Restaurant: Tuscan Kitchen

Jeez, it’s been ages hasn’t it? I doubt anyone but me has even noticed the absence of updates on this personal vanity project, but I was beginning to be sorely affronted by my own silence and thought I better do something about it. Also, I recently had a meal that forced me to re-evaluate the Nicest Things I Have Ever Eaten list (I’ll give you the full rundown some other day) so it seemed as good a time as any.

James had a birthday in November so, being a top-class girlfriend, I whisked him away for a romantic weekend in a mystery location. Well, in all honesty, it was less a whisking and more just a matter of getting him to accompany me on a crowded commuter train to Rye. Which turned out to be truly mysterious as James had never even heard of it before. For anyone in a similar situation I can tell you that it is a small (but pretty and historic) town near the south coast, about four miles from Camber Sands.

We stayed at The George which I found through the Mr & Mrs Smith boutique hotel directory (I know! Get me! Who do I think I am? Booking into boutique hotels as if I’m a proper grown up or something…) and was very nice indeed. Our four-poster bed was truly, profoundly comfortable, the staff were obliging and the bar pleasantly cosy. The other patrons were slightly twattish in a loud and boring, new-money kind of way, but that was hardly the George’s fault.

We went for a walk to a castle in a gale-force wind, watched a massive torch-lit procession and had things (including a DVD from their library) delivered to our room. It was great.

What I want to tell you about though, is the restaurant we visited on the night we arrived. It doesn’t have a website yet, but a gushing description of Tuscan Kitchen on the hotel’s blog (and the fact it was only just round the corner) made me think it would be a good place to go for a low-key first-night dinner.

It’s run by a couple, Genn (who does front of house) and Franco (the chef). She’s from the UK, but has only recently returned after years of living in Florence, and he’s Italian. This combination is reflected in the restaurant itself which is a confusing kind of place in many ways. The building is very Olde England, all exposed beams and historical prints, but the food is pure Tuscany. With just two of them working there the service is a little haphazard (to say the least), but it’s friendly and the food is worth waiting for.

I started with the antipasti, expecting a couple of slices of salami and a few olives. What arrived was a massive platter consisting of at least three different types of salami (a garlicky wild boar once particularly stood out) as well as generous curls of salty, fatty ham, slices of cheese (I’m not sure what sort and didn’t get the chance to ask, but it was sort of half way between manchego and parmesan) and a mound of olives, artichoke hearts and sundried tomatoes. It was easily enough for two, but James was having some rustic soup so I (wo)manfully ate my way through about three quarters of it before admitting defeat.

We had ruefully acknowledged that we weren’t going to have space for the whole Italian style parade of starter-pasta-main-desert so divvied up the courses between us. James had the Tagliata – strips of tender beef with rocket and parmesan which was very good, and I had the truffle ravioli which was one of the single nicest things I have ever eaten.

People are weird about truffles. I think it’s because they’re inescapably sexy in a way other supposedly aphrodisiac foods aren’t. I love oysters, but the high I get from a half-dozen is more like a general feeling of energetic well-being than something that sets my loins afire. I’m a big fan of asparagus too, but surely their seductive properties are less to do with taste and more about a) rarity value and b) their suggestive shape.

Truffles on the other hand are sexy in themselves and Tuscan Kitchen’s ravioli were full of them. The oval parcels of perfectly cooked pasta contained a smooth, truffle-studded filling and were basking a creamy, cheesy sauce containing plenty of generous shavings too. I would have licked the plate if such things weren’t frowned on in polite company.

We’d ordered a second bottle of wine just before the mains, but it didn’t turn up until we were nearly finished. But way of an apology the removed it from the bill and also plied us with delicious chilled desert wine. The panna cottas we’d seen floating by on their way to other tables looked pretty good but, after the truffle experience, a cigarette seemed more appropriate.

Tuscan Kitchen

8 Lion Street

Rye

TN31 7LB

Restaurant: Spaghi

I’m begging you: if you live in N19 then please, please, please go and have dinner at Spaghi. You’d be doing yourself a favour but, more importantly, you be doing me one too. I’m worried that if business at my local Italian doesn’t pick up soon then it’ll go bust and thus deprive me of their lovely gnocchi.

Spaghi is exactly the sort of restaurant that every neighbourhood should have. The food is good, the service friendly and the prices so low that you don’t need an occasion to go there.

I’ve been three times now in the space of a month and will be visiting again tonight. Each time I’ve been impressed with the quality of what’s on offer as well as its absurd good value. Pizzas and pasta dishes start around the £6 mark and other mains are only a little dearer. House wine is under a tenner. On Tuesday and Wednesdays they do a two-for-one deal which makes it ludicrously cheap - really only a couple of quid more expensive that dining chez JD Wetherspoon and, I surely need to point out, unimaginably nicer.

My research so far reveals starters to be adequately tasty, but nothing to write home about and so large that ordering one can push you dangerously close to full before the main event.

Since discovering the gorgonzola and radicchio gnocchi on my first visit I’m afraid I haven’t really experimented with much else on the menu. Well, I had a pizza once, but only on the understanding that James would have the gnocchi and we could swap halfway through. I was determined to try something different tonight but can feel my resolve on that matter wavering. The waitress made a noise of sexual satisfaction when I ordered them the first time and I can see why. These potato dumplings are often tediously heavy and can sit in the stomach in a very leaden fashion. Spaghi’s pillowy little gnocchi, however, are comfortingly solid yet beautifully light. They sit in a creamy sauce in which the cheese’s blue note makes its presence felt but isn’t overpowering, and the richness of which is balanced by the bitter leaves. The pizzas are pretty good too, authentically crispy-based and generous with the toppings.

However, the pleasure of our budget dinners is adulterated by the fact that James and I are always nearly alone in the restaurant. Not because we want to speak to anyone else. Jeez no. It’s just that, given the incredibly generous nature of its portions and the pittance it charges for them, I worry that Spaghi is heading for bankruptcy. And then what will I do without a regular gnocchi fix?

Which is why, again, I’m begging you. Please go to Spaghi. If not for your sake, then for mine.

 

Spaghi Pizzeria Ristorante

6 Archway Close, London, N19 3TD

020 7687 2066

 

Barbecue Weather?

Apparently the Met Office lied when they said it was going to be a hot summer. I heard on the radio this morning their new prediction is that it's going to rain for most of August. So it's unlikely that barbecues will feature on anyone's social agenda for the next month or so but, just incase the Met Office are wrong (and it has been known), I thought I would tell you about some things I made for a barbecue back when it wasn't quite so grey outside.

I like to do homemade burgers since a) they’re nicer and less fatty than shop-bought ones and b) I’m a show off and they always get a good reaction. I couldn’t decide between beef or lamb on this occasion though so ended up doing both - the beef burgers in buns with cheese and the lamb ones in mini pitta breads with feta taztziki. And I didn't stop there. Oh no. Two lots of meat patties and I was just getting started.

It's rude not to provide something for the vegetarians so I decided on halloumi kebabs and there was a potato salad because you've got to have potato salad at a barbecue. I think it's the law. And a green salad, even though no one ever eats that. Then, because I had got myself thoroughly over-excited, I decided to do some corn on the cob as well and some Pimms lollies for dessert.

In my mind, it was going to take about 20 minutes to prepare. In reality it took closer to two and a half hours. But since no-one apart from Rich turned up on time (he and James lit the barbecue together in as manly a fashion as you can light a foot-high thing from Argos). Eventually the others arrived and we ate some food.


If you would like to spend a whole morning in the kitchen on a lovely sunny day, here is how to recreate our experience:

Beef Burgers

lean beef mince

egg

salt and pepper

(Damn it. After typing that I now have Lets Talk About Sex, the controversial hit by early 90s all-girl hip-hop trio Salt'n'Pepa, stuck in my head.)

That’s pretty much it. Sometimes I chop an onion very fine and mix that in too, but it’s got to be more or less minced or it doesn’t cook at the same rate as the meat. You need more salt and pepper (c'mon Spin...) than you think as well. Mix everything up together and shape it into little patties, bearing in mind that it’s going to shrink while it cooks.

Serve in buns with cheese slices (by which I mean slices of nice cheese, a strong cheddar or something a little bit blue, not those weird day-glo processed things) and a plate of lettuce, cucumber, tomato and dill pickle on the side for people to help themselves as they please.

Lamb Burgers

Exactly the same ingredients and method as above only using lamb mince instead of beef (obviously). You don't necessaily need the egg since lamb is fattier than beef so binds better, but I am creature of habit to I put it in anyway. I also like to put some dried thyme in too. These are nice served in mini pitta breads (put them on the BBQ for 10 secs either side so they puff up a bit) with a slice of tomato and the tzatziki below.

Feta Tzatziki

plain yoghurt

cucumber

feta cheese

fresh mint leaves

black pepper

Peel the cucumber and chop it into roughly half cm cubes. Crumble the feta. Mix them both into the plain yoghurt along with finely chopped mint leaves and pepper to taste. You shouldn't need any salt because the cheese is full of it. If it's too thick, add some water until it gets back to the consistency the yoghurt was before you put all that extra stuff in it.

Halloumi Kebabs

halloumi cheese

cherry tomatoes

yellow pepper

courgette

onion

olive oil

garlic

fresh chilli

herbs (parsely, coriander, mint)

black pepper

lemon juice

Put a couple of good slugs of oilve oil in a bowl and squeeze in the lemon juice. Crush the garlic, roughly chop the herbs and the chilli (don’t bother taking its seeds out) and add them to the bowl along with a fair amount of pepper.

Cut the halloumi into cubes and the vegetables into bite-size bits and dump them in the bowl with the oil and other things. Mix it all round til they're well covered and leave them to sit for a bit while you do everythig else.

When you're ready get some wooden kebab skewers (soak them in water for a few minutes to stop them burning over the flames) and put a couple of bits of everything on each. Cook on the BBQ, turning a couple of times and serve with pitta bread and chilli sauce (see below).

Chilli Sauce

onion

garlic

chilli flakes

tinned tomatoes

salt

pepper

sugar

Pretty much like making a pasta sauce, but all whizzed up at the end so its got a smooth consistency.

Sweat the chopped onion and garlic until soft, add the salt, pepper, sugar and dried chilli flakes and stir. Add the tinnned tomatoes and simmer until it's nice (I think you need at least 10/15 minutes for the flavours to combine and to get rid of the slightly metallic taste of tinned tomatoes) then blend until smooth.

Potato salad and green salad are self explanatory. I like to add chopped hard boiled egg, crushed garlic and chopped spring onions to the potato salad. Although, in the event, the eggs proved controversial (sorry Marie).

The corn on the cob is also undeserving of a recipe (although it was very nice). All I did was put some crushed garlic, dried chilli flakes and chopped coriander in some softened butter and smeared it on the sweetcorn before they went on the grill.

Desert wasn't enormously successful since I had bought lolly moulds unaware that the stand they came in wasn't just for show. They were not watertight and thus, when laid on their sides in my pathetically small icebox, leaked all over the place. I am still providing the recipe though since what I managed to salvage of the mixture was appropriately summery.

Pimms Lollies

Pimms

lemonade

strawberries

oranges

fresh mint

I left out the traditional pimms accompaniment of cumcumber as I thought it might go a bit weird when frozen. Apple might be nice instead though.

Chop all the fruit into tiny cubes (about 1/2 cm) and shred the mint. Divide the bits between your lolly moulds and then top up with a mixture of 1 part pimms to two parts lemonade. Freeze.

If anyone has a bigger freezer than me and would like the lolly moulds, do let me know. Of course you don't actually need special moulds. You could just use an ice cube tray like we did when I was little, sticking a toothpick in prior to freezing to provide a serviceable, if wonky, handle. Although I hasten to point out that, in those days, we were using orange juice and not Pimms.

So there you go. It took longer than expected to prepare, but it was well worth it. Just look how much fun everybody had:

Oh.

Restaurant: Quo Vadis

Having divorced parents may leave you with all manner of deep-seated personal issues necessitating years of expensive therapy, but it has its advantages too. Chief among them is the fact that, on your birthday, you get taken out to two nice restaurants instead of just the one.

As mentioned in my previous post this happy event occurred not long ago and, a few days after my father had treated us to dinner at Del Parc, my mother took James and me to Quo Vadis.

The name is Latin for “where are you going?” which is apt since the restaurant has a pretty chequered history. You can read plenty about it elsewhere but, incase you can’t be snatched, I shall sum it up thusly: Soho institution... 1926... Karl Marx... Marco Pierre White... Damien Hirst... falling out... yada, yada, yada...

It was recently taken over by Sam and Eddie Hart, the culinary brothers behind Spanish restaurants Fino and Barrafina, both of which I like a lot. They’ve abandoned the tapas thing for Quo Vadis though and it’s menu is instead “modern British”. It has been raved about by everyone who reviewed it and it’s not cheap either so (although I wasn’t paying) I was expecting great things. My expectations weren't dashed exactly - we had a lovely time - but they were slapped about a bit. Albeit in the most genteel way possible.

The stained-glass windows are pleasingly “old Soho” and once you get inside it’s all buttery leather banquettes, sparkling glassware and ever-so-slightly-camp Continental waiters. Things started very well with the house apéritif of Campari, Champagne and clementine juice which was delicious. My starter was fantastic too: a little heap of sweet, brown shrimps served on toasted sourdough bread with - classy touch this - half a lemon tied up in muslin so the pips didn’t fall out when you squeezed it. My Mama had crab mayonnaise and James had asparagus, both of which looked very nice but we were all rather too protective of our tiny portions to share.

Our waiter was sweet, but rather over-attentive and kept complimenting our decisions, a practise I always find a bit strange - surely saying something is a “good choice” implies that ordering some of the other things on the menu would be a mistake? Not the impression any professional kitchen would like to give...

My main of Beef Wellington was a) huge and b) hugely overpriced. If memory serves it came in at not much under £30 (£30!). It was a good piece of meat, cooked medium rare as requested, but the pastry case was a little soggy. This was, in part, because it was sitting on a pile of lovely, buttery spinach and surrounded by a pool of impressively savoury, glossy brown gravy, neither of which I could fault, but still... this dish alone was the price of a whole dinner in a lesser establishment so ‘good’ isn't really good enough. At the prices Quo Vadis charges everything ought to be perfect.

Side dishes were well done - tender purple sprouting broccoli and buttery al dente greens - but the servings were microscopic. Little white dishes, about four inches long and three wide (I have just looked at a ruler so I’m pretty confident of those measurements) and priced at £4.50 each. (More outrage: £4.50! etc. etc.)

I was as full as anything afterwards, but it was my birthday (week) so I courageously found room for a piece of treacle tart, as lovely an example of it’s kind as you could ever hope to find, served with a little scoop of clotted cream.

So, quo vadis? The answer, I think, is ‘not back there again’. I enjoyed my meal, just not so much that I’d be willing to pay (or have a close relative pay) to repeat the experience. I suspect this fact won’t distress the Hart brothers too much though: the restaurant wasn’t packed on the Monday night we visited, but it wasn’t empty either and the other customers looked to be mostly bankers. I hear Michael Winner is also a regular (poor Sam and Eddie). My mother is a very generous lady and showed no sign of minding the steep prices but, if she offers to buy me a celebratory meal next year, I shall choose a venue where I am less likely to run into the director of Death Wish.

Quo Vadis

26-29 Dean Street, London, W1D 3LL

0207 437 9585

Restaurant: Del Parc

It was my birthday recently. My 30th birthday. I would have liked a whole month of celebration - one day for every year of my remarkable existence - but nobody else seemed up for that. I did pretty well though, managing to stretch the festivities over a good ten days, starting with papa Heal giving me the shiny thing I had had my eye on for months and buying James and me a celebratory dinner at my favourite local restaurant.

I’m actually quite reluctant to tell people about Del Parc because then they might start going there and I wouldn’t be able to get a table any more. The food is Moorish-influenced tapas of the sort I imagine Moro would serve, but couldn’t tell you for certain because I can’t afford to go there. Del Parc is a fraction of the cost (you can be pleasantly full of delicious things - and share a bottle of wine - for under £30 a head) and the cooking is easily good enough to make it a destination restaurant, yet (fortunately for me) it remains a local secret. Giles Coren mentioned it briefly but otherwise news of the Archway foodie revolution (no, really: 500 - pronounced cinquecento - has also considerably upped the area’s game) has got no further than N19 itself.

Del Parc is run by just two men, one who cooks and one who does front of house. Except it shouldn’t really be called that because the tiny kitchen isn't behind anything, it's right in the middle of the room.

There’s a very relaxing atmosphere: tasteful, neutral colours and the odd, slightly incongruous, Buddha hanging about. The focus is definitely on the food though, which comes as it’s ready. This means you get to enjoy one intensely flavoured dish at a time rather than forking up a mess of tortilla, chorizo and patatas bravas from your plate as you would in many other London tapas joints.

It’s all lovely stuff, but of particular note are the balls of deep-fried goat’s cheese (I never know where to put the apostrophe in that - does the cheese belong to many goats or just to one?) drizzled with honey and the fatayer, a triangular filo parcel filled with spinach and feta but made uniquely delicious with the addition of pomegranate sours. I’ve eaten at Del Parc three times now and this is the dish I actively pine for between visits.

They weren’t on the (seasonally changing) menu this time, but also worth a mention are the baby squid stuffed with chorizo. In so many restaurants squid is just a texture, but here its delicately fishy flavour comes through to balance the paprika hit of the sausage and a piquantly sweet tomato sauce.

If it’s even vaguely sunny, I like to drink pink wine - it makes me feel summery - so we had a bottle of rosé between us too. I finished with a lovely home-made passionfruit ice-cream for pudding, even though I wasn’t remotely hungry any more, because you’re allowed to do things like that on your birthday. Or on any of the days surrounding it.

It really is a gem of a place and I'd urge you to go. But just not too often and not on evenings that I happen to want a table.

Del Parc

167 Junction Road, London, N19 5PZ

0871 3328182

Going Underground

I have occasionally enjoyed a night out in “London’s trendy Hoxton” (copyright all broadsheet newspapers, circa 2002), but it’s not like I regularly prop up the bars there sporting leg warmers and an a-symmetrical bowl haircut. In short I am not, nor will I ever be, one of the capital’s trendsetting beautiful people. So whilst I’d vaguely heard of the underground restaurant phenomenon, I assumed it was one of those things that you had to know people who knew people to be part of. I don’t know anyone - well, not anyone who knows anyone else, leastwise - so I never thought I’d get to go to one. But then I discovered MsMarmiteLover’s recently founded underground restaurant (via an article in The Guardian - I’m so counter culture) which seemed less elitist about its guestlist and an opportunity presented itself.

It’s not a new concept. Similar establishments exist all around the world, although they occupy very different places on the gastronomic scale. In Cuba privately owned restaurants that are basically in people’s front rooms are called paladares. They serve fairly simple food and were illegal until fairly recently. I’ve heard about a mystery chef in Australia who serves near-Michelin standard food in a different secret location every week and the “supper club” phenomenon has been a big hit with well-heeled New Yorkers for a few years now.

The Underground Restaurant falls somewhere in the middle. It is held every Saturday in MsMarmiteLover’s front room (you’re given the location of her Kilburn flat when you book) and isn’t, strictly speaking, legal (hence her use of the pseudonym). It’s kind of like the dining equivalent of a squat party. But with fewer crusties, no trance music and nice food instead of class A drugs. I’ve never been a natural risk taker so I liked it for providing illicit thrills from the comfort of a pleasantly furnished and fairylit front room. I suppose legally, if the council did ever get involved, MsMarmiteLover could always claim that she was just having twenty people round to dinner and had asked them to contribute £25 each towards the costs. The licencing laws are cleverly circumvented with a wheeze whereby you buy a raffle ticket for £10 and then, by happy chance, “win” a bottle of wine in your chosen colour.



We went on the 7th March when the culinary theme (different every week) was Indian. James hadn’t been that keen on the idea of dining in a stranger’s house and I admit that it’s the sort of thing I might not have had the oomph to do if I hadn’t been writing about it for the paper. The place wasn’t too difficult to find and when we did the door was opened by a lovely lady called Sandrine - apparently she plays with our hostess in an “anarchist samba band” - who gave us a gin and tonic and told us to sit anywhere we wanted to. There were several small tables seating four or so and one with three places. We sat there, ate homemade Bombay mix and speculated about who might join us. The idea of eating with strangers was something that my inner shy person was dreading, but I was also kind of looking forward to it as part of the whole “home restaurant” experience. I needn’t have worried since Caroline, who filled the empty place, turned out to be very nice. She worked for a Methodist newspaper, but wasn’t at all Methodist-y. She didn’t laugh at one of James’ risque jokes but I think it was because she didn’t understand it, rather than because it offended her Wesleyan sensibilities. Afterwards I wished I’d made the time to chat to the other guests who included a chef from LA and the owners of the lovely-sounding Lavender Bakery.

The Bombay mix was followed by freshly made poppadoms (MML admitted that the accompanying mango chutney and lime pickle were two things on the menu she hadn’t cooked herself) and a sweet potato, butternut squash and pine nut samosa. Made with puff pastry and baked in the Aga instead of deep-fried, it might not have been totally authentic but it was delicious so I have no quibbles at all. Main was three different curries with rice, carrot salad and a naan bread each. All vegetarian and plenty of seconds if you could fit them in. Dessert was saffron kulfi and we rounded the meal off with coffee and cognac. Some of it wasn’t perfect (MML herself admitted that she wasn’t totally happy with the naans and her brinjal bhaji which she thought turned out “Italian”), but all of it was tasty and at £25 for five courses and a unique experience, good value for money. I’d definitely go back anyway.

Speaking to MsMarmiteLover the week after she revealed that her motivation isn’t just culinary and social, but a little bit political too. I thought it very interesting that she said she was partly trying to bring “mothers’ cooking” back into the spotlight. Celebrity chefs are generally men. People serving up crazy foams and geleés are generally men. If you looked at the TV schedules and the restaurant reviews you might think people without penises hardly ever ventured into a kitchen. But obviously it’s women (and most particularly mothers) who are responsible for feeding their families day in, day out. My thoughts on this are still a little unformed, but I think eating in someone’s home is particularly interesting because it makes the link obvious between food and hospitality, food and love. Restaurants might be part of the “hospitality industry” but there’s surely an oxymoron there? People who run restaurants might do it for love, but it’s love of food more than anything else. The people who eat the food aren’t really guests, they’re customers. The love doesn’t extend to them. Not personally anyway. Food has always been symbolic of love - a kind of edible affection - so being in someone’s home (even if you were paying) felt much more as if a real warmth had been extended. Does that make sense? I hope so.

A chap called Horton Jupiter runs another restaurant called The Secret Ingredient which is on Wednesdays, somewhere in Hackney. Some lazy googling also revealed this which looks fun.

Prawn and Rocket Risotto

I don’t believe in fate or destiny or anything. That would be silly. But when James emailed yesterday to say that he fancied prawn risotto for supper at exactly the moment I was idly wondering whether rocket would work as well as peas in that particular dish... well, it was as if the universe was telling us something. No, really man, it was spooky. Destiny had decided our dinner.

I love making risotto. Making a ‘staple’ like rice (even if it is a fancy kind of rice) into something luxurious feels a bit magical. Plus it allows me to use my risotto spoon, a gift from James’ brother Richard. A wooden spoon with a hole in it isn’t a kitchen essential by any means, but it’s strangely satisfying to use. Prawn and pea (with some finely chopped fresh mint and a squeeze of lemon juice) is a perennial favourite, but I had an inkling that it might be nice to try it with the slightly more complex flavours of rocket.

Anyway. I did the usual butter-oil-onion-garlic-rice-wine-stock thing and then, right at the end, after adding a handful of parmesan, I turned off the heat and stirred in the prawns and the best part of a bag or rocket. I left them just long enough for the prawns to heat up and the rocket to wilt.
Risotto’s so rich I always think it needs something fresh alongside. Usually I do a green salad or a tomato one, but this time I’d roasted some cherry tomatoes with (salt, pepper, a pinch of sugar, a tiny bit of olive oil and) chilli flakes to give them a bit of a kick.

I felt a bit fancy, so dished up in pretentious restaurant style, making a little heap of rice for each plate with tomatoes nestling round its base and garnishing with the leftover rocket leaves and an extra sprinkling of parmesan. Ta da. Or not. My camera has no batteries so you will just have to imagine the dish’s splendour for yourselves.


UPDATE: It's come to my attention that a lot of people stumble across this blog doing Google searches for why risotto spoons have a hole in them. To those people: it's really just to make the risotto easier to stir as it thickens. Gentle stirring is supposed to keep it creamy rather than starchy. Hope that helps. xx