Koya & Honey My Autobiography

Every time I ever walked past Japanese restaurant Koya http://www.koya.co.uk/ there has always been a long que & I've never fancied waiting but yesterday I finally made it for lunch with Daisy. There's been lots of excellent reviews & awards given to Koya the last couple of weeks so was looking forward to a great bowl of ramen!

Koya is quite smallish inside but everyone's packed in so there was a nice buzz for Monday lunch. We had to share a table which we obviously didn't mind & I ordered a amazing "Hot Ginger (homemade)" tea. It was lovely & gingery (you'd hope it was) & had a lovely sweet edge to it. A lot of Koya's menu seems to be ramen based like "Atsu Atsu" which is Hot udon in Hot Broth & "Hiya - Atsu" which is Cold Udon with Hot Broth but they also do rice bowl dishes which all sound very tasty to. 

Pickled

We chose a small plate of "Otsukemono" which are home made pickles & consisted of beetroot only. Quite tasty & a nice herb sprinkled on top. 

For main I went for a "Buta Miso Hot Udon in Hot Broth (Pork & miso)". Daisy chose the "Kamo Hot Udon in Hot Broth (Duck)". I was lucky to have tried some amazing ramen in Japan a few years ago with my old friend Mike which were incredible & always been disappointed with what I've had in the UK but Koya changed that feeling. The pork stock was delicious & meaty with a little sweet edge to it which I liked very much. The noodles were first rate & I scoffed it down heartily. It was a really nourishing & flavoursome meal. Daisy's duck was equally amazing! The duck was really tender & delicious & the stock was a little lighter then the pork stock so good contrasting flavours between the two dishes. 

I think Koya was excellent, if you're looking for really tasty & warming Japanese food that's not to expensive, this place is amazing. Just maybe expect to que! 

Book

Onto "Honey My Autobiography" which is my dad, Pino Iacaruso's cookbook. He wrote it a couple of years ago & includes stories about his childhood in Italy, cooking for Princess Margaret & Princess Michael of Kent, the Finnish embassy (where he worked for quite a few years) & also contains lot's of amazing recipes such as "Roast venison with chocolate sauce" & "Cold lemon souffle with crystallized tangerine". 

If anyone would like a copy they are £6 including p&p UK. Please email me at ediacaruso@hotmail.com & I will get in touch as soon as possible. 

Tootle ooh for now 

The Canton Arms & Great Queen street

The Canton Arms http://www.cantonarms.com/ is a lovely old school sort of pub between Stockwell & Vauxhall that does amazingly good British food. It's owned by the same people who run the Hope & Anchor on the Cut & Great Queen Street restaurant in Covent garden/Holborn http://twitter.com/#!/greatqueenst. Earlier this year I had a great fish dinner there with Daisy & one Sunday a month or 2 ago I popped there for lunch. I had been to meet a letter carver called Richard Kindersley http://www.kindersleystudio.co.uk/ who has a studio in Kennington. He was seeing what my lettering skills were like (not very good), so after my test I felt a little peckish so got the bus down the road to The Canton Arms.

Inky

I sat at the bar & ordered a little carafe of lovely house white wine. I can't say I was starving so I ordered 2 starters. They consisted of a plate of squid with fennel on toast served with it's ink which was perfectly cooked & very tender & a very refreshing salad of courgette, mint & pecorino! Both were absolutely delicious! I had to have there version of a tiramisu which was amazing. Probably one of the best tiramisu I've had out! It had a real nice crunchy biscuity thing going on & I could of had 2. They also do toasties in the pub section that look excellent & alway's have great ales on tap. A great pub with amazing food!

Bloody good!

Onto Great Queen Street which I've been to many times but had to mention because of a fantastic meal I had the other night. The last couple of times had been a little disappointing. This was mainly for not so great service & a radish dish that involved dipping them into a soft boiled egg which was way overcooked!

So the other night me & daisy (after La Traviata at The Royal Opera House, lah di dah) decided to go. The bread & butter that was given was lovely & we scoffed it down. We also had a carafe of chilled red wine which was very tasty. I went straight in for a pork chop with pureed peas & Daisy ordered hare ragu with spelt, which googled say's "Species of wheat". The pork chop was fantastic! It took 25 min to cook (they did pre warn) & had all the crispy, fatty bits in the right place.The pureed peas were sweet & yummy & we also had a side order of greens (cabbage) that were perfect. Daisy's hare was very tasty though I think she had a bit of food envy! For dessert I had 1 scoop of damson ice cream which was really fruity & delicious. The atmosphere is always great & the service was excellent. Very friendly & charming so will keep on going back many more times.

Moro & Morito

Quail & Grapes? Yep

I've been wanting to go to Moro http://www.moro.co.uk/moro/restaurant/default.asp on Exmouth market for ages so one Saturday me & my old chum Matt wandered down for lunch. It was a lot more laid back then we thought, in a nice way that is & we sat out in the sun! I ordered a dry sherry for starters, I'm getting quite into them at the mo & we were given some lovely homemade bread with olives. Moro is a Moorish/Spanish restaurant & the menu sounded exciting & a little different so was a hard choice to make.

I chose for starter "Charcoal grilled quail with grapes & almond sauce" & Matt went for "Pumpkin mani - Turkish pasta with chilli butter, seasoned yoghurt, pine nuts & sage", MMMmmmhh! I have to say that the quail was absolutely delicious! The skin had a nice crisp to it & the sweetness of the grapes went very well with the quail. A great starter! Matt liked his pumpkin mani very much. I had a bite & thought it was very interesting & equally a good starter.

Paprikary

For main I chose "Mackerel a la plancha with chopped garlic, parsley, hot paprika & patatas a lo pobre" & Matt went for "Wood roasted pork with chorizo rice & braised chard". The mackerel was very light & tasty, very well seasoned & the paprika gave a little oomph. The patatas a lo pobre were simply amazing. As potatoes go some of the best I've ever had. All in all delicious again. Matt's pork was also tasty & absolutely huge. He can usually put away quite a lot of food but he actually couldn't finish it off.

Cake

On to dessert & Matt was absolutely stuffed where I was feeling quite sprightly & managed to scoff down a delicious "Yoghurt cake with pistachios & pomegranate". The pomegranate & pistachio was tangy & I did feel pretty stuffed after. I also had a espresso with a free shot of brandy which was very nice of the waitress after I ordered the wrong thing. Overall amazing food, lovely service & will definitely go back.

                                                                                                                  

Onto Morito which is next door to Moro & serves tapas. Me & Daisy decided to go the other evening after seeing an exhibition by my old college teacher Bill Jackson, http://www.troikaeditions.co.uk/front-room, which was excellent.

The outside of Morito looks pretty cool & it was packed inside so we managed to get a table outside. We had 2 very refreshing glasses of Cruzcampo beer & ordered 6 plates to share.

The first to come were "Jamon & chicken croquetas" which were ok. They looked a bit overcooked on the outside & the filling was a little dry!

"Butifarra sausage with white beans & alioli"  
was also tasty, the sausage was lovely but not  
much of it & Daisy thought the white beans were  a little tasteless, I had to agree.

The next was "Crispy aubergine with miel de cana" which was lovely. Honey on the aubergine really worked but there were only 2 slices!

The "Tomato toast" was excellent & we finished with "Octopus with potato & smoked paprika". I liked the octopus but Daisy thought they had prepared it earlier & heated it up because the potato was quite starchy & fell apart when you put the fork in. It was also a very salty dish.

We didn't have dessert but finished with a lovely sweet sherry. Overall it was ok but not the best tapas I've had recently & Moro is definitely better but there was a lot of other interesting sounding things on the menu so will have to give it another go one day soon.

The Sportsman

Haven't been to good updating the blog the last couple of weeks but have been out chowing down at quite a few restaurants as well as getting back into cooking again which has been ace! There's been three standout meals over the last couple of weeks, one was with my brother at Italian restaurant Assaggi for all the wrong reasons which I'll go into next time, a wonderful meal at Arbutus though I ruined it by having Tripe (Disgusting) & the best meal of the lot was at The Sportsman in Seasalter near Whitstable http://www.thesportsmanseasalter.co.uk/.

The Sportsman is a Michelin starred pub which serves local produce as well as lovely ales. It was Daisy's brother Sam whose idea it was to go so I booked a table for sunday lunch & we bombed it down the motorway to get there for 12:45. It's in a lovely part of Kent & The Sportsman from the outside just looks like a nice local pub, very unassuming. On arrival we ordered a local Whitstable ale & peruse the menu which is written on a blackboard. There's lot's of tasty fish & meat dishes & there's probably 3 or 4 things I would quite easily have if not more!

Big Mack

We order at the bar then get shown to our seat where we have lovely homemade bread of Focaccia & soda bread with homemade butter & olives. All very tasty. My starter arrives which is "Smoked mackerel, bramley apple jelly & horseradish on soda bread" which is amazing. The sweetness of the apple jelly with the smokiness of the mackerel & horseradish is delicious! A wonderful starter. Sam had "Slip sole grilled in seaweed butter" which was served very simply by itself but tasted wonderful & fresh & Daisy had "3 poached rock oysters, pickled cucumber & avruga caviar" which she thought was the best of the starters but I didn't get to try any because she only had 3. A little bit gutted. 

Hake

On to mains where I had "Roast hake fillet with cherry tomato sauce & oyster mayonnaise". It was incredibly amazing! The fish was so fresh & the tomato sauce was light & had little hints of lemon thrown in. One of the best fish dishes I've had this year. This was served with sides of new potatoes & mash which were both done to perfection. Sam had the "Roast rack (served pink) of Monkshill farm lamb & mint sauce"which was tasty & Sam enjoyed it but was a little bit disappointed overall. I think he wanted it to be a bit more like a home roast rather then a restaurant style roast, if that makes sense! Daisy had "Gurnard fillet with bouillabaisse sauce & green olive tapenade" which was also delicious. The Bouillabaisse sauce was so tasty & the gurnard was beautifully cooked. It was a bit difficult to decide which was the best out of the fish dishes  but both were excellent.

Crumbles

Dessert was a classic "Apple crumble & Jersey cream" for me, which was tasty & very filling, Sam had "Rhubarb sorbet & burnt cream" which consisted of sorbet with popping candy, a creme brulee & a delicious homemade shortbread whilst Daisy had "Cream cheese ice cream, pear puree & ginger cake crumbs" which was excellent. 

We finished off with a good coffee & some petit fours that sort of tasted purely of butter with a bit of chocolate chucked in. We all pulled funny faces whilst eating them! With the meal I had a delicious house white & a lovely sweet sherry with the dessert & Daisy continued with the Whitstable ale. All very good value, nice friendly service & would definitely go out of my way to eat there again! A wonderful meal & a lovely pub to. 

Angels & Gypsies

I've been living in Camberwell for nearly a year & had been trying to get to a tapas restaurant the whole time called Angels & Gypsies http://www.churchstreethotel.com/restaurant.asp , which I had heard was excellent, so on my last day in Camberwell (now in Kilburn) I decided to treat myself & go. It was a fairly quiet Saturday lunch time so I popped over to the Hermits Cave pub, had a Campari & soda then went back & got a table by the window.

Squidalicious

The whole menu sounded fantastic but because I was by myself I had to order sensibly & went for the "Calamari Romana style with orange alioli" given to me as a sort of starter. T'was delicious! The squid was tender, the coating was crispy & the orange alioli garlicy & tangy. One of the tastiest squids going.

This was followed by "Organic slow roast pork belly with clementines, rum plum jam & green apple salad" with a side of "Spinach with chilli & garlic". The pork was amazingly tender, a lovely crispy crackling top & the green apple salad with the rum plum jam was mind blowing! A beautiful plate of food. My side of spinach was very tasty with a little heat coming from the chilli, it complemented the pork very well & I felt full but not stuffed. Room for dessert!

Rum plum jam & green apple salad

MMMMhhhhhh

I'm a big fan of Creme Caramel so that's what I went for. It was perfect, very light & the caramel had a lovely orange taste to it. Delicious for a hot day.

There was so many other things on the menu that sounded amazing like the "Welsh mountain Lamb cutlets rubbed with lavender & rosemary" & the "Watermelon, Manchego rocket & caper salad" which sounded particularly "Muy Bien" to me.

The service was great, I had a lovely light red wine & the bill was very reasonable.  Angels & Gypsies is definitely an amazing tapas restaurant & if you're not familiar with Camberwell then
  you need to do so & go for some knockout tapas!

Gidleigh Park

Amused

Daisy has been a way in Devon, Ashburton to be precise, doing a month cookery course here http://www.ashburtoncookeryschool.co.uk/ which by all accounts was excellent. I went up a couple of times over the month & we scoffed our way through most of South Devon. One place I was really interested in going to was Gidleigh Park, a 2 Michelin starred hotel within Dartmoor National Park where Michael Caines is the executive head chef http://www.gidleigh.com/restaurant.

Toms & melons

We went for saturday lunch & had a beautiful drive through Dartmoor, then into the grounds of Gidleigh Park which is stunning. On entering we were shown to the lounge, a very comfortable & spacious room & ordered 2 aperitivos & browsed the menu. There was the Signature menu, A la carte menu & Seasonal Lunch Menu, all sounded amazing. We decided on the 3 course Seasonal Lunch menu & ordered in the lounge where we were also given a Amuse Bouche of turbot which was delicious.

Salmon

We were shown to our table which was very nice & ordered a local Rose' which was lovely & Daisy had a glass of Sancerre which was equally good. There was some amazing homemade bread & another wonderful Amuse Bouche of Crab Bisque. There was a little wait, then our starters arrived! I had ordered "Tomato & melon salad with tomato jelly & basil oil" & Daisy had ordered "Loch Duart salmon with tagliatelle of courgette & cucumber beurre blanc". We were pretty excited. Both dishes looked exquisite, my tomatoes were tangy, the scoops of melon with the basil oil were very refreshing & there was a crispy side of fried bread I think, should of asked but very good. I really enjoyed the dish but I wasn't wowed on first impressions though thinking about it after I actually thought it was excellent & was glad that I ordered it. Daisy's salmon was beautifully cooked, the courgette tagliatelle wasn't what we were expecting but in a good way & there were salmon eggs exploding every so often in the odd mouthful. It was quite a salty dish but very tasty & I had quite a few mouthfuls of it.

Porky

Jackson  

On to mains! I ordered "Local pork loin with pea puree, boulangere potato, girolles & a marjoram pork jus" WOW! The pork was a little rare, I recently read how the food safety & Inspection service had lowered porks cooking temperature, so it was very juicy & tender, the boulangere potato mind blowing & the pea puree & girolles all combined to make this a wonderful dish. KNOCKOUT!

Daisy had "Cornish pollock with leek puree, wild mushrooms & a chive butter sauce", cooked to perfection. The pollock was delicious & the buttery sauce, buttery! Again a great dish & I can't remember thinking of any gripes. Amazing Mains!

Dessert! My favorite part were both extroadinary! I had "Banana parfait with chocolate & lime sorbet" Thin crisp chocolate stacked up with the banana parfait in between & I wasn't sure about the sound of the lime sorbet but it worked perfectly. Absolutely delicious. Daisy had the "Poached cherries with tuile basket & cherry & Kirsch ice cream". The cherry ice cream was absolutely lovely & the poached cherries divine.

We followed this by having coffee & petit fours in the lounge which were almost as good as the dessert. It consisted of one little dumpling, a mini creme brulee & a pannacotta. All amazing as well as the staff who were all friendly, very professional & the manager Sue Williams came & had a chat with us which was very nice. Next time at Gidleigh Park a room for the night would go down very well! Might have to start saving.

  

Bocca Di Lupo & Gelupo

Zucchini Flowers

The other friday I wasn't feeling to hot & had an amazing hunger for Italian food for lunch. I tend not to eat much Italian out because I love eating my dad's cooking but I needed some sort of pasta. So I phoned up my friend Will from Bristol who happens to be working in London for a month & told him to meet me at Bocca Di Lupo on Archer street. They cook across Italy's twenty regions, so there's some amazing dishes & they do small or large plates so ideal for sharing. There is a desert from my dads region, Abruzzo, called Sanguinaccio which is a pigs blood dessert mixed with chocolate. Pretty delicious, like an intense Nutella served with bread.

Anyway, back to lunch! We sat at the bar which is great fun getting to watch the chefs in action & ordered a starter to share of "Courgette flowers with mozzarella & anchovy"! It was delicious, the batter slightly greasy & crispy but in a good way & a lovely taste of the saltiness from the anchovy. Very tasty indeed.

More rabbit then Sainsbury's

We then ordered mains from A the one dish lunch menu. I ordered "Bucatini al coniglio all'Ischitana" (which translates as Rabbit braised with chilli & tamato; bucatini in the sauce thereof) which is from Ischia & Will ordered "Grilled home made spicy Italian sausages with soft golden polenta & grilled Treviso" (no translation) from Veneto.

My main was a knockout. A really lovely bit of rabbit with bucatini, which is a thick spaghetti like pasta with a hole running through the center, lovely spicy tomato sauce with parsley sprinkled on top & a dried chilli on the side. Will had food envy even though his sausage & polenta was equally delicious.
                                                                                           

Phenomenale

Rather then have dessert at Bocca Di Lupo I popped over to Gelupo, I've mentioned them before & had a espresso, they do a great espresso with a watermelon & clementine sorbet! I'm not joking when I say this but there ice cream really is phenomenal! I've had so much ice cream since a baby & Gelupo wows me every time. Goooooo there.

Alice Waters & Lina Stores Ltd

Whilst looking on the penguin books website I came across a series of cook book's that have been re- released a few months back http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/cs/uk/0/penguin_food/index.html, which is a 20 book collection of food writing over the last 400 years. The book that I wanted to check out the most was by Alice Waters called "A Delicious Cooking Revolution". She is a founder of a restaurant called Chez Panisse in California & part of the slow food cooking movement. The recipes are very straight forward & easy & I really liked the sound of her orange & olive salad, so I bought it!

Boar

There is a section on seasonal menu ideas & one idea in the summer section I liked the sound of for lunch was sliced tomatoes with basil! So so simple but with the right tomatoes, delicious. I work around the corner from a lovely Italian Deli in Soho called Lina Stores Ltd on Brewer street so been popping there quite a lot this summer & getting amazingly tasty plum tomatoes, a bag of basil & some lovely focaccia bread as well as the odd slice of Chocolate souffle cake, slices of Wild boar Prosciutto & Pecorino cheese. My friend Jason had a lovely looking Parma ham & aubergine Focaccia (coming atcha) sandwich which they make up fresh. Definitely worth checking out!

So anyway this is how I've been preparing it & I've been using Alice Waters recipe for Vinaigrette for the sauce. 

2 Plum tomatoes sliced diagonally

Salt & Freshly ground Pepper seasoning

Good handful of basil chopped finely

A lovely Slice of Focaccia or crusty bread

Tomatoes & Basil

For the Vinaigrette 

Pour into a small bowl 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar then add Salt & Freshly ground Pepper. 

                                                                         Stir to dissolve the salt then use a fork to beat in a little at a time 3 to 4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. Thats it! 

Then pour the Vinaigrette over the tomatoes & basil, add some Salt & Pepper & Hey presto. Obviously bread to soak up the everything, delicious. 

This takes around 10 minutes to prepare, is very light, healthy & tasty. Perfect for the rest of our sunny summer (perhaps not).

St John Hotel

St. John is an amazing nose to tail restaurant that first opened by Smithfield market in 1994 followed 9 years later by St. John Bread & Wine opposite Spitalfields market where I had an amazing Mutton stew last winter & now they have opened up St. John hotel, http://www.stjohnhotellondon.com/, which is just off Leicester square. I was pretty excited when I found out!

Me & Daisy went on a Monday night so got a table pretty easily. First impressions were that it looks very clinical & white but fortunately there were quite a few people chattering away, so a nice buzz about the place & we got a table right by the open kitchen so could hear & see everything being prepared. 

We ordered the house White wine which was fine & then I started with the Blood cake & Bantam egg. This basically was a slice of amazingly tasty black pudding with a delicious fried egg on top, very tasty. Daisy was a little squeamish about ordering the Sweetmeats with Runner beans but they were very simple and deliciously cooked.

Trout

For mains we both went for the Sea Trout with Fennel & Samphire! It was a big slab of trout, very tasty I thought but maybe it a little dry but the skin was lovely & crispy & the fennel & samphire were delicious. We also had a side order of pickled cucumber that was very tangy & went with the trout amazingly. A very hearty main.

Sweeeet

Luckily, there was still room for dessert & I had one of the best desserts of the year in a Sundae, to be precise it was a blackberry Sundae. It came with an amazing blackberry sorbet, almonds & a homemade wafer biscuit! Daisy went for Honey Mousse & Rapberries which she thought was lovely but maybe a little to soft & overly sweet. It was a little like a pannacotta with honey poured on top & a shortbread biscuit on the side. I thought it was sooooo good!

Sundae

This was all finished off with cognac & coffee, mmmhhhh. If any one is around Leicester Square & looking for something a little different, British & tasty then head here! Excellent.

Oh & it was so good I went back the next week for breakfast & had a cafetiere of coffee with Peaches & Yoghurt which was lovely. Breakfast starts from 7am if anyone is up early enough.

Peachy

Pollen Street Social

Daisy sent me a link to Pollen Street Social http://www.pollenstreetsocial.com/ & said we should try it! I had a look & realised the head chef was Jason Atherton who used to cook at Maze, A Gordon Ramsay Restaurant where I remember having one of the most amazing meals ever, a sort of tapas/asian fusion with lot's of other things going on. One of my old friends Grant was coming to London for the night so I booked lunch for the three of us, which at £23.50 for 3 courses sounded like a great deal.

We went on a lovely sunny day & I don't know what it was but there seemed a very relaxed atmosphere in the room, very bright & airy. One of the staff had given Daisy a key with a number on which we had to give in at the end of a meal to receive a special gift, very intriguing. Service was very friendly & I went straight in for a bottle of Italian Red wine, just to ease the journey. On the set lunch menu there were 3 starters, 3 mains & 3 desserts so a perfect & easy way to order because we all ordered different things.

Curd

I chose for starter the "Innes Farm goat’s curd, beetroot, pine nut" which I actually thought was going to be boring but I thought it was the best starter of the 3. Everything on the plate just seemed to go together & just the right amount of seasoning. Daisy had cold "Vale of Evesham pea soup “hot or cold”, mint oil, English crayfish, pea sorbet" which looked lovely but Daisy said it could of done with out the crayfish & the sorbet disappeared straight away. Grant had the " BBQ mackerel, cucumber chutney, frozen ajo blanco" which looked lovely & tasted nice but I got the best starter.

Cod

For main I went for the "Scottish cod ‘aioli’, vegetable salad, cockles" which was very light & fresh. The cod was lovely & tender but could of done with a little bit more seasoning. Someone on the table next to us asked for salt & pepper & the waiter said they didn't have any for customers so I didn't bother asking. Daisy went for the "Roasted Holly Farm chicken, gravy, sage & onion, bread mousse" which looked & tasted delicious. The bread mousse was wonderful & the chicken was very tasty. A great roast. Grant went for the "Roasted Cotswold lamb rump, Summer vegetables, creamed goat’s curd, gooseberries" Which was equally amazing & I think the best dish of the day. The lamb was delicious & I had a lovely crispy bit on the outside, MMMhhhhhh.

Sangria Mousse

For dessert I went for the "Sangria mousse, citrus cream, blood orange granita" which was fluffy, light & had a good wobble to it whilst Daisy & Grant both went for the "Apple caramel “puff”, vanilla ice cream & Calvados" which looked lovely but the "puff" looked a little to crispy to me & everybody else. All pretty tasty though.

Puff

At the end we handed our key in & got given a little box full of....... better not give the surprise away, hahaahahah . Lovely meal though & definitely would go back. Even saw Gary Lineker there to looking rather happy with himself!

Herman Ze German

Ze Sausage

Whilst Coiffing a few glasses of wine with my old friend Si at Gordon's Wine bar I was Filled with a sudden hunger for some sort of dirty food! Si knew a place just up the road that specializes in Bratwurst sausages called Herman Ze German, http://www.herman-ze-german.co.uk/. He's been talking about it for a while so I was quite interested & very hungry.

When we got there I wasn't sure what to have mainly because there were 4 types of sausage -  Bratwurst, Chilli beef, Bockwurst & Flat Sausage which you can have them in a roll with sauerkraut & all the sauces or you could have the sausage shredded with curry sauce on top with frites! This is called Currywurst. I've read about this recently & how it's been massively popular in Germany. So that's what I ordered. To be precise I had a chilli beef Currywurst with Frites & I kindly asked for a little bit of sauerkraut on top.

Chips

It was absolutely delicious. The curry sauce tastes very different to the usual curry sauce you get at the chip shop, a little bit more spicy, the sausage was quite tender & the frites were crispy & delicious. Also it was under £5 & I felt pretty stuffed as well as a bit dirty. Well worth a try & much better then most fast food joints.

Lemon Granita Recipe

This is a recipe I tried out from the La Grotta website http://lagrottaices.tumblr.com/. It's quite tart but very refreshing & so so easy to make! Perfect for the weather we have been having at the mo.

So you need

500 mls Lemon Juice (from 7 large Lemons)
150 mls Soda Water
All of the lemon’s zest
300 mls Simple Syrup

Make your sugar syrup by heating 190 mls water & 190g golden granulated/caster sugar together until sugar dissolves
Zest lemons directly into warm syrup
Squeeze lemons, strain juice then add juice to syrup
Stir in cold soda water
Freeze directly in a stainless steel container, rectangular one is best. Once it has firmed up enough, cover with parchment paper so granita is not exposed to freezer-air and wrap in cling film. Freeze at least 12 hours.
To serve, place granita in fridge for 10 minutes then scrape along the top with a heavy duty ice cream scoop or metal spoon to create slushy ice crystals.

La Grotta suggested serving cold unsweetened whipped cream with the granita or cream beaten with Marsala wine & candied lemon peel which is what I tried. The Marsala cream just took a bit of the sharpness off the granita which was quite nice but next time I think I would use unsweetened Whipped cream!

Spuntino!

Me & Daisy went to try Spuntino http://www.spuntino.co.uk/, one of the restaurants run by the same people who run the Italian restaurants Polpo & Polpetto in Soho. Spuntino is also in Soho, on Rupert street to be precise & on one of the saucier streets around.

In fact I had been walking past Spuntino quite a few times & never realised it was there because it has no boards or signs up, just a scrawl above a frosty window with Spuntino written on it.

We went around 6 on a Thursday night & it was already quite busy. We only had to wait for 10 minutes though & like Polpo they do not take reservations so the wait can be a while in the evenings so we were lucky. 

It's quite beautiful inside, the walls are tiled & it's lowly lit giving the room a mellow & old school feel. We sit at the bar & start off with a Negroni cocktail & Scan the menu. There's lots of little dishes, same as Polpo which I have ate at before, but there is also an Italian/American feel to the menu with dishes such as Mac & Cheese. 

We don't order this mind you & start with a pulled pork & pickled apple dish which is like a mini burger on a small brioche bun. It's pretty delicious & I wish I had a whole one to myself! Our eggplant chips come at the same time which are coated in breadcrumbs & sesame seeds & served with a yogurt dip which are pretty interesting as well as some stuffed fried olives which taste very meaty & delicious. My dad used to cook aubergine chips when I was a kid & I preferred those a lot more but these were very tasty. The worse dish was a salad of duck ham, pecorino and mint salad. There wasn't much of the duck ham & I can't really remember it tasting of mint much either. 

Then we moved onto the Truffle egg toast which I had heard about & was looking forward to trying. It was "egg"cellent (sorry). It basically is a lovely crusty piece of toast covered with Fontina cheese, truffle oil & a soft boiled egg placed in the middle so when you cut into the egg, the yolk oozes out all over the bread base. This was wonderful, very rich & filling. Me & Daisy were pretty full but I just wanted to try one more dish so went for the Soft shell crab with a spicy aioli dip. This was equally excellent, crispy & the spicy aioli dip actually had some heat to it. I would of liked to of had dessert but actually felt a bit to full after all of this but next time I go the peanut butter & jelly sandwich is definitely going to get tried.

With the meal we had a carafe of house white which was very nice & will definitely go back sometime soon. In fact I preferred Spuntino to Polpo where I had a very average dinner & an pretty good lunch but I do have to go back again. Oh & after I managed to get a dessert but it was ice cream at Gelupo http://www.gelupo.com/ which has to be the best ice cream in London that I've tried at the mo. The other night I had Lemon curd ice cream & the day before that I had black forest gateaux ice cream! I've been going for months & every time I go there's something new & amazing to try.  Definite must! 

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