Brunch at Outsider Tart

I’m a big fan of the American baked goods sold by Outsider Tart in Chiswick. They have cookies the size of your head, gorgeous brownies and amazing cheesecakes. I don’t stop by as often as I’d like but I know it’s there, waiting for me to have a cheesecake craving. Relatively recently, they expanded their premises to take in the shop space next door (where there used to be an unsuccessful raw pizza place – I mean, why?!) and they’ve used this new space for cafe seating.

They call it Blue Plate and they offer hot breakfast, brunch and lunch dishes there. My friend and I visited on a Sunday morning and grabbed two seats at the large communal table, the smaller tables were all already full. Their menu that day (I think it changes often) read like a dream – pancakes, grits, hash, hot meaty sandwiches. Diner food galore.

Johnnycakes with blueberries (£6.50 for a short stack – 2 pancakes) were thick, fluffy, cornmeal pancakes studded with lots of the purple fruit and served already drizzled with syrup. We, of course, needed more and helped ourselves to the little pitcher set out. As with all pancakes, they fill me up something ridiculous and I have no idea how anyone can put down more than two (and if you can, they sell stacks of 2, 3, or 4).

I can’t only have sweet for brunch or breakfast though – savoury is mandatory in my books. Cheesy grits with fried eggs and sausage (£9) immediately stood out on the menu to us and a bowl of the creamy, cheesy grits, studded with sausage bits and topped with fried eggs soon arrived at our table. And a biscuit! I think this was my first biscuit in London and it was a mighty fine one it was too. The grits went down a treat, especially with a bit of hot sauce. They’re creamy and comforting and about a million times better than a bowl of oatmeal.

Blai and I went back for brunch this morning. Blai was utterly rapturous about his cheesy grits and biscuit while I decided to try something else and went for the migas (£9.50), an excellent Tex-Mex mixture of scrambled eggs here with sausage, blue corn tortilla chips, onions, jalapenos and sour cream. There was also a good chunk of excellent cornbread.

The only thing missing there? Those bottomless cups of brewed coffee – they only sold Americanos here and only by the single cup (of course). There are freshly squeezed juices and smoothies and bottled American soft drinks also available.

They’re open 8am-6pm everyday and on Thursdays they stay open until 10pm. I’ll be back…often.

Outsider Tart
83 Chiswick High Road
London W4 2EF

 

Christmas Feasting

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas! We’re not religious at all but I’ve embraced the whole idea of Christmas and the fact that we get an enforced break from work and well, all of that eating, of course! Our feasting started Christmas Eve with a big Chinese meal for the three of us (Blai joined us this year for his first Christmas in London).

My brother had brought over a roast duck from Four Seasons (our usual duck of choice comes from Gold Mine but they had closed early the day before!) and I added a steamed fish, wontons in chilli oil, kai lan with oyster sauce and mapo tofu (I added some pork to that last recipe).

A couple of the recipes came from Fuchsia Dunlop’s book Every Grain of Rice – and I highly recommend this book! I feel I ought to be cooking more Chinese food and I’ll certainly be using her recipes often.

Afterwards, there were slices of Heston’s Black Forest Buche (bought at Waitrose) for dessert. We’re still eating our way along the length of this excellent chocolatey buche.

On Christmas Day, we rose late and started with a breakfast of smoked salmon and crème fraîche on blinis along with scrambled eggs.

Soon after breakfast, I set out a few bites while the main course was cooking. A bit of cheese, A bit of charcuterie, a bit more salmon. It’s what the Catalans call pica pica, all these little bites.

And the main course? Well, we can’t go wrong with another slab of pork belly – it always goes down well in this family. This year, I roasted it with apples and onions and I loved the sweetness and slight tang the apples gave. For a recipe, start with this one and instead of fennel, use a couple of sliced onions and a couple of sliced, peeled green apples and a bit of dried or fresh thyme.

Very buttery mashed potatoes, pigs in blankets, sauteed sprouts, roasted carrots and parsnips and, of course, that pork and there’s my first plate made.

And now it’s Boxing Day and that’s all about using up the leftovers… but first, I’d like to hear what you’ve been eating this Christmas! Have you tried new recipes this year or is this a time for sticking to tradition?

 

Dim Sum in Hong Kong

The next on the must-eat list for Hong Kong was dim sum, of course! My first dim sum lunch was at City Hall Maxim’s Palace and it started with a queue; about an hour after first getting a number, we finally got a table. It’s certainly a big and fancy place and, surprisingly to me, tea was served in the British style – silver service! And trolleys! I miss trolley dim sum and to have it for the first time in years was great fun. I loved how each trolley had signs that said what each contained.

We had quite the spread and highlights included that bottom dish of steamed beef with black pepper and orange peel, …

…these fried squid tentacles, …

…and excellent siu mai.

It was all very good, traditional dim sum but I believe that, in London, the dim sum at Pearl Liang or Princess Gardens matches it.

City Hall Maxim’s Palace
3/F, City Hall
5-7 Edinburgh Place
Central
Hong Kong

It was this next place, though, that spoiled me. Tim Ho Wan is most famous for being a budget, hole-in-the-wall dim sum restaurant with a Michelin star in Mongkok. They’re also famous for the crazy crowds that queue for hours to get a table. It’s certainly doing well as it’s now a group (chain?) of three restaurants and it was to the newest branch at Hong Kong station (under the IFC) that we went to have breakfast. At 9-10am on a weekday, it was possible to get a table without having to queue.

Steamed eggplant with soy sauce was delicious and not something I’ve seen at other dim sum lunches.

Pan fried turnip cake was a very good version with lots of thickly shredded daikon radish.

The steamed beef balls with bean curd skin were fantastic – these beef balls were meltingly tender and had a great flavour.

While we were deciding what to order, the man next to us leaned over and insisted we had to order his favourite, the malai goh, a steamed egg cake (the name translates to Malay cake though…is it from Malaysia?). I’m not normally a big fan of this cake and the version we had at City Hall Maxim’s Palace was just ok. This one, however, … you can’t see it here but it was amazingly soft and wobbled gently as the steamer was placed on our table. And yes, it was delicious.

These char siu baked buns are a must order. They’re just about the best pineapple buns I’ve had – the bread was soft, the crust was intensely buttery and crumbly and the char siu filling was generous and wonderfully saucy. Such tasty tasty goodness.

How much for this gorgeous dim sum? Every dish was only about 12-20 HKD, depending on size; it was a bargain.

I’d originally hoped to visit three dim sum places but after my first visit here, that third place got scratched off the list to make way for another visit to Tim Ho Wan to sample more from their menu.

Of course, we had to have the baked char siu buns again. Here’s the shot of their insides.

The prawn and chive cheung fun was good but nothing special compared to other dim sum restaurants.

I wanted to try their “glue dumpling”, an amusing translation for what actually is a large glutinous rice dumpling.

This was amazing with its myriad fillings – dried mushrooms, salted egg yolk, slices of meat. Yes, full on slices of meat. I was sad that we just couldn’t finish it – it was very big.

We also had to order their har gau (prawn dumplings) after seeing a group of men painstakingly pleating the little things in the kitchen on our last visit. And yes, they were excellent but again, ones of similar quality can be found elsewhere.

I love Tim Ho Wan. This branch at the IFC is great – it’s in no way fancy with its wipe down tables and chairs but the food! It has an open kitchen and it’s possible to see the chefs all at work, making the dim sum that will feed all those in the queue. Did I mention it’s also cheap? Yes, it’s a total bargain for the quality – I now understand its popularity.

Tim Ho Wan
Shop 12A, Hong Kong Station
(Podium Level 1, IFC Mall)
Central
Hong Kong

 

The Breakfast Buffet at Sakonis

It wasn’t the smartest decision I’d made in a long while. In a show of great ambition two weekends ago, I figured I was going to have a South Indian breakfast along Ealing Road, an area I’d been meaning to explore more, prior to meeting a number of food bloggers and tweeters at Pacific Plaza for lunch. Location wasn’t a problem as Ealing Road was just a 15 minute walk away from Wembley; what was a problem was my lack of discipline in the face of lots of Indian food.

It was Sakonis that I decided on, partially on a recommendation and partially on their breakfast buffet, perfect for a lone diner like me. It costs £4.50 and is only offered on weekends and bank holidays between 9 and 11am.

And what was on offer? Masala dosas, puris, upma, potato curry, idlis, sambar, yogurt, gathia, a spiced cabbage dish, coconut chutney, jalebis, chai. It’s vegetarian, if you hadn’t figured that out already. (Click through the photos for notes on what each item is.)

While everything was spiced, nothing was very hot in terms of chili heat; everyone can partake in this Indian buffet. The dosas were still crisp but the potato filling inside was just ok – make up for this with the delicious potato curry. The sambar is lovely with it too as well as the puris and idlis (oh, by the way, an idli soaked in sambar is a wonderful thing). The cabbage dish on offer reminded me of a stir-fried Indian cabbage dish I cook at home with lots of mustard seeds. And I’m already thinking of my next visit when I’ll top a bowlful of potato curry with cold, fresh yogurt and lots of the crunchy gathia! It’s a great introduction to South Indian breakfasts.

The popular dishes were refilled quite quickly, every 10 minutes in the case of the masala dosas. One man put away at least 5 of them!

Two platefuls. Honest, that’s all I had. (Ok, ok, and a jalebi.)

Then why did my stomach refuse to take in any more food two hours later? (It’s most likely to do with the fact that I hardly ever eat breakfast most days.) We ordered a ridiculous spread at the Pacific Plaza food court and I didn’t really do it justice. I did better (read: consumed more food) towards the end of lunch though!

Sakonis
127-129 Ealing Road
Wembley
London  HA0 4BP

 

Easter Sunday Buttermilk Pancakes

“What do you mean you don’t like pancakes?!” This is the usual response when I declare that I’m just not a big fan of American-style, thick, fluffy pancakes, not the thin kind common here and in France. I don’t want to eat a stack of heavy carbohydrates so early in the morning, wasting valuable space in my stomach which could be filled with bacon or sausages or fried eggs instead. That said, my pancake-loving brother was down this Easter weekend and I spoil him terribly. Easter Sunday’s brunch was buttermilk pancakes with streaky bacon and there was lots of butter and maple syrup on the side.

Oh yes, that combination of sweet and savoury is a popular one in our household – no bacon and the pancakes just become too cloying. I turned to the net and found that Alton Brown’s recipe for buttermilk pancakes is well respected, supposedly turning out very fluffy and flavourful. And so they did – they are possibly the best American pancakes I’ve had! The batter is very easy to put together and doesn’t require a long rest so gather the eaters around the table, ready to eat the pancakes hot off the pan. That said, if you want all your pancakes ready before bringing them to the diners, they keep very well in a warm oven.

And you know, it turns out I don’t mind a pancake now and then, especially when made into a teddy bear or Easter bunny shape! I certainly cannot deal with a proper stack of them, as my brother can, but one or two is just about right. Lots of space left for bacon!

I had bought only one little tub of buttermilk which only held one cup’s worth from my local supermarket and so added a cupful of regular milk to replace the other half missing. They still turned out fine though I bet the flavour would be even finer with all buttermilk. If you want them a bit jazzed up, scatter chocolate chips or fresh blueberries over the batter in the pan before flipping. To make the animal shapes, work fast and with a tablespoon!

Buttermilk Pancakes
adapted from an Alton Brown recipe.
serves 4-6.

2 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
3 tbsps caster sugar
2 large eggs
2 cups buttermilk (or half buttermilk, half regular milk)
4 tbsps cooled and melted unsalted butter
extra butter for the pan

Place all the dry ingredients into a large bowl and whisk together. Beat the eggs well and pour them on top of the dry ingredients along with the buttermilk (or buttermilk and milk) and the melted butter. Whisk together just until it comes together – lumps are alright! You don’t want to overmix this.

Heat a nonstick frying pan over medium-low heat. Before making each pancake, make sure to butter the pan. Pour in enough batter to reach a desired size. Cook the first side until bubbles form in the top of the pancakes – this should take about 2-3 minutes. The bottoms will be golden brown. Flip and continue cooking for about another minute. Remove and keep warm until serving. Repeat until all the batter is finished.