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.