Jose

Bones

So on saturday me & Daisy were on on our way to Maltby street market http://www.maltbystreet.com/, a really lovely food market in Bermondsey, when we got a little lost & ended up walking past a amazing looking tapas restaurant called Jose on Bermondsey st http://www.josepizarro.com/. Jose used to be chef partner at Brindisa. We had to try it out. Inside was a lovely, atmospheric & small restaurant which was packed. It was only 12pm & the only space to eat was to stand around a little barrel but we didn't mind!

Livers

We both started with a dry sherry, Jose is also a sherry bar, which was delicious & very muy seco (very dry) called Tio Pepe. We ordered squid with romesco sauce, an amazing dish where the squid was so tender, not chewy or rubbery at all & the romesco sauce complemented the squid amazingly. It consists of almonds/hazelnuts, paprika, tomatoes, olive oil, vinegar and garlic amongst other things & I have read it's from Cataluña. An amazing start. This was followed by 2 sardines which were excellently seasoned & served with sweet onions. Also excellent. Then we moved on to the meat dishes. Lamb albondigas which are meatballs was served in a spicy tomato sauce a little slice of fried toast, again amazing. Then the finale which was chicken livers cooked in sherry. I don't think I have tasted anything quite like it. Very tender, tasty, rich & then we dipped a bit of bread into the sherry sauce, absolutely mind blowing!

Instead of dessert I tried a sweet sherry called pedro ximenez el candado which did the job & was more than sweet enough followed by 2 espresso. I would say definitely that Jose was the best tapas restaurant I have been to in London. Not only was it deliciously amazing but the service was good, atmosphere was lovely & the bill was very reasonable, roughly £20 ahead & I forgot to mention the Alhambra beer I had. Definitely go back!

Hakkasan Mayfair

So I met up with my brother last night who also has a love for food. Especially fine dining. He is a massive fan of Alan Yau's restaurants. If you don't know who he is, he opened up Wagamama in the early nineties then sold it off & opened up Hakkasan Hanway Place, a Michelin starred chinese restaurant off Tottenham court road & has since opened up a string of amazing restaurants http://www.alanyau.cn/.

Salty Crab

So anyway we went to try the new Hakkasan Mayfair branch. First impressions when walking in is it's very darkly lit & I keep on thinking I'm going to walk through a glass door. Everyone is very friendly & we get shown to our table which is not unlike the old Hakkasan. We only order glasses of white wine because of heavy nights the night before & we both decide to have the soft shell crab as a starter. Unfortunately when it comes it's a little disapointing. The Crab is cooked very well but it's very salty & can't actually taste much apart from the salt! My brother couldn't finish his crab.

The mains came not to far behind & were a lot better. We had the grilled wagyu beef with enoki mushroom which was deliciously tender & flavoursome, Steamed New Zealand lobster wrapped in glass vermicelli was beautifully fine & fragrant with a hint of chilli just giving it a little heat & the sweet & sour duke of Berkshire pork with pomegranate which was really tangy & sweet which is what it's supposed to taste like I suppose. My brother thought the pork tasted to vinegary & wasn't as refined as the other dishes that we had ordered. I have to say I enjoyed it though & finished the plate off. 

For dessert I had a Grand marnier mousse concoction. Unfortunately I can't remember the full name of it but it had a chocolate disc at the top of the glass that i had to pierce in to which then revealed underneath a mousse & ice cream with some sort of apricot jam dollops here & there. It was amazingly tasty! My brother had the petit fours  which came in 3 different sections containing mini ice cream cones, madeleines & fruit jellies. It looked very impressive.  

Petit

The service was a little lax & I did have to wait for 10 minutes for my glass of wine & that was after reminding the waitress but overall it was a very good meal, not excellent but good & I would definitely go back as there are lot's more delicious dishes to be tried.

Hello

Hello. I like food! In fact I love food a lot! So basically I am going to write & post Photos of all the food I have been scoffing. I am based in London, Soho area to be precise but manage to eat all over the place so hopefully there might be a few interesting suggestions, recipes & restaurants for everybody.

I am the son of a Italian chef, hence why I have a love of food. Whilst growing up in London I was lucky enough to eat lots of amazing & different cuisine from all around the world so hopefully there will be a varied mixture of restaurants.

Hopefully it will be of interest to a few people

Thanks

Eddy baby