Monday 18 January 2010

Easy Does It

Hardly in keeping to the levels of gastronomic excellence I treat myself to each week, today's instalment brings you something of a messier variety. To celebrate a friend's birthday, we revisited a haunt on the old strip of the "kinger" between Old Church Street and World's End, where so many of the defining moments of my teenagehood occurred. And my, how it's grown. The Cadogan Arms, which used to be inexplicably cool and quite hard to get served in has now been made over, is explicably uncool and I hear quite tricky to get a drink (only for different reasons this time round). The Pitcher & Piano, once the beginning of so many great Saturday nights between the ages of 14 and 16 (ok, 16 and 18) is now Sushinho, a Brazilian Japanese fusion joint, a place for whom the name does a far better job of slating it than I ever could. The Dome has gone (sob) and to round it off as a centre of all things bastard and fusion, Eight Over Eight has replaced the disgusting but memorable Man in the Moon. My old smoking ground is practically unrecognisable. I wouldn't last ten minutes on the scene of today's youth, what with all their sushi and smart gastropubs. Yet despite all this apparent progress, two things pop up at me (and it's not the collars of every boy aged 15 - 20 hanging around there - apologies - couldn't resist). First, that they can keep their fusion - the range of "upmarketness" from Man in the Moon to Pitcher & Piano was spot on, and second, they couldn't get rid of Big Easy.

Big Easy is a barbeque and crabshack restaurant that has been around for over 15 years, which is shamefully close to the time that my underage friends and I used to hang out at the cramped bar, drinking Coronas and eyeing up generic blondes. This time, my eyes were only for sticky ribs, loaded potato skins, bumper steaks, and of course, my beautiful girlfriend. Despite being sat in a slightly grotty corner, the place still had the same atmosphere. And to be fair to them, they manage to recreate (what I guess is…) an authentic American crabshack, with only a few minor bungles (I would mention the provenance of some of the staff but for the twitchiness of some of my readership). So we sat down, bibbed up (love a restaurant where they put a bib on you) and ordered enough ribs, fajitas, chips, potato skins and coleslaw to cover the table. Not too long later, food started arriving. If it wasn't for the band, all the other people in the restaurant, the breaking and chewing of pig ribs and the sizzling fajitas, you could have heard a chip drop. So how did it all taste? I thought it was pretty damn good. The sauce on the ribs , to borrow a phrase from that place that sells fried chicken heads, was finger lickin' good and the actual ribs themselves were meaty and succulent. The potato skins were a bit soggy but by that stage, I was just shovelling to do justice to my surroundings. If I went back, or rather when I go back, I will go heavier on the ribs and lighter on the dry fajitas. I also remember eating some sweet juicy skewered shrimp which will definitely feature on my next roster.

The bill came to about 35 quid each, including a couple of jugs of margherita and some buckets of beer. Bargain.

The more eagle eyed amongst you will have noticed that this is not a review of places in Marrakech, as mentioned in my previous post. Given that 2010 is now underway, I think this will forever be lost to my readers. So as a condensed version, the food is great here (http://www.terrassedesepices.com/), here (http://www.grandcafedelaposte.com/) is meant to be great but is actually a bit like Café Rouge, never eat here (http://bo-zin.com/) and if you go here (http://www.lapause-marrakech.com), you will eat the nicest tagine in one of the most incredible settings in the world. Over and out.

Big Easy
332-334 Kings Road, Chelsea
020 7352 4071

Tuesday 12 January 2010

Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder?

And so I return. I have taken a lengthy leave of absence and for that, I apologise. I could appeal to your sense of compassion by complaining how hard I have been working (recognised by the FT, at the expense of my own personal food blogging ambitions) but I suspect this might fall on deaf ears. And honestly, I worked hard for about 3 weeks and then did a bit of travelling around and eating around. Since I last posted, I have had a couple of great meals at Babington House in Somerset, a decent-ish meal at Dean St. Townhouse (I was a little fed up with the Soho House Group thing by then), an impeccable return to Lantana where not even slow service could put me off and finally, the loss of my St. John-inity, which was tasty and atmospheric but quite hard work. I feel like I can't update you on new places until I have at least brought you a little bit up to speed on the above, as well as some great culinary experiences in Morocco, so here goes:

Babington House

Where Londoners go when they want to feel rural and earthy, and are fortunate enough to be treated to an early Christmas present is to a smallish country house hotel to the west of London called Babington House. I am not sure exactly how far west - I think it delivers to inhabitants of West London what Shoreditch House does to those in the East. The distances are pretty similar. So a fast train and an expensive cab delivered us in under two hours to little-London-in-the-plain, a magical 18th century house, complete with outhouses that have been considerately and amazingly tastefully converted into a gym, a spa, a couple of pools (one outdoor one decadently heated to steaming level), a shop (naturally) and a tidy vegetable garden so urbanised it looked like an outdoor branch of Waitrose. The setup is faultless and the décor is offensively tasteful. And the food - simple and spot on. My meals ranged from perfectly cooked roast chicken for two, roast beef with thick bloody gravy, and the best eggs benedict of 2009. The menu changes every day and despite only having the classic 5 starters and 5 mains set up, prompted rigourous and pensive self-analysis before coming to any meal decisions.

The breakfast was probably the highlight for me. We didn't have lunch on Saturday. It was that good. The room was laid out in the way that Londoners like to think that all country folk eat their breakfasts: a big farmhouse table in the middle of the room with lots of earthenware jugs, eggs with feathers stuck to them knocking around, piles of newspapers and a man to top up my coffee and orange juice any time they approached 1/4 empty. Amid this backdrop, things just tasted sweeter. The fruit compote that dolloped on top of the yoghurt was like nectar, the butter was soft and buttery and the cooked breakfast was superbly tasty. And the final garnish on the eggs benedict was provided by non other than celebrity love rat and former Glasgow Rangers reject Gordon Ramsey, treating his scorned family to a luxurious instalment of his guilt payments. Happy families indeed.

My main concern about the place was only its authenticity. One morning I woke up to the see the gardener carefully raking the leaves around the big old oak tree in the garden into a perfect circle around the base. And there was I thinking they just fell like that. However, authenticity ain't all that. This is the best English country house I've ever stayed in.

Lantana

Wow. Lantana got busy. Whilst I clearly wish places like Lantana (independent, great food, nice people) every success in the world, I do get annoyed when the world encroaches on your discovery. And so it was with Lantana. The same old story: Boy finds antipodean breakfast spot, boy loves ABS, everyone else loves ABS, ABS wins Time Out Café of the year, boy goes to ABS and can't get a bloody table. But on this Saturday, I decided enough was enough. I would wait. As long as it took. I didn't care. I was prepared to stubborn it out to experience what I potentially think is the best breakfast in London. As it happened, it only took fifteen minutes. Although about two months have passed since this visit, I still remember it fondly. The food in Lantana is so good. All the ingredients they use are incredible. The menu is so original compared to anything else you find in London (I hear it copies Bill's Café in Sydney but I don't care - I don't get to go to Bill's) and much like Babington, forces you into agonisingly long choices between corn fritters, bacon sandwiches, eggs benedict and my old basic favourite of poached eggs, bacon, tomato and avocado. I stuck to what I knew whilst she went, somewhat more exotically, for the Spanish baked eggs. I can't remember exactly what it tasted like, or looked like, but I know I haven't had a better breakfast since. As always, we saved some room for their French toast which had some deliciously rich sugary topping like frosted caramel. We waddled out of there, an hour and half after arriving, fatter, healthier, and perhaps only thirty quid poorer. I should say it's crap, so I don't have to wait fifteen minutes, but that would be selfish. It is brilliant. Go there. And if you see me waiting with my eyes boring into your back, just tell me "it serves you right".

Dean St. Townhouse

I don’t think I can really do this place justice. It really was an awfully long time ago. And we went during their cheapskate-not-really-open-food-at-half-price fortnight, so the service was a bit slow, and the food wasn't perfect. But clearly, because of their parent company (a phrase that was repeated to me a number of times by the staff - Soho House are starting to remind me of Taco Bell in Demolition Man - soon there won't be anywhere left to eat in London) it has great potential and the feel of the room is bang on. They have borrowed heavily from J Sheekey's (in the stylistic sense; the "Group" owns it so they could have borrowed out the till but I suspect they won't need to) and it is all deep red and black and white and trendy photos. The menu is long and exciting in a Wolseley-type way, and a city can never have too many restaurants doing this sort of thing. I don't remember a lot except that we argued about whether to have the trifle and the apple pie that we ended up ordering was sublime. The pastry was so light that it dissolved in my mouth in a satisfying sugary appley goo. I'll go back soon and give you a fuller download. But in the wanky way that social commentators like to make big predictions for places, I would like to group myself there by saying this place is "One To Watch" for 2010. I bet the Group will be chuffed with that.

St John

Now this was a place that had the weight of expectation behind it. Accompanied by two old friends, we tried out St John for our annual pre-Christmas dinner. Due to the nature of the celebration, I will no longer be able to recall all the minutae that I know you pore over, so I will instead recount my highlights and another lame promise to return. The whole feel of the place is that food is in charge here. No frills. Our waitress even drew a cow on the paper tablecloth so she could point to parts of it to highlight cuts we had never heard of. Not in a "this is our thing, we do this for all the punters" kind of way, just because it made sense. I ate their famous marrow and parsley starter which was very nice but a bit of a phaff. However, the reward for picking, scraping and scooping justified this, and the four generous shanks of bone you get to scoop out of yield plenty of the sweet stuff to lob on to some nicely grilled toast and vinegary parsley salad. For main course, I had duck and swede, which was just that. A breast of duck, decorated with a confit leg of duck, and a pile of swede mash. Simple. Lonely. Poignant. Okay, so maybe I take it a touch too far, but it was gratifying to have such a simple plate of perfect ingredients well prepared. It was tasty, but I lost this course to my two dining partners, who had elected to share the steak and kidney pie. My memory only takes me that far. Time and booze are the enemy of the forgetful blogger.

And with that lofty thought, I will leave you. Dream of Marrakech, for that is what the next update will be about.

Babington House
Somerset
01373 812 266

Lantana
13 Charlotte Place
020 7637 3347

Dean St Townhouse
69 Dean Street
020 7434 1775

St John
26 St. John Street
London, EC1M 4AY
020 7272 1587