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Review: Fernandez & Wells, Soho
Published on 2012-03-12 16:24:39
Most out-of-towners will usually find themselves somewhere around Piccadilly Circus, Oxford Circus or perhaps Carnaby Street at some point when they travel up to the metropolis. I certainly do. So it would probably be good to know about one of the best places I’ve ever found for brunch, lunch or just afternoon coffee and cake. That would be Fernandez & …
Som Tam, Thai papaya salad
Published on 2012-03-08 10:57:34
One of my favourite culinary memories of our year-long trip around the world was the salad in Thailand. It’s called Som Tam and typically combines raw shredded green papaya with all the best south-east Asian flavours: garlic, chilli, lime, peanut, fish sauce, palm sugar to make a bowl of pure zing that punches with sweet, sour, salt and heat in…
Review: The Gurnard’s Head, Cornwall
Published on 2012-03-04 19:30:59
It’s been a very long day. You’re navigating along a narrow winding lane with rough granite walls on either side, occasionally rounding a corner to find yourself driving through a farmyard, or face-to-face with an oncoming tractor. Grey clouds roll overhead, to your left is a high and windswept moorland, to your right there’s just a handful of moody cows…
Food Bloggers Unplugged
Published on 2012-03-03 06:32:00
My last few posts have been restaurant reviews, so for a bit of a break I’ve decided to chip in on “Food Bloggers Unplugged” and let my audience know a bit more about where I come from food-wise. Thanks to All That I’m Eating for inviting me to do so. What or who inspired you to start your blog? In …
Review: Drake’s, Ripley
Published on 2012-02-24 17:48:37
Ripley is one of the amiably well-to-do villages of Surrey, surrounded by farmland and replete with boutique homeware shops, cosy deli/cafes and red-brick dining pubs. Yet even though Surrey is the most cushy and well-to-do county in all of Englandshire, for the longest time there was a desert of good places to eat twixt the Thames and the Downs. Drake’s…
Review: Dinner, Knightsbridge
Published on 2012-02-21 19:41:47
We came to Dinner for dinner. It would be strange to have lunch at Dinner, and indeed the dark and urbane dining room doesn’t really strike me as a daytime venue. So muted is the lighting that at first I thought every other diner was wearing black, white or grey in obedience to an unwritten dress code that…
Singapore black pepper crab
Published on 2012-02-15 06:23:28
The black pepper crab we had in Singapore was hands-down our favourite dinner in an entire year of travel around the world. So perhaps no surprise that when I asked Maureen what she’d like me to cook for a Valentine’s supper it was Singapore black pepper crab. I’d do anything for my lady on Valentine’s Day! Well, and…
Review: The Mole Inn, Toot Baldon
Published on 2012-02-12 05:04:35
Living in Ludlow, I often find myself rolling up and down the M40 to the metropolis. So it’s useful to know a few good eats not too far from the motorway, to break up a tedious drive with a nice lunch or supper. One such spot is The Crabmill at Preston Bagot. It’s the absolute epitome of a…
Review: Pizza Rustica
Published on 2012-02-05 08:51:59
Richmond is not cool. Richmond is arguably (by me at least) the best all-round place to live within the M25, with splendid green spaces all around, superb transport links into the city or out to the country, theatre, shopping, cinema, and good eating. But the avant garde have always made the possibly valid assumption that Richmond is conservative rather than…
Review: Roka
Published on 2012-02-02 12:00:40
How exciting! Cameron Diaz dined with us tonight! Okay, she dined in the same restaurant at the same time. Disgusted at the denizens of a nearby table who went up to say hello and shake her hand. Yes, that takes some guts to simply introduce yourself to a major celebrity apropos of nothing. But it also takes a gross lack…
Literally panna cotta
Published on 2012-01-26 13:09:50
This is ridiculously simple and I feel a bit of a fraud offering it up as a “recipe”. But one of my best friends has never ordered panna cotta in a restaurant in the last five years, and the reason given is: “because it won’t be as good as yours”. High praise indeed! Except this isn’t really, truly a classic…
Muddy Michelin waters
Published on 2012-01-22 10:34:13
My most unusual Michelin-starred meal must be Tim Ho Wan, a tiny restaurant tucked away in a backwater neighbourhood of Kowloon, Hong Kong. They seated about thirty, shoulder to shoulder in a room no bigger than my lounge, with décor to remind you of your local Chinese takeaway several thousand miles away. We had a feast of very good dim…
Kedgeree and egg rage
Published on 2012-01-18 12:41:48
I had a fit of food rage today, a wee glimpse of the kind of stress that causes top chefs to bawl out their sous and spank their commis with ladles. Well, I managed to screw up boiling a couple of eggs for gawd’s sake! As Maureen so poignantly put it on Twitter: “should you be writing a food blog?”…
Review: Green Cafe, Ludlow
Published on 2012-01-14 15:32:28
It’s terribly inconsiderate of The Green Cafe to close throughout January. Who said they could have a holiday? I want lunch! I want the best chicken liver pate ever created, with crispy bits of French stick toast and the most fruity and punchy fig chutney to cut the savoury meatiness perfectly. I want a bowl of smoked coley chowder with…
Foodie spending
Published on 2012-01-11 07:56:40
How much do I spend on food? This post was inspired by the first post of an interesting new blogger, The Skint Foodie, who has pointed up the nonsense of most government statistics on the subject of how much households spend on food. Apparently the most affluent 20% of us spend £38 per person per week on food and drink.…
Spiced game stew
Published on 2012-01-08 06:32:14
Quick! While it’s still game season! Many good butchers will do a pack of mixed game; cubes and chunks of whatever they’ve got, and I think mine had at least venison and pheasant in it. D’you know, I didn’t really look that hard.
Anyway, I’ve really enjoyed Christmas this year as the season of spices, and I’m still in the…