DOS HERMANOS: GO EVERYWHERE, EAT EVERYTHING

PIZZA EAST: EAST END PIE

2009-11-28T10:21:00.000Z

Listen, there’s no secret to a good Pizza: decent dough, not too much topping and an oven set to 11. Even cack-handed me has managed it at least once in my sorry-assed life. But you’d think making one was akin to squaring the circle the way some folk go on about it. Show me a Pizza bore and I’ll show you somebody who needs a decent hunk of protein in their life.

So then, Hermano, how come you ended up in Pizza East ? Huh ? Huh ? Simple, mi amigo, it was a dark and stormy, er, Saturday lunchtime and it was the nearest restaurant to Casa DH that we hadn’t already written about.

I’d only once been in the space that Pizza East now occupies when it was the completely forgettable T Bar. PE is a little more interesting. It’s all butch Manhattan loft style with exposed pillars and industrial-strength fittings but somehow still manages to be warm. I like very much. Something I didn’t like very much were the hoards of Happy Nappy Valley Families.

Fresh from terrorising innocent French tourists in Borough Market with their McLaren strollers (weren’t these supposed to be returned) they had now moved en masse to Pizza East and unleashed their little Jeroboams and Canastas on an unsuspecting pie-eating restaurant-goer, viz me.

Now I have no problem with kids in restaurants. My own nephew and niece have been eating with their parents since they were babies and their behaviour at table is impeccable. Here, however, it was as if the parents had deemed the restaurant a suitable venue for their spawn to express themselves and awaken their creatively which took the form of running around and screaming like banshees. It was like something out Cyra McFadden’s very funny book The Serial. Except I wasn’t laughing.

Eventually and inevitably there were tears and so all the nuclear units had to sod off and were replaced by a smattering of much quieter couples and groups who had wisely decided that de-cluttering could wait until another day. Then, and only then could I sit back and glug a glass of draught Prosecco with some fat green olives with a smattering of Almonds.

Speaking of which, this thing with the tumblers is getting out of hand. I want to drink my wine out of a proper glass not some thick glass mug. I saw proper flutes being used at another table so presumably they are available if you ask. I think this is some sort of cost saving measure which made sense when my food came.

It’s been a while since I last had a pizza in a restaurant but when did they get so expensive ? Save for two of the simplest varieties, all PE’s examples all came in at, or over the ten pound mark which for a few pence of dough and a quids worth of topping is a pretty blatant way of funding ones overheads.

The pizza itself, the Duck Sausage, was ok. The dough whilst it had charred and bubbled in an authentic manner was oddly tasteless. The clumps of minced meat didn’t taste particularly ducky and as the pizza was cooling the cheese coalesced unattractively. But it tasted, well, like pizza.

Starters were poor. Fried Calamari hadn’t been given a protective cover and ended up greasy – and not in a good way. It was also pretty chewy too. The accompanying aioli was more like a timid tartar sauce.

They’d tried to ape the St John dish with my other starter but the three thin halves of Bone Marrow (why not four ?) yielded very little marrow and the parsley salad was a sad joke. The bread was just wrong. Avoid.

Three big scoops of Gelato for dessert had a nice texture and tasted of the advertised ingredients but in a slightly odd way as if the they hadn’t been properly incorporated. So Mint and Chocolate Chip tasted as if you were eating raw leaves of Spearmint with shards of cooking chocolate and the Crème Fraiche one as if you were gulping spoonfuls of the stuff from a carton. Not especially nasty, just a bit odd. Pistachio was a lot better.

Objectively, the food is pretty mediocre at Pizza East but I ended up rather enjoying myself. The service was very friendly and accommodating, I liked the space and a combination of carbs and alcohol always seems to put people in a better mood than a salad. I rolled out of there quite happy.

Try and think of it then, as a place for people who believe they’ve outgrown Pizza Express and need to go to somewhere more gourmet. They probably don’t of course but then where’s the harm in catering to those people ?

For myself, well, after many years of denial I’m gradually coming round to HS’s view that it’s all just a load of snot on toast.

COMPETITION: TWO TICKETS TO THE ALLENS OF MAYFAIR BUTCHERY SCHOOL

2009-11-26T08:51:00.006Z

I have a real soft spot for food brands which are often neglected because they have become too familiar. Ask me for my favourite sherry and it will usually be a glass of Tio Pepe Fino, the original and in my opinion, still the best. Ask me which gin I drink and it will be Beefeater, made in London since the 1850’s but now often overlooked in favour of boutique distilleries who infuse the spirit with everything from the tears of a fallen angel to black pudding (actually that could be a good idea)

There is a reason why these brands have been around for ever and it is because they are usually bloody brilliant at what they do, refusing to kowtow to trends and sticking to what they have always done, crafting a great product in a time honoured fashion.

Which brings me, in case you were wondering what the point was to all of this, to today’s competition. Allen’s of Mayfair is one of London’s oldest butchers and the oldest in the country still residing on the same site. In 2006 the shop almost folded when the holding company went into administration. It was saved by the intervention of two former butchers and the owners of Rare, Justin Preston and David House who have spent the last three years returning it to its former glories.

For those of you who have not been there, Allen's is a butcher's shop as you remember they used to be and definitely worth a visit. As well as supplying superb meat to the restaurant trade and the public, Allen’s now also run very enjoyable butchery classes. They are not cheap affairs, costing £100 a pop, but are fun and very hands on. Now, they have been kind enough to offer the meat obsessed readers of Dos Hermanos, the opportunity to join one of their classes in February and to get down and dirty with something which once bleated, mooed or oinked.

We have two tickets to give away and to win all you have to do is answer the following question.

IN WHICH YEAR DID ALLEN’S FIRST START TRADING AT THEIR CURRENT SITE IN MAYFAIR?

The closing date for the competition is 15th DECEMBER 2009. Please submit all entries via the Dos Hermanos contact details with ALLEN’S OF MAYFAIR COMPETITION as the subject heading.

One entry per person, please. I cannot enter into correspondence but will confirm the winners, selected at random from the correct entries, soon after closing date.

Good luck.

GALVIN LA CHAPELLE – IN SPITTING DISTANCE

2009-11-22T19:45:00.018Z

A week ago or so somebody on Twitter (cheek - I’m not that bloody old) mentioned that they’d had a little preview of the interior of the Galvin brothers gastrodome which hosts fine-dining restaurant La Chapelle and the casual Café de Luxe. They raved about how fantastic it all looked. I joked that I hoped there was some money left over for the food.

Well, they were right about the interior: the main room of the 19th Century Grade II St Botolph’s Hall with its vaulted ceiling, arched windows and huge columns is stunning and I found it hard to stop myself rubber-necking, open-jawed, like some hick tourist. Lower on the horizon there were banquets and acres of napery.

In the café there is a voluptuously curved zinc bar snapped up after the closure of Aurora in the Great Eastern Hotel when it was taken over by Hyatt. A wine cupboard contains enough vintages of Hermitage La Chapelle in various sizes to last one several lifetimes. All very Conranesque. Though not so surprising as one of the brothers, Chris, spent many years working for Sir Tel.

As a rule I’m pretty down on lush interiors. The money for them has to come from somewhere and as other costs - lease, salaries - are more or less fixed that usually means some sort of compromise. And that’s how much of the food tasted and came across as – compromised.

A Lasagne of Devon Crab. Oh dear. A cylinder, the texture of sponge and which tasted of the same. The Crab component ? Undetectable. Chanterelles which although having quite a delicate and subtle taste didn’t shine through at all and were a bit slithy to be honest.

It’s pretty dispiriting when you realise that all isn’t well with the cooking and you’ve still got (at least) another three courses to go. You start looking for exit strategies: feign illness and pay up ? Get completely pissed to anaesthetise oneself against the horrors ? Or do as I did and smile politely and hope for the best. It was like being stranded in a tropical island paradise and discovering the only other woman was a randy Barbara Cartland.

A salad of Partridge and Pomegranate was a good idea, the tartness of the fruit working with the slight gaminess of the bird. But the idea of drowning the whole thing in a thick, sweet, maple-based sauce wasn’t. It killed the taste of everything on the plate especially the little salad garnish. There was a little roasted leg that was good and meaty and crunchy but the dish as a whole was a big misfire.

I had high hopes for my fish course. Grilled Red Mullet with Herb fritters and a bouillabaisse vinaigrette sounded like it could be a classic. Unsurprisingly given the arc of my meal thus far it wasn’t. The two fillets were some of most tired pieces of fish I’ve had recently. Showing few signs of having been grilled, they were soft and smelled fishy. Not good. The herb fritters tasted of fritter and little else. Barbara had now tracked me down and was making come-hither gestures at me.

It might have been a coincidence but after Chris Galvin had gone back into the open kitchen, post the meet-and-greet thing, my next dish was much better. Tagine of Squab Pigeon was a sort of deconstructed version served in a, er, Tagine. The Pigeon itself was moist and cooked a perfect shade of pink. It sat atop excellent couscous, the grains of pasta all light and separate. There was a blob of spiced puree (Chickpea ?) that was a little over-processed but tasted great. A cylindrical brik of, I guess the leg meat, was a bit oily but not disastrously so. The Quail egg was perfectly cooked but superfluous. The accompanying small pot of harissa was terrific.

The Pigeon had restored my confidence in the kitchen enough for me to order a pudding. Prune and Armagnac Parfait did what it said on the tin although in truth it’s never the most interesting of desserts, more of a default choice. Still, it left me chipper enough to roll out the old chestnut about my parfait being “parfait”. Very funny sir, I haven’t heard that one, oh, since I served the last person who ordered it.

I’d like to think the Pigeon Tagine was more representative of the kitchen’s abilities but the flaws in the other dishes were so manifest as to make me wonder whether another visit would yield better.

The transformation of La Chapelle has obviously been a labour of love given the meticulous attention to detail and the Brothers Galvin seem like nice enough people as do the staff who were models of friendliness and efficiency on only their second service. Like any restaurant venture it’s a high risk strategy to put so much into one place but if a recent visit to a packed River Café is anything to go by if you provide people with a decent product they will come. Let’s hope they do.

THE KITCHIN: HS'S MEAL OF THE YEAR 2009

2009-11-17T22:48:00.012Z

The woman at the table of four next to ours lifted her pre-dinner glass of champagne and made a toast.

“Here’s to surprises” she said as her companions looked each other in the eye and clinked glasses.

I glanced down at my menu and thought to myself “wait until you see the bloody prices, love. You’ll get all the surprises you can handle”

The pricing at The Kitchin is not for those faint of heart or wallet. Starters come in at around the £17 mark, main courses nudge and often whiz past £30 as if it was a wheezy fat boy on a cross country run, the puddings are a flicker less than a tenner and the tasting menu is about the same price as a recent model Ford Focus from a reputable dealer.

“It had better be good” I added out loud as Sybil drew in a large intake of breath and did a silent conversion of worthless Sterling to Yankee dollars.

First impressions were less than positive. Bread was cold and workaday, butter hard if not quite fridge fresh. I was beginning to regret having listened to my juniors and betters who had told me that The Kitchin was a must not miss for the Edinburgh portion of our round Britain tour.

Then things got better, much better. Amuse seldom do, but a mini bowl of game consommé was, quite frankly astonishing. Flecked with teeny-weeny diced vegetables and slivers of bone marrow, the crystal clear broth was seasoned generously and layered with flavour. I began to realise why people whose opinions I respect had raved about The Kitchin.

The regular menu is supplemented by a list of autumn specials, but I began with one of the signature dishes in the form of Pig’s Head and Langoustine. This dish has Kitchin’s style all over it, robust flavours complimented by elegance and technique. The head meat had been boned, rolled and laced with cumin, fennel seed and garam masala. In the hands of someone less deft, it could have been too much. Instead the flavours contrasted perfectly with the sweet meat of a small langoustine tail and the creamy base of a sauce gribiche.

Sybil’s razor clams may have carried their Scottish name “spoots” on the menu, but the approach to cooking them was Iberian in nature with chorizo and diced vegetables adding taste to a mollusc that is primarily all about texture. She preferred her dish, I preferred mine. Everyone was a winner.

Our wait for the main course was interrupted by the arrival of a complimentary dish from the kitchen. It’s churlish to be mean about any free food and fortunately, I don’t have to be about the dish which appeared courtesy of this Kitchin. This was the best course of food I have eaten all year, anywhere. A long beef bone had been roasted and split in two, half on each plate. On top had been layered a generous portion of meaty snails, equally robust chanterelle mushrooms and strips of crisp Jamon Iberico. Some sharp parsley added crunch and finally it was topped with a small, perfectly cooked quails egg whose yolk broke to add a glistening coating to the other ingredients. Even Sybil, who is ambivalent to matters cow related when it comes to eating, wiped her plate clean, scooping the last of the hot, blubbery marrow from the bone with a small spoon.

I am a great fan of food being prepared at the table. We don’t see nearly enough of it any more. What ever happened to the likely lads of flambéed steak and the Crepe Suzette? It is time to bring a bit of tableside theatre back to dining. So, we both jumped at the chance of sharing a main course of whole roasted John Dory carved in front of us by our charming Gallic server. Dinner theatre does not come cheap, however, and our fish would need to do some pretty fancy acting to justify the £64 price tag. Fortunately, it was as good a piece of St Peter’s Fish as I can recall being served. The fish flaked perfectly and worked well with some braised seasonal vegetables and a terrific beurre blanc. Only two cloves of garlic let the side down, having been under cooked delivering a harsh raw taste rather than the complimentary sweetness I expect was their purpose.

I was confused by the absence of a pre-dessert. Not that I craved any more free dishes, but what had gone before had been so rich and so densely flavoured, that a mouth cleansing something would have been useful as we waited for dessert to arrive. When they did, my mouth was still filled with the taste of consommé, pig’s head, bone marrow and beurre blanc, which left a competent if uninspiring tarte tatin flailing in the face of such strong opponents. Sybil’s chocolate soufflé was an excellent version, but almost too rich to finish and she needed the help of her future life partner to polish it off. Hey, that’s what I am there for.

These final dishes when added to a bottle of sparkling mineral water for me, a glass of wine for Sybil and a well deserved tip brought the bill to £150 for two, a whacking great amount for anyone. However, although I am still reeling from the cost, for one of those all too rare occasions I don’t feel like I have been bent over when fine dining in the UK.

Although, I may not have suffered the anticipated rectal pain and although the meal at The Kitchin may not have been without its flaws, it still knocked just about every other meal of its type this year into a cocked hat. And, in that plate of roasted marrow bone, quail egg, jamon iberico, chanterelle and snails, it produced a dish I shall be day dreaming about for a long time to come.

DINE WITH DOS HERMANOS: A BLOW OUT AT BENTLEY'S

2009-11-12T23:26:00.019Z

On Monday, the evening of the latest DINE WITH DOS HERMANOS, someone asked me why we organise these increasingly popular suppers.

I had to think for a moment, but in the end suggested that, in these days when every new restaurant has to come with a concept (think pop-up, think underground, think nuevo tapas) that it comes as a blessed relief just to sit down for a great meal with lots of interesting people with no other agenda than to have a bloody good time.

Judging by the e-mails, Facebook messages and Twitter DM's I received from the more well mannered of our guests after Monday's event, I think it is fair to say that everybody who attended the latest DINE WITH DOS HERMANOS had a very good time indeed. This is primarily thanks to the good folks of Bentley's, Richard Corrigan's excellent seafood restaurant on Swallow Street.

Head chef, Brendan Fyles, had taken the opportunity to go well above and beyond the call of duty and far exceeded my expectations for the £40 a head budget I set him, providing a meal which showed just how good a restaurant Bentley's is.

The meal began, as people arrived, with freshly shucked oysters served with Porterhouse Oyster Stout. These were accompanied by two superb canapes of Foie Gras with Apple Chutney and Deep Fried Chilli Shrimp. By the time we actually went to table, people were already nodding approvingly and continued their happy murmurs as the first course arrived.

HP and I like to make DWDH an famly style affair. It is easier on the kitchens and it promotes interaction, so important when we make sure that there are always a large number of new people at each event. So, when huge plates were placed on the table each carrying Sally Barnes smoked salmon,smoked tuna, smoked eel, smoked mackerel, soda bread, blinis and potted shrimp, the sight of everybody tucking in with gusto and passing the plates around was particularly pleasing.

Even more pleasing was yet another act of generosity on the apart of Head Chef, Brendan when he sent out plates of smoked herring roe on toast, coated with a silky bernaise sauce. Stunning.

A similar "wow" factor was gained by the arrival the two main courses. The first, a fish pie showed just how wonderful such a classic British dish can be when made well. Plumped out with haddock, scallops, salmon and prawns, it was layered with a bechamel sauce flavoured with the skins of smoked haddock and topped with a thick, buttery mashed potato. Just as delicious were large bowls of beef cheeks cooked down in more of the oyster stout. Astonishingly tender, they were probably my dish of the night.

It was a close call, however as no sooner had our main course plates been cleared than dessert arrived in the form of trays of rich sticky toffee pudding, served with jars of Roddas Clotted Cream and a thick toffee sauce.

I was having a dry night as I had to drive to the airport. Everyone else was very appreciative of the wines supplied by Nepenthe and Wines Unearthed, which were explained to everyone by the splendid Robert Macintosh.

At the end of the evening, Mr Corrigan made an appearance, to everybody's delight. But, more importantly so did Brendan to receive the round of applause his skills and generosity so richly deserved. An added round of applause went to events manager, Jane Sturgess, restaurant manager, King and his whole serving team who were faultless.

As people left, they stopped to collect the now legendary DWDH goody bags and a huge vote of thanks has to go out to Mathilde Delville who sourced the amazing contents of this event's offering. If you are wondering why the photographs on this post are a notch above our usual blurry DH snaps, they too are the result of her efforts

Each time we hold an event people tell me that it has been even better than the last. I don't know about that, they have all been fun for me. I am merely appreciative that so many wonderful chefs and restaurant staff have been so generous in supporting the single Dos Hermanos aim of helping Britain learn how to feast again. Long may it continue.

Dos Hermanos would like to thank the following without whom this event would not have been possible

BENTLEY'S

PORTERHOUSE OYSTER STOUT

NEPENTHE WINES

WINES UNEARTHED

SALLY BARNES

VIEW CARD

EASY TASTY MAGIC RANGE - TASTE No5 UMAMI PASTE

RUDE HEALTH

NUDO OLIVE OILS

FIRE & KNIVES MAGAZINE

CONRAN OCTOPUS

CANDIA

CASILLERO DEL DIABLO

LUCOZADE

MARMITE CEREAL BARS

DIVINE DARK CHOCOLATE

JORDANS CEREAL BARS

BURTS CHIPS

SWEET THINGS

BILLINGTON'S

CHARLIE BIGHAM

PULP FRUIT POUCHES

Dont forget, if you would like the chance to attend a future DINE WITH DOS HERMANOS event, please check out our Facebook group

THE PRINCESS OF SHOREDITCH: NEW DIRECTION NEEDS WORK

2009-11-08T08:38:00.011Z

After reading a giddily enthusiastic review in Time Out and encountering a few equally positive chirpings on Twitter, I expected to echo Howard Carter’s exclamation of “Wonderful things” as I walked into The Princess of Shoreditch on Thursday and discovered the new space, the new owners and the new fine dining menu.

Instead I found that the bar looked little different to when I last set foot in the place just under three years ago. There was even the same personable barman, Alex. He still pours a terrific pint and I chatted to him over a jug of Sambrook's Wandle as I waited for my lunch companion, Oliver Thring to arrive.

The owners, who have been in place for over a year, have given the upstairs a lick of duck egg blue paint and the menu has been revamped upwards to create more distance between it and the “pub grub” of the downstairs bar area. That and Time Out’s rating seemed to have worked wonders and when we finished our pints and coiled up the spiral staircase the dining room was pretty much packed to capacity.

The new menu ticks most of the pre-requisite fine dining buttons. There are oysters to begin with, plus a soup, a parfait and a terrine. Nothing on there to scare anyone and, if prepared properly, nothing at all to complain about. Likewise on the list of main courses, which offer up couple of fish dishes, the almost inevitable use of pork belly and a named breed of dead cow. None of it is terribly inventive but comfortable enough for anyone tired of restaurants that believe every meal should be a journey of discovery.

Starters were a good indication of the way things were going to go. A foie gras and chicken liver parfait came served with a spiced poached plum and toast. The texture of the parfait was perfect, the toast warm and the horseradish dressing on the accompanying leaves an interesting touch. However, it lacked depth needing either one more twist of the pepper mill or a good glug of brandy to perk up an otherwise decent dish. Oliver’s butternut squash panna cotta was less successful. It was an ugly and unappealing plate of orange components none of which, from what I tasted, seemed to have any discernable flavour. Added to which, I can only hope that the days of the “skidmark” school of plate dressing will soon come to their natural end.

The cider braised belly pork of my main course was perfectly prepared. Unfortunately, the kitchen had done its best to hide the fact by smothering the two generous slabs with a thick glaze of one of those fearsome reductions which destroy all before them, so that all taste of pig was lost in the fall out. The carrot and anis puree was again delivered in “splodge” mode but not a bad addition, bringing a welcome touch of sweetness to the dish. It paled however against the star of the show a single slice of terrific black pudding, I suspect of the Clonakilty variety. This is a dish that could potentially be a contender, but only if the impressive quality of the ingredients is allowed to shine. In its current form, it is just a heap of textures with one taste.

I felt much the same way about Oliver’s plate of roasted mallard breast, which came with a small slab of seared foie gras, a confit of the leg and salsify. The ingredients, again, were obviously excellent and ably cooked, but were hampered by the addition of a “all bow down before me” sauce, which dominated the sample Oliver passed onto my plate.

There is obviously some real talent in the kitchen and investment in quality ingredients, both of which are welcome in a neighbourhood more used to eateries feeding stoned clubbers than serious diners. But, on the basis of these dishes, there is still work to be done to justify what ended up being a pretty hefty lunchtime bill. It came to £80 for the two courses and coffee and also included a bottle of Chilean Pinot, the cheapest on a short, but well priced wine list and a 12.5% charge for service which, as it always has been was excellent.

Any move to up the ante in a restaurant is always welcome and I wish the newly revamped Princess the best of luck. However, with higher prices come higher customer expectations and the cooking at The Princess of Shoreditch needs to up its game if it is to meet those of the bald, short, fat half of DH and, don't forget, I am the cheery one who is easy to please. God help them if HP goes in.

WIN A PLACE AT THE THEO RANDALL COOKERY SCHOOL

2009-11-06T07:05:00.005Z

Competitions on Dos Hermanos are like busses on the dreaded “55” route. I don’t mean by that they have ripped seats and smell like piss, more that you wait around for ages and then a whole load come along at the same time.

Well, I am not going to apologise. Restaurants, exhibition organisers and P.R’s have obviously cottoned on to what a discerning readership DH has (and by discerning I mean mal adjusted freaks with nothing better to do with their time) and are approaching me daily with offers of prizes for you to win just by the sending of a simple little e-mail.

The response has been staggering and my inbox is flooded with e-mails from people wanting to win the latest offering of two pairs of tickets for a Tayyab fest the like of which has never been seen before (for shame, however, on the people who e-mailed Wasim to ask what weight of lamb chops he sold, for shame.)

We are however, in true DH style “keeping it real” by only running competitions for prizes that we would very much like to win ourselves and today’s offering is no exception and is indeed one of the finest we have ever offered.

Almost exactly three years ago, I was invited to supper by Mr Rayner, keen to try out a new joint at the refurbished Intercontinental Hotel. It was the day I had just handed in my notice at work and begun to set out the journey, which became Eat My Globe. The meal was superb, from the first bite of Bagna Cauda to the last mouthful of a Meyer lemon tart. So good in fact, that I went back a week later for second helpings.

Since then Theo Randall has established himself at the very top rank of London’s restaurant scene. I can also say that on the two occasions I have been lucky enough to meet him, his enthusiasm for the ingredients he uses is tangible and pleasingly bereft of the ego of so many other chefs at his level.

Well, now you have the chance to find out for yourselves as, from December, Theo will be running a series of cookery schools offering you the chance to learn from a master about the joys of Northern Italian cuisine. The courses run from 9am-3pm and include a three-course lunch in the restaurant. Price to the likes of you and me, £150 and given my experiences there, well worth every penny. However the good folks at The Intercontinental have agreed to offer Dos Hermanos readers two tickets for February’s cookery school and to win all you have to do is answer this, oh so taxing question.

AT WHICH LEGENDARY LONDON RESTAURANT DID THEO RANDALL MAKE HIS NAME AS HEAD CHEF?

The closing date for the competition is 25th November 2009. Please submit all entries via the Dos Hermanos contact details with THEO RANDALL COMPETITION as the subject heading. One entry per person only (for those of you who have sent multiple entries to the Tayyabs comp) and, because as I mentioned, most of you are freaks, I cannot enter into correspondence but will confirm the winners soon after closing date.

Good Luck

TANDOORI LAMB CHOPS: NOT TAYYAB, BUT NOT BAD

2009-11-05T05:27:00.004Z

I have not been able to stop thinking about lamb chops. It's your fault, of course. Had I not chosen to ask as a competition question what weight of lamb chops Tayyab serves in a week, I would not have spent most of yesterday day dreaming about them and doodling pictures of cutlets when I was supposed to be working on an article about communist era spirits.

By 5pm, I could stands no more and had to head to Waitrose to pick up some nice thick chops. I set them to rest in a marinade while I finished my real work. A couple of hours later, article written, they were ready to throw under the grill for a short while until crisp and golden.

The end result was not bad at all. Not up to Tayyab standards, of course, but well worth trying.

Here, in case anyone might be interested, is the recipe

INGREDIENTS

MARINADE
2 inches of fresh ginger (peeled)
4 cloves of garlic (peeled)
4 green chillies (seeds removed)
1 pinch of salt
1 tsp hot chilli powder
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp turmeric
1 lemon (juice and zest)
3 tsp of saffron infused in water (optional)
3 tbsp whole milk yoghurt

2-4 Lamb chops Per Person (I use loin chops)

METHOD

Blend the ginger, garlic, chilli and salt with a little water until it becomes a paste.

Place the chops into a large bowl and add the paste rubbing well into the meat.

Add the saffron water, lemon juice and zest rubbing well into the meat.

Combine the dry spices with the yogurt and pour over the chops. Work the sauce into the meat until every chop has a good covering.

Cover with cling film and allow to sit for at least two hours. There is no need to place in the fridge, but if you do, make sure you allow time for the chops to come back to room temperature before cooking.

Remove some of the marinade and place the chops on a wire rack above a large roasting tin layered with foil to catch the juices.

Grill under a medium heat for 15 minutes turning once making sure that they become golden but do not burn.

Before serving, sprinkle with freshly squeezed lemon juice. Serve with a cucumber and mint raita.

THE BRITISH CURRY AWARDS: WELL DONE WASIM (AND A GREAT COMPETITION)

2009-11-04T08:16:00.011Z

Last night saw me join my good chum, Wasim Tayyab, half a dozen of his friends and Petra “Choc Star” Barran at the 5th Annual British Curry Awards. It was a colossal event with close to 2,000 people gathered together in Battersea to witness the presentation of weighty trophies to the best “Indian” restaurants from all regions of the country.

The main event was hosted by Sir Trevor McDonald. Chris Tarrant also popped up and exhorted the gathered congregation of wealthy Asian business people to dig deep into their pockets for the worthy Lords Taverner’s Charity. Judging by the event car parking lot, stuffed with Bentley’s, Jaguar's, Maserati’s and Porche's, there was plenty of money for them to dig deep for. There is, obviously plenty of money in curry.

Food was provided by Madhu’s Restaurant in Southall, no mean task when feeding a couple of thousand of your peers, and the entertainment was loud and a lot of fun. But, we were here for the awards and Wasim, in true fashion, barely noticed when a photo of Tayyab’s dining room was flashed on the screen as a nominee for the “Best Casual Dining” category and was busy chatting to Petra when his name was read out as the winner.

Champions had been asked to keep their speeches brief and not to thank every member of their family, which with Asian families meant the event could have gone on for days. Even so, Wasim’s “er, thanks” was a measure of the man’s reticence to be in the spotlight and quite frankly he looked terrified as the battalion of photographers began flashing away in his general direction.

You may have noticed that we have begun to offer some fun prizes on Dos Hermanos recently. We get approached to do a great deal, but pick and choose what we consider the very best. Well, on the 25th November, Wasim is throwing an incredible dinner for friends and regulars of Tayyab to celebrate the opening of the new expanded space at the restaurant. I have been working with him on the guest list and the menu and it promises to be an extraordinary night. Let me just say the words “Whole Roast Lamb” have been used

Wasim has kindly allowed me to offer two pairs of tickets to the event for Dos Hermanos readers and to be in with a chance of winning all you have to do is answer the following question

HOW MANY KILOS OF LAMB CHOPS DO TAYYAB’S SERVE IN AN AVERAGE WEEK

A) 300
B) 400
C) 600

Please email via the website. The competition will close on Friday 13th 2009. I don't have time to enter into correspondence with individual entrants, but will let the winners know on that day.

Hopefully a lucky day for four people who will have one of their best meals of the year

GOOD LUCK and once again WELL DONE WASIM

MCDERMOTT'S::FINE FISH AND CHIPS IN CROYDON

2009-11-02T20:00:00.002Z

I’ve probably bemoaned the lack of consistency in London restaurants before so just in case the message didn’t strike home, I’m going to do it all over again.

There are exceptions of course, but a lot of places just can’t maintain the same standards day after day, week after week. Whether it’s because the chef/owners have their eyes on rolling out the ‘concept’ – something that happens with depressing regularity – or they just get bored and complacent I’m not sure, but it does make dining more of a haphazard experience than it should be.

Happily, the good places or should I say the consistently good places are always full: the British public make have an irrational love of the cheap and crappy but when they’re introduced to the good stuff they’re hooked.

I was discussing this with HS the other day as we sat in McDermott’s, a Fish and Chip restaurant near Croydon. These places are, or should be the bedrock of British dining like say Asadors or Marisquerías in Spain. When done well, and McDermott’s do it very well, there’s nothing better if you require a solidly crafted, novelty-free meal. Check your Espuma Guns at the door.

To be honest I only wanted to visit McDermott’s because it meant going on a tram. I like trams. Even though electric trams has been around for donkey’s years they still feel like something impossibly modern. One day all public transport will be like this. You can just catch what HS thought of all this at the end of the little video clip of the actual tram that we actually took to get to McDermott’s.

When we arrived we were gratified to find ourselves the youngest folk in the joint. It was like being in a sort of anti-Logan’s Run world. I was further gratified to see many people get stuck into the wine and beer. How much more civilised than doing the run down to Wickes for that all-important flange sprocket ?

McDermott’s menu is pleasingly straightforward. In lieu of starters you get a basket of decent French stick, a small ramekin of homemade tartar sauce, a few pickles and (blow me) an amuse-gueule - which I thought was a nice touch.

Whenever we eat out together the unwritten rule is that one Hermano shouldn’t be seen to be gaining an advantage over the other Hermano by dint of their order. So when HS went for the Kingsize Haddock and Chips (aka “The Fat Bastard”) it meant I had to order the same. At £16 it was pretty expensive but when they turned up we saw why. Instead of one great big fish we got the equivalent of two fish and chips. A meal for four in other words.

The moment of truth with F&C is always when you first break into the batter. Would it provide the correct crisp shell to allow the fish to cook within or would it cling to the fish like a very clingy thing ?

The kitchen at McDermott’s obviously knows its stuff as the frying was excellent. The batter crunched in an Heston-pleasing manner and the strata of pearly white Haddock flesh flaked satisfyingly, although just a tad softly.
We debated the merits of Groundnut Oil (used here) versus Beef Dripping (as used up North) as a frying medium and decided it was probably down to mood rather than one being inherently better than the other. We were split over the chips. I liked their crunch but I suspect they weren’t chip-shop style enough for HS. We’ve stopped critiquing Mushy Peas in Southern Chippies.

That should have been that but HS had a little meal momentum going and said the magic words Helado Mixta three times. My Ice Cream wasn’t homemade as far as I could tell but was fine. Better, I thought than HS’s Apple Pie, but he didn’t seem to have much trouble clearing his plate.

Service, was friendly and on-the-ball which is all you can ask for and they seemed genuinely pleased that we’d had a good time . Which was nice. With a bottle of Albarino, it wasn’t a particularly cheap meal, but then when you have Fish it shouldn’t be.

I read that McDermott’s have been around for about twenty-five years. I don’t know if we’ll ever visit McDermott’s again – the journey, although relatively short, took in three different modes of public transport - but I suspect if I ever visited in another twenty-five years hence, they’d still be going strong and the meal wouldn’t be so very different. Which is where I came in.

KITCHEN W8: WOBBLY IN WEST LONDON

2009-11-01T03:08:00.000Z

It’s very rare that Dos Hermanos revisit a restaurant that has previously served us up a duff meal. To be honest as much as people would like us to keep returning in order to confirm what we already knew after the first visit, we just don’t have the time, the money or the slightest inclination to do so. I was surprised, then, to find myself walking down Abingdon Road in Kensington .

Regular readers of the blog (“our stalkers” as we like to think of them) will remember I visited a restaurant called Bistrot Eleven back in March. Previously called 11 Abingdon Road – because that was its address – it had a new chef , it had a new menu. It was shit. Now in the long line of uninspiringly-named restaurants on this site comes Kitchen W8.

Normally, I wouldn’t have bothered but the involvement of Philip Howard in this new venture piqued my interest. Dos Hermanos have visited The Square – where Mr Howard has two stars from the fat tyre man – several times and to be honest we can’t remember a dish we’ve had there. As bland, risk-free, don’t-frighten-the-horses , high-end dining experiences go it’s right up there, but I had high hopes for Kitchen W8. The combination of good technique applied to more simple dishes sometimes yields excellent results as places like The Harwood Arms demonstrate.

I was actually getting quite excited by the prospect of my meal – and believe me, that doesn’t happen very often – as I was seated in the cosy dining room, got stuck into a glass of Billecart Salmon champagne and scanned a menu which I fancied eating most of. There were plenty of staff around too, giving the appearance of serious intent. Yes, it was all coming together. And then it began unravelling.

Now, I like the occasional visual gag in my food, especially if the end result is any good and the combo of Game Hotdog and Consommé certainly looked the part as a play on something you might have in a US diner. Unfortunately, where it scored highly in the looks department it failed equally poorly in terms of taste. What little flavour of game the sausage had was obliterated by the ‘ketchup’ artfully slathered over it and the little brioche bun it came in was on the dry side. The consommé didn’t taste particular gamey and lacked any depth of flavour – one note and boring was what I thought at the time – and serving it in a mug wasn’t an improvement on dishing it up in a bowl. It wasn’t a evry bad first course, just a bland and one that lowered my expectations for the others to come.

Squid Ink Linguine was a bit of a jumbled mess of pasta, shellfish meat and too much liquid. Given that it contained Crab, Cuttlefish and Octopus the only surprise was that it didn’t taste more of the sea. In fact it didn’t taste of anything much and was even more boring than the previous dish. Oh, and the pasta was overcooked.

Grilled Ox Tongue, Shallot Puree and Foie Gras Baked Potato ticks so many of my foodie boxes it really was a no-brainer to order. It should have been a magnificent dish: the beefy, offally taste of the Tongue and the rich Foie Gras, cut through with the purée. The reality: a thin slipper of Tongue, which was chewy and its taste masked by one of those all-purpose jus that is the stock-in-trade of the able kitchen and the Foie Gras Baked Potato, a small tuber stuffed with a tasteless mystery mixture. The small, meltingly soft lobe of Foie stood in stark contrast to the rest of the ingredients on the plate. It was as if it was saying (in the voice of Richard Pryor, hints provided for where to insert the rude words): I did my __ job, not my fault if those other __ screwed up the dish, trying to make me look bad. Yes, really, talking Foie Gras - bad food has finally driven me doolally.

An odd sort of momentum drove me on to try and eek out something from my meal. The kitchen didn’t have any problems putting together a selection for their ice creams for me but the familiar tameness of flavour elicited more stoicism on my part rather than the desired mmmms and aaaahhs. Odd then that the Chocolate Truffles that came with my Espresso were really rather good and made me wonder what was going on in the kitchen. I suppose I’ll never find out.

Interestingly, looking back at my post on Bistrot Eleven I posted the following:

Foodies beware, restaurateurs are on to us. They lure in the decent, honest gastronaut with interesting online menus and bigged-up Chef CVs (Worked with MPW = Chopped some carrots but got sacked the following week). You pitch up all expectant and excited and then realise, pretty quickly, that you’ve been sold a pup. It’s all the more galling when in these straightened times genuinely good and interesting places are suffering whilst the cruddy ones continue to divert valuable funds.

Plus ça change eh ?

PLYMOUTH GIN LONDON COCKTAIL PILGRIMAGE 2009: IN THE COMPANY OF GOOD SPIRITS

2009-10-29T08:27:00.014Z

So here’s the thing.

Imagine I am high above the earth in the basket of a hot air balloon. The sky is blue and the ground below dappled by the sunlight through what few clouds there are. To my right is a bartender, whose single task it is to provide me with a constant supply of perfectly made Martinis, to the left, is a chef whose role is to feed me rich sweetmeats until I am as inflated as the balloon.

Suddenly, we begin to lose altitude at an alarming rate. As we hurtle towards the ground, my life flashing before me in a rapid procession of gin, hookers and regret, I realise that we have to jettison some of our extra weight. I consider my two companions and I am not going to lie to you, but if it comes to a contest between a good bartender and a good chef, then the chef might as well be wearing a t-shirt reading “SANDBAG” because knife boy is going over the side.

The decision would be made not just on the basis that I prize a well made cocktail more than I do a well made meal, but also on the fact that experience tells me that people who are involved in the bar and cocktail world are usually much nicer people than those who spend all day cooped up in a kitchen with only dead animals for company. It’s not a universal, of course and I have many cheffy folk I am chuffed to call friend. But, my true affinity is for the brewers, distillers and mixers of this world.

The last couple of weeks have seen me attend two events, which provide evidence for my contentious theory. Last week, I attended the launch of Joe Warwick’s new restaurant free sheet, Galley Slaves. It promises to be fun and so indeed did the event, which was held at Mark Hix’s new joint in Soho. That is, of course, until I recalled that you can never really have a proper conversation with anyone in the restaurant trade because they are always looking over your shoulder for someone more important to talk to. In my case that’s not a very hard task and after many abruptly ended conversations, I soon found myself slinking out unnoticed and making my way to Rules, where I knew a cheery greeting and a great Martini would be waiting.

Move on to Tuesday this week and I found myself being greeted with genuine friendliness by those of the cocktail trade who had been invited to Plymouth Gin’s 2009 London Cocktail pilgrimage. I am not in the business, other than as a punter and I had only met most of them a handful of times, but their affection for anyone with a passion for their trade was palpable. Ago from The Connaught, Lucca from China Tang, Toby from Pinchito, Gabby from Rules, Charles and Nick from Hix and Sean and jack from The Merchant Hotel in Belfast. It was a great group and the list could go on and on.

The notional excuse for the day was to examine the capital’s fundamental role in the development of the cocktail and, as our host, Plymouth had flown in raconteur and lauded drinks historian, Dave Wondrich. After a fortifying bacon sandwich, we made our first stop in Borough at The George Tavern where, in 1690, a Mr Stoughton began to sell the first bitters, which he mixed with sweet wines as a tonic.

From there, the art of mixed drinks moved across to the US, leaving Britain in the clutches of rather fiendish punches, like the warm “Rum Fustian” we sampled at The Cheshire Cheese pub on Fleet Street. Later, the “American Bar” style of mixing spirits and flavourings with ice made its way back to London and over the course of our day we stopped at various places of interest to hear of their history and to sample their most famous cocktails, made and transported for us by the rather wonderful people of The World Wide Cocktail Club. Although many of the buildings no longer exist, hearing Dave describe places like John Ashley’s Punch House, while sipping on an appropriate drink brought it all back to life.

Stops at two building sites, The Savoy and The Café Royal showed how rapidly London is changing, although the drinks we sampled, A Savoy White Lady and A Toreador, both from the 1930’s would be very familiar to any fan of cocktails today. They also showed that during the dark days of prohibition in the US (up until 1933) the art of the mixed drink had its home very firmly in London.

Two more stops later, at the glorious Criterion Restaurant (most beautiful room and some of the worst food in London) and on Orange St, the site of Ciro’s, the most famous night club of the 1920’s and it was time to repair to Duke’s Hotel for supper. Not only to eat, however, but also for one last cocktail treat. This time a Martini made by the hands of the legendary Alessandro Palazzi himself. His Martini is, as he says himself, from the “old times” and made with frozen glasses (frozen while still wet, which adds extra dilution) a spritz of vermouth and frozen Plymouth gin. It remains one of the world’s truly great tastes and his skill was admired not only by a rube like me but forty of the world’s best cocktail makers including the equally famous Peter “American Bar at The Savoy” Dorelli and Salvatore “Library Bar” Calabrase.

The evening was a bit of a blur. Not just because of the drinks, which had been flowing all day, I had actually been very sensible and sipped rather than slugged. It was because I was in the company of some of my favourite people in the world talking animatedly about one of my favourite subjects in the world, the mixing of superb drinks. Even though I am not one of them, I felt very much at home. When, as we left, I was presented with my own “Dipsomaniac’s Delight” a portable cocktail making kit, it only confirmed my theory of with which group of people I most enjoy spending time. As much as possible in future, I intend to spend my time mixing with the best possible spirits.

PINCHITO & BARRICA: TAPAS TWO TIMES IN THE WEST END

2009-10-28T14:10:00.010Z

The next couple of weeks are shaping up to be some of the best of the year and unsurprisingly they involve eating copious amounts of Jamon Iberico.

On Monday, I join my good chums at Brindisa for the launch of the new Dehesa, the latest release of Jamon Iberico de Bellota from the incomparable Joselito. A few days later, I fly to Seville and from there make my way to Badajoz, one of the spiritual homes of Jamon to spend some time with a producer discovering the secrets of creating the world’s single greatest item of food. By way of preparation and inspired by HP’s recent trips to Spain, I decided to make my own mini tapas crawl with visits to the two most recent additions to London’s seemingly endless production line of Spanish restaurants and tapas bars.

The new branch of Pinchito is located on the corner of Bedford Square, just off Tottenham Court Road. It’s décor and approach will be instantly familiar to anyone who has visited their first branch near Old Street or the now defunct PinXto People in Brighton. The offering is as much about the impressive cocktails created by co-owner Toby Garcia, as it is about the food and Pinchito shies away from the traditional approach to tapas bars in favour the nuevo take of Cal Pep in Barcelona from which it draws its inspiration.

A quick sampling of two staples shows that there is still work to be done in the kitchen. Rabas, that Cantabrian weekend favourite of squid, sliced thinly to look like tails (hence the name) and deep-fried was greasy, chewy and burdened with too fierce hit of paprika. Croquettes of “mixed meat” were better, well fried and with a dense filling, which would have gone perfectly with a glass of fino or a cocktail. The restaurant takes reservations and offers a wider menu of daily specials, but as with the branch in Old Street, I still think of Pinchito as an excellent bar that serves food rather than a restaurant, which does decent drinks. As the former, it is definitely worth a visit, as the latter it will need to up its game if it is to persuade people to linger.

Barrica, on the other hand has set its stall out to compete full on with the West End’s other Spanish restaurants. Located on Goodge St. a few doors down from Salt Yard, and in the space once inhabited by ill fated and appallingly names, Ooze, Barrica is an independent operation (not as reported owned by Spanish group Vino Tinto) and traditional in its approach down to the three jamons swinging from the ceiling.

There is an extensive wine list and a wide selection of pretty standard tapas. I chose two more dishes by which the intentions and abilities of any Spanish restaurant can be discerned. More croquetta of Jamon were tiny and had been cooked for too long on the outside turning from the pre-requisite golden to the point where they were just at the point of being burnt. The insides, however, were good, creamy and flecked with decent amounts of jamon, but far below what HP dubbed "The Croquetta D'oro" to be found at the three branches of Brindisa.

Which brings us to the Jamon Iberico Bellota. The ham at Barrica had been cut by machine. Although the fat began to melt to a lovely sheen, as it should, it was not enough to disguise the fact that the meat had begun to dry out and lose the delicate flavour of acorns for which it is so famous. At £12 a plate, one probably could not have expected much more of a serving of this perniciously expensive product. However, one could and should expect better quality of storage and preparation for what is the benchmark of any Spanish restaurant with serious ambition.

Some places to their credit (Vinoteca for example) have taken Jamon Iberico off the menu because they cannot sell enough at the price they need to charge to keep the product in peak condition. I suspect Barrica may come to the same conclusion not too far into their existence. It would be a good decision given the poor quality of the plate with which I was presented.

Both Pinchito and Barrica have opened recently. However, both were charging full whack, so must feel that they were offering full value for money. I only sampled two dishes in each place, as much as I could manage and the very nature of a tapas crawl. I will probably head back to both to try more, but on this showing, Pinchito is looking the more likely prospect of the two, if mainly for the fact that Toby Garcia makes some of the best drinks in town.

What both places really achieve however, is just making me long to be back in Spain. Soon come.

THE COWBRIDGE FOOD & DRINK FESTIVAL: DAHL, A LIFE SAVER

2009-10-26T05:27:00.000Z

I have just returned from a lovely weekend in Cowbridge, Wales, where I was asked to be a guest speaker and to do a cookery demonstration at their bustling food and drink festival.

It is the sort of food event I really like. Genuinely local and run by volunteers from the town under the keen eye of chief organiser Polly Wilson. There were over 70 stalls with lots of extra events going. I was delighted to find there was also a small beer festival specialising in Welsh ales.

I was slightly less pleased to find out that my room for the night in the pub was directly above the marquee for the beer festival. I did manage to squeeze in a few hours sleep and woke refreshed and excited for my first ever cookery demo. Polly had asked me to show everyone how to make the Majumdar family Life Saving Dahl and, when I saw the blustery weather and sheeting rain that morning, the warming dish of spicy dahl seemed like the perfect antidote to the gloom.

Unfortunately, the weather played havoc with the demonstration truck. The awning whipped away in the strong winds and also managed to blow out most of the burners on the stove while I was cooking. The day's presenter, local TV star, Frances Donovan, did her best to keep things going, but in the end, I had to retire to the town hall and finish off cooking the dahl there. The audience were very patient, and by the time I returned there must have been over fifty people waiting for a sample of my favourite comfort dish.

As you can see from the last picture, it all soon disappeared.

Quite a few people asked for the recipe, so here it is once again. It is well worth trying as indeed is the Cowbridge Food & Drink Festival well worth supporting.

DAHL (Bengali dahl with lemons)

INGREDIENTS
1 cup of red lentils (toasted first in a dry pan. I use my fingers to stir and when it is too hot to touch, it is done)
1 unwaxed lemon chopped in quarters
1 onion sliced in half moons
2 cardamom pods
2 cloves
1 cinnamon stick
3 cloves garlic
3 fresh green chillis
2 inches of fresh peeled ginger
1 tsp each of ground turmeric/ginger/cumin/coriander seed/hot chilli powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 Bag of spinach (washed)
1 ½ pints of water, chicken stock or vegetable stock

METHOD
Make two pastes by blending the ginger/garlic together and blending the fresh chillis separately with a little salt and water.
Put 2 tblspoons of oil into a hot pan and when it comes to heat, add the cardamom, cloves and cinnamon stick. Cook for 1 minute on a low heat until they release their flavour.

Add the onion and cook until it begins to soften.

Add the ginger/garlic paste and cook for two minutes until it loses its raw taste.

Add the chilli paste and cook for two minutes until it looses its raw taste.

Add the ground spices, sugar and salt and mix well with the onions and cook out
for 4 mins until the spices lose their rawness. If the mixture begins
to stick add a little water.

Add the lentils and mix well so all the pulses are covered with the mixture

Add 1 1/2 pints of water or stock and the quatered lemons and simmer for 30 mins until the lentils have broken down. Add more water if it sticks. Some lentils may take a little longer to cook, but they should be reduced to a porridge like consistency

Add the spinach and allow to wilt in the residual heat of the dahl

The end result is quite a watery dahl which is great served over peeled hard boiled eggs

CHARLIE BIGHAM'S: THE PIES HAVE IT

2009-10-25T07:00:00.005Z

A few days ago a parcel arrived from the P.R company of Charlie Bigham's. It is not normally the sort of thing we would accept unless it was as part of the goody bags we put together for Dine With Dos Hermanos, but I have to admit to being a fan of the company and, much more importantly, it contained pies.

Just a word to anyone out there in PR world who wants something plugged shamelessly, on Dos Hermanos, mark your package "Handle with Caution, Contains Pies" and there is a very good chance that it will get a sympathetic hearing.

Charlie Bigham started his company in 1996 frustrated by the paucity of decent ready meals. The range is predicated on great ingredients and home style preparation. It is now available pretty readily through their links with Ocado and Waitrose. Our care package contained A couple of stews, some fish cakes, a lasagne and two beef & ale pies. The stews were banished to the freezer for later attention and the packaging of the fish pie had swollen alarmingly like a dead man floating in The Thames, so was consigned to the bin. Which left us with the lasagne and the pies.

The lasagne was a miss. The layer of a meaty ragu was actually rather good, but the pasta gained raised eyebrows from both of us for actually being rather unpleasant. It had gone soft in the recommended cooking time and had taken on a taste which HP summed up as "slightly rank" I am pretty sure that this is not the effect they were looking for in the Charlie Bigham test kitchens, I am assuming something happened during shipping, but HP was right and after a couple of bites, it too was tossed into the bin with the bloated fish cake container.

We turned our attention to the pies. The certainly look the part, contained in weighty ceramic pots and topped with puff pastry. Thankfully, they also tasted the part when they emerged from the oven, golden brown and with the toppings inflated to a nice crisp. The filling of beef contains good chunks of meat (from Donald Russell, I think) and the sauce is deep and rich with a definite hit of Worcestershire. They were delicious in fact and with a handful of chips and some peas, the Beef & Ale pies make a very agreeable supper.

I am not generally a fan of ready meals. For anyone who really loves food, the preparation of a meal is an end in itself not just a process to put food on the table. So, just slamming something from a packet in the oven, however decent, rather misses the point. Having said that, on those days when lack of time and sloth combine to make standing in front of the oven a chore, you could do a lot worse than trying a pie from the Charlie Bigham range.

DOS HERMANOS: SIMPLY SPANISH

2009-10-21T21:23:00.000+01:00

In truth it’s probably not a good idea for me to visit Spain so often – it spoils me. After spending just a few days in whichever city or town is lucky enough to be graced by my presence, all the nonsense of the foodie world in the UK in general and London in particular seems very, very far away indeed.

No tedious over-hyping of duff concept restaurants or the next big thing, no use of food as a weapon in the class war, no endless role-call of TV shows where celebrity chefs patronise natives of countries with far older and more interesting food cultures than their own and, most importantly of all, no Nigel Slater.

No, in Spain all you get, if you ignore Mr Crisps (aka Ferran Adrià) and his acolytes is good food made with decent ingredients and maybe some bloke on TV making Tortilla or Empanada if you’re really lucky.

The idea of food as craft doesn’t really exist in the UK. Dos Hermanos last experienced it at Angel Mangal. Each time we had our Special Mixed Kebab with a side order of Sweetbreads it was that little bit better than the last. There was no need, thank God, to deconstruct or mess around with it. It was simply grilled meat, sure, but there was always a little extra care going into it.

I was reminded of this when I visited the local bar/restaurant overlooking the Mediterranean that I always venture to at least once during a stay Fuengirola. There’s probably hundreds of similar places along the Costa but what they do, they do very well. If my most recent visit was anyything to go by they may have a new chef in - their grilling of fish was always spot on but this time the cooking was just that little bit better. The fish comes from local fisherman and is caught that morning. You choose from whatever they have in the chilled display cabinet and once it’s gone that’s it. Today there was, Rodaballo, Lubina, and Besugo. They also had a big tray of Calamaritos.

After some Jamon that was cut so plenty of fat remained on the slices we got stuck into the seafood. Big plates of Boquerones and those Calarmaritos were followed by some fish simply grilled and dressed with oil and parsley. If you could eat like this every day of your life it wouldn’t be a hardship. The chips are usually a bit of an afterthought here but they were pretty good in the way that chips cooked in Olive Oil usually are.

The following night we ate even closer to home. The local restaurant is a big draw for the expat community and has simple dishes at reasonable prices. DH padre had asked the chef/owner to get some seafood in for us. My father does that because he loves me (well, as he says, somebody has to).

The shellfish was up there with some of the best I’d had in Spain. The freshness, the care in the preparation and presentation and the timing were all spot on and we enjoyed ourselves so much we were there for the best part of five hours.

In the Spanish way several courses were served to share. Concha Fina Natural – large clams – where the meat is removed and replaced back in the shells retaining all the juicy, saline goodness. Fresh and briny, they didn’t last too long. Likewise Mejillones al vapour and some of the freshest Gambas cooked on the plancha I’ve eaten anywhere.

Then a big plate of tiny, sweet Almejas cooked with plenty of olive oil, garlic and parsley with plenty of clam liquor to mop up afterwards.

Feeling a little bit stuffed I was worried that a plate of Rabo De Toro was going to be too much but it was excellent: clean tasting and not over rich as this dish can sometimes be. Baba had huevos estrellados a dish beloved of Spaniards everywhere and if you’re wondering, yes it is egg and chips but you break and mix up the egg with the potatoes. The night was finished off with far too many Anis Secos and Pacharans. On the casa, of course.

A visit to Malaga province is not complete, of course, without a visit to the city of Malaga itself. I’ve been visiting for a few years and the centre is always a bit of a building site which didn’t stop myself and the third Hermano doing a little tapas crawl (well, about three hours of crawling). Lots of highlights like Tortitas de Camarones and Berenjenas con miel and of course super fresh seafood.

On my return to London I found people very excited because a Pizza restaurant has opened and there’s a new Canteen in Canary Wharf. Spain in general and Malaga in particular suddenly seemed very, very far away indeed. Sigh.

FLORENCE: FOUR STOMACHS IN FIRENZE

2009-10-20T07:55:00.012+01:00

There are not, I would imagine, too many people who receive an invitation to travel to Italy for less than twenty four hours just so they can have the chance to eat a sandwich made out of the fourth stomach of a cow. But, that’s what happens I guess when you announce to the world that you want to “Go everywhere, Eat Everything”

Back in May, while I was promoting Eat My Globe in the USA, I received an e-mail from a journalist at La Republica, one of Italy’s most prestigious newspapers. He wanted to interview me about the book and the article above was the result. That in itself was good fun, but a few weeks later I received an e-mail from a woman in Florence who was organising a food festival called Degustibooks. It was part of a wider “Festival of Creativity” and for some unknown reason after reading the article, they thought that an Englishman talking about eating fermented horse milk in Mongolia might just fit the bill.

Which is how I came to be standing on the platform of Pisa station at some ungodly hour on Sunday after a stupidly early start to get the first flight from Gatwick. The Italian train service is obviously as dreadful as ours as I stood there for two hours as train after train was announced cancelled. I began to wonder if I would actually make it to nearby Florence in time for the event. Eventually a train ambled into the station and an hour and a half later, I made it to my hotel with about thirty minutes to spare.

The event itself took part inside La Foretezza and to restore my good humours my lovely hosts fed me a large cannoli before taking me over to the auditorium where I was to speak. It was an unusual set up. My Italian is non existent and most of the crowd (yep, there were a few people who turned up to see who the hell I was) could not speak English. I was interviewed by a journalist whose questions were then translated for me into English, then I answered and my responses were translated back into Italian. I am not sure how it all worked, but people seemed interested in my stories and I got a few laughs.

By the time I had finished an hour later, I was exhausted and any thought of a big meal was out of the question. Fortunately, my chum Dan Woodford, who I met recently in Cambridge, has moved to Florence with his family and had turned up to give support. After my talk had finished, he took me for a stroll around the city so at least got to see some of Florence’s famous sights.

Best of all he introduced me to one of the great food specialities of the city, a Lampredotto. I had heard of it before, but this was the first time I had the chance to try another one of the world’s great sandwiches. A sibling to the Pani Ca Meusa of Sicily, the Lampredotto is made from the fourth stomach of the cow. The meat is cooked for over an hour in a broth containing tomatoes and vegetables and is then served in the middle of a scooped out soft roll with a hefty dollop of salsa verde on top. Key to the whole Lampredotto experience is the dipping of the top of the roll in the broth before serving. It’s messy, reminding me of the French dipped sandwiches of Los Angeles, but it was delicious enough to make the whole trip even more worthwhile and to make me forget I had to be up at 6am the next morning for my return journey.

Finally it was time for a spot of gelato at Grom, one of Dan’s favourite shops and I headed back to the hotel and to bed falling asleep almost before I had undressed. An exhausting trip, no doubt, but when I think that three years ago I would have been driving back from another tortuous Frankfurt Book Fair, I would not change my current life for the world.

Roll on the next adventure.

LONDON'S BEST BARS: THE DREAM TEAM AT HIX

2009-10-17T08:06:00.007+01:00

As you can read below, HP enjoyed the food at Mark Hix's new operation in Brewer St. I was more interested when I heard about their basement bar.

Heading up the operation is my old chum Nick Strangeway, former Tales of The Cocktail "International Bartender of The Year" and all round top Catweazle lookee-likey. The menu at Hix has been created very much in his own image with a nod towards his vast knowledge of cocktail history. Add to the team, the ebullient French cocktail maker, Charles Vexenat, himself a nominee for the same award in 2009, and I knew the bar at Hix would be a must visit for any lover of decent mixed drinks.

It's a well designed space. The bar itself was created from a former sushi counter, which they have recovered with zinc. It retains its original chilling system which is used to keep glasses and garnishes at the correct temperature ready to be used. The back bar, unsurprisingly, given who is involved is huge and stocked with some truly unusual spirits for the mixers to play around with.

Neither Charles nor Nick were there on my visit, but when I recognised Stewart Hudson, formerly of Milk & Honey's Red Room, I knew that my order would be in good hands. It certainly was and one of my test drinks of any mixer, a Plymouth Martini with a twist was produced perfectly as ordered, in a sensible 5oz measure with a suitable slick of citrus oil.

I had already placed an order for my second test, a Daiquiri when, the bar phone rang and Stewart began a long conversation with someone. It turned out to be Mr Strangeway who asked Stewart to cancel my order and replace it with a new creation he had been working on, a Martinez made with Beefeater Gin "aged" for two days with oak staves. It's an odd notion, but Nick's research shows that originally gin was transported to the US in wooden barrels rather than glass bottles, so the cocktails of the day would have varied from the ones we know now.

I don't know about the research, but the spirit tasted on its own, is very strongly flavoured with oak after only two days and unless mixed expertly would be too much for me, at least. In Stewart's hands, however it was a success and a good insight into what a fine and creative addition to the London Cocktail scene the bar at Hix is going to be.

Add to that the fact that the fourth member of the mixing crew is Wladislaw (sp?) brought in from the impressive Merchant House Hotel bar in Belfast and I can only recommend you head to Hix immediately because cocktail dream teams like this don't come along very often

UK RUMFEST: WIN A PAIR OF TICKETS AND A BOTTLE OF RUM

2009-10-14T06:00:00.000+01:00

As we have said so many times before, Dos Hermanos is the website that just keeps on giving. A few weeks ago we offered you the opportunity to win some tickets for The Whisky Show. A splendid event taking place on the 6/7th November at The Guildhall.

Now, it's the turn of Rum. Not only do we have a pair of tickets for the UK RUMFEST on the 24th/25th October, to give away, the organisers have also kindly added a bottle of Chairman's Reserve to sweeten the deal. It's a golden rum and relatively new to the UK market. It also won Gold Medal and "Best in Class" at the International Wine and Spirit Competition in 2008. Pretty fine stuff.

To have a chance of winning, please answer the following question

In which country is Chairman's Reserve Rum produced?

Please send answers directly to the e-mail below and NOT to Dos Hermanos and please title your E-mail DOS HERMANOS RUMFEST COMPETITION. The competition closes on the 20th October.

rumfest@rt-com.com

Even if you don't win, it looks like a fun event.

Good luck and hopefully see you there

BANGALORE EXPRESS: CONFUSING

2009-10-13T13:27:00.007+01:00

HP and I like to play a little game when we are watching football. We try to come up with the perfect adjective for each team taking part, particularly during international games. It allows us the opportunity to drag every possible stereotype from the locker. So the Germans are “efficient” the French “mercurial” the Italians “cunning” and the Russians "ruthless" The English? Well of course the English are “hapless” or if we are feeling more charitable “frustrating”

I wonder if the same game could be played with restaurants? Maze would be “woeful” Anything related to Tom Aikens could be “cynical” and Rules could be “immutable” If I was asked to include in the game today’s lunch at Bangalore Express today, the only word I could come up with would be “confusing”

It’s a relatively new venture, the second branch of the chain, which forms the easy access route to Chelsea’s The Painted Heron. Open for only three weeks, the restaurant is obviously yet to get the word out about its existence or its location, down a small alleyway opposite Leadenhall Market. For the whole of my lunch, I was the only person in the place and spent the meal smiling uneasily at a lot of bored looking waitresses who seemed genuinely surprised when I walked through the door.

The menu, quite frankly is a mess. There is an a la carte option with some very unpleasant sounding dishes indeed. Indian Calzone, anyone? I thought not. There is also a mix and match option called “Big Plates of Curry & Rice” which would allow you to create some equally unpleasant combinations, Duck Vindaloo anyone? I thought not. There is a low fat option, Indian “tapas” option and even a “deluxe" option offering dishes from The Painted Heron. You would need a three year degree, not a single lunchtime to try and figure it all out.

Such a confusion of possibilities would not matter if the cooking were any good. But, as soon as my own choice of a Vegetable Thali arrived (chosen more to prevent bewilderment than enthusiasm) it was obvious that the food lacked thought and, even worse, passion. They had decided to ignore the traditional thali presentation with small steel bowls of each dish to be mixed by hand with plain rice on a large steel plate (or originally a banana leaf) instead cramming all the food artlessly onto one white plate.

The end result is a messy plateful of colours not helped by the fact that none of the food actually tastes any good. Quite why they had to use the Japanese word “tempura” to describe an assortment of oily vegetables in a soggy batter, I am not sure, but if they were meant to be bhaji, they have some real issues in the kitchen. The lurid orange sauce covering some decent paneer was thin in flavour and the same was true of a “dumpling curry” Only a small blob of spinach and roasted chickpeas showed what they could do if they turned their mind to it. A dry and leathery roti was a final insult and left me pushing my plate away and calling for the bill of £15 including service and a flat glass of Diet Coke.

The owners of Bangalore Express seem frightened that by offering “real” Indian food prepared and served as it should be, they are going to alienate their possible audience. Instead they are serving up potentially bizarre combinations of not very nice food with a vague Indian twist. I am not sure at whom this restaurant is aimed. It's certainly not me and, judging from the empty room while I ate my lunch, not many other people either.

Confusing indeed.

THE PRINCESS VICTORIA: IMPERIAL GRUB

2009-10-07T22:10:00.000+01:00

Sometimes it’s the small things that impress. I’d just had my Pork Board (how could you not order something called a Pork Board) when the friendly server asked me if I’d enjoyed it. I said I had, but there weren’t enough Pork Scratchings. She went away and returned soon after with a bowl of freshly cooked crisp piggy goodness. Things like that make me inclined to like a place.

I also liked the ale which, as anyone who drinks in the capital’s pubs will know, can be a bit crap. Here it was well kept and had that wonderfully fresh aroma and thirst- quenching ability that the best beers have. I’d especially recommend the Harvey’s Sussex Best if it’s on which was as good as I’ve had in Sussex itself.

Back to that Pork Board (yes we must). There were other porcine delights too: a little croquette of Pig’s Cheek with a tart sauce gribiche; a dense meaty GOS Pate with piccalilli; proper Ham; Salami and some rolled Pork Belly which spread easily onto excellent homemade Brown Bread. Speaking of which, that bread made a better match than the flat variety on the plate. There was nothing especially wrong with it or the almonds or the stuffed guindillas which all added a little Moro-esque touch to the dish, but to be honest I would have given them all up for another fried pig’s cheek. How ever would this dish be shared ?

Surprisingly, the only disappointment came with my main course. I’d heard the triple-cooked (yes, those again) chips here were the best in show. They certainly looked the part with a golden brown colour that said: eat me. The problem was they didn’t have those extra layers of crunch that the best examples have - I’m thinking of the Bull and Last here. In the end they were just superior fat chips and you all know what Dos Hermanos think of those.

The rest of the plate was textbook stuff – not surprising given co-owner and chef James McLean’s CV. Rib Eye, although not the Gigantor-like specimens DH are used to was notably good meat and had the taste of the grill (mmmm…grill). There was a fine Béarnaise to dip my fat chips into, some neatly trimmed, squeaky green beans and some dried Tomatoes that had a very intense taste of, get this, Tomato. Whatever next ?

Affogato (Italian for drowned) is an espresso with a scoop of Ice Cream in it. Sounds like an interesting way to combine pud and coffee if you’re in a hurry but next time I think I’ll stick to a bowl of the stuff, ice cream that is, and a coffee to follow.

The Bull and Last is our current standard when it comes to Gastropubs, or pubs with restaurants as we should probably call them to separate them from the chaff, but in many ways the dining experience is more enjoyable at The Princess Victoria.

I’ve already talked about the beer but the wine list, from other owner and ex-sommelier of The Capital, Matt Wilkin is better, there’s a proper dining room in which to eat and the atmosphere on a Saturday lunchtime is less hectic. Crucially though, you won’t get Giles Coren coming in on spec and nabbing your seat.

That said, the B&L with its bar snacks (Black Pudding studded Sausage Roll anyone ?), its wider range of dishes and its two types of chips wins out in the all-important food category. If I lived anywhere in West London though (and not a day goes by when I thank my own personal god that I don’t) I’d be more than happy to have the Princess Victoria on my doorstep. Now, all they need to do is to fix those chips.

HIX: OLD ENGLISH

2009-10-06T23:00:00.022+01:00

It seems like most new restaurant openings in London over the past year have been delayed. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve rung up to make a reservation and ended up telling the owners I’d read about their place over a year ago. So what happened ? The usual story is there was a problem with the planning regulations.

Mark Hix’s new place in Soho though is a startling exception. It seems like a matter of weeks rather than months that Hix was announced and then with very little muss or fuss it’s here. A brief preview period and then straight into opening night last Saturday. Of course DH were there although on this occasion not fielding a full strength team.

Approaching from the outside there’s a touch of the Ivy about the place which given Mr Hix’s past is not surprising. The opaque windows are a distinct advantage though as the West End on a weekend night is not the nicest place to be.

Inside, things are even more impressive. I never visited when it was the ill-fated Amaya but I suspect it never looked like this. It’s a Martin Brudnizki job but looks different to all the others. It’s at once comforting but in a grown-up sort of way. The lighting was just right too, for part of my meal at least but then got turned down which wasn’t so good.

You could come and have a meal at one of the sturdy wooden tables or sit at the bar and have a good time. But you would be missing out because down in the basement is what’s surely going to become the must-visit bar for lovers of the cocktail.
Overseen by the don dada of the cocktail world, Nick Strangeway and manned by some of the top mixers in the business: Charles Vexenat (watch out for his book Mixellany's Annotated Bariana available any day now) and Stanislav, recently arrived from the award winning Merchant Hotel in Belfast it will be the perfect place to while away a evening sipping great cocktails at the low zinc. Much as I did before and, as my head told me the next day, after my meal.

A couple of cocktails to the good, then upstairs to get stuck in. First I’d have to say that this is one of the best looking menus I’ve come across in a long time. I really did want to eat all of it. It’s just a crying shame that because of glaring personality defects I can never get anyone to join me apart from HS. And he has to because he’s my Brother. Still, I gave it as good a go as I could although back in the day it would be a case of somebody stop me.

Prices are on the high side but we’re talking about the very best ingredients here so as long as the kitchen handles them properly then the dishes will deliver, which they did in my case.

There were Pork Scratchings on the menu so I don’t really have to say anything else apart from they went very well with half a bottle of Lustau 'Papirusa' Manzanilla.

A plate of sweet little Queenie Scallops had been scattered with some bacon and herb and grilled in their shells. This was a dish for which no cutlery was required, just strong teeth and a flexible tongue to get to all the precious juices.

With these lovelies I tried out some (quite a lot, actually) of a wine Mr Hix was handing around: Les Foulards Rouges 'La Soif du Mal'. A new one on me it’s a natural red wine which had a slight spritz, even a little refreshing sourness.

Although by choice I’m a carnivore I’m still a great believer in eating as much seafood as possible if the quality is exceptional - which it is here. Seashore salad combines whatever’s particularly fresh on the day into a taste of the seaside which today meant Cockles, Mussels, Scallops, Oysters. There might have been some razor clams and sea kale in there as well.

Calf’s offal is to my mind the best of all animals innards because of its delicate taste. On my plate three big hunks of Liver, Kidneys and Sweetbread from Jack O’Shea came on some creamed onions. It was all cooked nice and pink although a little bit more resting wouldn’t have gone amiss, but it was the right idea for offal this fresh. Actually, I probably wouldn’t have even bothered with the onions – Magdalen used to do a similar dish served just with some crisp sage leaves and a hunk of lemon. Chips were excellent.

I must have insisted on trying every variety of Ice Cream because I got two bowls of the stuff, complete with Brandy Snaps. I seem to remember it was very nice but can’t be 100% sure as things were getting a leetle hazy around this time.

There may also have some PX action in there as well as plenty of bollocks talked (by me). But sometimes these things just happen and if they’re going to happen there’s probably not a better place for them to er, happen than Hix. File under sure-fire hit.

AQUA NUEVA: FEELING BULLISH ?

2009-10-03T14:29:00.029+01:00

I'm not sure whether it was kismet or just plain chutzpah that meant that the sinister-sounding Aqua Group are opening not one but two huge restaurants in the heart of London's West End just as one financial turndown is ending and business rates in the area are increased by similar multiples to the wine markups in Aqua Nueva, the Spanish half of the operation.

Or maybe it’s just a little bit bonkers. It seemed that way as I made my way through the darkened foyer and up in a mirrored lift that expresses you straight to the top floor of the former Dickins and Jones Department store. I was then deposited you in a large dark room where some attractive young women gave me the tour.

Occupying pretty much all of the top floor there’s three (count’em) terraces although as we’re only the fifth floor the view isn’t as wonderful as you would hope for. In fact if you want to see the sights (London Eye, Canary Wharf) then you have to schlep to a small terrace the other end of Aqua Nueva otherwise it’s the rooftops of Mayfair for you, dear reader.

I think the décor and dark wood cladding is supposed to scream: Hey, I’m a sophisticated kinda guy and I like sophisticated things – have you seen my watch ? It’s really expensive. More Kristal anyone ? But came over more like a Romford Nightclub c. 1990 (Get your coat, babe – you’ve pulled etc)

Things were thankfully a little more restrained in the Spanish restaurant with a vaguely Moorish theme that informs the décor. There was a more glam side to the dining room but it appeared to be out of bounds to Billy No Mates like me. I think they were quite relieved when I changed my table that I didn’t ask to be moved there.

Actually, the staff weren’t bad especially my waiter who seemed to tolerate my endless requests – I was in a particularly curmudgeonly mood this night – with friendliness and patience although as in many places they got a bit more useless as you moved up the pecking order.

The food ? Well, in parts, it was better than I expected but nowhere near as good as I hoped, especially at these prices. Everything just needed a lot more care. Take for instance the Olive Oil. It came from a town close to Jaén which I recently visited. It was nice and peppery and needed some hunks of decent white bread to dip into it. Instead, and I may be wrong, but it was if the kitchen had hopped down to the big Waitrose on Oxford Street and bought some Poilane Sourdough and Raisin bread. Which would have been fine if they hadn’t let it go stale. And charge £3.50 for it. Who said rip-off ?

I also suspect the local supermarket may have been responsible for the wine. For a Spanish restaurant there were precious few bottles from the Iberian peninsula. The bottle of Albarino I initially chose was unavailable and one of the managers usefully pointed me to one costing twice as much.

Shopping trips aside there’s an ALC menu but if you ask nicely you can get one for Tapas as well. I say tapas but from the prices we’re really talking first courses or dishes in a tasting menu. They came in a slow procession as well with slightly too much of a gap between each one.

Jamón is a good test of any place serving Spanish Food. It’s deceptively difficult to get right. Here, the ham was of good quality and was cut thinly but the presentation was lacking, there was not enough fat and a surfeit of dry pieces. Not really what you expect for £18.

Croquetas – another benchmark – were nicely cooked, the béchamel was a bit runnier than I like it and you had to hunt for the nuggets of ham but not a bad effort.

The fishy tapas were more interesting although the prices were gasp-inducing. Slightly chewy chipirones came on an over-processed chickpea puree. Fillets of Red Mullet had been accurately cooked so they were still firm although there was a residual whisper of stale oil – perhaps from the plancha.

Octopus was some meaty, tender chunks of the tentacles but as with some of the other dishes there was a tendency to irrelevant garnishing. Mind you, if irrelevant garnishing is as bad as your day is going to get then you’re probably doing bloody well.

There was a seafood in jelly dish which I didn’t order but was glad of that fact after a single bite and my Razor Clams was a singular bivalve looking rather lonely on a splodge of pea puree. I’m not sure it was an improvement over more straightforward preparations. So far so underwhelming.

The kitchen managed a real stinker for the next course though. Some Partridge – it was hard to determine which part, breast maybe – had been cooked so it had dried out then covered in a sweet, heavily reduced sauce. There was a little offaly forcemeat sausage that tasted ok, but the rest was very hard-going. So much so, I couldn’t face any sweet. Feeling slightly queasy is never a good way to leave a restaurant.

To be honest I think this is as good as the food is going to get so I’m not sure why you’d choose Aqua Nueva over the myriad of other Spanish joints now open all over W1. It doesn’t really have, to these eyes, the necessary bling factor either to pull in the high-rollers. So that’s foodies and Ashley Cole accounted for. Which only leaves the B&T crowd when they’ve got too old for Tiger Tiger or your friends from a small provincial town, say Manchester, who appreciate this sort of style. Mancs, your lift awaits.

STROUD'S: FRIED CHICKEN DOWN HOME STYLE IN KANSAS CITY

2009-10-01T15:31:00.009+01:00

Last time I wrote about Kansas City, I got into a bit of trouble for not making the distinction between Kansas City, MO and Kansas City, Kansas. OK, well I am back now and to be perfectly clear, I am in Kansas City, MO. Got it? Good.

Let’s continue. I am here for a repeat of one of the happiest experiences of the EAT MY GLOBE trip, working with the incomparable Burn Rate team at The American Royal BBQ competition. You want to know how big this event is? Let me just say that when I received an e-mail from the team leader saying “Guys we have 1000lbs of donated pork” I knew that I had a colon cleansing in my very near future.

That event begins with today’s set up and I arrived yesterday from L.A to meet my dear friend, Mark Cordes, who has provided a roof over my head on the last few visits to this rather endearing city. On previous visits on business, Mark and his then colleagues would take me out to dinner. It was always a bit of a disappointment because we would end up going to ersatz versions of European places. “A great Italian” or a “cute little French place” While their generosity was appreciated, the food was never that good, quite bad in fact sometimes if truth be told.

Then one day Mark suggested we try somewhere local and took me to Stroud’s. What can I tell you? Things were never quite the same between us again. Any man who could introduce me to a place that did fried chicken this delicious was always going to be a friend of mine. Stroud’s was a revalation. The sort of place that many Americans are often snobbish about or even worse apologetic about. It was a truly down home restaurant that served stupidly large portions of really delicious food.

It had been over four years since I last went. BB in blog speak “Before Blog” and in the intervening time, the original Stroud’s location had closed to be replaced by a freeway. It re-opened shortly afterwards on the fringes of a strip mall and I was concerned that it may have lost a lot of the charm, which made it special. I need not have worried. As we walked in, the honk-tonk playing of the piano man was just as it had been before. The perky waitresses were all present and correct and the tables were filled with noisy customers.

If the décor and atmosphere were immediately familiar, so was the food. While waiting for another friend to join us, we shared a half order of “mix-up” a combination of deep fried gizzards and chicken livers. The half order would only be enough to feed about six people and gives you some indication of the amount of food to arrive later in the meal.

The notional nod to health passed with the added salad plate and then we were on to the main courses. Mark’s order was two juicy pork chops, one grilled and one “chicken fried” and came served with creamy mashed potatoes and gravy made, as far as I can tell, from pouring half a vat of cream into the juices of the pan in which the chop was cooked. My own order was “Stroud’s Family Style Chicken Dinner” three portions of some of the best fried chicken you are ever likely to try anywhere along with cottage fries and green beans cooked with ham hocks. The chicken was beautifully moist once you crunched through the outer coating. I am told by Mark, it is because they pressure cook it first before pan frying in shortening. Kevin our companion went with “chicken fingers” three equally impressive strips of breast meat in the same coating.

We were already exuding meat sweats by this time and the sides were being pretty much left intact. That is until the arrival of the hot cinnamon rolls that Mark and Kevin had been waiting for. They tore into them ripping the soft rolls apart letting burst of cinnamon steam fill our booth. Americans have this love of cinnamon I never quite understand. The smell of it is almost the first smell you get when you land at an airport as you see people tucking into those dreadful Cinnabon rolls that are sold from concessions and contain about a million calories each. I don’t get it, and I didn’t get these rolls. I ate half of one and then went back to my chicken, which I most certainly did get. They know their schtick at Stroud’s and at the sign of a first let up in our eating our server appeared with boxes for us to take away our leftovers. It was at least 80% of what we had been served given that the portions were so enormous. We paid our bill which was about $30 each and included tip and a few beers.

You are not going to, well in fact you probably physically couldn’t, eat this sort of food on a regular basis. But, as a treat on a visit to the Mid-West, Stroud’s is a must visit. As I said Americans are often very apologetic about their own food, but Stroud’s serves to remind you that they have absolutely nothing to be apologetic about. Stroud's also serves some of the best fried chicken I have ever tasted.

Now bring on the ‘Q

THE WHISKY SHOW: FREE TICKETS FOR A DROP OF THE GOOD STUFF

2009-09-29T17:15:00.008+01:00

As those who read the blog will know, I was recently lucky enough to visit the distillery at Glenfiddich for the launch of their astonishing 50 year old single malt (yours for a mere £10,000 a bottle) It would be a lie if I told you it did not change the way I thought about one of my favourite drinks.

Well, now other lovers of fine and rare whisky will have the chance to taste some fantastic examples at The Whisky Show which will take place at The Guildhall in London on the 6-7th November.

The show focuses on the premium expressions of some of the finest whiskies from Scotland, Japan and Ireland amongst others and exhibitors include Highland Park, Glenlivet, Laphroaig, Cooley and even the award winning whisky from Suntory of Japan.

Tickets prices are not for the fainthearted, at £100 a person or £150 for two days, but include all samplings and food while in the event, so represent excellent value for the opportunity to experience whiskies at their finest all under one roof.

The organisers have offered Dos Hermanos the incredibly generous prize of two tickets for the Friday PM session on 6th November. All you have to do is answer the following question.

"Who are the authors of The Whisky Kitchen?"

All answers to be sent to the following e-mail please and NOT to Dos Hermanos. Quote "DOS HERMANOS WHISKY SHOW COMPETITION" in the subject heading

office@thewhiskyshow.com

The organisers will be in touch with the winners directly and the last date for entries is the 16th October 2009.

Good luck and see you there