Fri 16 - Battle of the Banh Mi

A sausage bap, brown sauce, from The Butcher at Leadenhall market to start the day with.  Up to it's usual standard.

I'd sworn I wouldn't eat at Eat again after my recent bad experiences, but was tempted back by the offer of a banh mi, or at least their take on a banh mi.  Pret launched one of these a couple of months ago, and I was interested to see how this one would compare.  First up, it was REALLY hot.  Too hot.  The Pret version had some subtle spicing, but this really knocked my socks off.  I needed three cups of water to quell the burning.  Other than the heat, it was fairly similar to the Pret version, though the large chunks of cucumber kept dropping out onto my desk.  Pret wins.

I'm not feeling too well tonight, so have foregone dinner.  Snowboarding tomorrow, so no posts for a week.  I'll leave with this great picture of two bread-crumbed and deep-fried carrots that turned up on my brother's plate whilst he was out for dinner in Norfolk the other week.  WTF?

Thu 15 - Osteria del Mercato

Apart from the daily smoothie, this was not a healthy nor nutritious food day.  A cheese and ham croissant to start from Konditor & Cook.  It was a bit dry and overly crunchy by the time I got it at 11am, but I imagine it would have tasted better when fresh a couple of hours before.  The croissant itself was of a high standard, though the quantity of cheese and ham filling wasn't exactly generous.

I couldn't resist a "curly wurly" chocolate brownie whilst I was in K&C.  The lighter coloured part lent a creamy smoothness to this well executed classic.  For me, the brownies are the best thing in K&C.

I had dinner with the boss tonight, we visited one of his preferred haunts - Osteria del Mercato, a small but smart Italian restaurant that overlooks Leadenhall Market.  Like most restaurants in the City it does most it's trade at lunchtime, so was pretty quiet when we turned up at about 7pm.  I had a pretty decent beef carpaccio to start, served with rocket and a thin layer of good quality olive oil.  It looked and tasted good enough that I'd eaten half of it before I remembered to take a picture.

My main course was crab stuffed tortellini with an artichoke cream sauce.  The pasta was clearly (very well) homemade, and the crab was fresh, not overpowered by the light and delicious sauce.

I finished with a caramel panna-cotta, which was pleasingly reminiscent of the creme caramels that my nan used to make when I was a kid.

The service was polite and unobtrusive.  I look forward to visiting this place again.

Wed 14 - Curry by my Mum

I had a mere muffin to keep me going until dinner, a very sunken spinach and cheese specimen from Konditor & Cook.  Not ideal, but it tasted fine.

I headed back to see the folks for dinner, and ate a piece of chicken with a mild curry sauce.  I usually prefer something a bit spicier, but my grans were also eating so any extra heat wasn't a viable option.  We had a couple of poppadoms, rice, mango chutney and homemade raitha.  Lightly toasted almonds and sultanas were sprinkled on before serving, which gave it a nice retro feel.  Enjoyable.

One of the treats of going home to eat is desserts.  I rarely feel having one when I'm at my place, nor when I'm dining out.  I'd always put this down to the fact that we seldomley had them when we were growing up, but now, bizarrely, every meal at my parent's place ends with one.  Today, it was a chocolate roulade with (unseasonal) raspberries on the side.  The sponge was moist and had a strong chocolate flavour, and the cream filling didn't taste sweetened (a good thing).  Again, enjoyable.  And it looks good too doesn't it?

Tue 13 - Burrito & Pasta

A smoothie to start the day off with.

Lunch was a burrito from Tortilla, Leadenhall Market branch, filled with rice, pinto beans, slow cooked pork, tomatillo salsa and cheese.  Doesn't look like much but tasted pretty amazing, particularly the pork that had been cooked down to it's soft, stringy, meaty fibres.

A simple salmon pasta for dinner.  Fusilli, smoked salmon, spinach leaves, shallot, helped along with a splash of white wine, some creme fraiche, and a sprinkling of parsley.  It was decent enough, though I'm not hugely keen on smoked salmon when it's been warmed up.

Mon 12 - Auditors, Balls Burger & More Tapas

We had auditors in today, here for the week.  As anyone who works in the financial services industry knows, this is not a happening to be cherished.  I was too full of fear to consume breakfast.

Things perked up a bit when said auditors invited me out for an early lunch.  Trying to soften me up perhaps?  No better way to do so than through food . . .

For matters of convenience, and also because I'd had some decent meals there recently, we went to Balls Brothers, Bury Court.  I ordered the cheeseburger.  It wasn't up to the same standard as my previous visits; either the focaccia bun was too big, or the meat patty was too small, but either way it didn't fit.  I really don't get the focaccia bun thing - what the hell's wrong with a normal burger bun?  The chips were underdone, lacking outside crispness and inside fluffiness.  The American in our contingent also ordered a burger, of which he only ate half, discreetly hiding the remains under his paper napkin.  An American not finishing a burger says a lot for it's quality.  I was starting to worry about how this would reflect upon my audit score . . . why oh why didn't I take them somewhere else???

We got in fairly late from the wine course, but V managed to throw together some tapas, mostly from the remains of yesterday.  So, croquettes, spinach with manchego & onion, tortilla, and chorizo & feta stuffed squid on fennel (from the Richard Corrigan recipe that we've already used at least twice this year).  I'd painstakingly stuffed the squid yesterday, but we were too full to eat it.  Not a bad tea for leftovers.

Sun 11 - Tapas at Home

Inspired by the tapas we received at Jose last Monday, we decided to try to create a few ourselves on Sunday.  First, a plate of ham and salami (from Tesco) with two types of manchego cheese (from McFarlanes deli).  The meat was fine, and I preferred the younger, cheaper cheese to the aged variety, which was too dry for my liking.

Next, I tried making some ham croquettes, using a recipe from the excellent Felicity Cloake's "Perfect" series as published in the Guardian.  Recipe link is here.  I couldn't find any spanish ham on Sunday in Clapham so settled for some Italian pancetta.  They worked pretty well, though I overdid the bechamel slightly so the filling was a little too thick.  Not bad for a first attempt though, and not quite as fiddly as I thought they would be.

I roasted some red peppers too, and served them with parsley, olive oil and sherry vinegar.

Next, a Spanish omelette, made by frying of potato slices until just crispy, cooking white onions until soft, then mixing with well seasoned beaten eggs, and fried on both sides.  An easy and economic dish.

Next, prawn pil pil - prawns baked with oil, garlic and chillies.  Easy, and again relatively cheap, as we used frozen prawns from a big bag that we regularly purchase from Moxons for about £8.

Finally, a salad that we shamelessley ripped-off from Jose - roast squash, spinach, almonds and goats cheese with a sweet honey dressing.  Simple, delicious, easy to prepare and relatively healthy.  The soft goats cheese we had in the fridge would be replaced, in an ideal world, by something crumbly and harder, but it's still a great plate of food.

All this was accompanied by some crusty French bread from the Petit Boulanger on Abbeville Road, and a bottle of decent Pinot Noir from New Zealand.  Not bad for a Sunday, though the food took a bit longer to prepare than I'd envisaged at the start of the day.

Sat 10 - Princi

A bit of a write off of a food day.  Smoothie, toast and marmalade to start.

And then nothing . . . absolutely nothing . . . until I popped into Princi on Wardour Street for a small dinner of salami and gorgonzola pizza slice and glass of wine.  Princi is basically a big bakery with shared tables in the middle, so you choose your bread based snack, line up to pay at the till at one end, then hope you can find a free seat in this bustling eaterie.  It was probably the best individual pizza slice I've ever eaten (and I've eaten A LOT of pizza slices), no doubt helped along by being baked in one of their wood-fired ovens. 

 If you're looking for a high quality pit-stop whilst out shopping or drinking, you'd be hard pushed to do better than this place.  £4.30 might seem like a lot for a slice of pizza, but when you taste the quality here you'll be glad you splashed out.

Fri 9 - Abbeville Kitchen

First, the less successful part of the day, being a bacon sandwich from Pardoe & Wood.  The bacon was cold and too thinly sliced; it'd been picked out of large saucepan which I'm guessing had been (unsuccessfully) used to keep it warm.  There was a bit of a wait to get it too, caused by some sort of employee meltdown in the open kitchen bit at the back, which resulted in bad feeling between two colleagues and for some inexplicable reason, my sandwich being remade with less bacon in!  This was at about 10am, with only one other customer to serve.  I'd hate to see what it's like during the morning rush.

V & I headed our for an early dinner at the Abbeville Kitchen, Clapham.  This was our first visit to the recently opened and well reviewed restaurant.  The menu consists of a series of British and European influenced dishes that are designed for sharing.  We started with clams and chorizo, a tried and tested combination that was very well executed.  The cooking liquor was gratefully mopped up with the best french bread I can remember eating.

The next dish was the highlight for me - advertised as leek vinaigrette, it was actually their own non-traditional, pimped-up interpretation.  Three small, tender leeks, topped with a creamy sauce, slices of boiled egg, and fried breadcrumbs.  The herb laden sauce made the dish - I could detect dill, tarragon and parsley.  It was very moreish, the plate wiped clean with more of the delicious crusty bread.

Third, was lamb heart with potatoes and wild garlic leaves.  The individual items were all cooked properly, the lamb heart was a little pink and the potatoes soft but but not mushy.  It was brought together with a couple of spring onions and thin cooking juices flavoured by (unadvertised) mint, which overshadowed the (advertised) wild garlic leaves.  Whilst I enjoyed this course, I'd ordered it because I'm keen on garlic leaves, so was a tad disappointed that I couldn't taste them.

We moved on from the three starter sized courses to a more substantial, and expensive, plate of "Pied Mutton", served with polenta.  Pied de Mouton is a type of mushroom, named so because it's appearance resembles a mutton's foot, not because it is one as suggested by the misspelling on the menu.  This was my least favourite dish.  The mushrooms were fine, but I wasn't keen on the large portion of polenta.  I'd only eaten finely ground polenta before, and didn't get on with this more rustic version, which was reminiscent of porridge.

Our final course was a Barnsley chop served with a green sauce, purple sprouting broccoli, and liver.  I was pretty full by now but the succulent lamb, though not pink enough for my taste, demanded to be finished - except for the liver, which I simply don't have any fondness for, no matter how many times I try it.

We were too full for desert.  A pity, because the tart tatin type creation sitting on the counter in front of the open kitchen looked pretty delectable.  We enjoyed our visit here, which was enhanced by excellent service.  The waiter was friendly, and had good knowledge of the menu and wine list, both of which he was happy to talk us through.  We'll definitely be returning.  It's worth mentioning that I've had my eye on the menu for a while and it changes just about every day according to what's in season, and (I guess) what's available from their suppliers.  Exactly the sort of thing you want from a local neighborhood restaurant.

Thu 8 - Hawksmoor

I started out with a rhubard yogurt pot from Konditor & Cook.  Nice idea, but as I've said before in an ideal world this should have something thicker than a thin fruit syrup at the bottom.  It doesn't sit well with the yogurt, and is too thin to eat easily with a teaspoon.

I was happy to be visiting the Spitalfields branch of the reliably excellent (how few places can you say that about?) steak restaurant Hawksmoor for a late lunch.  I forwent a starter so I could be sure of finishing the 350g slab of 55 day aged D-rump steak that I'd been thinking about all day.

I requested it rare and it was cooked to pink perfection.  The meat, sourced from a Longhorn cow via the Ginger Pig, was of exceptional quality, very tender and full of flavour.

Luckily for me, my lunch partner is on a no carb diet, resulting in a whole portion of triple cooked chips to myself.  Usually I'm a french fry kind of guy, but these were exceptional - reminiscent of large french fries in fact, being crispy on the outside and totally fluffy within.  The highlight of the meal was the stilton hollandaise sauce that I had on the side, which has now surpassed both mustard and bernaise as my favourite steak accompaniment.  An brilliant meal, and whilst the high standard of food and service was reflected in the price tag, I felt it was worth every penny.

Wed 7 - Pizza & Kimchee, K&C Sandwich & Brownie

Nothing to report for breakfast, as I missed it.

I plumped for a salami, mozzarella and pesto baguette from Konditor & Cook at lunch.  It was sooooo soggy that I utterly failed to enjoy it.  And not just soggy on the green bit you can see, where the maker had been careless with the pesto, but soggy all the way through the base.  This is the kind of thing I'd expect from Pret, not K&C, which I view as being superior.  It must have been made hours and hours before I'd bought it.  Disappointing.

From K&C I also purchased a "fudgepacker" chocolate brownie for desert.  It tasted fantastic despite it's shoddy appearance, just as good as last time in fact.

I arrived late back from work and settled for a supermarket Pizza Express "Sloppy Guiseppe" pizza.  Yep, supermarket pizza two nights in a row, the shame.  This was better than the "American" from last night though, the toppings were sufficient and required no supplements.  I had kimchee on the side as I was all out of salad.  In Korea they eat it with everything right?  The bowl of kimchee's not as big as it looks below, it's the perspective.  I heart kimchee, but not that much . . .

Tue 6 - Muffin, Doughnut & Pizza

Whilst I'm not too keen on the baked cream within the Konditor & Cook spinach and cheese muffin, I still chose one this morning as I was in a rush, and it's far preferable to the muck that most other places near my office churn out in the morning.  Satisfactory, but not as nice as the first one I bought back in January, to which the cream had been added afterwards.  I had a kiwi and lime smoothie with this.

No lunch, just a Krispy Kreme doughnut, courtesy of a colleague's birthday generosity.  It didn't taste great, but was somehow still enjoyable.  Must be the vast amount of sugar.

I had a . . . let's just say awkward . . . doctor's appointment this afternoon.  Needed a large chilled glass of this Tesco Amontillado sherry to recover.  It's closer to medium than dry and drinks well chilled.  A good price too, at £6.50 a litre.

 Dinner consisted of a Pizza Express cook-at home-pepperoni pizza.  The machine that made this had been incredibly stingy with the cheese, so I added extra, as well as some olives and jalepeno.  It was a bit soggy in the middle (need a pizza-stone for the oven, even for shop bought pizzas) but I think that the base has a bit more flavour to it than most supermarket offerings.  The toppings were decent enough, pity I had to add most of them.  I had a simple salad of avocado and tomato, balsamic dressing on the side.

Mon 5 - Jose

The day started with a smoothie and a banana.

I found myself heading to Eat for lunch, God knows why because it's usually appalling.  I chose a cheese and pickle baguette.  It wasn't terrible, except for the rubbery cheese - unfortunately a major component.  And I'm sure the baguettes used to taste fresher than they do these days.  So, the salad and (Branston) pickle were fine.  Eat used to be ok didn't it?

On Monday evenings I've started taking a wine course at the Wine & Spirit Education Trust which happens to be on the same street as Jose Pizarro's eponymous tapas bar, Jose.  I've tried to visit twice before, but on both occasions the wait's been more than i can stand.  It's a tiny space, with the kitchen / bar area taking up about a third of the space, leaving room for perhaps 25 visitors.  You'll either be standing or sitting on a high stool, it really is a proper tapas bar, and not a restaurant (though he does have a sit-down place further down the road, named Pizarro).  The menu includes classic tapas fare and some more original creations and daily specials, priced at between £3 (tomato bread) and £9 (Jamon Iberico).  We chose tomato bread (a touch soggy), smoked beef (thinly sliced like ham, delicately smoked so that you could still taste the beef), ham croquettes (creamy, one of the best examples I've eaten), hake allioli (fish perfectly cooked, garlic not overpowering), pumpkin salad (with almonds, young white cheese, spinach leaves and a sweet dressing - V's favourite dish) and Morcilla with roast peppers, apple and mint dressing (my favourite).  So, an almost universal success.  I'll be visiting again soon to sample more of the menu, and to take better pictures!

Sun 4 - Rack of Lamb

Toast and marmalade for breakfast, didn't take a pic.

I made some smoked fish canapes for a mid-afternoon snack.  I had some smoked eel left which was made into mini-sandwiches (with pickled red onion on top), all else pictured are combinations of Wild Alaskan or Scottish smoked salmon on different kinds of bread, blini and toast.  The Wild Alaskan salmon from Tesco is a bit bland and rubbery, but went well with kimchee.

Next up was a starter of orange, black olives, red onion and avocado, which would have worked had I not forgotten to add the onion.  Bit of a disaster, onion's definitely needed to bring this salad together.  The olives particularly stood out until V noticed my silly mistake.  Doh!

For the main, V cooked rack of lamb with celeriac puree, creamed leeks and carrots.  The lamb was cooked perfectly pink (for me at least), though it extremely fatty.  Not V's fault, more the lambs.  The actual meat was delicious, but the rosemary breadcrumb crust was wasted, as in order to eat it you needed to take a big bite of fat too.  The accompaniments were all well executed, once it had been realised that celeriac is too fibrous to push through our plastic ricer - must be pureed in the processor.  The whole plate was a bit too fatty, in an ideal world it could have done with something to cut through all the milk, butter, cream and lamb fat.

Sat 3 - Iberico Pork

V kindly made a smoked salmon sandwich for lunch, with butter, pepper and lemon, not bad.  The salmon was from Tesco and was surprisingly acceptable, not over-smokey nor slimy as cheap salmon can be.  It's this one.

An early dinner followed, of Iberico pork with mashed potato and roast red pepper.  The pork was just right, juicy and a little pink toward the bone.  I dusted it with smoked paprika, and salt & pepper, before griddling.  I used (semi) Heston method for the mash (semi because I used skins and ricer then sieve but no thermometer shenanigans), and Romano peppers for roasting.  Easy and satisfying.

Had eleven'o'clock munchies, so lined up some gravadlax on toast for dinner.  The gravadlax was from Tesco.  The sweet mustardy sauce helped it slip down fine.