Culinary Darwinism and the clenched fist

Apparently you should never eat a meal larger than the size of your clenched fist.  Apparently, use of the term ‘apparently’ is the swiftest revelation that the forthcoming statement is either entirely contrived or quoted from a half-read diet column in an out-of-date waiting room Grazia. In many cases, it may be both.

But let’s assume for a moment that this ‘fact’ is true.  Many a question it does raise. For example: If you clench your fist at the table, can you do so and not burst into a Fee-Fi- Fo-Fum? How do you simultaneously clench a fist and hold cutlery with modern decorum? Can I use a Space Bag to compact my meal for measurement? Why are my hands not bigger?

Simon's fingers are long and he prefers the hand span measurement approach.
Yes, Simon, this is edible in its entirety.

I am a consistent abuser of this proportionate theory of consumption.  My fist of reference is more the size of a novelty NBA fan hand than my own little clencher. If I could fit a hotel breakfast buffet into the volume of my hand I would, but no amount of cuisine Tetris is going to make that happen.

Yep, that ought to do me...for lunch.

In fact, if I can fit my hotel breakfast into the volume of my hand I am obviously approaching the buffet offering wrong…or I'm staying at a crappy hotel.  The Breakfast Buffet Methodology involves the following sequence of events: Muffin, fruit, skip the cereal, breather, hot buffet, breather, pastries, fruit, muffin for later, breather. The End. That’s a lot of handfuls if properly executed.

Certain venues, aware of my skills at the buffet, prefer to opt for pre-portioned breakfast servings.

But I would like to protest at this point that I am not a glutton. As larger people have ‘big bones’, so do hungry people I have ‘healthy appetites’.  Maybe I’d be better to say apparently I’m not a glutton. But increasingly I find myself  saving my fistfuls of consumption for things I really enjoy.  And the things I really enjoy are not as abundant as they used to be.

Now this isn’t me being picky and it certainly isn’t me dieting. As anyone who knows me is aware, I discretely display ‘No Dietary Requirements to be Requested’ posters at my dinner parties.  Pregnancy and allergy causing death are carve-outs.  Atkins is not. Go to the gym. I think this new wave of culinary Darwinism is attributable to me being completely spoilt for choice here in London now.  Disappointing dining also makes me sad. Actually sad. Only cheese, in wheel format, can help at such a time.

But back to London.  There is a new restaurant, food truck, wine-bar, bistro, food truck turned bistro-wine bar opening in this city every day.  It’s impossible to keep up, though indeed we try.  To make it through the new Soho openings of just the past few months we’ve started instituting a travelling feast approach.  Soho is the new breakfast buffet.  Drinks and bar snacks here, a few plates here, breather, a few plates there,  breather, dessert and coffee elsewhere, breather, cocktails. The End.   That’s a lot of venues if properly executed.

Enough!! Well not really, but it’s fun to be dramatic sometimes.

The more eating and exploring I do, the more I’m aware of what’s a gimmick, what’s a classic, what and who is really exciting and generally how I want to spend my nights and lunches out.  It’s entirely personal preference but I like surprises, thoughtfulness, intelligence, respect, flirtation, fun and generosity.  To clarify I am talking about eating out in all its guises and neither a corporate philosophy manifesto nor an eHarmony compatibility test.  I do realise I sound quite bonkers at times so I guess I’m lucky this isn’t an eHarmony compatibility test.

It might make me sound slightly less bonkers if I put a few faces to names:

New season brights on the De Camaron Salteados Taco

Surprises: Amongst the to be expected Mexican fare at La Bodega Negra we came across the Tuna, Chipotle, Avocado & Jalapeno Tostadita.  Chipolte mayo, raw tuna, an unexpected Asianesque twist and worth returning for.  Oh and the De Camaron Salteados taco took on the taste buds too.  Beyond that La Bodega Negra was fine, well OK, but for a couple of specific dishes and a cheeky margarita, give it ago.

Do I need a caption on this picture, it's largely self evident isn't it?

Flirtation: The packed and multilayered dining room at Ceviche with it’s close tables, bar spaces, warm lighting, loud and boisterous clientele is a perfect warm antidote to the sharp and after a while slightly homogenous citrus flavours of the tart Peruvian fad (I mean food)…not to mention the inevitable abundant enjoyment of pisco sours.  Maybe that explains the flirtation?

Fun: Late Sunday lunch at Honest Burgers in Brixton Village.  I’m willing to host a protein smack town to determine and crown the best burger in London.  Hell I may even don a bikini and hold the scoreboard.  But not after eating one (or more correctly three burgers between two people) of these guys. Drool.

Dear Knife.  I am tired of playing hide and seek with you.
I can see you under the rosemary fries and I don't need you anyway.
Love, Miss Devour.

Generosity: OK so this isn’t London so it’s technically off topic, but amongst the small plates served at Au Passage in Paris, lays a slow roasted shoulder of lamb that brings pure happiness to a table when torn apart and devoured with medieval fervour.

Dear Knife,
As I said in my last letter. We don't need you anyway.
Love, Miss Devour

Respect: Sadly I don’t have a photo of anything I’ve ever eaten at Koya.  I enjoy it too much.  Or I’ve burnt my mouth or I’ve flicked broth in my eye.  I even enjoy that. The noodle (spoken in the voice of Po’s ‘Dad’ in Kung Foo Panda 1 and 2) are unbelievable, the flavours clean and delicate, the experience entirely and consistently satisfying.

OK so this weekend, I finally managed it, a photo at Koya! Duck hot pot.

Intelligence: It’s a sad and often denied reality that my financial resources are finite.  Dinner in, a rib of beef, bottle of wine is a less rare but always wise plan of action.

Still nuts?  Probably, but only enough nuts to fit into a clenched fist.  Apparently.

@MissDevour13

T + 60 minutes and counting...

I’m thinking about changing the sort of person I am.  This isn’t a great 30 something existential crisis – I was progressive, I had one of those in my late 20’s - but more a practical approach to temporal management.

I currently am, and always have been an On Timer.  No, more correctly, I’m a Little Bit Early to Everything kind of girl.  I get up early (subject to the activities of the night before), I take the slightly too soon train to get somewhere and I think an 8.30 reservation means 8.25 not 8.45.

I’ve always been this way. In part this is due to a vast proportion of my childhood being spent in airports 5 hours prior to departure time on the insistence of my Little Bit Early to Everything kind of mother.  I also don’t like rushing, look immediately dishevelled when power walking and always like to sneak a look at the menu before my dining compatriots arrive.

Problem being, I seem to attract and be attracted to Late Enough is Good Enough kind of people. Busy people. Doers. Well not always that busy doing anything in particular other than being late, but you get the gist.  People who have lots going on and a finite schedule to populate…some people can just do this and those who can’t are late.

I understand the temporal impediment of the Late Enough is Good Enough folk and I’m absolutely open to a 15 minute falter in the time space continuum. In 15 minutes I can check Twitter, consider a tweet, neglect a tweet, order a champagne, peruse the dining room, solve a complex algebraic logarithm in my head whilst silently reciting a script extract from A Beautiful Mind and consume all butter on the table.

By T + 30 minutes I’ve refreshed Twitter four times, read the Wales sub-section of the BBC News app, displayed artisan origami skill on my napkin and noticed the tuft of externally visible nasal hair on my dining neighbour which will now enthral me in a vortex of gross for the next 10 minutes.

At T + 45 minutes I still can’t believe his girlfriend hasn’t said anything about that and I begin to consider ordering ahead after prioritising my best to worst picks of the night.  Surely I can sneak in a couple of ‘hidden courses’ before they get here? I’d also like to look at the cocktail menu please…again.

And yes, before you ask, there have been instances, be they few, when a T + 60 minute scenario has arisen.  This is a significant violation and can only ever be borne in an environment heavily populated by reading materials, intriguing people or things I can buy.  Dining plans with common time perpetrators usually involve BYO literature, an iPhone, a Blackberry and an exchange of email addresses with the waitress who is my new best friend.

An On Timers' support group in the bar at Dabbous

Today, a last minute cancellation at the ‘Impossible to Score a Table at Newbie’ Dabbous, resulted in me diving head first into a T+60 minute plot line.  I knew little forewarning on a 12.15 reservation was fertile ground for such an outcome so I arrived promptly, smiled at the seriously kind and polite front of house staff, pre-emptively apologised, inserted a small but unobtrusive portion of banter into the mix and retired to the bar for a cocktail and a couple of chapters of my book.

Note to fellow On Timers – the ‘One day in June’ on the martini menu (Saffron Gin, Creme de Peche, elderflower cordial, ginger, cucumber, lemon and pineapple juice) is a tart selection I felt boldly straddled the 12 midday cocktail o’clock calling with just enough fruitiness to argue it’s actually one of my seven a day…fruit and vege that is, not cocktails. The downstairs bar at midday is quiet, as you can imagine.  I counted five On Timers down there.  We share a knowing glance, air cheers our cocktails and get on with out respective self-provided activities. And so we wait, surrounded by revealed brick work, communal tables, faux-warn leather deep seats and cocktails. Not bad, not bad at all.

The superb celeriac and I'm not sure if you can see the tiny but delicious
egg dish up the back there...wave for us tiny egg dish!

From ‘One day in June’ followed an exponential increase in the banter to apologies conversation matter between myself and the staff until, at the T + 67 minute mark, my boyfriend flies down the stairs to the soundtrack of Jamiroquai and we get on with proceedings.  Two things: (1) Thank you, thank you kind front of house people for tolerating our collective late arrival and being super accommodating; and (2) Jamiroquai was an unfortunate addition to the Dabbous playlist (not a personal entry soundtrack to said late arrival) which runs largely like my best friend’s iPod circa 2001, only with marginally less R Kelly.

I’m sure you are aware of the hype here.  Faye Maschler, amongst others, has declared Dabbous a ‘Game Changer’, ‘5 stars’! This ensures nobody can score a table in this 36-seater single-turn two-service-a-day venue until at least the end of May.  We got lucky, the wait list paid off.

I honestly cannot look at this picture without trying to dip my finger in that potato.

We went the a la carte approach with a side of upbeat anticipation. The menu at Dabbous reads like an absolute treat, every dish makes my short list.  The proposition however is a little misleading. The menu is divided into untitled starters, mains and desserts, when in fact what followed was a selection of solo degustation style dishes which would better have been declared up front by diving the menu by protein, vegetable or some other way. I understand the price points are a signpost but luckily I am greedy and we went for three from each (including cheese) so crisis averted.

The celeriac with muscat grapes, lovage and hazelnuts (£5) was perfect and fresh, really special. But the beef tartar with cigar oil, whisky and rye (£8) left me a little flat. I love the word coddled, so the coddled free range hen egg with woodland mushrooms and smoked butter (£7) was already rating highly in text before it did so in taste.  Pity there was so little of the goodness in the ornamental hay nested egg shell.

The mashed potato, roasting (chicken) juices and black truffle (£11) had a hard job ahead to win my heart from the burnt end mash at Pitt Cue (yes, totally different establishment but my current betrothed). It might just have done so.  The dish was refined and so complete in flavour that I proposed a second round…or just a more abundant serving in the first instance.

Barbecued iberico pork with savoury acorn praline followed (£14) (loved the praline) and the braised veal cheek with spelt (which I don’t think I’d invite on a second date, bit flighty after initially showing potential).

I call this piece 'Glory in Daylight'

Dessert was a visual escapade and the chocolate/virgin hazelnut oil ganache, basil moss, sheep’s milk ice cream (£7) was one of the sexiest concoctions I’ve seen on a piece of slate.  I’m not a chocolate person but the dish was far from lost on me, placid and not too sweet with texture and colour - a slow and building head nod with a big lick of the lips.

Cheese course is always necessary and I hate to sound like a remix but I only wish it were a little more generous.  I wish all the dishes were a little more generous.  Generosity is something a think goes hand in hand with the casual take on a fine dining formula that Dabbous is going for.  If we’re here and we’re friendly and we’re smart and ‘cool’ and ‘urban’ and we’re excited by food and ingredients, let’s also be generous (not gluttonous) with the centrepiece of the restaurant statement – the food and the prowess of the kitchen. Or don’t be more generous, but be upfront on the menu and trust that diners are excited to be there and want to engage in the variety on offer.

I’ll definitely go back (if we can ever again fluke a reservation) and I’ll definitely wear my slim leather trousers and grey trapeze knit again (I felt like a mannequin perfectly matched to the decor) and I will look forward to seeing and tasting the developments coming out of the kitchen. I’m not sure I agree any game has been changed, but some of the dishes made me innately happy, some indifferent and others made me think ‘I can’t wait to taste what’s next’.  Maybe that’s it? Dabbous is the latest opening in the enticing revelation of London’s changing culinary identity. I just hope we’re not up for a T + 60 wait for the next instalment.

p.s. Claire from the front of house team, I'll call you on Thursday x

Dabbous, 39 Whitfield Street, London, W1T2SF, +44 (0)20 7323 1544, http://dabbous.co.uk/

@MissDevour13

Butter makes it better and better it will be!

Today is Australia Day.  I should be writing about lamingtons or barbeques or national clichés applied to some form of calories but I don’t really feel like it. Perhaps this lack of inclination is in reaction to those Australian specimens currently debauched along Clapham High Street.

These patriotic revellers are a true sight. I’ve never understood the fashioning of our flag into body art (unless you’re an Olympian, which nobody outside the Clapham Grand is) or outerwear (a flag does not a cape make) or swimwear for that matter (NUTS comes to the High Street).  To unite all three elements in a public street in the middle of winter in London in an unfortunate time delayed corollary those landing the First Fleet could never have foreseen. 

A little pose for the camera, a little support to the hip displacement.
A patron wilts and poses, poses and wilts during an epic
wait for a table at Burger & Lobster

OK, I admit, years ago I may have revelled on Australia Day and I may have consumed an abundance of Fosters (cringe) and I may even have enjoyed the novelty key ring I won which rotated the phrases: “Flamin’ galah” and “Grab us another Fosters would ya”…but I was not tattooed (a scratch and sniff Southern Cross sticker does not count) and I certainly didn’t wear a flag cape…before 4am (polyester is a great wind break alright!). Wonder where I put that key ring? A modern day classic…

Instead of all things antipodean, I actually feel like writing about butter.  Quite un-Australian really if you think the classic Australian like beaches and looking good on beaches and butter has little place in either pursuit.  

If The Bib takes Mayfair, he's one step closer to victory in the primaries.

I used close to a stick of butter cooking and baking tonight – I don’t intend being near a beach for months.  Should I judge myself for this non-health conscious fatty fat fat consumption in the kitchen? Definitely not.  The sauce was too good and the ever-shrinking banana bread continues to beckon me from a deliberately inaccessible booby-trapped location rooms away. And yes, for future reference, when I use expression  “close to” I mean “close or equal to” or more correctly “a whole stick of butter”. And if my trainer is reading this, by “butter” I mean “stomach crunches”.

Have you ever noticed buttery fingerprints act as a high-speed lubricant on a keyboard? And that banana bread crumbs act like little speed humps?  No, neither have I.

Not to be used in conjunction with keyboards.

I’d like to know how many sticks of butter the kitchen at Burger & Lobster use each service (29 Clarges street, Mayfair London W1J 7EF, +44 (0) 207 409 1699).  It’s probably best we don’t know and just enjoy. Enjoy by the jug full with a lemon twist and a huge plate of crustacean and The Bib.  

I’m a significant supporter of The Bib and his campaign for introduction to certain civilised adult eating environs.  And before you go there, I’m not talking about any weird adult-as-baby fetishist thing, but certain dining tables where the abandon of joyous gluttony to often results in a hefty dry cleaning investment.  For example The Bib is a perfect partner to any form of laksa, Singapore crab, borscht with a slippery spoon, fresh udon at Koya when your hangover hinders your usual precision chopstick skills and everything served anywhere and lathered in butter.  I should have consulted The Bib before dinner tonight and I could have avoided a steamy evening with Vanish.

The Bib works hard for every vote and takes his time to understand the needs
of his electorate.

I’m happy The Bib has set up permanent campaign headquarters in Mayfair.  After close to two hours wait (and downing two bottles of bubbles at a nearby bar) his services were indispensible as we slid our way through three grilled and doused lobsters and an entirely gratuitous lobster brioche (a faux starter) last Friday.  I don’t understand at all the business model that supports a flat rate £20 for whole lobster, brioche or burger…turnover explains so much, cross product subsidisation a little more…but then numbers were never my thing and butter certainly is so...thank you to Burger & Lobster and you good Russians you and all the burger orderers in the house for what ever commercial genius lets this happen.

Yuuuummm, look at all that delicious salad I still have to go!

Between the butter jugs and bibs, the tool kit and flying meaty bits there may live an argument that Burger & Lobster is best with friends rather than a hot date.  Yes, yes you say, Kate Hudson scored Matthew McConaughey over a similar scene, but in real life you will feel ill afterwards.  Good ill. Happy ill. Roman feasting ill.  But ill enough to be indisposed from activities you may like to undertake without the services of The Bib or the moisturising properties of butter…unless you’re into that sort of thing, in which case, good luck to you.  

@MissDevour13

Breakfast at Bill's place

One thing led to another last weekend and we ended up on Youtube.  We ended up on Youtube watching, no that’s not quite correct, watching and singing, Ian Moss’s all time Australian pub rock classic, “Tucker’s Daughter” (1989).

My first innate reaction was to sing louder.  My second was to be thankful I wasn’t the outback daughter of Ole Man Tucker and the object of Ian’s affection.  My third was to set off a multimedia juke box of classic 80’s and 90’s Australian tunes whilst debating: Johnny Diesel’s greatest hit? “Right on the Tip of my Tongue” or “Crying Shame”, discuss.  

Dream Boat Retrospective - Johnny Diesel despite torn off denim sleeves and subsequent identity crisis

Unless you are a foreign member of the Ian Moss fan club or an Australian descending through the 25-40 year old age bracket, you’re probably about as lost as my British friend Jo was while this archive of antipodeon chart toppers played out.  Jo understands that we didn’t attend Erinsborough High, that we call shrimps prawns and that pants aren’t pants they’re undies. But I am fairly sure she didn’t understand why we still, after 20 years, know every word to Darryl Braithwaite’s “One Summer”.  And just who is this Darryl Braithwaite anyway?!?

Contrary to our play list, I was glad I’d crafted a menu for the night that displayed no consistent cultural reference.  After fresh ricotta, Manuka honey and toasted walnuts we followed with a Way to Decadent in a Good Way Rabbit and Pork Lasagne. But it was finally ending on the left-field British high of sticky toffee pudding that gave Jo a brief caramel and culturally familiar reprieve.  We also had to stop singing during dessert as it’s incredibly hard to consume pudding, sauce and ice cream whilst effectively using an air-mic. 

While I’ve been assured Jo did have a great time at dinner (and probably afterwards at our expense recounting our unselfconscious antics to her more civilised British friends) the medium of nostalgic mullet anthems highlighted one of the many or few fissures diverging the British and Australian experience.   This sometimes-cultural divide between we convicts (of which I’ll erroneously include myself despite being first generation Australian) and The Motherlanders appeared before me again a few days later. But this time, it was personal.  

Ricotta hotcakes with fresh banana and honeycomb butter

While being served an exceptionally tasty butter-rich bacon-crispy plate of breakfast happiness my ears were forced to endure this statement: “Avocado has no place on a breakfast plate.  It’s just wrong!” 

Now hold on a minute Mr!  Avocado is what you say? Why you little [fist raised]….and it was at about that point of incredulousness that I got distracted by the crispy crispy salty bacon and lost my train of thought entirely…and then I was back:  Avocado is the number one draft pick for breakfast plate side orders for 9 out of 10 Australian diners.  That statistic in no way represents thorough or un-bias research but it was as true as it needed to be at the time before I got distracted by the creamy creamy buttery eggs…and then I was back: Avocado makes a breakfast plate, it’s the perfect duvet to a bacon, the greatest spread on sour dough toast, the perfect fresh substitute for over-cooked spinach or slippery slimy button mushrooms which are the eternally sad side-kicks of the core English breakfast characters. Avocado, it’s just right!

Unfortunately, no avocados were harmed in the making of this breakfast bun

I could swiftly see I wasn’t going to sway any voters with my New World argument for the monosaturated monolith so we entered a social treaty whereby the purveyor of that delicious British breakfast accepted the existence of, without agreeing with, my culinary dissent and we both returned to the bacon on which we very happily agreed.

After this polling failure you can imagine my joy when the long awaited opening of Bill Granger’s only European venture, Granger & Co (175 Westbourne Grove, London W11 2SB, http://grangerandco.com/, +44 20 7229 9111) came to fruition around the corner from my home here in Notting Hill.  Now Bill, he’s a man who understands the avocado.  In fact, it’s his number one side offering for eggs or toast.  Oh, and look at that, it’s his number two side for eggs or toast too – avocado salsa.  I’ll have both thanks Bill – no mushrooms, no spinach for me please.

The Full Aussie Breakfast: How did those pesky mushrooms get on there? 

The scrambled eggs at Granger & Co are super light and not at all too rich (there could be an argument for or against this state of affairs, but let’s carry on), the bacon is incredible, the breakfast plates loaded with full Aussie goodness and not a baked bean in sight. The ricotta hot cakes are just like Sydney…hang on a second…the whole place is just like Sydney.  The tables, the staff, the menu, the huge windows…should I be judging my own lack of originality in enjoying this replica establishment as much as I do? I am really enjoying it and judging at the same time. But mostly I’m enjoying.

Judging AND stirring as demonstrated by my more competent friend

Looking around, the dining room is packed. The wait for a table is over an hour and the confusing sunshine outside is offering those smug people seated in the window a lame excuse to inappropriately wear their designer frames inside. I detest them, but am too preoccupied trying to stir the Callebaut chocolate chips through my hot chocolate to care. I can’t judge and stir at the same time.

The bustling hum of the largely Australia via Nottinghill crowd is broken only by the intermittent steam of the coffee machine, the odd squawk of a Queensland ex-pat’s laughter or the conga line theme song rolling through my head: “I love av-o-ca-do! I love av-o-c-a-do! Ah dah dah, dah dah, dah dah”. 

Avocado and Breakfast: Best friends for ever xo xo

I haven’t been back yet for lunch or dinner service but the menu looks like a solid Bill-style offering of tasty BBQ and casual fragrant mains. Chilli pork ribs, whole baked fish, crispy duck with plum sauce.  No big surprises, nothing avant-garde but plenty of trouble choosing. 

I still think Peter Gordon's Providores serves up the best breakfast meets brunch in the whole of London.  I’ll also eternally love any breakfast offering me bacon and butter in perfect excessive harmony. Who knows if I’ll ever convince the avocado disbelievers out there that Granger & Co is worth the long wait for a breakfast table adrift a sea of Ralph Lauren? But it’s the simple good food and effortless Australian style of Granger & Co which just made me and Tucker’s daughter smile on that sunny Saturday morning…but please, you in the window, take those sunglasses off!!  

@missdevour13

Mustard flares and the eating dress

I returned to the kitchen last Sunday.  It’s been a while.  In fact a really long while.  And just to be clear, this isn’t a smirk-ridden attempt to analogise the kitchen and the bedroom…in the sexy time way…I actually mean the kitchen.

It’s funny how, for someone who thinks about food and eating more than any other subject or act, life has kept me outside my favourite place for so long. I wasn’t totally abstinent, there were a few flings here and there with meaningless pastas and mid week pull togethers.  But proper kitchen time, a bench full of ingredients, hands itching to play and cupboards full of pots, pans and contraptions destined for experimentation – Sunday was proper, fun, sexy cooking time.  I’ve really missed it.

Amuse bouche of cress soup and egg yolk...not loving the styling, but super tasty!

For some weeks now the closest I’ve come to a kitchen is a big family feast at the Chef’s Table at my local (well, loosely local) pub – The Mall Tavern in Nottinghill (71-73 Palace Gardens Terrace, Notting Hill, London, W8 4RU). I find this place classic, deeply stained and lightly exquisite in the evening (in a waist coat and pipe kind of way) so to call it just a local doesn’t seem quite fair. But then again it’s calm and warm, a wooden pub which makes me feel like I belong nestled up in the leather-bound corners of the dining room. Maybe in a bustle and without the right to vote, but nonetheless, a great local.

Cow Pie...how could I forget the marrow and parsley!!

I first came to The Mall Tavern with a friend who can legitimately call it her local, and we came for one thing.  The Cow Pie.  That’s it.  Pastry, gravy and cow.  I’m a simple girl.  But then I came back for the pigeon pie, their smoked salmon (smoked in kettle on the roof), the roasted wild duck and then the pies again. Hooked.  Apparently, and I’ve never quite got this, other people come here, and they come here a lot, for the Chicken Kiev.  It’s the second highest selling dish on the menu (yes, of course after the Cow Pie).  

Wah, wah. bass pluck, bass pluck, Chicken Kiev, bass pluck wah wah disco Shaft!

Who is 2011 orders Chicken Kiev? Who serves Chicken Kiev after 1973?  When mustard flares, key swapping and perms went out of fashion, so did Kiev - other than in the Bird’s Eye alternative universe where mustard wearing families look very nuclear and smug whilst eating Chicken Kiev.  Maybe that’s why people order Chicken Kiev, it reminds them of a time when they could wear tight fitting clothing and their family wasn’t abstract, interesting or confusing.

"Why Judy, your Chicken Kiev was delectable
and so is your husband...jingle jingle"

I probably shouldn’t write that because my family is entirely nuclear.  My parents will be married for 40 years this December and my sister and I are only mildly damaged from a usual and loving suburban upbringing.  We have two dogs.  I just live on the other side of the world from them all – the dogs and the family – in a spoilt anti-nuclear protest.  

But we ate the Chicken Kiev. As a family, at a dinner table, together, at Mall Tavern.  And we loved it…and then smiled collectively at each other looking very smug.  Snapshot. In fact I think my Dad was actually not smug but trying to remember if he’d been forced to toss out those flares.  The answer Dad is yes, before the tassel loafers and after the Speedo swimwear and all before 1982.  

Attention seeking pink veal

But we’re back to 2011 and there was Chicken Kiev involved in this story…there was also pink veal, served with a dramatic Frenched bone which was prize (be it a little too Bedrock), and the braised beef exactly how you wanted it to taste, but just a little better.  I even have to admit, the vegetarian option – involving quorn (I can’t confidently spell, let alone consume this), butternut squash and my good friend pastry was actually pretty darn tasty.  Damn you quorn, I might eat you, but I’ll never succumb to tofu (other than the silken tofu which is actually pretty darn tasty. Damn you tofu!!). The Mall Tavern serves nostalgia, and serves it well (other than the quorn, nothing nostalgic about that, unless your parents were hippies in the frozen isle).  

Braised beef and celeriac puree, the opposite of tofu

At the Chef’s Table, each dish is shared either from the middle of the table or by rotation.  Sure, there may be some health risks in this approach, but we’re all family…right?  I was granted bell rights (she who controls the bell controls the rotation of dishes) and found it a moment of great struggle to reach and ring when it was my turn to pass the wabba dabba veal to the right.  It was a risky, some may say erroneous, move to trust me to distribute food equally amongst the table.  Unfortunately, I have a conscience and a need for people to share my excitement of a great dish.  Inconvenient but effective in this case. 

Now I know what Arctic Rolls are...

I’m really not a dessert person, born without a sweet tooth I was [click, heel tap, eye wink] but as the meal began to taper off, the table was again packed with every sort of arctic roll, salted caramel, marshmallow, cheesecake, chocolate and hyperactivity generator you might desire.  I didn’t desire though, well, I couldn’t desire.  I’d already out-challenged my eating dress which clung with over-extended desperation to my ever-increasing food baby bulge. So hot! I’m told by my smug family that the desserts were as good as the Kiev but not as good as the cow. More importantly, it was at this point of the meal that my Dad stopped lamenting the disposal of his historic fashion staples.

Toasted marshmallows by Anakin 

My parents won’t be much longer visiting in London which means we won’t leave our next visit to Mall Tavern too long either. Cow pies are not so readily available on Australian summer time menus. And I definitely won’t leave my next quality kitchen day as long between as the last.  I could barely fit my post-Mall Tavern eating dress, but my London mini-fridge certainly can’t fit the product of my post-Sunday kitchen binge.  Sunday dinner at mine anyone?  

@missdevour13

The Curse of the Squint and other such tales

It’s unfortunate that I cannot include “being photogenic” in my list of resume hobbies and interests.  I should however start including “beach volleyball enthusiast” in this section as I understand such a skill set exponentially increases your chance of being offered an interview (and at workplaces other than American Apparel) by approximately 94 percent. 

I specialise in The Awkward Profile Shot (a difficult sight with my twice broken nose) and like the mix it up with a wide-open jaw laugh and squint combo.  My school photo album runs a little like a flick book of Geek Chic maxi frames accosting a human face.  My most recent effort, a professional head shot, turned out to reveal more about the spaced out side effects of my hay fever medication than in did my avid pursuit of professional success.

 I can't blame that wayward fringe or my eye sight impediment for failing to

 correctly identify the location of the camera on tripod.

But, I’m not alone.  I share this mantel with any dish of Thai food I have tried to photograph in London. Even good Thai food.   Curry always looks shiny, stir-fries lose and sauces all about the same level of tan as the next. Donna Hay would be appalled with so many shades of brown.

This disappoints me because the smell steaming up from a plate of  Chu Chi Salmon renders me ravenous.  The sound of Poo Nim Thai Herb breaking it’s soft-shell in your mouth makes me want to discard the rules of human consumption decency and munch from two hands. But on film, why salmon do you look so oily (toner and primer please!)?  Puddles on Film?

Rosa's Poo Nim Thai Herb

I ask then that you don’t judge these madly tasty dishes from London’s Rosa’s on their photos. Pad Thai, would probably not break too many hearts in the online dating world of mysingledish.com in photo form alone. But, I assure you, Pad is an accomplished musician, saucy, hot and she’s amazing at beach volleyball. 

Gai Satay, Thai Calamari and Poo Nim Thai Herb at Rosa's Soho.

I have two favourite Thai restaurants in London and I’m a flippant flirt between the two as my fancy or location sways.  Rosa’s (Spitalfields (12 Hanbury Street, London, E16QR) and Soho (48 Dean Street, London, W1D5BF)) is my top London Thai pick.  It’s no Longrain, but I realise after 5 years living outside Australia, I need to let go of Executive Chef Martin Boetz’s Thai and Southern Chinese influenced menu as my holy standard of Asian city dining.  I’m going to take a moment though to remember the caramelised pork hock with five spice and chili vinegar…good times, good times.

Pad Thai noodles with chicken, mysingledish.com.

But back to Rosa’s, it’s a solid, rich, spiced hit of flavour every time.  I have an affinity to the original in Spitalfields, but often leave uncomfortably full and restricted in the rudimentary East London skinny jean   uniform after the pleasure of a Rosa's meal.  Whilst never endorsing them in any environment, those fisherman's pants erroneously purchased (in full contravention of better judgement as to your capacity to pull off ethnic clothing) in Phi Phi years ago might have some benefit after all. That Red Bull t-shirt does not.  No.

Chu Chi Salmon...air brushing doesn't even help her.

Although every other week, it’s Cool Monkey in Holland Park (6 Clarendon Road, London, W11 3AA) which holds Thai taste supremacy for me.  It does not, however, hold my memory.  I often forget its name and morph this local back-street find into Arrogant Gorilla, Cheating Chimp or Chunky Monkey (the latter worries me the most, simply substituting one brand for another, courtesy of Ben & Jerry, is testament to the effectiveness of advertising or ice cream on a malleable mind).  

Beef Pad Prig Daeng, not even trying to work the camera.

Despite being in Holland Park, Cool Monkey is low key and affordable, the plates are generous and the staff are the happy. They are the kind sort of people you just want to hug as you say good bye (don’t worry guys, I’ll withhold).  Service can be a little slow, but it's good, not amazing, good Thai.  It’s my quality local so perhaps I’m bias…things do tend to taste better on a Sunday night when available a mere block from your front door.  

OK, OK...it seems Australian light works slightly better for my photographic relationship with Thai food.
Pearl, Melbourne, Thai style crispy prawn salad.

I’m also told trekking a little further from chez moi may prove interesting. Suhko Thai in Fulham is, my sources tell me, a serious threat...to London Thai supremacy, not health.  Perhaps I can develop some sort of Hefner style time share arrangement between the three?  It's a telling concept that food consumption for me is analogous to a debauched sexual calendar of an ageing porn magnate. I'm not quite clear what it says, but I'm sure those waiters at Cheating Chimp are questioning my convivial smiles and satisfied murmurs.  Suhko Thai, I've scheduled you for Tuesday.  Your place, not mine. Let’s just leave the cameras at home…oh no, not that angle…delete it, delete it!!! 

The Brawn Declaration

I’m about to make a bold and unqualified declaration. Well, slightly qualified.  Hardly a statement worthy of Marx and Engels (not to be confused with Hall and Oates) but well, as I said slightly qualified.  A bit of a “I love you, but…” from my palette.

Brawn (49 Columbia Rd, Bethnal Green E2 7RG, 0207 729 5692) is my new favourite London restaurant. 

Cornish Squid, Romesco Sauce £10

The menu is everything I love about the menu at Vinoteca…but some how tastier.  I feel like such a traitor writing this, Vinoteca has been my London No.1 for years.  Brawn’s menu lays out bold and uncomplicated flavours, seasonal changes and is smart and warming all at once.  The whole place is an ode to pig too.  I cannot find fault with a venue that worships the same animal I pedestal as The Greatest Contribution to Human Consumption.  OK, maybe rice, but then the swine.

Dorset Clams, Lemon & Coriander £8

If we’re talking the ‘Bang on Trend’ sharing platter concept (which I actually like but is as over-worn as a Kookai tube skirt circa 1997 in a university Commerce faculty) it kills the offering at Polpo (which I think is more like good home cooking than tasty rustic restaurant food). 

Spatchcock’d Quail, Pomegranate & Pistachio £8

In fact, while I’m on Polpo, I was disappointed.  The same disappointment I felt when I travelled to Croatia after everyone I know told me it was the best place in Europe.  No, the World.  Really?  Even if you discount my guy friend’s opinion by the leg to body ratio of the Croatian female populous, these wide-spread claims of Awesomeness (an actual threshold of travel destination evaluation) still don’t make sense to me…ah, but Polpo sorry, lost in Balkan mathematics for a second there…Polpo, fine, but when our waiter suggested we order either the cheapest or the most expensive wine in response to a request for guidance, it takes more than one exceptional dish of cuttlefish and squid ink gnocchi to bring the meal back beyond neutral…that’s all we got though…well two serves of gnocchi, but I’m sticking with disappointed.  

Hand Chopped Tuscan Style Beef £8

Alas, Brawn. Love it! Perfect for a date, calm and paired-back, quirky and full of laughter.  Great for a larger group when you’ll be able to traverse the entire menu if you’re feeling as greedy as we were.  When I break up with Hummus, I’m jumping straight into the arms of their Pork Rillette. I don’t care about it’s past, I don’t what to know how it has grown up, I just want to love it (and probably die).

Chicken liver salad

My only apprehension, their wine list focused on natural wine.  If any wine were to live on Columbia Road, it would be natural wine, in an odd-ball share house with it’s other natural wine friends. Sure it’s cool and unusual and interesting, but at the crux of it, natural wine can taste kind of like funky flat cider to the untrained palette. And let’s be honest, not many of us can claim a truly trained palette.  I’ve visited Brawn with some chefs and wine buffs who actually can support such a claim and even they were confused, maybe I should say intrigued, by some of the wines.  It’s not Brawn’s fault, it’s more likely just the concept of natural wine or the learning curve of amateur wine drinkers like me who don’t count hemp clothing as a wardrobe staple. My boyfriend as spokesman for Twitter informs me James Murphy (of LCD Soundsystem) dined at Brawn last week and loved the wine.  He doesn't strike me as the hemp clothing type, so I'll take  the Ignorant category for 100 points and reassess with another bottle on my next visit.

Corn-fed roast chicken with morels

I’d be willing to give Polpo another go, I’m even open to a return trip to sail Croatia (once my physio clears my leg extension rehab).  But I’ll be back at Brawn a lot, and not just trying to get the attention of Pork Rillette.  It's good.  I don't have any literary food jargon to pad this one out.  It's just good! 

Mr Fritter's Wild Ride

Ms Pillsbury, I need my OCD t-shirt back.  I could also do with a copy of Finn’s “Can’t Dance” ensemble, but then the key compulsive message may be lost…as I’m sure it is already to those who do not identify as Gleeks…or even casual users of Glee. It’s addictive.

I like order.  Create process. Build frameworks and construct paths.  In mess I find method.  It’s madness. I recall loosely my Barbie’s colour coded wardrobe and chide myself for not filing that recollection more clearly in my childhood annals. 

It’s not actually that bad (smile cringe combo)…no, really.  I’ve managed to limit my web-diagnosed condition to something more akin to OCKD. Obsessive Compulsive Kitchen Disorder is a lesser-known condition inflicting millions of chefs and kitchen professionals worldwide. OCKD is an anxiety disorder characterized by intrusive thoughts that encourage intense repetitive behaviours such as fastidious plating, fanatical mise en place prep and a strict adherence to work station cleanliness.  

This condition, if left untreated, can lead to serious and life altering results for sufferers: rave reviews, Michelin stars and publishing deals have been know to result in the most extreme of cases.  In my case, I just have a very clean kitchen.

As MC Skat Kat and Paula Abdul know well, the appeal of opposites is irrefutable…unless you subscribe to one of those “Owners who look like their dogs" websites in which case you’ll know narcissism transcends the boundary of species…and that you should never buy a bulldog.

My balance comes in the form of Julio “Don Juan” Estevez. The kitchen alter ego invented by my boyfriend for introduction to the blogosphere.  I have a feeling the whole persona may pre-date me and has probably featured prominently on dance floors way before tight white chinos were casually endorsed by Ralph Lauren and introduced to the non-Latino fashion conscious community.     

Anyway, Julio is a kitchen vigilante. A wild man with bi-carb and as unpredictable as my Dad’s soufflés.  Whilst popular for his choice of kitchen attire, he is most renowned for his epic dish Tuna Fantastique. I’m unable to pass onto you the four key (translate only) ingredients but can confirm that despite my initial and patronising scepticism the dish is in fact worthy of it’s proper noun.  He is also credited with inventing not just Jeans and Thongs but also Crepes and Hummus.  I refute allegations he invented Jackets but am fairly confidant he is may be responsible for the reintroduction of Jagger Hips to modern choreography. But back to the kitchen…

Not content with single dish supremacy Julio (I’m sorry, I can’t honestly go on with the rest) recently decided to expand his repertoire to the brunch market…a necessary skill set I would imagine for post-Don Juan occasions .  The last thing I was expecting to see taking a role in this expansion was a recipe book…yet there he was, measuring cups and all, consistently unpredictable.

His mentor? Peter Gordon and “Fusion: A Culinary Journey”.  If you lament queuing for brunch on Marylebone High Street, this book is the perfect weekend solution.  Many of Peter’s signature Providores recipes are in here from his poached eggs with chilli butter to banana and pecan French Toast with vanilla verjus syrup and lardons.  I’m a little sad the recipe for his yuzu hollandaise isn’t in there but I do fear the day hollandaise enters my home on a regular basis.  

The project? Sweet corn, five spice & date fritters with tomato and avocado and my previously unknown friends over at The Tribune have kindly beat me to Peter’s recipe so if you don’t already have the book (i.e. you are not antipodeans and you enjoy the queuing process) here it is: Sweet corn, five spice & date fritters with tomato and avocado.  

Julio kicked out the dates and added a table full of additional condiments.  The little guys (yes, a continual problem I have personifying my food) were dressed in fresh goats cheese, hummus (who was complicit in his move from crepe to fritter), salsa and yoghurt and gave the juicy corn kernels the best mini pillows to hide in. New wave fritters staring in their first dish:  Mr Fritter's Wild Ride.  If ever a dish were to resemble its owner (I’m not sure there are websites for this phenomenon just yet) this would be it:

Miss Devour: She likes it neat.

Julio “Don Juan” Estevez: And he makes a mess

It’s incredibly difficult to script a finale incorporating both the Mighty Ducks and play list samples from “Essential Julio Iglesias Volume 2”. Even working in an indirect reference to Charlie Sheen, garbage bins and Perma Tans is proving tricky.   Hhhhm, perhaps I’m best just to compulsively reorganise my kitchen in anticipation of Julio’s forthcoming weekend culinary insurgence…just kidding, I alphabetised my ingredients store yesterday.

@missdevour13