Bacon, Chicory and blue cheese risotto with Fiano d'Avellino

Tried a standard risotto of mine last night, with the addition of some chopped chicory just before the rice. It came out beautifully. We then matched with a (white) Fiano d'Avellino dei Feudi Di SanGregorio, which stood up to the powerful flavours very well. Much more full-bodied than we expected, but very well balanced, fruity and delicious.

Armenian Beorijch

Cooked this black-eyed bean and tomato stew, with lots of mixed nuts in. Nice, but missing something. Like meat or fish.

Magdalen

It's been a while, but we haven't stopped eating. Had a good meal recently at the much-lauded Magdalen, near Tower Bridge. It was perhaps a bit too poncey for our friends: why do restaurants make it so unpleasant for people who like their meat well done? There were a few service niggles, but, when reported, these were handled with superb professionalism. The starters were apetising - just the thing to make you want to more. Rupert and I shared a large suet-crusted veal and leek pie, served with carrots. It was marvellous. The veal was described as rose, in this case meaning just short of red, rather than a delicate pink. Of the desserts, all good, I was most impressed with my peach melba. Not radical, but very unusual to get this made with fresh peaches and other top quality ingredients. We'll be back.

Royal China Canary Riverside, again

This is a very usual place for us to stop and eat supper on the way home. Earlier this week, it was beautifully sunny, even for the end of April. We sat outside and had duck pancakes, green veg with oyster sauce, slow-cooked pork belly with perserved veg, and noodles and beansprouts. Nothing special. A bottle of house wine at £20 (yikes) which was okay. Still a lovely place to eat and a special experience. What a view!

Le Champignon Sauvage, Cheltenham

We have a policy of monitoring excellent restaurants which have been there a while, and where there is a risk of retirement or boredom on the part of their owners. We failed to get to the Walnut Tree before Franco Taruschio retired, and so have been trying harder since. With this in mind, we went to Croque-en-Bouche twice in the 3 years before it closed, and managed to return to the Merchant House in the week before Shaun Hill hung up his apron. The Altnaharrie Inn closed shortly after we went there, but hopefully the two are not connected!
We therefore thought it prudent to return to the Champignon Sauvage, having only once visited it over 5 years ago. It had been the location for our "highest bill ever" at the time, long now since exceeded by Gordon Ramsey's Royal Hospital Road joint. This time, cars were involved, so it would be harder to achieve such a bill, and we were trying not to frighten our friend resident in the town who had agreed to accompany us.
It was a super meal, far too lengthy to list here, but some highlights were the amuse bouche cheese puffs, the veloute of white asparagus in a shot glass, kid canneloni with curd cheese and land cress, scallops with crispy pork belly; roasted cinderford lamb, lamb sweetbreads, crushed parsnips with hazelnuts; chicory cheesecake with chicory ripple ice cream; lemon and pine kernel parfait, lemon curd, fromage frais and pepper sorbet. The petit fours were exquisite - a selection of 10 different ones that we had to fight over.
We accompanied it with the most expensive Beaujolais on the menu at £24, and a supplementary glass of house white burgundy.
Lunch for the 3 of us was considerably less than it had been for the two people 5 years ago, and very decent value at that.

Risotto of spring vegetables with wild garlic leaves

It's the time of year that, in Vienna at least, menus are stuffed with wild garlic leaves from soup to cheese course.
Having received a surfeit of wild garlic leaves from generous friends with a garden, I begin to see why. We had to work out what to do with them. Chez Bruce was advertising a risotto with new vegetables, wild garlic leaves and parmesan. Sounds straightforward: I can make risotto. The only problem being how to find fresh vegetables on Fleet St at 6.30 in the evening. Marks & Spencer Simply Food on Ludgate Hill came up with asparagus tips (from Kent), carrots (from Northumbria) and sliced runner beans and shelled peas (from Kenya).
I wouldn't normally buy anything that had flown that far, nor have I ever bought sliced runners before. They looked very dried up, but the "protective atmosphere" must have had some very rejuvinating qualities - they were crisp, sweet and tasty.
I sliced the carrots "o"-style and cooked a good while with chopped onion before adding the rice, a glass of vermouth and the chicken stock. The wild garlic leaves were shredded, with some added at the beginning and most at the end. Peas went in 4 mins before end, with blanched asparagus and runners shortly after. Final adds were the parmesan (bowlful), some chopped parsley, and about 2/3 oz of frozen diced unsalted butter.
The arbiter of risottos pronounced his approval, but I thought it looked a bit of a mess, lacked a certain something (lemon juice, perhaps?) and am very curious to know how Bruce would have done it instead.

Hot cross bun-and-butter pudding

At last, a use for supermarket hot cross buns. The hot cross buns at Borough market are a revelation; rich, dense, moist, fruit and spicy. Even 4 days later, there's no need to heat them up; they're just lovely buttered cold.
Unfortunately, I'd already bought some from waitrose, and couldn't bear to throw them away.
Recipe books are full of variations on the bread-and-butter pudding theme: brioche, pain-au-chocolat, crab sandwiches even. No-one seemed to have covered hot cross buns before, so I had to wing it as regards quantities.
The remains of a beaten egg (from pastry brushing), some top-of-bottle, a few pointless sultanas and demerara sugar were all that I added to two hot cross buns cut-and-buttered vertically in several slices.
Miracle! It worked. Normally Hungerpang experiments, and I work from recipe books. In his absence, I had to take on his role, and learnt that you get lucky quite often.

Pied a terre

We've discovered that snow is a good thing. Or any other cause of "transport chaos" which leads to lots of people working from home unexpectedly. Unable to go to Chez Bruce due to a friend's illness, we still wanted to go out, and started to ring around. Pied a terre could fit us in, and so began the most expensive evening of my life.
Something comes over Hungerpang around his birthday (for it was this meal, and I was paying). Something competitive, something "let's see just how high a bill can go"-ish. To be fair, on this occasion we were in need of cheering ourselves up, and we decided to blow economy. We ordered 3 separate half-bottles - champagne, mas de domas gassac white, red burgundy, and some glasses of dessert wine, turning down the recommended PX as we've got exactly that bottle lying around the kitchen.
Choosing from the a la carte menu, we swapped plates as usual. This was cooking at its most high-falutin. The amuse-bouches came on a very fancy presentation stand - one multilayered cube, one shot of carrot foam, one wafer, one baby american muffin (cheesey). If I put a whole paragraph into describing them, I might be able to convey the complexity on display here. Equally, there aren't enough hours to describe all the aspects of the full dishes. My scallops etc. etc. were beautifully matched. Hungerpang's trout and crab ravioli came with an exciting fennel emulsion, which he wasn't much enamoured with. Emulsions, foams and purees were much in evidence. They are undoubtedly very clever, but not very satisfying.
Can't remember main courses, except that Hungerpang went for pig lots of ways. There was head, belly, maybe black pudding. Something in there he rated "best ever morsel".
Then we had cheese. Then desserts. Then coffee and petit-fours.
But still, £325 was a lot of money for a mid-week dinner for two.......
Funny, isn't it. Probably the most exciting meal we'll have this year, but very difficult to remember 2 months later what the fuss was about.

Tapas in Melbourne - Movida

Hidden in a scruffy alleyway very near Melbourne's Flinders Street station is this gem of modern spanish food.

It's the sort of place you come in to, and know immediately you're going to enjoy it all. Modern but friendly decor, knowledgeable staff, a very happy buzz in the air.

We came in mid-afternoon, a little too early in the day to settle into drinking ourselves into oblivion, so we had to be restrained.

There's a good selection of sherries, although we didn't think much of the one we ordered. On later reflection, we think it was probably bottled some time ago and therefore no longer marvellous.

In terms of tapas, they have the usual olives, calamari, plates of ham and so on, but much more dainty stuff too. We had one of everything, all 9 of them. The "Cantabrian artisan anchovy on crouton with smoked tomato sorbet" was exactly as described; our picture shows, I think I remember, a "crab tartare" between two layers of Melba toast, and some gorgeous spicy shrimps. The croqueta was eely good! One small lonely piece of manchego cheese came with quince paste, but that's what happens when you order only 1 of something, I suppose.

With the exchange rate so favorable, we'd have been hard-pushed to make the bill hurt. The total was AUD 112, which seems to be about £45. In London, for tapas this good, we'd have been paying at least £112.

Eating to avoid jet-lag

We're trying to do this weird diet-and-lifestyle preparation for the long-haul flight. It involves eating mainly protein for breakfast and lunch, and mainly carbohydrate for supper. Today is a "fast" day, which means trying to survive on about 800 calories: not something we are used to.
Breakfast is okay - cold meats and cheese. For lunch, I wanted to eat sashimi and salad, but failed to find it. Instead I went to the marvellous Hilliard, and bought Jambon Persille and some courgette and goat's cheese salad. I don't often eat shredded ham in aspic, with or without lots of parsley and some gherkins, and it's an even stranger thing to eat at your desk. The courgette salad made little impression on it.

Comptoir Gascon

After the magical annual carol service at St Bride's Church, we wandered in the direction of Smithfield market, looking for something to eat. There were a plethora of possibilities, but we stopped at the first one we came to: Comptoir Gascon, which used to be a fancy deli in which you could eat a bit of lunch, and is now mainly restaurant which seems still to sell a bit of food and wine.
We weren't desperately hungry, having just devoured some minced pies, brioche (why was this deemed Christmassy?) and some Rioja, all courtesy of the good Baron Reuter.
The food here is hearty, not for those of weak stomach, and not a comfy place for vegetarians.
I went with a starter portion of Salade Landaise - green beans, foie gras, confit duck, geziers. Hungerpang's chose a main course of Onglet beef (sort-of-skirt) served rare with Bordelaise sauce, and we asked for chips and a portion of lentils and bacon. The latter never came, but the portions were so large that this was not a problem. The salad had top quality ingredients, but didn't really mesh. I can't complain much about something with foie gras in. The onglet was superb - beautifully marbled, "bleu" rare, but sliceable, chewable, and served with a rich thick red wine and slow-cooked onion sauce. Chips were excellent.
The place has a pleasant, relaxed atmosphere, and the prices are not astronomical, particularly the wines. We drank a bottle of Irouleguy 2003, the grapes listed as "Tannat and Cabernets". I was worried the heat that year would have made it over-jammy, but it probably just made the Tannat come into its own.
We finished off with a Creme Catalan, although I thought that wasn't the same thing as the creme brule which arrived. I need to check, I suppose.

White truffles - mystery and revelation

When you regularly walk past boards advertising white truffles at £2000 a kilo, it is easy to wonder what all the fuss is about. Sometimes in Booth's at borough market they let us sniff the jar they keep them in. The other day, I saw a chap buying a small one for £15, and realised that it was possible to afford to try them.
When we were looking, the smallest was £25's worth, so that was what we bought. He said it would serve four. It seemed like a good idea to buy some fresh egg taglietelle to go with it.
Then we got home.
All our cook books think it is too fancy a topic to cover. There are no details on what to do with a truffle, how to store it, how to clean it, and hardly any recipes. There were a lot of little holes in the truffle, with fine sand and grit in. I tried using a toothbrush on its own, but resorted to water assistance. Straight after this, Hungerpang found an exhortation on the internet to avoid contaminating truffles with water.
I found only one recipe, which added merely butter, parmesan and grated nutmeg to the pasta, and grated the truffle over the top. This is easier said than done - it was quite brittle, and we ended up with chunks and fragments everywhere.
The result was pretty spectacular. Very pungent, a powerful gastronomic experience, but not necessarily the most pleasant in the world.
That used up only half of it. I had most of the rest for lunch today following the same recipe, discovering that a pototo peeler is an excellent tool for grating truffles with!

Butler's Wharf Chop House

I thought the only Conran restaurant worth going to was Plateau in Canary Wharf, but after last night have had to revise my ideas.
It was the service that really stood out. They managed that balance of being totally attentive and well drilled, without appearing formal or imposing. Hungerpang mentioned to one waiter that he would move to drinking red wine, and was instantly supplied with a clean glass by another waiter. The room was pleasant, perhaps a little draughty, but the view of Tower Bridge obscured by heavy scaffolding. We (eight of us) were pleased to be seated at a round table, which is much more fun for a sociable group.
The menu had a confusing layout - fairly typical Conran - so you could easily miss some of the main courses on offer. It was hearty British fare, with a special seasonal emphasis on game. The breads were excellent, and not particularly gimmicky or Italian. I chose game broth, a richly flavoured consommé with mushrooms and parsley. Others tried lambs kidneys on toast, smoked salmon, game terrine and potted shrimps. No-one tried any of the oysters on offer. For main course, the steak and kidney pudding appealed most to me. It came coated in gravy, so I couldn't tell if they'd achieved the elusive crisp crust, but not enough gravy to last me to the end. Portions are generous here, and I couldn't finish the pudding. Other things tried were fish and chips, venison shank, mushroom tartlet, pheasant with red cabbage. All were traditionally flavoured, pretty good, but no better than you could achieve at home with a little patience. Only 2 of us had space for afters, both opting for the bread-and-butter pudding, though angels on horseback attracted interest. The bread and butter pudding was huge! Fully a 5-inch cube of dense bread and custard. Hungerpang managed about 2/3rds of his (with a tablespoonful to me), but our friend could only manage a pathetic quantity. We all had coffee, which came with a few little chocolate petit fours of unimpeachable quality.
The thing I really didn't like about this place with its jolly atmosphere (a bit too loud, perhaps) was the prices of the wines. In trying to find something under £40 pound a bottle, you could look through several sections without joy. I repeatedly had to rebuff the somelier's recommendations with a "no, that's out of our price range", and really struggled to find 4 bottles to drink. We had an Argentinian Malbec called Clos de los Siete (£36), a couple of bottles of Rioja Marques de Riscal 2002 (£29.75), a Portuguese Douro wine called Quinta de la Rosa (£29.95), and a white Verdejo, Jose Pariente from Rueda in Spain for £25.75. These are almost the only wines under £30 on the list.
The bill came to £73.50 per person, which was a good effort on our part in contrast with the previous trip to Gaucho Grill, which tallied up to over £90 a head.

The Mason's Arms, Knowstone, Devon

In Devon for the bank holiday weekend, and wondering how to fit in a decent meal out that hasn't been booked solid for months. We decided to try the Mason's Arms at Knowstone, on the grounds that it might not be too well known yet, and it wasn't too hard to get to despite the heavy traffic. We'd heard they'd gained a Michelin star. The Mason's Arms is useful for anyone driving along the North Devon Link Road A361 - only 5 minutes away.
It's an olde worlde pub in a tiny village, with a dining room built on the back looking over the fields below. The dining room is unusual, with the ceiling covered in frescos.
As it was Sunday lunch, there was no a la carte, but a 3-course, 3-choice set menu. We tried the scallops and the ham hock terrine, followed by roast sirloin beef and belly pork. Puddings were a trio of strawberries and a chocolate hazelnut parfait.
Coffee was served with homemade fudge.
Throughout the presentation was first class.
We had a truly super meal, but the best thing about The Mason's Arms was that it seemed to have retained its status as a pub. The restaurant was first class, but had not taken over the pub to the exclusion of real ale, log fires, dogs and locals.

Almond Macaroons - plain and unmessed with

I've found it impossible to locate in my recipe books a version of macaroons which hasn't been tarted up with orange oil or coconut or pistachios. In my grandmother's copy of Good Simple Cookery by Elizabeth Ayrton we found the following easy-peasy recipe:
3 egg white
Pinch of salt
6 oz ground almonds
8 oz castor sugar
1 tbsp ground rice or fine semolina
18 blanched almonds

Whip egg whites and salt until stiff enough to hold a peak. Fold in the ground almonds, sugar and rice or semolina. Put in little mounds or roll into balls and then flatten on rice paper or a well-greased baking tray. Place an almond on each, bake in a slow oven at 150 degrees C, til crisp, about 30 to 40 minutes. In a fan oven, we found 30 mins worked well, giving a chewy centre and crisp shell.

Student supper revisited

Remember what you used to eat as a student? I'm thinking of the concoction of greasy tinned tuna and sweetcorn mixed with a ration of Hellman's. Well, this evening I was suffering from Friday syndrome, staring aimlessly into the cupboard and desperately trying to resist the pull of the slightly-above-average Indian takeaway over the road, when I was suddenly taken with inspiration to re-create it. Well, sort of. The tuna was in spring water. The sweetcorn tin had some suspiciously old-fashioned Safeway packaging and closer inspection revealed "Best before September 2002". And the mayonnaise was some fancy fresh stuff made by "Delouis Fils", from Waitrose (the kind of thing you see on the shelf in the supermarket and think "Who the hell's going to buy that?". My wife, that's who.) Testing my "all sell-by dates are bollocks" bravado to the limit, I ploughed on regardless, also adding other random things that previously seemed destined for a slow death in the fridge - what I could salvage from half a red onion, the juice of half a lemon, a couple of cold potatoes and some crumbly Kirkham's Lancashire cheese, plus salt and pepper and a few torn leaves of basil from the garden. I scoffed a whole mound of the stuff, with some lettuce (also straight from the ground) and a couple of sliced tomatoes. Fantastic. And 4 hours later, I feel fine...fingers crossed for tomorrow!

Rasoi Vineet Bhatia - great food, comedy cutlery

Wedding anniversary last Tuesday, one of the better reasons for restaurant profligacy. After mulling over a few options and coming up against the brick wall that is the booking system for some of London's swankier joints, we managed to get a table at Rasoi Vineet Bhatia, reputed to be the best Indian restaurant in the capital. I did nearly lose the table mind you, going within a whisker of putting the phone down on the girl who rang to confirm the booking because I thought she was selling insurance.

It didn't disappoint. The welcome was warm, from all staff we passed on the way to our table, and food impeccable. Faced with a menu full of too many treats to choose just two, and a carefree attitude towards budget, only minimal consultation was required before we plumped for the 9-course menu gourmand, plus the full gamut of recommend wines (6 in all). There's no way I could remember everything, and we quickly abandoned attempts to take notes in a bid to actually spend some time talking to each other, but some dishes scaled the highest heights, while the remainder were just excellent. The only drawback was the cutlery - a knife with a good-for-nothing long, thin curvy blade, a spoon that kept turning over in the hand, and a fork where the food kept falling through the prongs, all of which threw themselves suicidally to the floor given the slightest nudge when the waiter collected the plates. Laughable - if you're ever thinking of buying some fancy-looking cutlery made by Guy Degrenne, don't! But nothing could have stopped me enjoying the food - Indians typically eat with their hand, anyway!Highlights included the mushroom khichdi, a fantastic lobster dish on rice and mouli (dyed green) with a wonderfully intense bisque, and a perfect goats cheese samosa, as well as a chocolate one with Indian tea ice cream as one of the two desserts provided. Maybe the crusted scallop lacked a bit of "zing", and the tamarind sauce on the quail was a bit over-intense for my palate, but really I'm scrabbling for faults where there were none. This was simply "modern Indian" cooking at its best - and Nicola was getting quite full by the time the creamy lamb korma arrived (served with idly - more commonly a breakfast item but a interesting match) so I got bumper helping!

One of the things you don't expect in an Indian restaurant is a German sommelier (particular a polite and informative one with a sense of humour). But that's exactly what RVB has, and it's an inspired move, bearing in mind how many wines from German-speaking areas complement the complex flavours of Indian food. Matches were well researched - including Alsace Riesling, Austrian Blaufrankish, Gewurtztraminer from Pfalz, and my personal favourite, a rich, chewy Sauvignon Blanc from the Sud Tyrol.

All told, an outstanding meal, and for once the 12.5% service was really earned. We paid the eye-watering bill (pushing Tom Aikens into 3rd place and only topped by Gordon Ramsey's lunch) and hopped in a cab. The best Indian in London? With outstanding food and wine, near-faultless service (shame he knocked off that table decoration...), understated decor and homely ambience, it's claimed the crown from the Cinnamon Club for me.

Fleeting memories of strawberry perfection

The large punnet of strawberries that we bought yesterday was one of the most perfectly ripe, balancing perfect levels of acidity and sugar. I put my foot down, and was allowed to "do something" with them, rather than just eat them with cream or in passing.

The recipe is Tamasin Day-Lewis's Strawberry Tart, P. 95 from her Art of the Tart book.

Sitting down with pi r squared, I calculated that a 7" tin would need only a third of the ingredients of the 12" tin in the recipe. I should have done a half, as I always find it difficult to get the pastry to stretch in her recipes. Does Tamasin roll perfect circles which fit the tin exactly with no wastage? Or is her pastry really only 3mm thick?Anyway, I managed with some patchwork to get the pastry to line the tin, blind baked it, and put it back in for a few minutes. Too many - it became dark brown, dangerously close to burnt.

In parallel, I attempted to make the creme patissiere. It was incredibly temperamental, becoming so lumpy as to need mechanical rescuing not once but twice. At the same time, it was difficult to cook it enough to soften the flavour of cornflour. All this was very stressful!

Arranging the strawberries was fun, carefully sorting them into small, medium and large ones before fitting in concentric circles, and basting in melted redcurrant jelly.

We demolished it all in about 15 minutes. I'd love to make another one soon. I think I might be able to avoid both the pastry-scorching and lumpy creme. The fleeting memory of its flavour makes me long for more and more of them.

The best free music in London?

Pretty much every Thursday night at the River Bar on Tower Bridge Road you can see Allen Beechey's Bright Stars of Jazz, a fantastic jazz/swing band, playing classic tracks from the first half of the last century. Went along last week, and they were as good as ever. They normally start at about 8.30, and play until closing time with half an hour's break. The River Bar does decent pub grub, so you can easily make an evening of it. Really uplifting.

Indulgent Saturday - Rick Stein's brill

Went to Borough market this morning. Didn't have a list so just wandered around and bought interesting things. Fatal.
Spent £16 on a fish. Brill, it was! Also bought some very small courgettes from the most expensive vegetable stall in the world. And they gave us a penny off! Decided to cook ourselves a decent meal on the excuse that it's our anniversary next Tuesday.
Cooked Rick Stein's "grilled scored plaice with roasted red pepper, garlic and oregano" (from his Seafood book, P.178), using brill, of course. The oregano is going wild in the garden, but at least this recipe used a teaspoon of it... The fish looked like a work of art in the pan (see picture). Cooked it under our new grill, which was a bit frightening, as it caught fire quite convincingly at one stage. Then I remembered you could turn it down from setting 6. The cooker is made by Prochef and is an impressive furnace, but the grill pan always buckles, which is a little disconcerting. And turning a 1.1kg brill over is a job for two people (with 8 hands).
Served it with Claudia Roden's "Spinach with tomatoes and almonds" (but without the almonds because you can't eat them with a fork, and we didn't have any blanched ones).
The whole thing turned out really well. The brill took about 18 minutes to cook, turning over at 10 or thereabouts. Proper poncey flavours, could have done with a bit of rosti or similar starch in a tower shape for cheffy presentation. It would have fed 3 comfortably, but we ate it all anyway.
On discovering that nothing that tastes of anything goes with brill (allegedly), we chose a bottle of Luis Pato's Maria Gomes sparkling wine to accompany it. This is a pleasant light fizz, without too many strong flavours. We went to the winery a few years ago. He's an interesting chap, a former chemist, a bit of a maverick on the Portuguese wine scene, and produces some of the country's best wines.