What is this? This is wrong.
Is this lunch? Or is this pudding?
Why have Tesco done this?
I need to try this.
Oh, I really wish I hadn’t.
FYI Tesco bread is not a good substitute for a scone, just like a plate is not a good substitute for a mug for my tea.
There is less than a single whole strawberry in the whole sloppy sandwich. The clotted cream is corrupted with icing sugar. The whole thing stinks of bad strawberry jam. Like the worse half of an unbuttered cheese and tomato sandwich the bread here is damp and soggy. A yeasty sponge unfit for cleaning dishes.
Tesco should give up. They are going to end up like Jane Norman or Habitat or HMV if they carry on like this.
Strawberries are for puddings and cakes – leave them there.
How would Tesco like it if I put tuna in their rice pudding?
A cubist impression of an Eritrean feast: Not by Piet Mondrian.
You probably haven’t realised that I have been neglecting the blog a bit lately, but I have. I have also started a new job, started to have a social life, and started to drink far too much. The consequent vicious cycle of memory loss, financial instability, and weight gain has much more to do with post 6pm activities than office hours, but it is the regularity of a ‘proper job’ that has initiated this worrying slide. Damn you, very exciting new career.
Because of this dinner on Saturday night is pretty difficult to remember with much clarity. I can remember this: the whole evening revolved around ingesting different shades of brown in different states of solidity.
We hadn’t intended to go to an Eritrean restaurant. None of us knew where Eritrea was, worrying considering Ben has a geography degree, Hons (OXON) M.A. A helpful wooden map on the wall suggested Eritrea was somewhere near Ethiopia, and amazingly one of us did know something about Ethiopian cuisine.
You see, Ceri went to a funny school in Cornwall where they tought boys to do lady things like cooking, cleaning, and menstruating (probably). His teachers called it home economics, and Ceri had to rustle up an Ethiopian banquet for an NVQ or something equally acronymious.
“A pancake and a pile of runny brown mince” was how he described it. And he wasn’t far wrong, except at Asmara you get about four pancakes, very sour, cold and fermented, like big flat, floppy, freak-show crumpets that were told to fuck off by an aggressive little toaster. You also get lots of different kinds of runny brown mince, or runny brown lentils if you’re that way inclined.
Our order, decided on by the ‘point at happy people and let the waiter do the rest’ method was for a traditional feast with ceremonial coffee for dessert. The feast was served on big metal platters covered with injeera — the miserable crumpets from earlier have a name — and consisted of five different types of brown mince, some bits lumpier than others, but mincey all the same. Oh, and there was an egg in the middle. It was a whole spectrum of moderately spiced brown.
Sheffield is a shitting long way from Asmara (I mean the capital of Eritrea here, Sheffield is not THAT far from Brixton) and consequently Eritreans didn’t know what cutlery was for a very long time, and it never really caught on. So you eat with your hands using the injeera as a claw. It is very satisfying, and very filling, it also gets very messy if you are as dim as us and start eating your mince from the inside out. Thankfully Asmara (the restaurant this time) are used to stupid people and kindly give you some spare pancakes to scoop up the left-over bready slop.
I must point out at this point that quite a lot of the brown stuff was actually quite tasty. Some tender little lamb cubes undoubtedly the highlight. Everything was very edible.
A coffee ceremony followed. This was slightly darker brown and slightly more liquid than the rest of the meal, but still brown. I thought the coffee tasted like cardamom, but the others thought cinnamon. Maybe a bit of both. We had been in Asmara nearly 90minutes, I just wanted something that wasn’t brown.
Is popcorn brown? We got some of that too.
I moved on to the Bavarian Beer House near Old Street where they also serve lots of brown food and even more brown fizzy liquid in very large glasses. I didn’t eat anything, I just drank plenty. The waitresses were very friendly but the bastard management keep their tips if you pay by card. Something really rather shitty, especially when most of your customers pay when trolleyed, and haven’t got a clue what the poor girls are trying to explain.
The nitty-gritty:
Distance from Croydon: About 3,290miles less far than going to the actual Asmara, in Eritrea.
Asmara is kind of fun, but the service is let down by an inability to communicate anything. Something the lovely hollow-legs also experienced on her visit way back. I would go again and order differently, maybe, but probably not. For Pictures of what we ate visit Happy Valley Cook.
Bacaro number three from the Norman and Beatty juggernaught follows right behind Polpo and Polpetto in serving food you really want to eat on small plates at reasonable prices. Yet again urban brick-chic wins the day, all cagey lights and wooden chairs, A big skylight floods the room in a warm glow and the sun reflects off a shiny red meat slicer on the bar.
A classic shirley temple came complete with glacee cherry, top marks. Wine is served in caraffes and drunk from thimbles.
The menu is laid out the same as at Polpo/Polpetto/Spuntino on a paper place mat and here the food is divided into little things, pizza things, sidey things, bally things, platey things and then sweet things. The bally things and the pizza things are the more exciting and unique things, there is some crossover of dishes from the other places.
Ciccheti - potato and parmesan, fishy and fennel
We had a couple of the small things each and at £2ish each a bite they are the most extravagant thing on the menu, and if you are a penny pincher you’d be best avoiding them. A potato and parmesan croccheta was well seasoned and just slightly cheesy, nice but unremarkable. A grilled hunk of fennel and anchovy worked very well, the char bringing out a sweetness in the fennel that complimented the salty anchovy.
Pizzete Bianco
A pizetta bianco was crisp and light and boldly seasoned. Strong molten cheese held thyme and garlic and onion in place. An intensely moreish six inches.
Asparagus, egg and parmesan
Asparagus with egg and parmesan was a generous portion of fluffy egg on a pile of perfectly roasted spears, finished with plenty of cheese. It could have done with a little more salt and a few twists of pepper. A solid, simple and effective plate of food that dissappeared fast.
Prawns with chilli and garlic (and a squeeze of lemon)
Prawns with chilli and garlic were served on a bed of rocket slowly wilting in the flavoured oil. It was once again perfectly good food, the prawns heads kindly left in the bowl for those among us who appreciate the flavour of shrimp brain.
Classic meatballs
Classic meatballs were just classic but still better than any other meatball I have had recently. Big and round and meaty, a bit tight on the sauce, it’s really nice and I wanted more.
Not meat - chickpea, spinach and ricotta balls.
Amazingly the spinach, chick pea and risotto balls – ordered for the non meat eating blonde – were excellent. Well balanced, well seasoned and livened up with a gentle finish of lemon. These had more tomato sauce dolloped on top. I would have ordered more but by this time it was 8pm and I fancied getting home to Croydon before midnight.
Cheese, toast, and peas -meh
Deserts seem to be a bit of an afterthought, which is fine by me, the blonde had a vanilla gelato cone which was served in a cone in a glass. I had cheese, something goaty from Neal’s Yard. It was a little bit cold but the accompanying peas in pods were a fun little way to finish.
As mentioned earlier the whole thing took a little bit too long and dishes came a little bit too randomly. We ate on the last night of the soft opening so these little things will I am sure be easily ironed out over the next couple of days.
If you have been to either Polpo or Polpetto then the food at da Polpo will be neither surprising nor remarkable, it is just as good and delivers exactly what the menu suggests. Compared to the other offerings on Maiden Lane, Rules excepted, da Polpo really is the balls.
The nitty-gritty:
Distance from Croydon: 12 miles, a quick cycle really.
A decent feed a large glass of wine and a soft drink set us back £35 but this was a soft opening. Paying full prices you’d be looking at £30 a head.
No bookings in the evening but you can reserve a spot for lunch.
You ain't done noodles till you've done Koya's Udon noodles
I wrote a post a few weeks back in which I suggested that Miso Noodlebar was a bit shit.
Well Koya is a noodlebar that IS a bit good.
It is on Frith Street in Soho and is usually full of Japanese people and people who want to be Japanese people and people who believe the hype on Urbanspoon.
I was seated on a itsy-bitsy nursery style wooden chair and presented with a cold bottle of tap water. Another solo diner was plonked diagonally across the table and looked awkward and unfriendly, so I didn’t chat. I imagine she was thinking the same thing.
Koya’s speciality is udon noodles. They make them on site with their knees, or feet, or something. You can have udon hot or cold with broth that is hot or cold and vice-a-versa.
I chose at random because I didn’t quite understand. Cold udon with a hot pork and miso broth. The noodles and broth were served in two seperate bowls with a spoon. Do I add broth to noodles? Noodles to broth? Eat seperately? If someone has the answer I would like to know.
I sat slightly perplexed at how I was to tackle this bouncy tangle of udon with a spoon, then I found some chopsticks hiding behind some napkins and attacked the dumpy worms.
I slurped and chomped and splashed and wiped and slurped and burped. I put hot on cold and cold in hot and ate them separately. It tasted special every which way.
The noodles were firm and bouncy and long and chewy – a world away from anything udonish I have been conned into eating before. Koya udon noodles redefine what a noodle should be.
And then there was the broth. An umami rich miso soup surrounding an island of sweet pork shards, I’m not sure what part of a pig it was but it should probably be called the shitting tasty bit.
I finished the lot in my own unique style. I don’t know if I ate it right, but I damn well enjoyed it, which is good for me.
Dinner with school friends, the kids from years ago that know you still as the seventeen year old you once were. Things never change. Some people will always be early, some people will always be late, and some people will always baffle your very bones.
So there I was sitting with a pint getting to know old Holden Caulfield to the point I could call him up on the phone whenever and in walks old school friend number one, she has a watch too. She is nervous like I am, because like me, she doesn’t think time changes much. It just ticks on and makes you older and later.
Soon enough school friend number two enters. A flurry of ‘hello darlings’ and ‘it’s been too long’ she had just got here, she said.
‘Straight from London, just got here now- I mean wow it’s been hectic. I had to park in a disabled space, no vomming parking! Anyway, Last night I got sooo pissed. Yah, and I don’t remember it much, but God I just vommed everywhere. I mean, everyone said it was the prettiest little vom they ever saw. Just a dainty little vomette. But oh my God guys it was so vomming Vom.’
Yes that is an Audi Garage, and no there is not a Chinese supermarket tucked behind it.
I used to trust Google maps, after all every road map is backed up with both a satellite photograph and a 360 degree walkthrough of every street in Britain. An Nam Croydon entered into the search box, kerching the website -easy, booking a table- easy, finding the restaurant – a little more difficult. The directions looked simple enough but Streetview was taking me to an Audi garage opposite the golden arches and a PetsAtHome. I was a little surprised. I still trusted the power of Google, restaurants are often just tucked behind car showrooms after all, and set out on the 1.1 mile walk from my flat to the first Vietnamese meal of my life.
Unattended Baggage 