Mango Lassi Ice Lollies

There was sun yesterday! And the forecast looks like sun next week (fingers crossed). Oh no, I checked it again – now it looks like rain. Well, here are some mango lassi inspired ice lollies (popsicles for the North Americans) that are a fabulous sunny colour (I know, I know, not exactly a valid substitute)! I used alphonso mangoes as that’s what I had but if you can get hold of some Pakistani honey mangoes, those would be good here too. As they’re mainly fruit, they have a great soft-frozen texture that’s not too icy.

And please let’s ignore their slightly phallic appearance. You can use a regular popsicle mould but if you’re like us and you have very limited freezer space, then I highly recommend the use of the Lékué silicone ice lolly moulds (I’m not being paid to recommend these!). I bought mine from Spain a few years ago and they’re just brilliant – they’re leakproof and easy to clean and they can lie flat in your freezer. They look like Calippos!

Mango Lassi Ice Lollies

I found that about half a mango made about one ice lolly/popsicle. I used one and a half mangoes and got three ice lollies. Puree your mango flesh along with a heaped tablespoon of regular or Greek yoghurt per half mango (that’s all I had but regular yoghurt will also do) and add water until you get a pour-able consistency. Pour into your popsicle moulds and freeze.

 

A Long Weekend in Lymington

You know that feeling when you desperately need to get out of the big city? Yeah, that was us a few weeks ago and we organised a trip out to Lymington by the sea (it’s just on the edge of the New Forest) for the last long weekend. It was more about the fresh air (ok, and the full English breakfasts at our B&B) than the food but we still managed to eat well without really trying.

Upon arrival at Lymington (we took trains, changing at Brockenhurst), I dragged us both first to The Buttery for lunch where we split an order of scampi and chips and then the finest Bakewell tart we’d ever had.

The Buttery
19-20 High St
Lymington, Hampshire
SO41 9AD

Here was the reason we went to Lymington – wide open spaces, forest trails, long walks by the sea…

…that lead to pubs by marinas (this was The Mayflower) where they served things like a Cumberland sausage sizzler with perfect chips and delicious Caesar salads topped with salmon fishcakes.

The Mayflower
King’s Saltern Road
Lymington, Hampshire
SO41 3QD

On the Sunday, after a morning stomping about the Buckland Rings, we headed for The Walhampton Arms for a massive Sunday carvery lunch … well, hehe, for me as Blai went for a lighter roast trout option.

Carvery for me ask the way! To go with my choice of roast beef there were at least four types of vegetable, stuffing balls, sausages, roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, and plenty of gravy. And homemade horseradish sauce!

The Walhampton Arms
Walhampton Hill
Lymington, Hampshire
SO41 5RE

Soon afterwards, we happened upon a pick-your-own strawberry farm. Can you believe that Goodall’s Strawberries has been growing strong (ha!) for over 100 years?

I think we did pretty well! We gorged on those big sweet strawberries for two days.

If you’re planning on going to Goodall’s for strawberries, hustle on down as their season ends in early July, I believe.

Goodall’s Strawberries
South Baddesley Rd
Lymington, Hampshire
SO41 5SH

But on our last day, we returned once again to our favourite place in Lymington, The Buttery. One round of generously filled fresh crab and shrimp sandwiches and a slice of delectable coffee sponge and we were sorted for lunch.

We also brought home a whole boxful of their goodies – their lemon drizzle is highly recommended.

All in all, it’s a pretty pleasant place to spend a long weekend. Oh, I almost forgot! Get some locally made New Forest Ice Cream. That top scoop was Millionaires Shortbread…shortbread, caramel and chocolate swirled through!

It was a much needed trip and thank goodness the weather was good! We didn’t have time for it this trip (we were too busy exploring all the local public footpaths) but crabbing seems to be the thing to do at the old quay.

All my photos from this trip can be seen in this Flickr photoset.

 

Tapas Revolution

Westfield London is quite dangerously on my way home from work each day and once in a while, Blai and I meet there for dinner at the Byron there. We’d tried other places there but they were all mostly grim and so burgers were the only thing we ate at Westfield. We had spotted Tapas Revolution right smack dab in the middle of the mall but didn’t have much confidence in a mall tapas bar. It took an invitation to have dinner there one night (a blogger event) for us to finally try it.

Tapas Revolution is owned by Spanish-born and El Bulli trained Omar Allibhoy. He first worked at a number of restaurants upon his arrival to London before launching El Pirata de Tapas (he is still executive chef there). In 2010, he opened his own place – and that place was Tapas Revolution. During our meal, he took the time to inform us about the tapas we were eating as well as answer our questions about his time with the Adria brothers. He is extremely friendly and welcoming and clearly very hard working as he dealt with us while ensuring that all his other customers were also taken care of.

How thrilled I was to see horchata on the menu! And yes, while everyone was sipping on cava and sangria, I happily stuck to my non-alcoholic horchata. I’m always glad to see interesting non-alcoholic choices on menus.

Our tapas dinner was going to feature items off their soon-to-be-launched summer menu and started off with one of my favourite things ever: Jamon Iberico de bellota de Guijuelo.

Pan Con Tomate (the Catalan pa amb tomàquet) was delicious with excellent olive oil drizzled on top. I draped my ham on top and… sigh….I’m drooling as I type this.

Gazpacho de sandia was a unique spin on the traditional cold soup, here with the addition of watermelon.

Boquerones (anchovies) were fat and fleshy and fantastic.

Croquetas de gambas, vieira y tinta de calamar (prawns, scallop and squid ink) were the most unique croquetas we’d come across and I loved their striking black interiors. Delicious too.

Calamares Fritos (fried calamari) were freshly fried and I loved that they included the tentacles (so many places just serve the rings).

Pulpo a la Gallega is a traditional Galician preparation of boiled octopus and potatoes drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with paprika and the version here was excellent.

Croquetas de Jamon were another, more traditional, version of their croqueta and equally as good. It’s always good to see a well made classic.

I was surprised that we were served Fideuà, the Valencian noodle classic that’s cooked similarly to paella. It’s just not a common dish in tapas bars here (well, at least I’ve not seen it) and it was quite good here with plenty of seafood scattered through the noodles.

Espárragos con romesco were nicely grilled asparagus but unfortunately the Catalan romesco sauce was too vinegary and not nutty enough – the traditional preparation has a great balance of nuts, roasted chillies and tomatoes. This I think was the only dud of the evening.

Pinchos Morunos con mojo picón were grilled beef skewers served with a spicy sauce from the Canary Islands. Well, I say spicy but it’s mild for us and perhaps it is spicy for Spanish standards! These were great and were possibly the most popular tapas that night (not for me…you can’t take my heart away from jamon and croquetas!).

Of course, what else were we going to have for dessert but Churros con chocolate! We dunked these cinnamon dusted fritters into a milky hot chocolate and after those were gone, I drank that chocolate straight up.

Overall, an excellent and very fun meal. The prices are in line with other tapas places in London – each dish costs between £2 and £7. The location of the tapas bar does make things a bit noisy and a bit draughty but hey, it’s in a mall and allowances must be made.

How wrong it turned out we had been about this place! It turns out that mall tapas can indeed be very good (this almost reminds me of the fantastic eateries in Asian malls). Thank you very much to Omar and Emma from Neil Reading PR for the invitation!

There’s also a second Tapas Revolution at Bluewater.

Tapas Revolution
The Balcony
Westfield London
Shepherd’s Bush
London W12 7SL

 

Chuan Chuan Xiang

On Little Newport Street in Chinatown, next to Baozi Inn (and owned by it too, I believe), there’s a tiny slip of a shop that sells chuan chaun xiang, a Sichuan spicy snack food. It also goes by the name mala tang and is not dissimilar to Sichuan hotpot, only the foods are on skewers and its the vendor who cooks your selection in their one gigantic communal pot. Jeanne and I stopped in one afternoon to try it out.

The little place has a menu posted outside on the window and inside on the counter. Everything costs the same per skewer and there’s a good variety of meats (mainly processed) and vegetables available.

Inside, there’s just room for a few people to order over a counter. In the back, all the ingredients are lined up on skewers or awaiting skewering. A plexiglass window stands between you and a bubbling cauldron that seems to only be filled with chilli oil, chillies and Sichuan peppercorns. Don’t worry – it’s not too bad! That day, we split a pork luncheon meat (read: something similar to Spam) skewer and a fish ball skewer since we just had lunch.

When your order has had its time in the jacuzzi from hell, your skewers are dumped into a foil takeaway container and sprinkled with chopped spring onions and coriander. There may have been a sesame based sauce available as well but I’m not entirely sure.

The heat was a lot milder than I expected but they were still delicious. Can’t go wrong with Spam in chilli oil. Now, while I say that the heat wasn’t too bad, I did notice that the chilli oil doesn’t cling terribly well to Spam and fish balls. If you were to order the Chinese leaves, for example, my experience has been that those wrinkly leaves provides lots of little nooks and crannies for burning red oil to hide. It’s probably not clear yet but I love the skewers and I love the concept and I wish that there were more sunny days in London in which I may wander down to Chinatown and munch on street food like this.

In addition to the skewers, the little shop also sell massive baos which are also available to eat next door at Baozi Inn. While I believe this is the first chuan chuan xiang place in London’s Chinatown, a competitor has already opened around the corner on Gerrard Street so…time to try them too!

Chuan Chuan Xiang
(next to Baozi Inn)
Little Newport Street
Chinatown
London

 

Old Town 97

A recent disappointing meal at Hong Kong Diner had us looking around for another restaurant in Chinatown that served good Hong Kong style cuisine. I came across a lot of positive reviews for Old Town 97, the year being significant as that was the end of British rule in Hong Kong. We had a late lunch there one Saturday not too long ago.

They have a great lunch deal – £4.80 for a dish of rice or noodles with a free bowl of their daily soup. We chose the char siu on fried hor fun which came out looking quite plain but turned out to be some well fried hor fun topped with a generic Asian brown sauce and some quite good sliced char siu. A bit of chili oil (excellent stuff) and it was a great dinner. The accompanying soup (pork bone, carrot and tomato) was a bonus.

I wanted to try a dish that I’d only heard about online – ‘LSE fan‘ (or ‘LSE rice’, about £9.50); the story goes that the dish was either invented or made famous by an LSE student. On our queries, our waiter informed us that it was a honey and black pepper pork served with egg fried rice. It turned out to be more of a triple eggy delight – egg fried rice, fried egg and the honey and black pepper pork was topped with an additional eggy sauce. It was definitely over-the-top, excellent and certainly almost enough for two.

Their drinks are very good there – here’s a milk tea and an iced lemon tea.

Sadly, a second, more recent visit wasn’t as good. One of their specialties, Hainan chicken rice (£7.30), had overcooked chicken breast but tasty enough rice and accompanying chilli sauce. A little more care, though, could have been taken over the presentation of the rice.

I wanted to try their crispy noodles. Fried noodles with mixed seafood (£8.00) turned out to be mediocre noodles in a wading pool of gloopy (albeit well-seasoned) sauce.

It all seems to be a bit hit and miss. While it’s likely we’ll be back to try their beef brisket (thanks for the rec, Lizzie) and their hor fun in eggy sauce (two dishes I’ve heard good things about), as in most places in Chinatown, service left a lot to be desired. Depending on which waiter you get, service can be acceptable or miserable. Why do they do that? And poor Blai is extremely upset that by default, they gave him a fork when he sat down!

Old Town 97
19 Wardour Street
London  W1D 6PF