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.