A couple weeks ago, I’d arranged to meet with my friend Mr W who was in town for the weekend. Unexpectedly, his old grad school chums Messrs X, Y, and Z (can you tell that they loved the idea of having codenames on this blog?) tagged along but our chosen restaurant, Charlotte’s Bistro in Chiswick, managed to find space for all of us due to a cancellation that Friday night. Actually, I’d like to say up front that service was brilliant the whole night, with everything helping with great food and wine recommendations, and I’m not just saying that because we held our wedding dinner at their sister restaurant two years ago.
After a couple rounds of drinks at the bar, we were led to our table. I like the spacing of the tables at the restaurant though our booth was a little tight. We were immediately distracted by the menu though; everything sounded good and it took us all a while to decide what to eat.
Many at our table started with the Cornish Mackerel “Polonaise”, Pipérade, Red Pepper Essence (£7.00) on the recommendation (and enthusiasm!) of our Polish waitress. I tried a bite from my friend’s plate and yup, it was a delicious bit of fish and was surprisingly not very fishy for a fillet of mackerel.
I had eyes only for the Kromeski of Middle White Pork, Sweetcorn, Curry, Coriander, Lime (£6.50), a delicious croquette of various porky bits served with the aforementioned accompaniments. The curry flavour came through in the sauce and went very well with the sweetcorn.
Moving on to mains, Messrs W and Z had the Slow Cooked Pork Belly, Pomme Purée, Port Wine Salsify, Oyster Vinaigrette (£14.50). It was an excellent piece of pork with equally fantastic crackling as my little bite assured me.
I went with the Beer Barbecue Baby Chicken, Falafel, Fennel Rémoulade, Ranch Dressing, Lettuce (£16.50). Normally I wouldn’t even look at the chicken option on the menu but something about its description on the menu grabbed me! I had half a tender baby chicken on my plate and along with the tasty and sizable falafel, I got quite full and was passing bits of food to Mr Y who had chosen a lighter fish meal. While it was, yes, well cooked, it was still the least exciting dish on the table: that’ll teach me to order the chicken!
Check out Mr X’s Macken’s Scotch Beef Onglet, Smoked Bone Marrow, Charred Onions, Pickled Girolles (£16.00). I love the look of that bone marrow.
Somehow we all ended up with different desserts. My Vanilla Cheesecake, Strawberries, Fennel Flowers, Honey Syrup (£6.00) was presented in a little Staub pot and was indeed delicious, all creamy and fruity with a hint of anise.
Mr W’s Chocolate Fondant, Salt Caramel, Tonka Bean Ice Cream, Sesame Cracker (£6.50) was excellent and came out much faster than the expected 20 minutes as stated on the menu. He was very happy with it.
Mr X wanted something a bit more savoury and went with the cheese plate: Cheeses (3), Grape Chutney, Nuts, Lavosh Crackers (£8.50). I didn’t partake of the cheese but did nibble on a deliciously crisp cracker.
It was a grand night with everyone at our table leaving with very good impressions of the restaurant. While the cuisine here is not the kind you search for to be challenged, it was all very good and made us very happy indeed that Friday night; I’ll definitely be returning as it’s so convenient for us in West London. As I mentioned before, service was fantastic and it really made for a great night. And Mr W, your mates are fun!
Visit Wales, the official Wales tourist board, have started a new campaign to attract visitors to Wales for a proper holiday: Wales Wants You. They’ve connected with Tamarind and Thyme to highlight some of the best of Welsh food. Our first trip as a married couple (kind of a mini honeymoon) was in Llanberis in Snowdonia and we both remember that trip quite fondly for the beautiful location, friendly people and good food… so yes, I have a soft spot for the country.
I cannot claim to be an expert in Welsh food but I remember being very taken with their bara brith, a sweet fruit bread, and their Welsh cakes, currant-studded flat cakes cooked on a bakestone (like a hot plate). And who can turn down a Welsh rarebit?! There’s lots I’ve not explored of Welsh cuisine though: I’d love to try Glamorgan sausages (made of cheese and leek) or a proper cawl (meaning soup but refers to what we think of as stew) and I am greatly intrigued by laverbread (seaweed!). And then there’s the meats and cheeses that I need to investigate too. There’s lots of information about Welsh food on their website too.
A large part of their new campaign is Piers Bramhall and his need for a proper holiday and I’ll leave it to this video to introduce all this to you:
I love that choir! People and sites all up and down Wales have been inviting Piers to their neck of the woods to see the real Wales. From what I gather, he and his girlfriend are starting their trip on Sept 5 – I’m keen to see where they’ll be eating!
I’ve been asked to make a pledge too – to recommend one place in Wales. As I’ve only been once (that short honeymoon that we absolutely loved), I have only a few places from which to choose. Well, I chose Pete’s Eats, the best caff in Llanberis. It was the friendliness of their waitresses and their pint mugs of tea and their fabulous chips that won me over.
And now for the competition – there are two prizes to be won!
Visit Wales have offered quite an exciting prize to one of my readers: a weekend away in Cardiff (September 10-11). The winner and a friend will travel by train to Cardiff on Sept 10, stay overnight at what I’ve been told will be a very nice hotel and will attend a Welsh banquet at Cardiff Castle on the afternoon of Sept 11, returning home that night. This banquet is a celebration of Wales with a host of Welsh chefs and food experts on hand to talk you through the menu. It’s also the grand finale of Pier’s trip and promises to be something quite special. I was to have attended the banquet too but, alas, I am out of the country that weekend.
The weekend away prize is only open to readers in the UK; however, there’s also another prize available to everyone including international readers – a hamper of goodies from Wales! Specifically, it’s this hamper, filled with treats to put together your own Welsh picnic (ooh, there are Welsh cakes in there – did I mention that those are delicious?).
To enter, please leave a comment letting us know a great restaurant you visited in Wales, a Welsh recipe you can share, a Welsh food product you love… or if you’ve not been to Wales or are unfamiliar with Welsh cuisine, let us know your impression of Welsh food or a Welsh food or dish that you’d love to try. We want to learn from you and hear what you think. The best answers will be chosen by us to win.
Please state where you are based so that you’re entered into the correct competition (or if you’d like to be considered for the hamper only if you cannot make the weekend) and ensure that your email address is valid – I and Visit Wales will contact the winners by email to let them know they’ve won and to arrange the trip and the posting of the hamper. The competition will close at 23:59 on Thursday, September 1 and I will announce the winners on the blog shortly after.
Do check out their main campaign page on Facebook too. There will be links to their other partners involved in climbing, cycling, music, art, eco and travel, all highlighting the best of Wales.
Got a glut of courgettes? I don’t even grow them but find myself buying lots as they’re so cheap right now at the farmers markets. While we do enjoy all the fritters and stir fries we make, I’m still always on the lookout for other ways to use this summer squash. When I saw this recipe on A Taste of Home Cooking, I knew it sounded like a winner.
Rounds of courgette are coated in panko crumbs, baking up extra crispy on the outside and tender and almost juicy on the inside; strangely, when baked like this, the flavour of courgette is not very pronounced, making it a good way to convert courgette haters. They’re also very light (and healthy) as very little oil is used. We liked them just as they are though I imagine an aioli would also be nice for dipping.
Oven Fried Courgette Rounds
serves 2 as a side.
2 courgettes
1/2 cup plain flour
salt and black pepper
2 eggs
panko crumbs
a little sunflower oil
Slice the courgettes into rounds just shy of 1cm thickness. Place then in a colander, sprinkle with salt and toss together and then leave for 30 minutes. After that time, rinse them and dry the slices with some kitchen paper.
Preheat your oven to 180 Celsius.
Place the flour in a bowl and season it very well. In another bowl, beat the eggs together with a little water. Finally in a third bowl or plate, place the panko crumbs.
Line a baking tray with foil and brush with a little oil. Dredge each courgette round in the flour, then dip into the egg and then finally coat in panko crumbs. Lay onto the baking tray in a single layer. Place in the centre of your oven and bake for 20 minutes (turning the rounds once) until the panko crumbs are golden brown. Serve.
Close to the leafy open space that is Parsons Green sits a cafe and delicatessen called Empório São Paulo owned by Carminha de Castro. I had been invited, along with Hot & Chilli, Gourmet Chick, Greedy Diva and The London Foodie, to a bloggers night recently to visit and try their food. I had looked up their website before my visit and to my surprise, there were few (if any) Brazilian dishes on their online menu; apart from being owned by a Brazilian, it wasn’t clear yet to me what differentiated this cafe from any other cafe in London. A look at The London Foodie’s previous post on Empório São Paulo did confirm that Brazilian food was served, which just added to my confusion. What was Empório São Paulo?
Carminha answered all my questions that night. Her vision for Empório São Paulo was as a cafe that you’d find in any major city in Brazil; she wants to change poeple’s perception of Brazil and remind them that ciites such as São Paulo (her own beloved city) are very modern and cosmopolitan. And like the cafes you’d find there, Empório São Paulo sells quite a mix of things – Italian coffees, organic baby food, ingredients and products from around the world, sandwiches, salads, cakes, and yes, Brazilian products and dishes too. Most of the food served at the cafe is outsourced and they always try to find the best. I received a little tour of the place from Gizane of Branding Latin America. While there’s a little eating area on the ground floor and outside, there’s also a family playroom downstairs, a space that will also be used for events in the future.
But now onto the food. We started with snacks of mini empadas de frango, little chicken pies, …
… and mini coxinhas, fried pastries made of potato mash filled with chicken and shaped to resemble chicken drumsticks. Both delicious and normally served at the cafe.
We were also plied with many caipirinhas (well, not me – I don’t like alcohol) and also got a lesson on making the perfect caipirinha from Steve of Salto Brazil. Though I don’t drink much, it was interesting to learn the difference between traditional cachaça and newer varieties that more resemble vodka.
We moved further inside the shop where a table was laid for dinner. Wines were provided by Go Brazil Wines, with its founder Nicholas there to represent them (details of the wines served can be found here). We started with a small portion of feijoada, the classic pork and black bean stew of Brazil – it’s only served on weekends in Emporio São Paulo, a practice that reflects way it’s treated in Brazil, as a big weekend meal. It was quite tasty with its sprinkling of nutty farofa on top and I could have eaten a full portion of it!
Our main course was a moqueca de peixe e camarao, a traditional Brazilian stew of fish and prawns. This was a moqueca capixaba, made with olive oil, onions and tomatoes, and is light and quite healthy; this is in contrast to a moqueca baiana, where palm oil is the cooking fat used and coconut milk is also added. Again, this is served on the weekends and also costs £7.50. We also had a small portion of a butternut squash puree alongside. Carminha had trouble sourcing a good moqueca and in the end found the source in her own daughter!
That wasn’t all – after we cleared our plates, Carminha brought out baskets of hot mini pão de queijo which were absolutely gorgeous. Hot, chewy and cheesy, they must be one of the world’s ultimate snacks – their distinctive chewiness is from manioc flour. These can be bought frozen (it has its own freezer!) or cooked and hot in the shop.
Dessert time! A huge cake stand of the most beautiful white brigadeiros was brought out – there was one with passionfruit and coconut, another with pistachio, and a final with a surprise filling of a whole fresh grape. This last was my favourite as the tang of the grape cut through the rich sweetness of the white chocolate and condensed milk. I brought a few back for Blai and before I had even blinked, he had scoffed the balls and was to be expected, he was most enthusiastic about them!
The more traditional brigadeiro is made with regular chocolate and we tried a modern presentation of this: apparently brigadeiros in little cups like these are quite the thing in Brazil today. I was also told quite definitively that it just isn’t a party in Brazil without brigadeiros! Well, they certainly made this party.
Thank you again to Carminha and also to Gizane of Branding Latin America for the invitation. It was a great introduction to modern Brazilian food.
I was going to put to good use my beautiful new bag of fresh Viennese (read: Hungarian-style) paprika from our trip. We were both very taken with the delicious gulasch we had tasted in Vienna and I knew from that first taste that this was something I wanted to recreate at home. I didn’t have to wait long – this miserable summer and its chilly nights was encouragement rather than a barrier to the making of a warm stew. Specifically, what I wanted was fiakergulasch, a specialty of Vienna where their beef gulasch (rindsgulasch) is topped with a frankfurter, a fried egg and sliced gherkins. I have no idea why it’s named for the horse carriages.
But to make fiakergulasch, one must first start with rindsgulasch (beef gulasch). Rich, flavourful and just a little bit spicy, this stew is extremely comforting and strangely familiar. There’s an awe inspiring amount of chopped onions that naturally thicken the stew as well as an unfamiliar herb and spice – marjoram and caraway seeds – used; all combined to make something that I’ll definitely cook again. We ate the gulasch with its fork tender beef as it was the first day and used the leftovers on the second day to have fiakergulasch.
In Vienna, a massive bread dumpling was served on the side; we chose to have our gulasch with boiled potatoes (tossed with butter and chives) one day and bread the next. As with the paprikash, try to use a Hungarian style paprika here; a Spanish pimenton would be all wrong.
1 kg stewing beef, cut into large chunks
1 kg onions, finely chopped
5-6 tbsp oil
2 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 tbsp tomato paste
2 cloves garlic, crushed
4 tbsp Hungarian-style sweet paprika
1 tsp Hungarian-style hot or hot/sweet paprika
1.5 tsp dried marjoram
1.5 tsp caraway seeds
2 bay leaves
1 strip of lemon peel
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Heat a large pot/saute pan over medium heat, add the oil and all the onions and fry until golden (it’s a large quantity of onion and this takes quite a while).
Add the garlic and tomato paste and fry for a few minutes. Throw in the paprika, stir well to combine (make sure it doesn’t burn) and then add in the white wine vinegar and stir up anything that’s stuck to the bottom of the pan. Add the meat and stir to combine and add the marjoram, caraway seeds, bay leaves and lemon peel and a little salt. Pour in 500ml of water.
Bring the mixture to a boil and then reduce the temperature until the mixture is at a simmer and let simmer, half covered, for 2 hours (stir occasionally). At the end of the 2 hours, the gulasch should be thick and much darker than it was at the beginning. Season to taste. Serve or to make fiakergulasch, follow the instructions below.
Like all stews, this gulasch keeps very well. There were only two of us and we saved half for the next day.
Fiakergulasch
For each portion of rindsgulasch above:
1 egg
1 frankfurter
1 gherkin
Cut the gherkin in half lengthwise and then cut each half into a fan (slice lengthwise, keeping one end unsliced to hold the fan together). Keeping the middle part of the sausage intact, slice it into quarters lengthwise (see the photo). Throw it into boiling water for a few minutes, until it’s fully cooked and the sliced parts have curled up. (Optional: you could fry your sausage instead.) Fry the egg to your liking.
Plate your gulasch and top with the frankfurter, fried egg and fanned gherkin. Serve.
