Fino

More tapas.  Whilst endlessly singing the praises of Barrafina, I had, until recently, never tried any of Sam and Eddie Hart's other restaurants.  Over the last few weeks, I have rectified this with a couple of visits to Fino. 

I'll start by saying, and it'll likely come as no surprise to hear, that I absolutely loved it.  There are many dishes that were familiar to me from the menu at Barrafina, but they offer a significantly extended menu here, owing to the fact that they have a much larger space and therefore kitchen. 

Here's some of what I've tried:-

Croquetas - piquillo (£3) and jamon (£3.50).  I LOVE these so much, always order loads.

Chorizo tortilla with aliolo (£7.40).  Amazing, oozing centre and garlicky mayo topping.

Pan con tomate (£1.90 each) - needed more salt to match the Barrafina greatness

Scallop with parsnip puree, almonds and chilli oil (£8) - this was brilliant, perfectly cooked, lovely flavour and texture combination.

Arroz negro (£8.90) - nicely presented, love a mini copper pot, with great inky squid flavour.

Pig cheek with parsnip puree and crispy parsnip (£9.80) - this was Art's but I had a taste and it was as tender as you'd expect with that same smooth parsnip puree, also served with the scallop.

Pork belly (£12.80) - I had this on both visits, it's incredible.  Must pre order the suckling pig for next visit.  Pictured with patatas brava (£4.50)

Crab empanadilla from the daily specials (£12.40) - this was hot!  Tomatoey crab filled the flaky pastry, it didn't blow me away.  Highlight was the lemon dressed celery salad that came with it.

Also from the specials Acorn fed duck breast with celeriac puree (£11.40).  This was nice but could have done with more puree.

I've also tried the Santiago tart, which, to my disappointment, was very orangey (I'm not a fan of orange flavoured puds) and the donuts with vanilla ice cream.  I'm also not a doughnut fan, though I confess I haven't tried the St John versions yet!

We did a decent job with the red wine and sherry and despite not being able to remember which I tried, I can say with certainty that they were excellent.

There's little else to say really, I've arrived early evening, and also rather late and had no trouble getting a table, or a place at the bar.  On one occasion, they happily accommodated 5 of us, without reservation.  The service is lovely, the food, quite brilliant and I shall definitely return regularly and you don't even have to queue.

It's really not cheap, I've spent around £50 a head on each meal I've had here, but both times, ordered liberally and drank a lot.  My one negative point would be that the room is a little soulless.  It's below ground and therefore pretty dark, oen of my companions likened it acoustically to a canteen, ouch.  Still, this won't put me off, the standard of the cooking makes it more than tolerable. 

Fino
33 Charlotte Street
Fitzrovia
W1
8.5/10

Pham Sushi

More from my new neck of the woods, EC1.  Though I don't suppose I'm technically new anymore, having worked here since July.  Pham Sushi have 2 premises on Whitecross Street, making it quite the place to be come lunchtime what with the bustling daily food market, also soon to open is a 2nd location for Kennedy's fish & chips and there's a Waitrose at the end of the street, for those who prefer that sort of thing.

I do like a proper meal at lunch and I've eaten at both Pham restaurants. Somewhat predictably, I have to say the main thing that stuck with me, was the dish they're famed for, the crunchy tuna rolls. Having read here and here that they are special, I have to agree.  These are pretty decent value too at £7.50 for 8 rolls.  I'll definitely be back for more.

 

On my first visit, I also had the prawn and vegetable tempura soba soup.  This had a nice garnish of spring onion, generous amounts of mushrooms and seaweed along with a decent broth.  Again, reasonable for £9.50.  The tempura consisted of 2 large prawns, some sweet potato and courgette, standard but good.

I had the house special salmon bento last week, which I think is overpriced at £13.50.  The box is reasonably large but, aside from the salmon and tuna sashimi, the accompaniments were dull, I'll be sticking to the sushi in future.

 

Both places were quiet for the duration of my lunchtime visits and service was swift and efficient.  With the glut of decent sushi options available to those based in Soho for work, I had feared I'd be missing out but Pham Sushi more than matches the likes of Kulu Kulu and Ten Ten Tei.  I'm also still keen to try Sushi Tetsu which is just up the road from work, though it seems to be more of a dinner destination. 

Pham Sushi
159 and 165 Whitecross Street
EC1Y
6.5/10

Tramontana Brindisa

So Saf on Curtain Road has closed down.  I went once, pre blog days, with a vegetarian friend who was visiting London and was happy with the cocktails and the fact that we got a table on a busy Saturday night.  The food, not so much.   They still exist but the Shoreditch restaurant has made way for a new offering from Brindisa.  I'd not eaten at a Brindisa restaurant before, but have tried much of the produce available at the Borough Market shop.  I was excited to try.

One night last week, after a few cocktails at Burger & Lobster, Farringdon, I took the opportunity to try Tramontana and hopped in a cab.  I was happy to find the place pretty much full and lively, but we secured 2 stools at the lengthy bar with ease and I got started on some cava.

I know I've said it before, but for me, when it comes to tapas in London, it's impossible to top the experience of an evening at Barrafina.  However, I always dine with an open mind, and obviously hope to be wowed by what I'm eating.  Unfortunately, I cannot avoid making direct comparisons to how well dishes are done at Barrafina and, for me, Tramontana, doesn't come close.

We ordered 2 lots of croquettas throughout the evening, 4 are served per portion and the filling changes daily.  The croquettas on the day in question were 3 meats and bechamel and they were very good.  The serving of padron peppers was a bit on the stingy side for my liking, £3.75 for about 10 of them.  I did get a super hot one though, always a treat.

The pan con tomate (£3.50) was a bit strange, on a tray with it's component parts presented for self assembly.  I was actually quite excited by it to begin with but soon changed my mind when I overdid the garlic.  Couldn't they just do it for you?

One of the most successful dishes of the night was the fiduea.  I'd not had this before, it's short pieces of noodle cooked and served like a paella, with prawns and squid pieces.  Really delicious.

Now on to the bad.  The ribeye dish was served in the style of a pintxo.  By this they meant served on some soggy bread.  The meat itself was good quality but was undercooked, there was not enough cheese sauce, which was the best part of the dish, and the matchsticks of apple added nothing, it just didn't work for me.

From the daily specials I ordered the mushroom and eggs which came to the table in the pan it was cooked in, as a result of this the eggs were totally overdone.  We sat next to the area where the dishes were presented for the servers to deliver to the tables, and many of them sat there for a while before being picked up.  I was tempted to grab the egg dish and dive in before the eggs overcooked, but couldn't be sure it was destined for us.

I ordered the cheeseboard to finish which was nice, all the cheeses are available to buy, but rather than that being a good thing, it felt more like they were being hawked when the waiter suggested I might want to buy my preferred.  At £12, it's not cheap and it consisted of cave aged cabrales, manchego, tupi and mahon, both hard cows cheeses.  I would have like a bit more variety but the accompanying jellies and chutneys were good, as was the bread.

I was very full by the end of the meal and the bill came it just shy of £100 with 2 glasses of cava and 2 carafes of house white.  Not bad value but there were more misses than hits so I am unlikely to revisit. 

Tramontana Brindisa
152 Curtain Road
Shoreditch
EC2A
6/10

Honest Burgers

A couple of things spring to mind for me (and everyone else no doubt) when thinking about burgers in London.  Over saturation of the market and clear front runners (lucky chip, meatliquor) in the battle for London's best burger, it seems like more choices appear on a weekly basis, but can they compete with the best?

There are 3 camps I suppose, the street market, the affordable and the high end.  1 and 2 have begun to merge, think Meatliquor which began life as the Meatwagon, and Lucky Chip, who from humble market beginnings now have established residencies and are, in my opinion still offering the best burgers in town.

The high end burgers appeal to me less and less these days, the likes of Bar Boulud, Hawksmoor, Goodman, Burger & Lobster, all coming in at around the £15 mark.

Honest Burgers have been around for a few years in Brixton and recently opened just off Dean St in Soho.  I went along with some fellow burger lovers to see which category these might fall into.  They're less than £10 for starters.  The Soho outpost remains true to it's predecessor in that it's tiny, and always rammed.  You roll up, put your name on the list and wait.  On the Tuesday night that we visited the place was full and we waited for about half an hour (would have been less if I hadn't been late but my friends kindly gave up a table and waited for me).

The menu is unfussy, there's a beef burger, a cheeseburger, a chicken burger, veggie burger and a daily changing special burger.  I went for that days special, the beef burger with chipotle slaw, griddled courgettes and Welsh Monterey Jack.  As soon as it arrived I wished I'd just gone for the cheeseburger, I had to remove the courgettes to make it possible to handle and there were masses of unadvertised red peppers lurking beneath the bun.

The cheese and the chipotle were lost and barely discernible but the chips were brilliant.  The burgers are actually quite small, the meat is flavoursome and juicy and the patties were cooked nicely medium, I wasn't happy with the bun. 

The rest of the table ordered cheeseburgers with various dairy options, I had a bite of Sue's stilton which was great.  I'd perhaps like a plastic cheese option as is de riguer these days but they're not down with that at Honest.

Now you'll all have heard more than you wish to about London burgers and most reports have been favorable but, for what it's worth, I wasn't blown away by Honest Burger.  We really are spoiled for choice when it comes to burgers and 5 years ago, these would probably have made my day, but for now, I'll be sticking to Meatliquor and Slider Bar. They do a nice G&T though, great straws.

Honest Burger
4 Meard Steet
Soho
W1F
6/10

St John, Smithfield

 

I took a wander from work one lunchtime last week to scope out the latest Burger & Lobster venture on St John Street.  I was happy to find St John, just around the corner from Smithfield's market, the former smokehouse which is both the original site and the administrative HQ of the empire.

I've been eager to visit for many years now and can't for the life of me justify why it took me so long but I shall definitely be returning, it's great to explore my new work area a bit more and discover that places I imagined might be too far to travel for lunch are actually just a stone's throw away.

Two of us walked in shortly before 1 o'clock and were seated immediately in the more formal raised dining area.  There's a casual bar area with a slightly different menu chalked on a board above the bar which I'm keen to try on my next visit, and a smaller room which is available for hire.

 

I drank only tap water which was presented in a jug, always excellent, and bread arrived promptly.  White and wholemeal sourdough, baked fresh on the Spitalfield premises.

We ordered 4 razor clams between us to start which came doused in a brilliant lemon garlic oil (not visible in this picture, but there was a lot of it lurking beneath the shells).  The bread proved to be the ideal vehicle to mop this up and I'd go so far as to say these are the nicest razor clams I've ever had.

An American colleague had recently been lauding the St John take on welsh rarebit and urged me to try.  I did, and this is what arrived.  LOOK AT IT!!

It was a beast, and so intensely cheesy that it defeated us.  Even the sharpness of the Worcestershire sauce didn't stand a chance to cut through the richness of the dairy hit.  It was a totally unnecessary side order but I'm really glad to have tried it at last.

For main I had the Arbroath smokie with parsnips.  The stand out thing about this dish for me was the sauce, it was smooth, buttery and creamy and a perfectly subtle complement to the deep smokiness of the haddock.  The smoky waft that filled the room once the dish arrived was pretty intense, prompting an approving nod from a neighbouring table.

Thomas had the pan fried skate and chips, which was beautifully delicate and served with a wedge of lemon and some tartar sauce.  In the fgd above is the side of sprout tops we shared.  In all, we totally overdid it for a weekday lunch, but I continue to be in equal parts surprised and impressed by the lunch options in the EC1 area. 

One thing I'd say is that there's a definite masculine air to the place, with lots of solo business diners reading their papers or perusing emails on their ipads.  From what I could tell, after twice walking through it, this is less so in the bar area and I think that more casual dining atmosphere appeals more to me.

All this came to just over £60 and around 90 minutes, but who cares about an extra half an hour here or there, when you're having such a good time?!

Incidentally, yesterday I visited the Burger & Lobster, just a few doors down and on a Monday lunchtime, it was pretty deserted.  It's a nice space though, and obviously, as they bed in, the place will very soon liven up, if what happened at the Soho branch is anything to go by.  The standard of the lobster roll was up there with those I've tried previously, and we got a free raspberry mousse for pud.  If you work in the area, get down there, and you probably need little, if any, coercing to visit St John.

St John
26 St John Street
Smithfield
EC1M
8.5/10

MEATmarket and London Cocktail Week

After a crazy week at work I can't really think of a better way to unwind than an afternoon celebrating London Cocktail Week around Seven Dials, followed by my first MEATmarket experience to soak up all the gin.

Thanks to John, I had a wristband waiting for me and we began the day at Smatt's rum and ice cream shack on Monmouth St.  I'm not a rum fan and made a massive error in ordering a cocktail that practically had visible vapors emitting from it, I forget the name, something about death and bitterness.

We cruised around Covent Garden's various gin pop ups, trying Hendrick's teas at the Monin Mad Hatter tea club, G & T with a twist of grapefruit from The Ginstitute, more G &T at the Fever-Tree Botanical Bicycle as well as Kamm & Sons punch & Judy Bar and The Gran Marnier Punch House.

It was a pretty boozy afternoon and by the end of it, we needed sustenance.  We head to MEATmarket where they were offering a vodka laced slush puppy type thing as their nod to London Cocktail Week, though the programme promised a Woodford Reserve cocktail.  Fortunately, we were just about done with cocktails.

I ordered a dead hippy (£7.50), so I could do a direct comparison to MEATliquor and I found their version lacking actually, and overall my heart still lies with MEATliquor, but we walked straight in and got a table at MEATmarket, so you can't argue with the plan to make things more accessible.  The girl at the counter was rather curt and dismissive, but then we can't have been the first woosy customers to amble in after a gutful of grog.

What I did LOVE were the poppaz (£4), little deepfried morsels filled with jalepenos and cheese.  I could eat these all day, they're quite fiery, but so moreish, I didn't let anyone else get a look in.  We also had the chicken wings with blue cheese sauce and the chilli cheese fries, all of which I know and love from MEATliquor.

I've heard talk about the buns here not being steamed like the MEATliquor ones, and whilst I don't recall them being in any way dry, there is something lacking in both atmosphere and quality of the food at MEATmarket.  The venue is less of a destination, it's more of a takeaway bar, and I know this is the idea and I'm all for avoiding queues if at all possible, but I don't mind queuing for MEATliquior, because it's MEATliquor!

Having said all that, a dead hippy was just what the doctor ordered to soak up all that gin at this point in the day, and it certainly did the job.  I hope the next MEAT appears in EC1!  It's dirty, it's cheap and it's hugely satisfying and still the talk of the town.
NB. Announced today (17th Oct) was the opening of MEATmission, Hoxton market, before the end of 2012, and they'll take bookings!  Hurrah, I work just down the road.

MEATmarket
The Mezzanine
Jubilee Market Hall
Covent Garden
7/10

Bubbledogs& - Kitchen Table

Having sampled the bubbles and the dogs at Bubbledogs& back in September, Art and I were 2 of the lucky few to bag seats at the official launch night of the '&' part of the name, James Knappett's Kitchen Table.

The room through the heavy curtain at the rear of the restaurant reveals 16 bar seats surrounding a small kitchen.  There is a seasonal menu with an ever changing rotation of dishes, served as a tasting menu.  The thing that really struck me about Bubbledogs& on my first visit was the outstanding service, every individual we spoke to was courteous and went out of their way to ensure we had a great time.  This continued on my 2nd visit, and at every step of the meal we felt amazingly well looked after. 

Dishes are described on the menu by highlighting what the main ingredient is.  We settled in with a glass of Kentish Hush Heath Estate, Balfour Sparkling Rose.  The room quiet as everybody eyed thekitchen crew in anticipation.  Here's what we ate:-

  Scallop - Raw scallop with pineapple marinated in fish sauce

Cod - roe mousse with pork scratchings

Chicken - skin topped with mascarpone and bacon jam

Cauliflower - raw, steamed and crumbed, on black pepper yoghurt

Seabass - served on sea astor with vanilla butter

Mussels - wood chip smoked mussels and razor clams.  

Foraged and pickled sea pursalane and sea astor

Beef - shortrib ravioli with butternut squash, wild boar cress and beef consomme

Duck - hearts with raw onion and onion powder, 

caper and wild garlic sauce with peanuts and chickweed

Burrata - with concord grape puree and D.O.C basil

Fig - pan fried with caramelized white chocolate, fig sorbet and frozen fig carpaccio

Pear - roasted pear cake with fresh pear slices, licorice ice cream and fennel tops

Blackberry - teacake with frozen blackberry meringue

The standout dishes for me were the chicken skin, the beef ravioli, and the pear dessert.  That cake was unbelievably good, I'm inspired to attempt to create something similar next weekend for a friend's Macmillan coffee morning fundraiser.

Our wine choice was from the North Island of New Zealand, Gem pinot noir Wairarapa and was a perfect match for the pigeon but also the less meaty dishes because it was very light. 

The personal touch offered here is quite unlike any dining experience I've had before.  There are kitchen tables in other restaurants, but here, they plan to have 3 sittings a night, every night that the restaurant is open, with the chefs introducing each dish as much of the prep, cooking and plating up is done before your eyes.  It really is like theatre and a 13 course menu for £68 is also very good value.

Bubbledogs&
70 Charlotte Street
W1

9/10