Bank Holiday = FOOD

Hello, you may have been wondering why I haven't written a blog for a while. I have been wondering the same thing. I think it's because I lost my blog voice, but it's BACK and I have a great line up of restaurants to tempt you with.

Bank holiday weekends are about relaxing and seeing friends so I have come up with a foodie day plan covering breakfast lunch and dinner.

Breakfast - The Pavilion, Victoria Park

Tucked away in a beautiful corner of Victoria Park (east London, Mile End area) this little café is a hidden gem. After strolling around the lake on a crisp morning, there is nothing I like more than a bacon and egg sandwich from the Pavilion. I haven’t eaten any of the lunch items yet, but why would you when the breakfast selection is so good? All the food is organic and they make their own sourdough bread. There is a great selection of cakes, including gluten-free options, and their home-brewed Chai tea is perfection on a cold morning. Most of the seating is outside, but this is ideal as the café overlooks the lake.  It is expensive and the clientele mainly consists of families and dog-owners, but it has a good atmosphere and the staff are chilled-out (and really quite charmingly beautiful).

FYI– they have just opened a new restaurant in Borough Market called Elliott’s. Their wine list mainly features small artisan growers, so watch this space for a future blog post. http://elliotscafe.com/food.html

Lunch - After strolling around the park, head over to Broadway Market (still in East London between the Regent’s Canal and London Fields) where you can buy possibly the best scotch egg you will ever come across. There are loads of cafes and pubs along the street if it's a bit chilly, and the market offers a wide selection of fresh foods. There are also quite a few ethnic hot food stalls, such as Malaysian and Kenyan vegetarian curry stands. Broadway Market is also home to the famous F. Cooke jellied eel shop, which has been trading since 1900. The current owner, Bob Cooke, sells eels for £2.50, available hot or jellied and a selection of pies served with mash potato. This place is worth a visit, even if you're not a fan of eels, as the decor has been maintained to reflect it's 1900 glory.

Dinner - Meat Liquor, Welbeck Street (near Oxford Street)
They have a cocktail named after me, it’s called the Henrietta Fizz. For that reason alone I would recommend it.  Anyway, the burgers are large in size, full of flavour and not too pricey. The décor and general feel of the place is a little bit odd – not somewhere you would take your mum. It’s loud and there is an interesting graffiti design on the wall. Not my cup of tea exactly, but it works. Food is served on a metal tray so they have definitely cut costs on washing up and the service is patchy. We didn’t have to queue, but the rumours are true –the queue is over an hour long, even on a week day. I’m not convinced that it’s worth an hour of queuing so if you want to go, I would recommend arriving at 5.30 and having an early dinner, or 8.30 and having a late meal and drinks with friends. 

And there we have it, three delicious places to feast in over the Bank Holiday, Enjoy. 

Franco Manca - Pizza How it Should Be

Brixton Market, Unit 4, Market Row, London, SW9 8LD www.francomanca.co.uk/pages/index.html

Technically this restaurant is a chain as they now have 4 locations: Chiswick, Brixton, Northcote Road and the Westfield at Stratford – but I am making an exception to my chain-restaurant-hating rampage because the people at Franco Manca are really special.

They follow an artisan way of life – for those that don’t know, artisan basically means ‘hand crafted’ and implies that a lot of time and preparation has gone into the making of food. The pizza dough is left for a minimum of 20 hours so that it can rise properly. It is then cooked in a special wood-burning brick oven known as a ‘tufae’, brought over from Naples. This gives the finishing touch to the 600 year old recipe. Cooking in this way gives the dough a special quality – thin and crispy in the middle but with a delicious doughy crust.

Many of the pizza toppings are also farmed sustainably by artisans. The ham comes from Gloucester Old Spot Pigs and is supplied through David Tomlin, the founder of the Rare Breed Survival Trust. Ricotta and Mozzarella come from buffalo and cow herds at Alham Wood Organics in Somerset. The restaurant even purchased a farm in Spain where it grows its own olives and the sweet tomatoes are hand-picked in Salerno (western Italy) during July and August. So you can see that a lot of thought and effort has gone into the creation of each individual pizza making it an artisanal masterpiece.

Everyone in the group enjoyed their pizza and there were no complaints what so ever. The organic, non-sulphite wine is only a mere £3.50 a glass so it’s perfect for students and pizzas cost around £7. I would highly recommend Franco Manca; it beats Pizza Express and Zizis any day.  The only downside is it can be a bit breezy as you might have to sit outside because it’s in Brixton open air market. But if you wrap up warmly, it won’t be a problem. I have also heard that queues get really long on a Saturday when the food market is fully functioning, but on a Friday evening, we only waited for 15 minutes. Belissimo!

Scores:

Food: 8/10

Ambience: 6/10, its probably better if you sit inside.

Value for money: 9/10

Would I go again: Yes.

Finally…Dinner at Bubbledogs!

I tried to go to Bubbledogs when it had just opened, but the queue was so long we weren’t going to get a table until after 11 so decided against it. This would put some people off, but not me, I was determined to eat there.

The concept is simple. American Hot Dogs served with grower Champagnes. Genius.  The restaurant is run by power couple James Knappett (Chef) and Sandia Chang, who both previously worked at Noma, the world’s best restaurant of 2011. The couple have lived up to expectations, as their newest venture is a roaring success.

I went there for dinner with a few friends on a Wednesday evening and we arrived at 6pm but still had to queue for over an hour. I personally think it’s worth the wait. The restaurant is really small but the turn around is quite quick, so if you don’t mind standing in the queue having a catch up, the wait isn’t an issue.

There are ten hot dogs to choose from. Some are quite plain where as others are adventurous, for example the Jose with salsa, avocado, sour cream and pickled jalapenos. The waiter recommended the Sloppy Joe, which is their most popular hot dog. It was delicious. They’re not massive, so I would advise having a side order. They don’t do standard chips; its ‘tots’ or sweet potato. I went for tots, which were very yummy, but I couldn’t finish them all.

If you’re looking for more than a hot dog, there is the option to book the 19-seater ‘Kitchen Table’, where chef Knappett cooks up a scrumptious five course meal, talking you through the gastronomic experience dish by dish. This starts at £50 per head.

The decor is cosy and fun, with cartoon illustrations of dogs covering the walls. The atmosphere is also great, but I think that’s because everyone has been waiting outside for so long.

I wouldn’t necessarily associate having a glass of champagne with a hot dog, but it was an excellent combination. I spent about £20, so for a mid-week meal that I enjoyed, I’m happy to pay that and would happily go back.

Scores:

Food: 7/10, Simple yet filling and delicious

Ambience: 8/10, they had a great playlist, even played Jitter Bug, one of my top five songs of all time.

Value for money: 7/10, It’s not cheap (especially if you have more than 1 glass of champers) but it doesn’t blow the budget.

Would I go again: YES PLEASE.

Spuntino, 61 Rupert Street, Soho

Hello. Sorry I haven’t written a blog for a while, there are two reasons for this. Firstly I went on holiday and didn’t eat anywhere too exciting and secondly, I have been writing my dissertation, on food funnily enough, which has prevented me from leading a normal life. Apologies for the lack of blogs.

I have also had a few inquiries as to the nature of this blog, so just to clear up any grey areas, not all of the restaurants featured are evidently ethical, but they are more ethical than big chain restaurants because they are often small-businesses that are family run and source food locally. Also, this means the food is exciting, engaging, unexpected and a socio-cultural experience as opposed to a fuel.

Anyway, back to Spuntino… beware this is quite a scathing review.

I really wanted to go to Bubbledogs, a unique establishment that only serves gourmet hotdogs and speciality champagnes, but on arrival, the queue was three hours long so we thought we would give that one a miss… (But stay tuned as I am determined to go there).

One member of the group recommended Spuntino in Soho and assured me that I would love it. They couldn’t have been more wrong…

Being a Friday night and seating only 30 guests, the queue at Spuntino was a good 40 minutes long, but you could order drinks and stand inside while you waited.

The décor is difficult to describe, probably ‘rustic industrial chic’. I’m talking peeling tiled walls, functional low lighting and wood shavings on the floor for that ‘I just carved a table’ kind of feel. Staff at Spuntino are unique – denim shirts, ironic moustaches and edgy off-the-shoulder striped t-shirts are the standard uniform. The manager, a charming young gentleman, insists on striking up a conversation with everyone in the queue (probably to ensure that they don’t leave), but he didn’t give us any free drinks so I wasn’t overly impressed with his charm.

After becoming increasingly hungry and drunk from an odd drink known as a ‘Gin Prince Shandy’, we were finally seated. Most of the seating is around the bar, which is the main feature of the restaurant, but there are additional seats in a dark corner at the back. Unfortunately, we were in the dark corner. We sat in a line, as if we were at a bar. This is great if there are only two of you, but there were three of us so I couldn’t hear a word of George’s conversation.

The Food:

Initially I found the menu baffling. The variety was odd, lots of British classics but everything was ‘mini’, yet with the price tag of a normal size meal. I would say that the food could be described as ‘novelty’, but it’s mildly annoying when you’re hungry and just want something filling to eat. I ordered a burger which wasn’t tiny enough to have something else as well, but it didn’t come with any sides so wasn’t massively filling. With the price tag of £9 for the burger alone, I think, quite frankly, that’s a rip off.

Other members of the group ordered chicken wings, a boiled egg with soldiers and a steak and egg for £10, which was literally a small steak with an egg on top – nothing more, not even a cheeky peppercorn sauce. And what really annoyed me was the fact that they didn’t even ask us how we like our steak. After taking advice from our waiter, we also ordered some sides of ‘shoe string fries’ and coleslaw. I’m a hand-cut chips kind of person so I didn’t appreciate chips that were so thin they didn’t look like they had ever begun their life as a whole potato.

Overall the food was overpriced, not especially filling and perhaps was trying to be something it wasn’t. I had an enjoyable evening with great company and we definitely experienced a meal that was out of the ordinary, I just don’t think it was worth the price tag.

Scores:

Food: 5/10, it’s tasty but there isn’t enough of it.

Ambience: 7/10

Value for money: 3/10

Would I go again: Not within the next year at least.