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 

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!