Friday 19th August 2011
Stuffed Courgette Flowers




I decided to try and grow some veggies this year and although I haven't got a garden, I bought some tarpaulin raised bed bags and gave it a go.  And it went better then expected!  I had a good crop of peas, rocket and lettuce and there are beetroot still to mature.  But the best, it has to be said is my courgette plants.  I'm amazed at the crop from 6 seeds!!  I was slightly worried about them as I had been away for so long, but my flat mate had been watering well so some of them are huge!!! More or less turned into marrows!!!  

Two courgette flowers and mini courgettes attached

 But there are also still lots of baby courgettes with their flowers.  I was particularly delighted to find this as the first flowers were only appearing when I was leaving for London and I didn't get a chance to cook with them.

Here are two pictures of the mega courgette that must have been one of the original ones as it's huge now.  Look how big it is in comparison to my hand!!

So this evening I had the opportunity to stuff the little beauties with a garlicky cream cheese and mushroom filling, then I dipped them in a light tempura batter and deep fried them.  I ate them with a spicy baked rice which I used my new individual casserole ceramic dish for.  I think it's the cutest thing!

I have so many courgettes growing at the moment that I think I'll be eating them for breakfast, dinner and tea for the next month!!  Going to try and do something with the mega courgette over the weekend.  Anyone have any good marrow recipes?

Wednesday 17th August 2011
The Cheese Pantry,  Drumcondra, Dublin

Arrived back in sunny (?!) Dublin after almost a month in London.  I was very sad to leave but needs must.  So after a quick hop over the Irish Sea from the extremely handy London City Airport, and completing some necessary tasks, I met up with my mother, sister, her partner and my lovely niece for some dinner in the Cheese Pantry in Drumcondra.  This is a  small restaurant that I have been to on several occasions with my sister since she has moved to Drumcondra 3 or 4 ears ago.  It's a cute wee place, but I've never been overawed by the food so I wasn't expecting too much this evening. 

The exterior, which is pretty cute.  I particularly like the tiles.

It has been a while since my last visit here however and the interior has changed a bit.  Previously it was just like a shop/deli once you walked in the door, with shelving along the walls and a big counter.  If you wished to eat, you were brought down a narrow passage to the small back room where there was space for about 8 tables.  The have now added a seating area to the front which adds seating capacity for about another 12 to 15 people. They have done this by creating a small snug at the front of the shop by the window and this is where we were seated.  I like this new area as it feels more like a restaurant than a cafe.

We were given both menus, the Al la carte and the fixed price .  We were all going to order from the Prix-Fixe menu, 2 courses for €17.50 I was originally going to just get a main, but the very friendly waitress suggested to combine with a dessert, so I decided to do that. Unfortunately a few minutes later, she returned to say that it was not possible to do so and the menu only referred to a starter and main.  We were all quite shocked at this as we had never experienced something like this in any other restaurant that offers this type of deal.  Indeed it is standard practice to be able to combine any two courses you wish so they should really ensure that they clearly state this on the menu as it isn't clear at the moment.  None of us ordered starters.  This is what we all ate:

My sister's partner had the teriyaki beef salad which he said was lovely and well cooked.  See pic above

I ordered the risotto.  There were three veggie options on the menu, but I didn't really want a salad or tagliatelle.  I really like a good risotto, even though it seems to be the standard veggie option at the moment in many restaurants.  If it's done well it's beautiful.  This was a wild mushroom version which I think would have been better suited to an autumnal menu rather than a summer one.  It came as you can see above, with a heap of rocket leaves and the thinnest shavings of perorino cheese I have ever seen.  The rocket wasn't dressed or seasoned and would have benefited from being so.  The risotto itself was nicely flavoured, but the rice was overcooked and the consistency was quite stodgy.  The mushrooms were badly prepared.  There is another image below of how they were presented in this dish, big ears which were almost as large as the palm of my hand, they didn't suit this dish and would have been better torn into smaller pieces.  I also thought them extremely woody and tough.  It was a well seasoned dish however.

 My four and a half year old niece tucked into banger's and mash which she liked.  The waitress was particularly friendly with her and even brought out special cutlery for her which was nice.

Both my mother and sister eat the coc-au-vin which they said was delicious, well cooked and a rich sauce apparently.

You can clearly see the gigantic mushroom here.  Look at its size relative to the dish!

 We washed all our food down with an Australian Chardonnay.  It was chosen by my brother-in-law and was fruity and light.  Unfortunately his original selection from the wine list was unavailable.  We discovered this fact at the same time as being told that we couldn't combine mains and dessert which had me slightly concerned about how the meal would progress, but everything else we wanted was fine.

I decided not to have dessert but instead had a small spoon of everyone else's (it would have been rude not to!)

My brother in law and niece shared a 'death by chocolate', seen above after the swirl of chocolate frosting had been whipped into my niece's mouth before I got the photo taken.  I'm not the biggest fan of sponge but this was light and moist and the frosting was nice.

My mother had the banoffee pie, which was nice and not overly sweet.

And my sister had the rhubarb crumble.  This was probably the best of the desserts, neither too sweet or tart.

I'm not too sure how much the bill came to in total as my sister and her partner kindly paid for us all but judging by the tip I suspect it was around the €100 mark.  Looking at the menu the food is quite expensive I feel, but then I have to remind myself that I'm back in Dublin and that €14/€15 is quite a standard price for a main course.  I do have to say that I feel it has definitely improved as an establishment and that the food is better now than my last visit over a year ago.   It's a  handy wee place to have in Drumcondra.

http://www.thecheesepantry.com/

11th August 2011

The Bush Inn, Ovington, Hampshire

Just a quick big-up to this fabulous little country pub that we found on the way to Boomtown Fair festival last week.  After our pleasantly short mini-convoy journey from London, we stopped off here for a quick bite of lunch.  It's not far from Winchester, just outside the little village of New Alresford.  Turning off up a tiny wee country road, framed with trees, one comes upon this charming little country pub at the road's end.  It really reminded me of something you'd see in an epsoide of 'Midsommer Murders'.

There was a really friendly and helpful bar man, and apart from us, there were 2 groups of people also heading to the fair.  Inside was all dark wood, fireplaces and low ceilings and on the back wall there were black boards with the evening menu.  It looked really interesting, but it was only cold food at lunch time, so three of us got a ploughman's of which they had a variety.  I got brie and 2 others of our party got gammon and trout mousse.  All of these came with chuntneys, sticks of celery, grapes, beetroot, coleslaw and a doorstop of a wedge of brown bread and an excellent pat of butter.  I haven't had a ploughman's in years and forgot how delicious something this simple can be when prepared with good ingredients.  My brie was gorgeous, oozy and spreadable with a lovely bumpy, mouldy rind.  I washed it down with an excellent pint of local scrumpy which wasn't too tart, but fresh and apple-y.  Stupidly I didn't think about the camera or blog till all the grub had been woolfed down as I didn't expect to get something as good here, and I should have taken more note of what was on the inside menu, but here's some photos of the lovely pub to tempt you down there. 

So beautiful!!!

Lovely beer garden for a summer's day

Here's a link to their website and a link to their position on Google maps.

http://maps.google.ie/maps?rlz=1C1GGGE_enIE423IE423&q=the+bush+inn,+wadworth&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wl

http://www.thebushinn.co.uk/home.php

Wednesday 9th August
Dishoom Chowpatty beach pop-up, South Bank, London


Spent a great day on the South Bank with my very good friend and her two extremely lovely little daughters.  It was lovely and sunny so after spending some time playing in the beach that they've created there we headed up to the pop-up Dishoom Indian snack restaurant.

The decor here is great, loads of colourful palettes of wood on the outside and the inside is all wooden slats and there is a section of the wall made up of rolled up newspapers.  The menu is on blackboards behind the bar and it's half drinks and half food.  For the drinks you can order any of these as either 'naughty' or virgin.  We both went virgin as it was early in the day.  My friend got a fresh coconut which the barman drilled into.  It was nice and fresh and reminded me of being in India many moons ago with this particular friend where we used to drink these (sometimes with I think rum? in it).  My god daughter (see pic below) loved the coconut.  I ordered a orange and ginger shaved ice drink which came poured on an ice lolly (wooden spoon instead of a stick), but I found this too thick and think would have been far better if it had been 'naughty' as the alcohol would have cut through the sweetness.

Walking in

The food menu
(hope it's readable0

a view from the bar

My god daughter enjoying the coconut juice

My orange & ginger shaved ice drink

 So onto the food.  Half of it as veggie.  There were rolls/wraps but we went for the snacks.  We shared a Pav Bhaji, a vada, samosa and naan.  The naan was lovely, thin, but great flavour and texture from the tandoori oven.  The Pav Bhaji was really spicy, but I was disappointed in it.  Years ago, my sister lived with a Gujarati girl who used to make the most amazing pav bhaji, with cauliflower, carrots and peas.  This was lightly crushed, loaded with butter and a masala that was heavy on cinnamon.  Delicious and traditionally served with buttered rolls.  The one we had today was also served with the buttered rolls but the texture was too smooth, it was more like a sauce and the spicing was overly reliant on chili.  It was enjoyable though and we left none behind.

Pav Bhaji in a cup

The vada was lovely, I thought.  It did however come in a bread bap, which was a bit weird I thought as you couldn't taste enough of the vada.  But it was well spiced and very tasty.  My friend thought it a bit too spicy, but I liked it.

The vada in a bap!

the naan - rally tasty

 We got the samosas for the kids but ended up eating them ourselves (greedy) as they were too spicy for them.  These were really nice, crisp and well spiced with well cooked pieces of potato, carrots and peas inside which weren't soft or soggy.  Mmmmmm!

the tasty samosas

Buttered bread to mop up the pav
bhaji

Coconut juice

enjoying naan in the sun

 There's loads going on on the South Bank at the moment.  There's a anniversary festival for 60th years of the festival of Britain on at the moments, so loads of bars, rooftop gardens and beach huts along the way.  Whilst walking off, we saw this band and I noticed these two guys dancing.  Really funny.  I'd seen them at Brixton Splash on Sunday.  Brilliant, must be in their 60's, full on quiff wigs and bell bottoms shaking their thangs on the dance floor.  Apparently they can be found dancing at all the free festivals so look out for them!!

the groovy dancers at the Bulmer's bar

View from outside tables

http://www.dishoom.com/southbank-pop-up/

Monday 8th August

Meze Mangal, Lewisham Way

So London's burning outside; amid the mindless riots our fridge is empty so off we go looking for something to eat.  It was weird on the street, eerily quiet, hardly any traffic and lots of the shops were either closed or half closed.  Initially we were just going to get something from the corner shop, but then remembered about the Turkish restaurant up the road that we used to go to a lot but haven't eaten in in ages.  So, not sure if it would be open or not we nervously trundled up.  Happily it was open - and quite packed.  We decided on a takeaway rather then sitting in and were told it would take 15mins so we sat by the charcoal pit which the different meat skewers were being cooked on.  As we got hotter and hotter beside this, we wondered if we hadn't made a mistake and just sat in to eat so it was a relief to get back out in the cooler outside air once the food was ready.  

This is what we ordered:

Me, I got Imam Baylidi,  delicious classic Turkish cold aubergine dish.  Really silky half of an aubergine, covered in softly cooked tomatoes and soft onion.  You can really taste the olive oil, really fruity and rich.  I also got a pide which is a soft of Turkish pizza.  I went for the Ispanakli-Peynirli pide, which was spinach, onions, cheese and seasoning.  It was lovely, really soft, spongy, light bread, topped with gooey, oozy cheese, finely chopped spinach (long big leaves wouldn't work here) and again soft onions, really nice.

The boy, he went for Karisik-Tarak, which was grilled lamb's ribs served with salad.  The salad was a nice fresh mix of red cabbage, carrot, cucumber and lettuce with a good wedge of lemon to squeeze over.  I stole most of this.  The boy said his ribs were really nice and juicy and whilst waiting for our food by the charcoal pit he commented on how the cook took care with the individual seasoning of the different types of meats.  

We shared a not so Turkish portion of chips with the meal and it also came with a free Turkish bread, which was lovely soft and spongy.  Altogether our meal was £16 between the two of us.

Imam baylidi

Salad, chips & ribs

My tasty pide

The free bread
 (apologies for the dodgy photo, the batteries were running out)

Meze Mangal Restaurant

245 Lewisham Way

London

SE4 1 XF

www.meze-mangal.co.uk

Thursday 4th August 2011
Everest Curry King




My third or fourth visit to this Sri Lankan restaurant/cafe.  It's located on Loampit Hill, just on your way into Lewisham.  There's a little strip of shops, all Sri Lankan or south Indian it seems and on it you'll find Indian groceries,  Everest Curry King and a second Sri Lankan restaurant, Vinisha on the corner.  The boy originally found this place as he lives just down the road in New Cross and was looking for good places to eat.  Everest Curry King is a really old fashioned cafe, wood and Formica tables, no menu, just a few pictures of the types of meals they offer on plastic image boards on the wall like you find in a fried chicken shop.  They look like they used to be back-lit, but not any more, there are even some missing.

You order at the counter, where you see what the have on offer that day.  The lower level has a section with about 10 veggie curries, then on the other side there's fish and meat dishes.  We ordered a masala dosa and a veggie curry selection where you get 3 curries and rice all for £3.95!!!  We chose the beetroot, chickpea and aubergine, but there was also runner bean, spinach, potato, a daal and another green curry which I was unsure what was the main ingredient.

Once we ordered we sat down.  Unfortunately the table we were sitting at was was extremely sticky, so much so that the boy's Evening Standard kept sticking when he has turning the pages, but we didn't let that bother us as the food has been so good every time we have eaten there (and the tables not normally sticky).  We were brought some poppadoms with a nice riata while we were waiting for the dosa to be made in the kitchen in the back and the curry to be heated up (in a microwave but don't let that put you off), unfortunately the poppadums were a bit soft, but this was the only disappointing part of the meal.

The beautiful masala dosa

Veggie curries - aubergine, chickpea and beetroot

When our food came, it was delicious.  I love south Indian food and a masala dosa is one of my favourite things in the whole world and this one is great.  Really crisp dosa and a gorgeous dry potato curry spiced with coriander, cumin & mustard seed and curry leaf,  the accompanying daal was suitably watery, highly spiced and hot with chili, and a hint of sweetness.  The daal had small chunks of squash and aubergine which made for a lovely texture.  I always love the coconut sambal that comes with a dosa and this one was lovely, tinged green in colour with intense spiced coconut flavour.  The veggie curries were great too.  The beetroot was amazing, really hot in terms of chili, little matchsticks of beetroot cooked and spiced to perfection.  The aubergine curry was soft, silky and velvety in texture, again highly spiced and hot enough to put the boy into a sweat (not a hard job, he's not great with heat).  The chana was lovely as well and probably the mildest of the three, but had a fabulously dense texture.

This is a great place for a cheap eat.  For both meals (which we had shared) it was £9.50!!!  We drank tap water that they had brought to the table so a really cheap meal.  On the counter above the curries is a shelf with lots of snacks, vadai and bahji's but also these amazing Sri Lankan snacks, pan rolls which I'd never seen before.  They come in meat, fish or veggie forms and are a bread, possibly a roti, folded around a curry.  They come wrapped in either square, rectangular or triangular form and are cheap and delicious here.  It's a great wee street - Vinisha, the other Sri Lankan restaurant here is also very tasty and cheap  albeit a bit more formal.  Unfortunately I forgot to photograph the outside (I really need a smart phone, I hate having to get the camera out to take the photos) and there is no website, but here's the address:

Everest Curry King

24 Loampit Hill

SE13 7SW  

Monday 1st August

Spuntino, Soho

This was our second visit to Spuntino.  It's a small bar and food joint on Rupert Street in Soho.  It's not long opened - about 4 months I think - and is decorated as if they rediscovered the original decor when they were stripping the place back (which I think may be what actually happened although I'm not sure).  Butcher's style tiles, metal panelling on the roof and old style appliances etc.  It looks really good.  The staff are very nice, and there seems to be a requirement of having many tattoos and a slight rockabilly look in order to work there. 

Everyone sits on high bar stools around the bar and the menus are on the tables as your place setting.  The moment you walk in you're offered a big bottle of tap water as you decide what to have, and a tin cup of chili popcorn.  The last time we were here we couldn't get enough of this stuff, but it was disappointing on our return, being both cold and overly oily.  A shame and we were worried that everything was going to be different.  We needn't have worried, it was all lovely.  I had the Mac & Cheese and the boy had the Soft shell crab.  My mac & cheese was  huge, really enough for two and you're probably supposed to share, but I ended up eating most of it (I tried to get the boy to eat more of it but he said I was being a feeder).  It was really nice.  The cheese sauce could have been cheesier and the pasta was a little over cooked but very satisfying none the less.  I particularly loved the breadcrumb top.  The soft shell crab was really nice, says the  boy and came with a Tabasco aioli and shaved fennel salad.  We shared the egg-plant chips which were as nice as last time.  I'm not sure how they do these, as the aubergine really keeps the shape of a chip but is really soft inside.  They come with a fennel yogurt.  Gorgeous, get these if you go! 

The peanut butter and jelly sandwich, plus our 2 cocktails, the amazing 'Dark & Stormy' and the light and floral 'Clover Club'.

Mac & Cheese

We finished off with a cocktail each, I had the 'Dark & Stormy' a rum and ginger ale drink which is really moreish and reminded me of those cola bottle sweets I used to love as a kid.  The boy had the Clover Club which he was disappointed with, as it was bright pink, in a small glass and quite girly (see pic above).  It was quite nice, but mine was definitely the winner.  We shared the peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dessert, which we also ordered last time (along with the strawberry and coconut mess which was excellent).  It was just as good.  It's two slices of peanut butter parfait with a raspberry jam/coulis in the middle and some beautiful crunch pieces of what seem to be crushed caramel, although reminds me of popping candy a bit.  This dessert's a winner.  I'd love to try the cheese cake on the menu next time.

It's cheap enough, but the half pints of Meantime pale ale is quite expensive at £2.50 a pop.  So in total the bill came to £50.62 including service charge for the two of us, so not too bad at all!

http://spuntino.co.uk/

Sunday 31st July

Frank's Cafe & Campari Bar, Peckham

The boy and I decided to pop in here for a quick drink after our meal in Wuli Wuli on Friday night.  We had only discovered it by accident the previous week when we were trying to get to a mate's house via a short cut.  It's been on the go for three summers and is a real gem of a place.  They do drinks - especially lots of campari cocktails as the name suggests and they have an interesting menu.  We had a negroni each (very heavy on the alcohol, hard to drink, but nice) and checked out the amazing view.  It's better then from the viewing points at Hampstead Heath and Greenwich as you seem to be a lot closer.  Amazing views all the way from Westminister, Elephant & Castle past the Shard and Gherkin all the way over to Canary Wharf and the Dome. 

One of the fabulous pieces of sculpture one level down for the bar.  I love this, at night time, with the spot light trained on it, it looks like something from Star Wars.  It's only on closer inspection that you notice that's its the handle bar of a Lidl trolley.

The installation from a distance

A glimpse of the amazing view of London

More light and digger sculptures

Canary Wharf





A light sculpture

The covered bar.  It was so packed, so it too ages to get served.

It's a bit like walking up to a squat party when going up there in the dark. There's a young Hoxton style crowd mainly but quite a mixed bunch in the day.  I really like all the sculpture and installation happening, although the two inflatable rats scared me a bit in the dark!  The even have Del boy's motor on the roof, really good, so we wanted to come back in the day time to try out the food.  On Sunday, some friends poped round so we all hobbled over there to get a bite and a drink.  Actually hobbling because the boy and one of our friends both have dodgy knees at the moment, so getting to level 10 of the car park took a while.  We all - apart from the boy - had a really nice French Cidre to drink and he had a bicyclette - a white wine and Campari drink.  For food, our friends share the baked beans on toast which I had also.  These were home baked hariot beans, they were baked in a dense, smoky tomato sauce, and then had a fried egg on top.  I'm not a fan of eggs that haven't been mixed together so I gave mine away.  I also got some Patatas a la Pobre, which we all shared.  These didn't look too appealing, but were lovely.  Served cold, they were boiled and dressed in lovely olive oil and mushed around a bit.  Unfortunately no pics of the food we had asI didn't bring the camera.  The boy had the chicken wings, coated in chilli and lemon, which he said were amazing and finger lickin' good - high praise indeed!

After one or two more drinks we watched the sun slowly go down over the amazing skyline.

http://www.frankscafe.org.uk/