Still the best roast in London, just

When Meghana asked me to pick a place for dinner on a Saturday for some trendy foodies, I was worried. For some reason, I've had a bit of a mental block with restaurant recommendations recently. I've been revisiting a lot of my favourite haunts recently, and feeling quite mentally tired with being creative. Not being tied to a computer all day long wasting my time on food blogs and websites have also contributed I guess, haha!

We ended up at Le Cafe Anglais, whilst weirdly located in Whiteley's Shopping Centre, always has reliably good food in a wonderful art deco space. I thought the quality of the food would win out over something trendy. And it all got off with a good start as I had my normal pike boudin (which I always seem to have as demonstrated here) and also some of their parmasan custard and anchovy toast for the table.

I have always spied the £5 chicken leg at this place, and finally decided to be a little ungreedy and try it. So simple, it must be amazing for them to include it on the menu. However, I had ordered something else instead, and when I told the waiter (before starters were served), I think I confused the poor man, to the extent that the service completely fell apart after this. A good hour past by after our starter plates had been cleared, and mains nowhere to be seen. We ask the waiter, who insisted there was a 'delay in the kitchen', despite the fact that the neighbouring table had had their mains even though they arrived about 45 mins after us. I suspect the waiter had simply forgot to call the mains away until we reminded him. We sat down at 7:45, but mains were not delivered until about 10:30.

I'm not one for complaining in restaurants, being so British and all, but I was squiffy at this point, so I thought I would have a go at the manager. Even I surprised myself in how aggressive I was, but I can't fault the manager for his response. We were ridiculously fussy ordering the free desserts on offer, and I was a little (just a little) embarrassed when a bottle of dessert wine appeared on the table. I obviously need to be much less worried about other people's feelings and more ballsy in my complaints in future.

Very good recovery then in the end, and I am inclined to say this was a slip up than a regular occurence. The chicken leg, by the way, was probably the best main course I've ever eaten there. Laced with a generous portion of girolles and some very very tasty chicken juices, I do plan to return in the future and just order that, with a nice glass of vino maybe.

How to debone chicken wings!

In response to the most genius idea of boneless chicken wings, Albert sent me this! Too good not to share:

Arbutus

Annabel had the most exciting idea to get some foodies together to talk about food at Arbutus the other day, and I'm not sure I've received a more exciting invitation in recent times. She's just started an externship at Innocent Smoothies, and wanted to get us together to brainstorm some new product ideas. Somehow, I managed to get slightly evangelical about puddings, even though I don't really eat them as such and would probably never buy them. But that is by the by, we had such a good time we are now trying to make it a monthly fest.

I had only been to Arbutus once before, quite a long time ago now, and I remember it being quite unmemorable. But this time round I was charmed by the very good service. I'd forgotten that they do all their wines by the carafe, and not only that, we were able to try quite a few of the wines before we 'committed' to a carafe, which takes good service just a little too far.

The food was a lot more offally than I had remembered, and unfortunately I was in a bit of a full and bloated mood to really want to go for it. For example, I really wanted to try the 'pieds et pacquets', which was an intriguing sounding lamb's tripe and trotter mix, but needed something light. Not that my starter of smoked eel with chicken wings was exactly light. The chicken wings were BONELESS, the most genius idea I have ever heard:

Annabel had the squid and mackerel 'burger' with razor clams, very interesting combination, more about texture for me than anything:

We also tried the braised pig's head, which I suspect was what I had last time I was here. I have no idea what they add to their purees to make them so starchy that they sit on the plate in such perfect forms:

I was distinctively boring in my choice of main, going for the bouillabaisse. I can't fault it, but at £19.95 a portion, it was also a little dull. And as much as I know it's not traditional, I am always a bit miffed when fish soup comes without shellfish:

We also tried the Atlantic cod:

But the main that provoked the most ooohs and aaahs was the lamb breast. As Charlie correctly noted, breasts need careful loving, and this was a very loved piece of meat indeed. Very tender, fall apart soft:

I had to skip out on dessert, but some interesting things like cold chocolate fondant with salted caramel and quince clafoutis made me regret leaving.

Overall, much more impressed with this place than last time, but I am a little dismayed by the prices nevertheless. All mains were at the £15-20 mark, standard for this type of establishment, yes, but not when they are using a lot of cheaper cuts and so much offal. Also, marks off for the bar not having any idea what a French martini was, and also for the bathrooms, falling apart to such an extent that the toilet seat was almost on the floor. The naughty booby pictures don't quite make up for that.

Alpha Course - week 4

I nearly didn't blog about this week's Alpha Course. The topic was Prayer - how to do it, and why do Christians do it, and I actually found the topic really rather dull. It really felt like what we were talking about this week had absolutely no relevance to me.

Apparently, 75% of the UK population claim to 'pray' at least once a week. A startling statistic it may seem for such a secular society, but I am definitely in the 25% who don't. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever prayed, or ever feel the need to pray. And that is in the more general sense of praying in a non-religious way too. I guess I'm one of those slightly demented people who talk to myself a lot in my own head, and I've never felt the need to talk or consult or ask for anything to 'someone up there'.

So the topic was a bit dull for me, but what was more interesting was how our Christian hosts have started to be a bit more assertive about directing the discussion. As mentioned before, they have usually been on the backfoot, letting the discussion wonder rather aimlessly. But this was the first week where we were directed to talk more specifically about the Christian interpretation of praying. I'm guessing this is because in previous weeks, us atheists/agnostics keep talking about how religion in general is a human phenomenon, rarely talking about what specifically differentiates Christianity from other religions.

And it may be this more directed discussion which meant I left feeling less satisfied this week. Although each topic begins with a talk, which includes reading passages from the Bible, I am starting to feel that without a more in-depth knowledge of Christian theology, and its semantics in particular, I am not really getting down to the crux of the problem or discussion. For example, in terms of prayer, Christians believe that they have direct access to the Father because of Jesus. We read from the relevant passages to show that, indeed, the Bible says this, and it is repeated several times for us, but what this actually means in layman terms is still a bit of a mystery to me. This is made all the more difficult by our Christian hosts never really giving an direct answer to anything.

But anyway, my work hours may mean that I will find it difficult to go every week from now on, so I'm not sure right now whether this might be my last post on the matter. A shame as the food has been getting better and better! This week, spicy rice with chicken:

Naples and Pompeii

I have returned from the little weekend trip to Naples not ever wanting to eat pizza in England ever again. Not that I eat pizza much anyway, but it has to be one of the most poorly imitated dishes of all time, just walk round Leicester Square and have a look at those rock solid abominations in cafe windows. On the other hand, I walked past a place called Rosso Pomodoro near the Ivy yesterday, which boasted authentic Napoli pizza, will have to give it a proper look.

So you may have guessed, Naples is famous for its pizza, but more on that in a second. Naples is also very famous amongst Italians for its sfoglitelle (yes, no idea how to pronounce it either), a multi-layered shell pastry filled with ricotta and orange zest:

They are very very crisp, but a little too rich for me to be honest. But if you want to try them, I discovered that my favoured Italian deli beginning with P also has them from time to time. We tried them at Caffe Gambrinus near the Piazza del Plebiscito, recommended to us by the lady in the tourist office, who we also saw coming in for her own espresso, so it must be good. Having read a bit more about it, turns out the place used to serve Oscar Wilde! We loved the atmosphere here, and returned once more for a final espresso just before we left for the airport. Even a non-coffee drinker like me was downing two espressos a day!

Right, pizza time. Apparently authentic pizzerias in Naples have a little sign on the door to say that they are the dogs's bollocks, although apart from using buffalo mozzarella, I'm not sure what the strict stipulations are. We went to Da Michele, so famous that our hostel host knew exactly where we were heading when we mentioned going to try pizza near the train station. It is certainly old skool, and only serves two types of pizzas: margheritas (tomato, mozzarella, basil, olive oil) and marinaras (tomato, oregano, garlic, olive oil, no cheese!):

This was the margherita:

And marinara (and yes, the more observant of you will notice knife marks in both pizzas, we were a little impatient...!):

OH MY GOD! So simple, so good! I think the secret is that their dough was very chewily elastic, very pleasantly so, very morish indeed. Apparently it helps you to digest it. We did eat some more pizza which was a bit more adorned later in the weekend, but once you've had the good stuff, you can never go back...

We did go to Naples for the food, but the main purpose of the trip was to go and see the ruins in Pompeii, and Naples really is an ugly city that you don't want to spend too much time in. As you can imagine, the strip next to the ruins in Pompeii is lined with tourist traps all serving pretty much the same thing, and we ended up trying a little chain restaurant Fratelli la Bufala, which specialised in all things buffalo:

Their buffalo mozzarella and chargrilled vegetables was actually very good, a nice change from the carb-overload of the rest of the trip. Incidentally, I bought back a whole kilo of mozzarella back, and am not sure what to do with it other than to make sexy salads. It's a bit too good to cook with I think, so suggestions please!

But our restaurant highlight of the weekend was during the night when we stayed in Pompeii. Most tourists go to the ruins as a day trip from Naples or Sorrento, so the hotel market is pretty underdeveloped. We stayed at a random B&B called Casa Villa Pompeii, run by Antonio and his lovely wife in the home where Antonio was born. Seriously, if you want to go to Pompeii, I have to give you the address of the place. They were the best hosts, ever. The house is a little bit out of the way of the main strip, so Antonio actually drove us to the restaurant of his friend so we wouldn't get ripped off staying on the tourist strip. And then his friend gave us a lift back!

Hang on!" I can hear you screaming. Surely he ripped us off by taking us to his mate's place, the most classic tourist trick in the book! And to be honest, the food wasn't the best, but the hospitality was so amazing. I think they were a bit shocked to see two little Asian girls being outgoing, and all the restaurant staff ended up wanting photos with us in the end. It was one of those really good nights when you're laughing non stop with the locals, even though you really can't understand each other.

Anyway, food! We actually had pasta in this place, and to be honest, all the pasta we had during this little trip was disappointing, maybe a testament that pasta is done quite well in London. This was their best pasta, ravioli stuffed with spinach:

We also had a very alcoholic rum baba (babas also famous in Naples area):

All washed down with a bottle of local red vino at only €6 each! One of the few restaurants I want to go back to, but not for the food.

Pompeii itself was tremendous. I had studied it a lot in high school during my three torturous years of learning Latin about Caecilius and his dog, but it was nothing like I imagined it to be. Thankfully, because we went during relatively low season, we were still able to get lost enough that no one else was around, and then you could get a real feeling of how it would have been like 2000 years ago. Here are a few photos (yes, I managed to somehow take 50 non-food photos on this trip, a record!).

Herculaneum, a small site near to Pompeii, where you can see Mount Vesuvius in the background:

Beautiful mosaic in Herculaneum:

Pompeii proper, we had amazing weather too, look at the sky!

Vineyards have been recreated to look like what it would have been, again, with Vesuvius in the background:

The oldest surviving amphitheatre in Italy:

The big meat-versus-veg-off

I've been reading a lot of Anthony Bourdain recently, a man who should be celebrated purely for his very eloquent attacks on vegetarianism. It takes a brave chef to marginalise a whole group like that. And if you don't know how I feel on the subject, this post will make it obvious.

Mildred's on Lexington Street in Soho is one of the celebrated vegetarian restaurants in London, and it was absolutely packed on the weekday evening we tried to visit. Leave your name at the counter, and there was a 30 minute wait. The usual Soho trendy crowd included a children's television presenter whose name escapes me; I've been good at my celeb spots recently (more on that later).

I really liked the variety in the menu at Mildred's actually, I could have happily eaten most of it. I think the secret is that even though it is vegetarian, and they are fans of alfafa here, what they serve is certainly not that diet friendly. Take the mushroom ravioli starter, which was enormous, and very very rich:

I also chose an equally cream and cheese laden main of sun-dried tomato, mozzarella and ricotta cake, served on a bed of spinach in cream sauce:

We also tried their borlotti bean burger special, which we tried to make slightly healthier by having a salad instead of fries:

We had to go and take a walk around the block afterwards because we were so so stuffed. And this was after sharing a starter and not having pudding, which I guess completely negates all the vegetarian arguments about it being a healthy diet. After all, cakes and biscuits are all vegetarian, no?

On the other end of the carnivorous spectrum, I finally made it to the original St John Smithfield this week. Somehow it has taken me this long to go there, mainly because the Bread and Wine in Spitalfields is so close to my house. Again, I was uncomfortably stuffed after the meal, to the extent that I stayed up until 1:30am watching bad telly in order to try and digest. And again, a celeb spot, although this one was way more exciting. All the boys fell in love with Thomasina Miers, who is very pretty in the flesh, helped by a very small skirt.

Anyway, the food! We had the (un)lucky vantage point of having a table right next to the kitchen, with a countdown of how many specials were remaining that night. This led to much over-ordering, including a shared starter of duck hearts and green beans, and braised lamb with white beans, on top of 3 courses each!

Four out of our table of six went for the signature roasted bone marrow with parsley salad. Personally I found it to be much less of a favour sensation than the others, although this might be to do with the fact that I was feeling hard done by because two of my bones contained hardly any marrow. Plus, politeness prevented any sucking of the bones which was what Caris and I really wanted to do!

For mains, we tried to order something different for everyone. I had the roast veal with turnips, first time I've ever really had turnips, but I think this was the best main of all. Mmmm....

Smoked eel with bacon and mash came with some amazing thick-looking bacon, but we found the whole combination to be salty in the extreme:

We liked the brill with leeks:

Mallard with swede:

Grey partridge with braised red cabbage looked impressive, with an impressive price tag too (the most expensive main at over £25 IIRC), but again, not a flavour sensation when compared to other game birds:

We did have several desserts, plus we had birthday cake for Eugene, but honestly, by now, I was finding it hard to put any more stuff into my house. That bone marrow is so so so so rich, you can just eat that for your dinner and already feel tremendously full.

Jesus, I feel stuffed just posting that! I really really need to start that detox soon, if only my friends would stop leaving town...

Alpha Course - week 3

Alpha Week 3 brought the best food we've had at Alpha so far. Yes, I was lured there by the promise of shepherd's pie served in the Jon Ronson documentary, and finally the promise was fulfilled! I seem to have an endless stomach capacity for shepherd's pie, and I have been known to eat an entire pan of it in one evening before. The lovely people at church even served it with red cabbage, another one of my favourites:

It is potentially misleading to start writing about the food first off, because the discussion this week was excellent. The topic this week to be honest was a bit nebulous: How Can We Have Faith? Summarised down, it was the first week where we were challenged/encouraged to take the 'leap' into believing, and the talk by Andrew the Australian focused somewhat on letting the Holy Spirit become alive within you.

But as always, it is in the discussion that I found most thought provoking. Our small group is also now getting to know one another; Marc is the really staunt atheist who has been dragged kicking and screaming to come, and is a little aggressive in his defense of atheism (which I like!). Georgina's thinking is very much in line with mine: we both feel there is some purpose to our lives, but it is not necessarily Christianity, and we don't necessarily need Christianity to lead a good life. Sonya really wants to believe, in hope to passing on something to her son, but feels restricted by the overly-religious upbringing she endured back home in Austria. Dean normally sits quietly in the corner, in shorts and a beanie. Us atheists/agnostics/not yet converteds are also talking the most now, which I also like!

We raised some big big issues this week, and obviously ran out of time in the 30 minute discussion session. What about other world religions? What does it mean to believe? What is the Holy Spirit? The one topic that I'm most interested in exploring right now is how Christians interpret Christianity for themselves. I am finding it hard to reconcile the fact that each week we have a speaker, who presumably is giving us the 'official line' on each topic, but when we try to refer back to the speech in our discussion sessions, our Christian hosts not only encourage us to interpret it for ourselves, but very often, it seems that they do not believe in this 'party line'. If I learn anything from the course, I would like to change my mind about how I view this.

Just one slightly uncomfortable thing this week. In our little Alpha booklets which outlines the course, there is a section on the Holy Spirit this week, again, directly asking us to take that leap. It has one very odd question:

Which of the following changes have you already experienced in your life?
- new love for God
- desire to read the Bible
- sense of forgiveness
- new concern for others
- enjoyment of worshipping God
- desire to meet with other Christians

The fourth of these really did not sit well with me.