When I visited Morocco about 7 years ago now, I’ll be honest, I wasn’t that taken by the food. I entirely put this down to the fact that I was still in my fussy phase at 18, rather than the food actually not being good.
Tagine and Cous Cous were frequently on the menu, and apparently neither of these satisfied me back then. Added to that was the fact that I was on a school ‘expedition’, so most of the meals that I was eating had been cooked for me by our hosts, whether that was Rashid’s wife in Taroudant or the amazing team who looked after us during our camping trek in the Atlas Mountains. Looking back now, this gives me even more reason to be in awe of the food. No choice, just delicious home-cooked (or mountain-cooked) meals dished up for us every breakfast, lunch and dinner. It really was a treat I should’ve appreciated more.
I’ve not really eaten much Moroccan food here either. I once had a tagine from Giraffe at Birmingham aiport, and despite having had some lovely meals from there before, it really wasn’t good.
Other than that, my inspiration for this probably has to come from my Dad’s leftover lamb stew, that we’d have the day after a Sunday Roast. For years I refused to eat it if it had apricots/dates in, as the idea of mixing sweet with savoury really didn’t work for me, but now that’s my favourite part.
I’ve finally come up with my own recipe for it, along with a side dish for mopping up all the sauces, inspired by Nadiya Hussain’s ‘Cheat’s Paratha’.
Of course it would be more ‘authentic’ to serve with cous cous, but ultimately you can choose whichever side dish you wish. This one’s satisfyingly indulgent, but I guess cous cous would be the slightly more health-conscious option.
A few disclaimers before I get to the point.
I don’t do recipe writing. It’s not my forte, but I do want to be able to share my successes. Because of that, my way of instruction won’t be the most precise – you’ll have to trust yourself to go with instinct sometimes, but the basic guidelines will be there.
Serves 2
For the stew
Ingredients:
1 onion
1 large clove of garlic
1 tin of chickpeas
1tsp tamarind paste
1tsp ginger paste
2 tsp rose harissa pasta
1tsp ras el hanout
1 ½ tsp cumin
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
handful of dried apricots
small handful of dates
leftover lamb
water
salt/pepper
Heat oil in a pan and add chopped onion and garlic.
When fragrant tip in drained chickpeas.
Add the pastes and spices, give it a good mix and cook for a few minutes.
Chop dried apricots and dates into smaller pieces (generally I’d chop apricots in halves or quarters and dates into thirds), and add these along with the chopped tomatoes and seasoning.
Chuck in the leftover lamb and add enough water so that everything is almost completely submerged.
Leave to cook on a low heat for preferably a couple of hours (if you’re massively impatient like I often am, a shorter cooking time just to reduce the liquid slightly will do)
This stew-style sauce should still be liquidy when ready – don’t expect it to reduce down completely. You are aiming for the perfect balance between a thick pasty sauce and watery broth.
For the ‘Paratha’
Ingredients:
Puff Pastry
1 chilli
½ ball of mozzarella
1 tsp chilli powder
As I mentioned before, this is inspired by Nadiya Hussain’s Cheat’s Paratha. Certainly not a paratha (type of flatbread) in the typical sense, instead of having to make the dough from scratch, here you are just using puff pastry. It ends up having the most amazing soft, spongy texture, and I’ve just added a couple of extra ingredients to make it even more delicious.
Cut your ready-rolled puff pastry into 2 rectangles (you probably want enough that when you roll it into a ball, it’s a fist size).
Roll each rectangle into a ball.
Finely slice your chilli, and tear the mozzarella lump into smaller pieces.
There is no precise technique to this next bit – basically divide the chilli/mozzarella mix into two piles – one for each paratha, and press the puff pastry ball into that pile, constantly pushing the dough around so that the chilli and mozzarella becomes incorporated into the dough. At this point you can also sprinkle over as much chilli powder as you can handle. You want to knead the dough/push it around for a couple of minutes so that the mozzarella and chilli are evenly distributed throughout the dough rather than just being concentrated in one area.
With a rolling pin, roll them flat into circles – I like mine quite thick, so I’d probably go for the thickness of two pound coins. If you’ve used rubbish, cheap mozzarella like me, don’t worry if the dough is incredibly sticky and wet, it might seem like a disaster but it will still work fine.
Heat a frying pan on high, and once rolled out, add your paratha to the dry pan. There’s no specific cooking time, but you want to leave it until it’s crisped up and is no longer sticky at all on one side, and then you can flip it to crisp the other side. A couple of minutes should be enough, but just monitor it and use your common sense.
When fully cooked, you should find that they are browned up on both sides but that the centre is soft and slightly gooey and when you pull it apart, the cheese should stretch between both sides.
Serve the stew with your paratha on the side for a cheesy, spicy dipping experience!
Would love to know if anyone ends up trying this, so please leave a comment or connect with me on Instagram @foodtravelsldn.
Back to my individual restaurant reviews, and this one, lucky for me, is just down the road.
I think sometimes I neglect places super close to me, instead favouring restaurants in Central that keep appearing on the social media scene and are very hyped up, whereas actually sometimes it’s good to take a step back and have a look at what you actually have on your doorstep.
Yaalu Yaalu is a Sri Lankan restaurant on Green Lanes, nestled amongst the huge number of fantastic Turkish places. It stands out along the high street with it’s light blue and white exterior and interesting decor. I had walked past it a fair few times and thought that it looked pretty nice, but it was my flatmate’s suggestion to go for her birthday dinner that finally got me there.
We went on a Thursday evening so it was pretty quiet, but there were still other people in there. It’s so lovely on the inside, and clearly a lot has been put into the restaurant’s presentation.
We decided to share all plates as they aren’t huge portions, but the price reflects this. We also ate our starters and mains together, but there are clearly labelled starters and mains on the menu.
First up with one of my choices, I was intrigued by the ‘Yaalu Gives You Wings’ coconut oil-infused chicken wings. I wouldn’t normally order chicken wings but the coconuttiness was what appealed to me.
Apologies for the quality, and sometimes lack of, photos. The lighting wasn’t idea for photo-taking, added to the fact that I just wanted to get some quick snaps so that we could enjoy our meal without me spending ages rearranging and rephotographing everything.
I feel like you can look at these wings and get an idea of how flavoursome they are just from their appearance. They did have a pretty spicy kick to them, but that always works for me. Would definitely recommend these.
Next up is the okra, or ‘Ladies Fingers’, which is one of my favourite vegetables, if not my absolute favourite.
To be honest I wasn’t blown away by this okra. I feel like it didn’t have a huge amount of flavour and it wasn’t as ‘meaty’ in texture/substance as okra I’ve had before so it didn’t soak up flavours as well. It wasn’t unpleasant at all, and is still a nice side, but nothing exciting.
For my own side, I got a coconut roti which I didn’t get a picture of. It wasn’t soft, but had been divided up into almost pitta chip-like pieces. It wasn’t amazing but was a really good way of scooping up all the sauces, and the little coconut sambal style chutney on the side was sweet and tasty too.
This next shocking image is of the chilli paneer and aubergine dish (‘Humble Moghuls’). The sauce and flavours here were really good, and you can see how creamy it is. This was another really good dish, with a fair bit to share around between us.
My absolute favourite dish, I sadly don’t have a photo of. Although it was much nicer than it looked. I chose the ‘Wilding’, wild boar in a spicy (flavour-wise rather than in terms of heat) and it was beautiful. Such tender meat in a salty, cuminy curry style sauce, and there was a decent amount of meat served up in small chunks. This definitely was the most impressive thing we ordered and I’d urge anyone who visits to try it.
This final dish slightly defeats the object of the photo as you can’t actually see the fish wrapped in the banana leaf but you get the idea. This is the ‘Catched…Wrapped…Sealed.’
This sea bass took a little longer to come but that was fine as they told us in advance and good to know it’s being cooked to order. I’ve been thinking recently about how I always neglect fish dishes in restaurants – I’ll often order seafood like mussels, lobster, prawns etc but fish I too often ignore so I was excited to try this sea bass. To be honest I wasn’t that fussed by it. It was nice but again, I wasn’t getting a huge amount of flavour so I’m not sure it’s something I would order again here but it was good to try.
Overall though I really enjoyed the meal. There was so much on the menu that I wanted to try but just couldn’t with only having three bellies to feed! The service was great, overall price such good value for money, and it was just a really nice dining experience overall.
I definitely think it’s worth making a trip to Green Lanes to try, and the chicken wings and wild boar dishes are top of my recommendations.
Sri Lankan cuisine is not one that gets much airtime, so let’s change that and…
The ‘Rankings’ heading has been floating around on my blog
ever since I started it a few months ago, but until now hasn’t actually
featured any writing.
The idea of ‘Rankings’ is that I group together my favourite
dishes in a range of categories, ie, ultimate cake, ultimate chicken burgers
etc etc.
Obviously it takes me a while to have tried enough of any
one kind of dish to establish a solid top 10 or so, hence why it has remained
blank for all this time.
But now I’m ready with my first in the ‘Ultimate’ series,
and it’s my absolute favourite category – Street Food. Now what I mean by
street food in this context is anything I’ve had literally in the street, at a
food market/food truck, or even a food hall where the trader wouldn’t necessarily
be considered a restaurant, but more like a small pop-up style eatery (think London’s
Seven Dials/Market Halls etc).
This list is in no particular order – it’s hard enough
whittling it down to a top 10 (or 15 in this case) let alone then having to
decide which ranks as the absolute best of them all.
You’ll find their Instagram handle in brackets – do check
out their amazing social media content to see more of what they do best!
So enough of the rambling, here are my favourite street food eats…
The Athenian (@theathenianuk)
Location: Boxpark Shoreditch
Cuisine:
Greek
Dish:
Lamb Gyro with Halloumi Fries
I’ve tried a few Greek places in and around London and The Athenian has to be my favourite. Their Gyros (finally worked out it’s pronounced ‘yeeros’) are second to none, and are absolutely packed with all the essentials i.e. meat (lamb in my case), chips, halloumi and salad. The pitta wrap was super soft and the halloumi fries on the side were delicious with a creamy, slightly sweet salad cream style sauce. An absolute winner.
Kottu Lanka (@kottulanka)
Location:
Victoria Park Market
Cuisine:
Sri Lankan
Dish:
Mutton Curry
This was one of the first street food dishes I tried after moving to London and I was blown away. Rarely for me, I hadn’t had a look to see what traders would be at the market and so hadn’t decided in advance what I wanted to try. I think it was the idea of Sri Lankan food that intrigued me in the end – I’m always interested in trying new cuisines that I don’t know much about. I had their mutton curry and it’s difficult to put into words how much I loved it (to be honest if I had ranked these in order starting with the best, this may just be Number 1). The photo really doesn’t do it justice, but the meat was incredibly tender, the sauce on top was beautiful, and I loved the fact that there wasn’t a heavy curry sauce; the flavour just came from the spices and the way everything had reduced down and infused with the meat.
A Pie Party (@apieparty)
Location:
Victoria Park Market/Greenwich Market/Canopy Market
Cuisine:
Desserts
Dish:
Toffee Popcorn Pie
I won’t say too much on this one as my last blog post was entirely dedicated to this amazing business, but as a reminder, my highlight is 100% the Toffee Popcorn Pie with its indulgent blondie-style base and sticky, sweet popcorn topping. A Pie Party is unique on this list, as an original and exciting dessert street food stall. The menu is regularly switched up, meaning there’s always something new to try, and you won’t see any pies like this elsewhere in London (or the country for that matter!).
The Mac Factory (@themacfactorylondon)
Location:
Camden Market
Cuisine:
Mac and Cheese
Dish:
Pesto Mac and Cheese
Okay, so ‘Mac and Cheese’ is not typically considered a ‘cuisine’ in itself (lol) but the heading ‘cuisine’ sounds better than ‘type of food’ etc, so we’ll stick with that. The Mac Factory’s mac and cheese is my favourite that I’ve had so far and I’ve tried quite a few. They have lots of exciting combinations and toppings, making it quite difficult to choose but I went for the Pesto Mac and Cheese in the end. It was so creamy with salty pesto, and mozzarella balls to top it off. It’s as appealing visually as it is flavoursome.
Rice Brother (@ricebrotherlondon)
Location:
Spitalfields Market
Cuisine:
Chinese/Asian Fusion
Dish:
Char Siu Rice Roll
I’d been on the hunt for sushi burritos for a while, and was struggling to find a mainstream option within London’s food markets. This isn’t technically a sushi burrito, as the recipes and ingredients are Chinese-inspired rather than Japanese, but it’s a similar concept, using sticky rice and nori (I think?) to fill out the roll and hold everything together. The Char Siu Roll had so much flavour – the meat was delicious and with the gelatinous rice, worked as a really filling, but not overly-heavy lunch, not to mention they’re super colourful.
2 Lads Kitchen (@2ladskitchen)
Location:
KERB King’s Cross (and various other locations)
Cuisine:
Afghan
Dish:
Chicken Flatbread Wrap
Much like my experience at Kottu Lanka, it was the idea of Afghan cuisine that drew me in, having no idea what that really meant. As I approached the stall, the smell of the grilled meat wafting towards me was incredible. My first bite of the wrap consisted of literally just the flatbread, but even that in itself had so much flavour. After that, it was absolutely packed with chicken, a small amount of relish and lots of hot, spicy sauce (although you don’t have to have it so hot!).
OINK (@oinklondon)
Location:
Various (I went to City Point)
Cuisine:
Pork Burgers
Dish:
Notorious P.I.G and Pepper Pig
Notorious P.I.G
THE best burgers I’ve ever had. Genuinely. You know when you eat something so good, all you can do is close your eyes and savour that deliciousness, hoping that it’ll never end. The Notorious P.I.G consisted of bourbon glazed bacon, a pork patty, bacon chilli jam, mozzarella, bbq sauce and apple slaw. Dreamy. And the Pepper Pig, Sriracha streaky bacon, pork patty, Monterrey Jack cheese, jalapeño salsa and avocado mayo. I loved that these two burgers were very different, as I sometimes find with street food burger stalls that they have a few different burgers that look and taste pretty similar. Can’t recommend these guys enough – life-changing food.
The Bucket List (@chipbuckets)
Location:
Various/Cromer (I ordered via Deliveroo in Norwich)
Cuisine:
Loaded Chips
Dish:
The New Yorker
One of my rare experiences of street food outside of London,
this ironically became the complete opposite of street food when I ordered it
via Deliveroo to my hotel room in Norwich. I didn’t have time to eat out
properly when getting ready for an evening out, so basically went by how
interesting the pictures and descriptions looked on Deliveroo (which I now am
no longer using due to them being useless when my account got hacked and orders
were placed using my money. They failed to delete my account on 3 occasions to
prevent access and I’m still waiting for my refund but more on that fun story
another time!!!).
This was the unhealthiest thing I’ve ever eaten and admittedly I did feel gross after, but it was so incredible that it was worth it. The New Yorker is a bucket of chips (very decent ones at that, with a crispy, crunchy exterior) topped with umm, everything. Chicken nuggets, gooey, fried Brie, cheese fondue, bacon, bbq sauce and aioli (garlic mayo). If you haven’t had a heart attack just reading that then, congratulations. I’m still salivating.
Bill or Beak (@billorbeak)
Location:
Camden Market
Cuisine:
Chicken Burgers
Dish:
American Fried Chicken Burger
Still my favourite chicken burger that I’ve had in London, they do both grilled and fried options, in case you want something a tad ‘healthier’ lol… but when would I ever choose grilled over fried?? It looks a little squashed because I refused to eat it until I’d taken it on a 45 minute journey home but this didn’t affect the taste and it looked wonderful when I first got it. The chicken fillet was huge and with a super crunchy fried batter. It was very simple, with American style cheese, lettuce and crunchy pickles, but in this case simpler was better. Really impressed, and great service from these guys.
Truffle (@trufflelondon)
Location:
Seven Dials Market
Cuisine:
Truffle???
Dish:
Beef Shin Croquettes
I did have a couple of lovely burgers from Truffle, but what really blew my mind were the Beef Shin Croquettes. These were insanely delicious, with shredded, stringy beef with a crunchy exterior. I don’t actually know what the dipping sauce was but it was beaaautiful. These were heavenly. And I don’t think I have anything else to add.
Hanok BBQ (@hanokbbq)
Location:
Victoria Park Market
Cuisine:
Korean BBQ
Dish:
Korean Chicken and Beef BBQ Bowl
This was an unexpected one. Hanok BBQ had never really been on my ‘desperate to try’ list, but after seeing a few amazing looking photos I decided to give them a try. Everything about this dish exceeded my expectations. I absolutely love sticky rice and so anything sitting on a bed of it gets off to a great start. I decided to indulge in the best of both worlds with chicken and beef, and the meats were sticky, smoky and super flavoursome. The kimchi on the side added that burst of flavour, unique to Korean food, and the side sauce (why do I literally never know what the side sauce actually is???) was AMAZING. It was probably some kind of sriracha mayo, it had that kind of feel/flavour to it, but who knows?
Breadahead (@breadaheadbakery)
Location: Borough Market
Cuisine: Doughnuts
Dish: Salted Caramel Honeycomb Doughnut
I’m labelling this as street food based on the fact that I got it from a stall, in the street, at Borough Market. Breadahead’s doughnuts all have a very uniform look, and their signature trading point is the way they really focus on the actual bake of the doughnut. Their dough is not heavy and is super soft. The fillings are generous and the salted caramel was delicious. The only thing I would say was that the honeycomb genuinely nearly broke my teeth so I couldn’t eat it, but the actual doughnut itself was beautiful.
Motherflipper (@motherflipperuk)
Location: Victoria Park Market
Cuisine: Burgers
Dish: Breakfast Muffin
I think I’d been scarred for life by the Mcdonalds breakfast muffins, which despite all the hype, I thought were kind of gross, but the Motherflipper one looked so good I was willing to try it. I was really pleasantly surprised – delicious sausage patty, oozing cheese, slightly crispy bacon and the perfect fried egg with a gooey yolk. Definitely worth the calories.
Seasoned: Street Food (@seasonedstreetfood)
Location: Hatch, Manchester
Cuisine: Various
Dish: Beetroot and Feta Fries
Fries are never my favourite side. I often leave them out in favour of more exciting options such as croquettes, mac and cheese, things like that. But these fries just sounded incredible. I really love beetroot and so the idea of beetroot flavour fries was really intriguing. The portion was huge and even I couldn’t finish them, but the beetroot dust was delicious, they looked incredibly striking, and the feta sauce on top added a creaminess that enhanced the flavours and textures.
Tarricrii (@tarricrii)
Location: The Market @ University of Manchester (open to anyone – when I visited they were located at Hatch in Manchester)
Cuisine: Arancini
Dish: Butter and Ham Arancino
The best arancino I’ve ever had. You can see how cheesy the centre was, and the rice cooked through beautifully. Massively creamy with a thin, crunchy outer shell, not to mention the size of it! This is really huge and would be a good side to share between two (unless you’re me and you eat it all to yourself).
WILDCARD
I’m going to finish with a Wildcard option, which will be a
regular feature of my ‘Rankings’ post. This will be something that doesn’t
necessarily fit in with the other options for whatever reason, but absolutely
still deserves a mention.
Sai Woo
Location: Jalan
Aloor, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Ciusine: Malaysian/Chinese
Dish: Singapore
Vermicelli Noodles
My top 15 have all been within the UK, but the irony is that the majority of the street food we see in this country, is inspired by cuisines from elsewhere in the world. A highlight on my trip to Malaysia was eating the fantastic food on Jalan Aloor, a street full of amazing freshly-made street food. This is also another kind of cheat, as actually this place was more like a restaurant, with the food cooked inside and brought out to you. But I’m going to treat it as street food, as the street itself is full of small stalls cooking dishes before your very eyes, and the restaurants are not restaurants in the typical sense. We ate here 3 times in a row, each time the food was absolutely beautiful, but my favourite of the dishes was this Singapore noodle dish, which I often have when eating Chinese at home. Deliciously spiced with the addition of pork, egg and veg, this street, and restaurant in particular are definitely one to watch if you ever venture to this wonderful country.
So, my round-up is complete. No doubt that week by week I’ll
be frustrated at all the amazing new street food I’ve eaten but that I can’t
add to the list, all for it being too late, but who knows, I may do an updated
version in a year or so’s time! Definitely check out these recommendations,
even if you’re not someone who would typically try this eating-in-the-street
street food malarkey. Casual dining is becoming huge so stay tuned for a
further post in a few months focusing a bit more on some of London’s most
popular food markets and halls, rather than the individual dishes.
Every time someone tells me they don’t like cheese, my eyes do a 360 roll in my head. Believe me, such people actually do exist, and there’s clearly something wrong with them.
I’m tempted to say that the best kind of cheese is always melted or baked, hot and gooey, an oozy cheese pull stretching from the plate to your mouth. But normal cheese, you know, hard cheese, soft cheese, basically uncooked cheese, is also a delight, especially when accompanied by gallons of wine.
The super successful Cheese Bar, located in Camden, have just opened their wonderful new project in KERB’s latest food hall/market in Seven Dials, Covent Garden. How no one’s come up with this before I’ll never know, but it’s basically like Yo Sushi, for CHEESE…
For anyone who’s not familiar with this set up, you basically find yourself perched on a bar stall, with a conveyer belt of cheese circling before you. Each cheese plate is contained within a little glass pod with a numbered tag, which corresponds to a number on the menu, explaining exactly what it is. The challenge here is finding the number of the cheese in front of you on the menu and deciding whether you fancy it or not, before it flies past and you have to wait for it to do another lap to come back to you.
Belt dish prices range from £2.95 to £6.10 and you can find out the price by looking at the colour of the dish and checking that against the price guides dotted around the restaurant bar in front of you.
Upon arrival I was told there’d be a 30-40 minute wait, which I’d kind of anticipated seeing as it’s new and there’s still a lot of hype surrounding it. They take your phone number and text you when a table is free but you can opt out of this at any time, and there’s loads of seating throughout the food hall where you can sit and wait.
It probably ended up being about half an hour, so really not too long at all.
There are 3 or so off-belt menu items, plus some desserts, but the vast majority of the dishes you can just help yourself to from the belt. There was only one that they didn’t have available as everything is fresh from their various suppliers and on this occasion the supplier wasn’t able to provide it.
Service was friendly and staff were enthusiastic and helpful.
It is honestly so hard to whittle it down to just a few dishes because I was desperate to try everything, but as per, I still gave it a pretty good go.
Plate number 1: Kingham with Walnut Fudge
My ability to articulate the subtleties in cheese flavour and texture is limited, so I’m going to settle for a ‘This was good.’ The cheese was pleasant, described by suppliers as having ‘a buttery, strong flavour, with a Gruyere-like texture.’
That fudge though…
I know it’s not supposed to be the star of the show but it was beautiful. Weirdly, one of the highlights. It was smooth, creamy and absolutely delicious.
Plate number 2: Rachel with Sun Dried Tomato and Basil Pesto
It was the Pesto that appealed with this one, and although it was nice, I found this to be the least exciting. The cheese was still decent, with a kind of manchego-y appearance and texture and a slightly nutty taste, and the pesto did complement it well but the best is still yet to come…
Plate number 3: Fellstone with Sherry Baked Cherries
Definitely one of my favourites here. Although technically a hard cheese, it still has a thick, creamy feel and taste to it. The sharpness of the cherries alongside it worked perfectly. The ultimate example of sweet and savoury working together in harmony.
Plate number 4: Stilton with Chocolate Oat Cookie
Now I had to try this one, as weirdly, it’s made in Cropwell Bishop, the tiny village in Nottinghamshire where I went to Primary School. They actually have two cheeses on the menu but I went for the Stilton as I absolutely LOVE blue cheese. It took me a while as a teenager before I was willing to stop turning my nose up in disgust and actually try it, but now I can’t get enough. So honestly, if you’ve always avoided it, you really should give it a chance, as it’s a lot tastier than its mouldy appearance might lead you to believe.
I’m not entirely sure why they decided to pair it with a chocolate chip cookie (am I missing something obvious?) but regardless, I’m not complaining, it was a softly-baked (random) side treat.
(Wine also excellent and inexpensive)
My friend tried the other Cropwell Bishop cheese which was the Beauvale with Sticky Pear Jam so I had a tiny bit of this one too. Super soft and creamy with a the sweet, sticky jam, I would definitely recommend it.
Plate number 5: OFF BELT
You CANNOT, I repeat, CANNOT, visit Pick and Cheese without ordering this dish which appears on the menu but not on the conveyer belt.
Whole Baked Waterloo with Basil Stewed Blackberries and Bread
Remember when I was talking about baked/melted cheese being unbeatable at the beginning? Well…
LOOK AT THIS. JUST LOOK AT IT. Not only does it look massively exciting, but it was one of the most delicious things I’ve eaten in a while. There’s actually quite a bit more to it than appears here, and it’s definitely more of a sharer.
The sharpness of the blackberries with that gooey baked goodness was heaven. Can’t say I was getting much basil from it other than the giant tree-frog-style leaf but I didn’t want the basily vibes anyway. The bread is unexciting but entirely necessary for dippage.
Honestly, when I go back (and I 100% will), I’m getting this just for myself. No sharing.
Just as a side note, they do also have a few charcuterie dishes but I wanted to stick exclusively to the cheese this time round.
Overall, I was super impressed with Pick and Cheese. It’s not just a meal, but a fun dining experience. For all the above dishes plus the glass of wine and service I think I paid about £35 which I thought was really reasonable. Waiters add up the prices based on the colours of the piled up dishes that you’ve accumulated throughout the course of the meal.
I love that each cheese comes with a unique, complementary side, and I’ll be honest, this often influenced my choices more so than the cheese itself!
This place is wonderful. It’s situated within a buzzing (but not overwhelming) food hall environment, has a sophisticated feel to it and produces some excellent food. I, for one, can’t wait to go back with other friends and family.
It may not be a hidden gem, but it lights up London’s food scene all the same.
When it comes to food, the excitement, for me, comes from variety.
Variety in terms of the food I cook at home, the places I dine at, and the types of dishes I order. That’s why tapas reaallly does it for me. You order a range of dishes to share, giving you bursts of flavour from everything from seafood to meat, cheese to veggies – nothing is off limits.
We decided to try out Camino for the very simple reason that it has a branch at King’s Cross, and we needed to be close to the station that evening.
Camino had been on my list for some time, but to be honest it had kind of been lost somewhere waaay down, and certainly wasn’t at the forefront of my mind. When I looked at the menu however, I got excited. There was so much that stood out to me and so ended up really looking forward to it.
They have a lovely courtyard and bar area, and another outdoor seating section by the restaurant itself. As it’s tucked away from the street, sitting outside in the warm weather is very relaxing and not at all noisy.
I was disappointed first off not to see a traditional sangria on the menu, but we did go on to discover that they did have their own version of it. Despite being sceptical it was lovely, and really refreshing.
Normally I’d go wild on the mains with tapas but we decided to stick to 4 dishes as I already had my dessert planned out…
First up was the cheese platter, featuring 5 different cheeses (including manchego and picos), a fig and almond slice, chilli jam, quince jelly and walnuts.
The cheeses were all nice but nothing exceptional. I did massively enjoy the chilli jam though and definitely felt/tasted the nice little kick of spice afterwards.
The picos (blue cheese ball) was definitely the stand out but as you can probably gather from the picture, the other four cheeses were very similar in appearance and texture and there weren’t huge differences in the flavours either.
We also went for the octopus on a bed of beetroot and chickpea puree. It’s not the most tender octopus I’ve ever had, but personally I’m not a huge fan of the cold Spanish Galician octopus, so this was more to my taste. The puree was nice, but again, no outstanding flavours. The best thing about this dish was probably the beautiful appearance. I think the large chunks you can see are swede which I don’t often eat, so I’m not confident on how it should be cooked but I think I would’ve given it a bit more time to soften.
Next up is one of their specials – the pan fried squid stuffed with black pudding (morcilla). Black pudding as a food can be quite divisive but I absolutely love it. In this case though I didn’t feel that it particularly enhanced the dish. The squid was cooked nicely but wasn’t massively flavoursome, and the accompanying sauce, again, was just ‘nice’. Once again, the presentation was probably the highlight.
By far my favourite tapas dish though, was the standalone black pudding dish (because you can never have too much). The texture was lovely – I’m not keen on chewy black pudding but this was soft with a delicate flavour. I challenge any meat-eater who wouldn’t normally eat something like this to give it a go, it really is delicious.
Since the day that I booked our table, I had probably been most excited for the desserts. After stalking their IG account on numerous occasions, I had worked out exactly what I wanted to try.
Originally I had ruled the churros out, as I’ve had them in a fair few places and I thought ‘How different can they be? I’ll try something else’. That, however, was before I saw their beautiful ‘churros sundae’ special, with a white chocolate mousse, melted chocolate and raspberries. It looked so attractive I couldn’t say no.
Admittedly it wasn’t quite as pretty as I had seen on social media (a common observation), but it tasted good. I have had better churros – I prefer them less on the crunchy side but it was tasty nonetheless.
By far my favourite dish of the meal was our final dessert – the drunken banana bread. I absolutely love banana bread but never really think of it as a dessert; it’s more commonly seen on breakfast/brunch menus.
This particular one was so incredibly light and moist, soaked in Oloroso Dulce, with goat’s curd mousse, popping candy and dulce de leche (like caramel) sauce.
Definitely a case of save the best ’til last.
Fortunately, Camino isn’t too pricey – tapas often gets a rep for being pretty expensive but Camino really isn’t too bad.
Overall, it was a good meal, with a couple of great dishes. I had been expecting more than two of the six dishes to be great to be honest, and I wouldn’t be desperate to rush back, but there definitely wasn’t any bad food at all. It would’ve been great to go in a party bigger than 2, simply to be able to sample an even wider range of dishes, for example, the Iberico pork and fideua that had also been on my hitlist!
If you want a relaxed meal, in a lovely outdoor setting this summer, Camino could be the place for you. Don’t wait around as the current specials are only on the menu for a week or so longer. Get a move on and…
Restaurant review numero tre and it’s a popular one. Gloria was opened in Shoreditch by the Big Mamma group earlier this year and people went wild over it. Queueing for crazy lengths of time to get a table was standard, and the same thing is now going down with their newly-opened sister restaurant Circo Popolare.
It’s sometimes nicer to let the hype die down a bit before you visit somewhere, and although for me it wasn’t intentional, clearly I did go at a time when people were so busy obsessing over Circo Populare that getting into Gloria was actually pretty straight forward.
Before I get stuck in, I want to emphasise that my intention is never to rant and rave about a restaurant and put people off. There is a significant difference between a restaurant that serves poor quality food with subpar service, and a lovely restaurant, with well-cooked food and a good menu, but that on one particular occasion ends up serving up food that isn’t to your personal taste. My experience at Gloria falls into the latter category. I had heard so many positive reviews of this place before trying it myself, so please bear this in mind as you read on.
It’s super inviting, light and bright, with an abundance of plants and leafy decor both on the inside and outside. Be aware that you may end up sandwiched on a table incredibly close to the diners beside you (especially if there are only two of you), which I understand seeing as they are so popular, and ultimately this having more tables squeezed in means a shorter wait time, but it’s not ideal.
And so we begin. The starter. I have never in my life ordered Burrata before, and had reached a point where I felt like this was a bit embarrassing considering I think I’m the world’s most enthusiastic foodie. Having said this, I think I reminded myself why I’d never ordered it when it came. For me, a cheese lover, burrata just isn’t the same. IT HAS NO FLAVOUR. Am I wrong? Please feel free to enter into discussion with me if you disagree but I can’t work out why people seem to love it so much. On top of that, the creamier the burrata, the more it seems to be raved about, but for me, this just emphasises the fact that it doesn’t work as a stand alone dish.
There was more pesto than this, it’s just not visible in the photo!
It looks pretty, there’s no denying that. And at least this particular burrata came with pesto and some other unknown sauce as pictured above. But still that did not make it the wonderful experience I was hoping it would be. I should also mention that it was pretty big. This isn’t a starter for one, it’s definitely a sharer.
For mains I chose the truffle pasta, as I feel like both the truffle pasta and carbonara are praised fairly often on social media. I have to admit, Mafaldine is not my favourite pasta shape – it’s has the length of spaghetti but with wavy edges, and I found it slightly slimy. I got a lot from the truffle flavour, but similar to the burrata, I think truffle is kind of overrated. The subtlety of truffle oil on pizza etc can be a tasty addition, but when it’s supposed to be the star of the show like in this pasta I feel like it can be bit overwhelming and can get sickly.
Dessert was where my heart was well and truly broken. I had been so excited to try their famous lemon meringue pie with the giant, wobbly, fluffy meringue topping but this didn’t seem to be on their lunch menu, so instead, I went for my second choice of the giant profiterole.
Honestly I do not want to keep being negative but this was probably my least favourite course. First off, it really is giant – again, not a dessert for one (and that’s coming from me – someone with an impressive appetite). Sandwiched in between the profiterole pastry is ice cream, but it doesn’t have that lovely vanilla bean flavour you hope for; instead, it’s the kind of bland that you find in those flavourless school choc-ice bars. I had also expected it to be hot, with a rich, warm, fudgey sauce. In reality, the sauce was cold (intentionally so) and pale and seemed more like melted chocolate ice cream. It completely drowns the profiterole which was actually the only bit I semi-enjoyed.
Please do not ask me why this looks like a close up of something cooked up on The Sims – I don’t think I’ve done any kind of outrageous, unintentional editing. But yeah, just not the one at all. And I genuinely am sad to say it.
To be fair, the service was great and the bill really wasn’t bad, I had been expecting to pay a fair bit more, but I’m just sorry that I can’t be more positive about my experience of the food.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this meal just wasn’t to my taste. These things are so subjective, and had we been presented with carelessly prepared, unimaginative food and bad service, I would go in slightly harder with my review, but here that just wasn’t the case.
So, now’s your chance to make up your mind: burrata, truffle pasta and profiteroles – do they do it for you? If so, get down to Gloria, and…
Today’s review centres on somewhere I’ve been desperate to try ever since I moved to London last year.
I spent about 20 years convinced I didn’t like sushi, with the idea of eating raw fish just not sitting well with me. That all changed however, when I was living in Brazil.
If you’ve read my Top 10 Foodie Experiences in Brazil post you’ll know that perhaps surprisingly Brazil does fantastic sushi due to the large Japanese population. To be honest, I do have to put my change in opinion in part down to the fact that Brazil does amazing fried sushi and we all know that literally anything fried tastes delicious.
But even for those of you who are still not convinced, don’t give up on Sticks ‘n’ Sushi just yet. It prides itself on being ‘A sushi restaurant even for those who don’t like fish’. Although they do offer some cooked chicken sushi dishes like maki rolls, the main selling point for anyone not a fan of seafood is the ‘sticks’. Their sticks are mini skewers that come in an incredible array of flavour combinations, some of which you’ll see below.
We went to the Covent Garden branch (there are quite a few all around London) and the first thing you notice is how dark it is. In the main restaurant section it is so gloomy (assuming this is supposed to be ‘atmospheric’) and all the decor is black and dark-coloured. Clearly some people like this ‘mood lighting’ but tbh it’s not for me. The sushi bar downstairs is still pretty dark but the bar benches are lit up and you can at least see your food and dining partner.
The menu itself is pretty cool. It’s a photo menu that shows beautifully colourful (and accurate) images of what each dish looks like.
So onto our order…
I ordered the Hell’s Kitchen rolls – tempura shrimp with avocado and spicy sauce, topped with tuna and bbq (8 pieces). For anyone who’s concerned about spice levels, although I love a bit of heat and can handle it pretty well, honestly, these were not spicy at all. The puffed rice tempura on the prawns adds a really lovely crunch and the bbq injects some extra flavour.
The second lot are the Hotate Kataifi (6 pieces) which are scallops with miso aioli, trout roe and cress. They were absolutely delicious and the aioli was beautiful.
Despite being a sushi restaurant, the sticks, for me, are the most exciting and unique part. With 18 to choose from, it’s so hard to narrow down which ones you want to try. There are meat, fish, veggie and vegan options so there’s something for everyone.
And here they are in all their glory…
Starting on the far left, we have the duck breast with panko and wasabi caesar. For us, this was the only disappointment of the evening. The duck was pretty tough and didn’t have much flavour. Having said that, I hate wasabi, but yet found that the wasabi caesar was beautiful. They’ve ensured that the wasabi flavour is pretty mild for those who aren’t fans, and eating it as a mayo like sauce makes it so much more enjoyable.
Next up is the absolute favourite – goat’s cheese wrapped in dried ham. The cheese was unbelievably oozy, it’s honestly the most incredible texture in your mouth, and the salty ham adds to the flavour. Next to that is the teriyaki duck hearts. Now, please don’t be put off by the idea of hearts. I tried chicken hearts for the first time a few years ago, and yes, I was definitely weirded out by the idea of it. Ultimately though, I eat meat, and so what difference does it make eating one part of the animal over another? Better to ensure that nothing goes to waste, right? Anyway, they tasted just like any other kind of standard meat and the teriyaki is sticky and slightly sweet.
So, photo number 2 we have firstly the free-range pork with yuzu miso. The meat was cooked well, not too tough, and I enjoyed the sauce too. Second to last is the emmental wrapped in bacon – realistically can you ever go wrong with cheese wrapped in bacon? No, absolutely not. Not quite as oozy as the goat’s cheese one but still delicious. And then finally we have the scallops wrapped in bacon (bit of a theme here…). Lovely scallops, lots of flavour. Fab.
Okay, so I feel exhausted after that stick breakdown. I’ll quickly add that despite not having photo evidence, we ordered the fried cauliflower with black truffle goma on the side. Coming from someone who supposedly doesn’t like cauliflower, trust me, it’s good. It’s kind of odd being served on top of a pure black sauce – definitely looks like something you shouldn’t be consuming, but I promise it’s safe! The truffle sauce really is lovely.
Before drawing to a conclusion, we obviously have to touch on dessert. I say obviously – I guess it’s easy to overlook dessert at sushi restaurants but Sticks ‘n’ Sushi have a fab little menu where you can try 3 mini desserts for £10 (There are 8 to try overall).
The top one is a coconut rice pudding with passionfruit coulis and this was my least favourite. The texture of the pudding was actually decent and the coulis was tangy and sharp, so there was nothing wrong with it, I just preferred the others.
The middle is a white chocolate mousse with raspberry topping with liquorice. I hate liquorice so that was the only downside but I knew what I was getting myself into, it was no surprise. There’s also only a very small amount of liquorice flavour coming through so it’s still perfectly edible even if you’re not a fan. The rest of the dessert was lovely though, and the white chocolate didn’t get sickly – probably avoided by the sharpness of the raspberry on top. BUT, the star of the show 100% was the chocolate fondant with oozy salted caramel centre and peppermint topping. I really didn’t think that a dessert from a restaurant so focused on mains could be so impressive but it was very indulgent and wonderful-tasting.
So, there’s the food. A feast for your eyes. Bit of a quick moan before I sign off. Firstly, when I arrived I was asked if I’d like any water for the table whilst I waited for my friend. Was it was my fault for not asking at this point whether I would be charged for it? Anyway it was £4 which I only realised when the bill came. To me this is a massive pisstake – it’s pretty pricey as it is but with amazing food, so they really don’t need to take advantage by adding on such a ridiculous charge.
The other thing that I found mildly annoying was the service which I found slightly too intense for my liking. We had to stop our conversation a few times whilst waiters kept coming over, and when they bring your food they go through exactly what each dish is. Maybe some people need to be reminded, but I personally know exactly what I’ve ordered, and when you’re hungry and just want to eat, you really don’t want your waiter taking 5 minutes to reel off the names and ingredients of each of your 10 sticks (Not that the staff weren’t lovely though).
Anyway, review number 2 complete… go and book a table EVEN IF YOU THINK YOU DON’T LIKE SUSHI (but whatever you do say no to water) and…
You may or may not have heard about the latest foodie review app out there.
EATEN.
So, what’s new? What’s unique? Well, as opposed to many typical reviewing sites which tend to review restaurants on the whole, Eaten gives you the opportunity to offer individual reviews for each dish you have tried, including drinks.
For me, the idea of reviewing individual dishes instead of the restaurant/café/bar on the whole is so much more effective. How many times have you been somewhere and had an amazing main and average dessert, or something along those lines? What do you do in that scenario? Give the place a middle-ground rating? 3/5?
If you still don’t really know that it’s all about, this post will take you step by step through all the app’s interesting features, so without further ado, here’s my breakdown of everything you need to know to get you started.
First we have the ‘Explore‘ page. Here you’ll be able to view the latest posts, and most popular dishes.
You can see from the top menu bar that we also have a ‘Feed’ tab. This will show you all the reviews posted by accounts that you have chosen to follow.
‘Search’ shows you your current location, highlighting restaurants, cafés and bars around you that have received reviews, and it also presents a generic search bar to seek out specific restaurants.
You can change the location to select where you want to view dishes from. I currently have this set to ‘The World’ so that I can see every review that is uploaded, but you can choose a specific city if you wish.
You also have the option to select whether you follow a specific diet, with the options being vegetarian, vegan, halal, kosher and gluten free. If you have selected one of these diets, only dishes that fall into that category will appear on you Explore page.
Once you come across dishes you like the look of, you can save them to your wishlist, and these will be shown on your Explore page as well.
Now we come to your profile. You can choose a profile photo and background image and below that the app will display your rankings locally and globally. I think this is based on the number of reviews you have written but don’t quote me on that.
Next up all your reviews are listed below, starting with the latest.
Below that is one of my favourite features. Your reviews are categorised by the type of dish they fall into. You can see that ‘dessert’ is my most frequently reviewed category as that comes at the top of my page. Once you click on a certain category, all your reviews are shown ranked from best to worst, and these ranking equate to a score for each dish.
Your local/global rankings even extend into specific categories i.e. ’13th in London for dessert’
Each dish must be ranked ‘Amazing’, ‘Really good’, ‘Pretty good’, ‘Just ok’ or ‘Not for me’.
The fact that the ‘worst’ category is entitled ‘Not for me’ says a lot about the kind of reviews the app wants to generate. It is not designed for people to berate establishments unnecessarily, and the ‘not for me’ category implies that you may not have enjoyed a dish, but in the sense that it wasn’t to your personal taste. There is no ‘awful’ category, as we well know that our opinions are entirely subjective.
Having said that if you have been massively disappointed, you do have the opportunity to justify your low ranking and explain why in a comments section which you can see below.
When uploading a new review the screen appears like so.
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You first select a photo (some people haven’t uploaded a photo but these reviews tend to get ignored). To make life a million times easier for us foodies, there is an option to import your images directly from Instagram, and if you have tagged the location on Instagram already, this will automatically be filled in in the ‘restaurant’ section.
Then you must select the name of the dish, and then which category it falls into, i.e. sushi/pizza/ice cream etc.
Date eaten is automatically filled in from when the photo was taken on your phone but you can alter this.
Then comes your rating in one of the 5 categories. You can also rank dishes within the same category, for example, if you have 5 pizzas under ‘really good’, you can change the order to show which of those 5 was the best.
Finally you can add comments and hashtags, although this is not compulsory. For me, I do always prefer reviews that have at least one comment, as it explains the thinking behind how that person has graded their dish.
The last part of the app to cover is the restaurants’ personal pages. The vast majority of restaurants etc will have a page even if they don’t yet have reviews. The person to be the first to write a review for that location is said to have ‘discovered’ it as you can see to the right.
You’ll see the location of the restaurant, the number of reviews it already has, how many different dishes these reviews cover and the average rating taken from those dishes.
Scroll down and you will find the reviews themselves.
So that’s pretty much it. I have had this app for just about a week now but I’m already obsessed. It’s still in its early stages so the number of people using it definitely hasn’t peaked yet.
I really urge any foodie out there to engage with it and add their reviews. The more people review, the more useful the app is on the whole. It’s super easy to use and has already extended my ginormous list of places I want to try, and more specifically, dishes I want to taste.
So look no further for your latest foodie fix and…
¡Comemos! 