sunday was more relaxed and a drive back up. More games on the mini table though:

Fabulous weekend, thank you one and all.

St John - Smithfield

Well, went to Smithfield St John to celebrate a 30th birthday. We had the private room and there were 16 of us - much fun and 5 of us are called Jen so mirth ensued.

We started off with lots of bubbles (the birthday boy/lad/man works in the trade so much was there) and then had the Bone Marrow and Parsley Salad and Broad Beans with Berkswell. The beans were delicious, raw, fresh and green with so much flavour; offset beautifully by the Berkswell and some leaves. I have been anticipating trying the bone marrow for many years and it did not disappoint - oh my goodness me, so delicious and creamy and amazing. I implore you to go and try it - astounding. We then had roast lamb with white beans and rabbit fennel and bacon. Both were delicious but I got carried away chatting to people and didn't have much of them. Dessert was Eccles Cakes and Lancashire and Rhubarb, Meringue and Cream - delicious.

A wonderful evening at a marvellous place with great food, delightful company and a huge thank you to the people of St John who made it even better.

The Mojo is back

Well, I think my "cooking for fun" desire took a bit of a back seat ding the preliminary stages of planning the new venture - i.e. "cooking for work". I'm pleased to say, I think it might be back on today.

I went up to Moxon's Fishmongers in Clapham South today. Moxon's is undoubtedly one of the best places to buy fish in London, and you lucky people in East Dulwich now have a branch there too. Robin Moxon started off supplying fish to a large number of the top restaurants, he then opened, many moons ago, Moxon's Restaurant close to Clapham Common. It was a very sad day when this closed, as it was, in my humble opinion, the best place to eat in the environs. I mourned the loss of the place for a long while and then Moxon's returned, as a wonderful wet fish shop, Calloo, Callay! Anyway, sorry, slight ramble, I went up to order a sea trout for next weekend. It is a big birthday for a great friend and we are off, a group of six, to have a weekend of fabulous food, wine and company so more about that later. I decided to get some samphire as there was some outside and wondered in to be dazzled by the dispay. I asked Robin (always the best decision) what would be best, without hesitation he went for Turbot. I now have a couple of fillets of Tommy sitting waiting, some broad beans waiting for me to shell, some samphire, jersey royals, a bottle of white wine reduced to a few tablespoons and a lovely, vibrant chervil plant waiting for its first haircut. (of course there is a gin and ginger in play, try it, marvellous! and some wine cooling down). Join me later for an update and some photos for what came out of it all.
So happy it is back!

It's now 10pm, just finished dinner and it was delish. posting tomorrow.

So, the turbot was lovely, the salad of broad beans matched deliciously. Ahh, the joy is back again!

Good Food and Good Company

On Tuesday, the 6th, I went for lunch at St John Bread & Wine, and had a really lovely lunch, obviously helped along by the company too.

For those who don't know, St John, there are two, are restaurants created by Fergus Henderson and Trevor Gulliver. The original, Smithfield, was opened in 1994, and this one was opened in 2003. Bread & Wine is based on plates that are shared - my favourite way of eating!

We got there on a beautiful day and there were only a few other tables there. we had a bottle of water and I chose a bottle of Irouleguy white. We then set about the difficult task of choosing. Three plates were decided upon: Beetroot, goat's curds and a herb which escapes me at the moment; Quail and Aioli and Blood Cake with Duck Egg (the best name ever). We meandered our way through the dishes with great joy, interspersing with lots of conversation, and then decided to share the Rhubarb Jelly for dessert.

The food was delicious, the wine superb and the meal memorable. Thank you.

Old Things and New Times

My grandmother has recently moved into a home, for want of a better word, so has moved out of the house she lived in for over thirty years. We spent the Easter weekend clearing the house and getting it ready for the new owners (we completed today, hurrah!). As you can imagine there was all kinds of stuff in there so much hilarity was had. Joan has always been an avid photographer so I know have photographic accounts of trips around the world from the twenties onwards. More on some finds later.
The house is in Middlesex, Northwood to be more precise. We went to eat in a couple of places up there and the food was traditional, old fashioned and good. The first place was Spanish and I started with a glass of sherry (very nice fino) and a small plate of tapas - a couple of slices of hot chorizo, a couple of caperberries, some peppers and a few boquerones - yum and should be done more often I think. The rest of the food was good if unremarkable but the veggies came on those silver dishes where they serve you from them, very old school. The second place was in Hatch End and Italian (something that doesn't seem to be lacking there!) and again, the food was good but unremarkable. The veggies came on the group dishes and they serve you, must be a North London thing...
Anyway, if you find yourself in this neck of the woods, you won't want for a decent meal.