London Food Detective

Polpetto, Soho: Some highs, some lows during the soft opening...

I was delighted when I got a table for the opening weekend of Polpetto. Despite recommending it to many people, I'd never actually made it to sister restaurant Polpo (queues were always too long on the few occasions I tried), but had heard so many good things about it, that I was genuinely excited to get a table.

We turned up promptly at noon and my expectation levels were high, possibly too high, as the meal that followed although good, never hit the heights that I hoped for.

Two of the friends I was dining with had been to Polpo the week before and had this to say about Polpetto:

"After having been blown away by Polpo the weekend before, we were both really looking forward to being amongst the first to try Polpetto. The menu was as varied and authentic as Polpo, and the service was of the same relaxed, but high standard.

"However, there was something missing and I am struggling to put my finger on what that something was. Maybe it was the fact that some of our favourite dishes from the week before were missing, maybe it was the small room that lacked atmosphere. Whatever that magic ingredient is, Polpo has it and Polpetto is still searching for it"

On to the food and rather than reviewing every dish, I've chosen some of the highs and lows from the menu.

My favourite dishes:

Pigeon saltimbocca with pollenta

My favourite dish by far was the pigeon saltimbocca. Two beautifully plump pigeon breast wrapped in prosciutto. The pigeon was cooked perfectly and it was a carnivores delight.

Ham hock and parsley terrine

Ham hock and parsley terrine was very moreish. It was bound with wholegrain mustard and the salty ham hock worked well with it. It was served with an egg mayonnaise, which I didn't try (I'm not an egg lover), but Marie (dining companion) raved about.

Stracchino, fennel salami and fig bruschetta

Stracchino (the white creamy cheese in the picture), fennel salami and fig bruschetta was simple, but delicious. The bruschetta hadn't been toasted (which was a good thing) and the sweet figs, mild creamy cheese and salami worked really well together.

The not so good ones:

To be fair to Polpetto it was the soft opening and pictures I've seen elsewhere seems to back my view up that we didn't see the best of the following dishes:

Grilled flank steak with white truffle cream

The sliced flank steak was very disappointing. It had been cut too thinly and the pieces were dry and overcooked with little flavour. I'm putting this down to an opening error as when you compare our dish to this photo on Greedy Diva's review, then you can see the difference.

Panzanella with two & half bits of bread!

The tomatoes in the panzanella were lovely, but there was a distinct lack of bread - the main component of the dish.  You can see all three pieces in the photo above! Again, check out the photo at Gourmet Chick to see how it is meant to look.

Pannacotta, blackberries, biscotti

Desserts were pretty good. I enjoyed my creamy, rich pannacotta. The vanilla really came through and the tang from the berries cut through the sweetness.

Grace enjoyed her cherry and almond tart though she didn't think it was as good as the one she'd had at Fish & Grill recently.

Overall, we had a very enjoyable lunch. Service was informal, but attentive and with the 50% off it was a bargain. As I said at the beginning, I had such high expectations that perhaps Polpetto was never going to wow me, but the food is undeniably good.  It's the sort of informal, casual restaurant that should be the norm in London, but sadly isn't.

Would I go back? Yes, but I'd want to try Polpo first and I couldn't see myself queueing an hour for a table!

Camino: Eating the whole menu!

I recently visited Camino as a paying customer and had it in my list of reviews to do in the coming weeks. However, before getting chance to write it up I received an invite to attend their training session for the staff of their new branch opening in Westferry.

As I'd enjoyed my meal there a few weeks ago I jumped at the chance, even if it did mean taking a long lunch from work and having to work into the evening!

The tasting was hosted by Nacho, the Head Chef and he talked us through the menu, answering any questions that the five bloggers or new staff had.

Now, it would be a bit much to review every single dish on the menu, so instead I've picked out some highs and occasional lows from each section.

Meats & Cold Cuts

 First up was a fabulous selection of cold cuts and cheese. We received them on individual plates, but Nacho also brought out a board showing how they'd be presented in the restaurant.

A selection of cold cuts & cheese

Highs:

The Jamon Iberico, which had been cured for 36 months, was superb. It had an intense, heavy, nutty flavour (from the acorns that the pigs feast on) and wasn't too salty. The slithers of ham just melted in the mouth.

Lomo Iberico was was the fattiest of the salamis, but none the worse for it. The fat just dissolved in the mouth leaving little morsels of cured meat to enjoy.

Manchego cheese. I can sometime find manchego a bit bland, but this was a lot stronger than most I'd had. Matured for 8 months it had a nutty flavour to it that worked perfectly with the sweet quince.

Lows:

Compared to the other cheeses the Tetilla was a little bland and unmemorable.

Salads & Vegetables

Next up was a range of salads and vegetable accompaniments.

My two favourite salads: the artichoke on the left and the fab figs on the right

Highs:

Fig, Mahon cheese and ham salad was wonderful. The figs were wrapped in ham and contained a small cube of cheese. They had been grilled and the sweet figs, melted cheese and salty ham was a fantastic combination. It came served with some mixed leaves and a sherry vinegar dressing, but it's the figs that stick in the memory. Nacho explained that this dish is only on the menu for a short time as figs are only in season for a couple of months.

Grilled artichoke, red and yellow peppers, green beans and tomatoes on a bed of cracked wheat was an unusual combination that worked surprisingly well.

Sauteed piquillo peppers in white wine and garlic is a favourite of mine and this was a good version. The peppers were soft, sweet and delicious.

Smoked cod and orange and the pimientos
 

Lows:

For me, the orange overpowered the delicate smoked cod in a salad which also contained black olive, red onion and new potatoes.

Everyone else loved the pimientos de padron (little green peppers with sea salt), but I found them slightly bitter and too salty. They are a bit of an acquired taste and weren't for me.

Fish

A selection of seafood dishes

I'm not a massive fish lover, so I didn't over indulge on these courses (I was saving myself for the meat still to come) and my favourites were all the shellfish dishes.

The crisp fried baby squid had a light crunchy batter, was not at all chewy (which often happens), and came served with a light, creamy alioli.

King prawns were served cold in their shells and were some of the most succulent, sweet prawns I've had.

 
The spectacular looking octopus tentacle

 

I've never had octopus before and was pleasantly surprised by this dish. It was very meaty and tender - not at all rubbery as the appearance would make you think.

Meat

This was the course I was most looking forward to and on my first visit I'd been really impressed by the quality of the meat selection.  Nacho explained that Camino use a two tonne charcoal grill that they imported specially from Bilbao.

Highs:

Iberico black pig shoulder blade was served like steak and came medium rare, which is unusual for pork. It had a lovely char on it from the grill and was super succulent and was a real porky treat.

The rib-eye steak was equally good. It was served very simply with just a bit of olive oil and salt, which let the quality of the beef shine through.

On my first visit, I was also served some really good morcilla. It was served with apples and had a soft, crumbly texture and was some of the best I've had in the UK.

Lamb skewers, chicken skewers and lamb cutlets

Lows:

I like my lamb served rare, so I thought the lamb skewers were a little over-cooked, though the marinade of paprika, chilli, garlic and chilli did provide a good flavour.

Overall:

It was a real pleasure to spend the afternoon grazing through the Camino menu.  Nacho's passion for his food shone through and he answered all our questions enthusiastically and appeared to really value our feedback. I was impressed that he had such a commitment to training his staff, so they understood the food they would be serving.

Camino's food philosophy seems to be to find the best ingredients and serve them in simple, tasty ways and on the whole they do this very well. There aren't too many elaborate flavours or techniques, which allows them to get the food out of the kitchen quickly. It seems to be a winning formula, as when I went on a Thursday evening the place was packed and there was a 45 minute wait for the table.

Pizza Express Challenge: How hard can it be to make a pizza?!

Coming up with the perfect pizza topping surely couldn't be too difficult, could it? Simply bung a load of your favourite foods on the base and then stick it in the oven for 10 minutes and devour. Job done.

Well, that's what I thought before I went along to Pizza Express in London for the launch of their nationwide challenge to devise a new pizza for their menu.

When I received the invite I was offered the chance to choose any ingredients I wanted.  Now the temptation was to go for the weird and wonderful, but I contemplated long and hard on what to choose and wanted to go for a pizza that would have a bit of balance and not too much going on.

In the end I decided on a Spanish/Cypriot theme and requested chorizo, morcilla and halloumi cheese. My mate Adam also came with me and sent a list featuring chocolate, chillies, orange zest and a number of other weird things.  Surely he wasn't going to combine all of them was he? Time would tell.

The other bloggers present had also chosen various different ingredients and there was a huge table filled with all the requests. 

The table of ingredients - morcilla to the front right!

I spotted a number of interesting toppings: manchego and feta cheese, roasted pumpkin, avocado, boiled potatoes and courgettes just being a small number of the requests made.

However, before we could add our toppings we had to make our own pizzas.

 

Adam making his pizza base

Mark from Pizza Express took us novices through our paces and had us stretching, tossing and kneading the dough before he showed us how to add the sauce and spread it evenly across the base.

Once this was done it was time to add our toppings. Mark warned us not to add too many as it might make the pizza go soggy, but it looked like most of the people ignored this advice and piled on as much as they could!

Our masterpieces ready for the oven

In the end I tried not to over elaborate and went for chorizo, morcilla, red onion, and yellow peppers. On one half I put halloumi and on the other mozzarella.

Adam went a bit crazier and had a half and half concoction of chicken, chilli and chocolate on side and chorizo, red peppers, onion and basil on the other.

The final results - now on to the tasting...

Despite his protests to the contrary, Adam's chicken, chilli and chocolate monstrosity tasted as bad as it sounded.  Milk chocolate and chicken don't mix* - trust me, don't try this at home...

As for mine, well I was quietly pleased with it. The only thing that didn't work was the halloumi (you live and learn) but the rest worked well together and with a bit of tweaking who knows, you might see it on the Pizza Express menu in the future.

We got into a good chat with the girls opposite (hello Emma, Helen and Sarah!) and they all agreed that Adam's pizza didn't look the best, but as the drink flowed he was able to demonstrate some of his other talents.

As we discussed what we'd do if we did it again he suggested putting as many different types of meat on the pizza and calling it the 'Zoo' or to make the world's poshest pizza featuring foie gras, truffles and swan! Let's hope one day he gets to fulfill his dream.

The final part of the night was to fill in a postcard and enter our pizzas into the competition to win the £5,000 prize. Naming the pizzas was good fun. I went for a fairly dull Spanish Sensation, Adam's plumped for 'Decadent Extravaganza' and I won pun of the night for suggesting Em-azing for Emma's.

All in all, a really good, fun night and a big thanks must go to all the staff for making us so welcome and for looking after us splendidly.

* the obvious exception being a Mexican mole.

Byron Hamburgers: London's Best Burger Chain

I've written before about my love of a good burger, yet for some reason it has taken me nearly 18 months to visit Byron.  Trust me, the gap between my first and second trip will be somewhat shorter...

Many plaudits have been bestowed on Byron and after my first visit I can see why.

Put simply they have the best burgers I've had in London.

What makes them so good? Well, the burger is served perfectly pink with a good, charred flavour on the outside. The meat is so succulent and I had juices running down my chin after every mouthful - it was a pleasure to tuck into and the burger left me with a big satisfied smile on my face. 

The Byron burger: before and half way through...

Now, some of the top steak restaurants and fine dining restaurants (see Goodman, Hawksmoor, Bar Boulud for example) also do great burgers and they may well top Byron's, but they aren't Byron's competition.

As Byron only charge £6.25 for their classic burger, then it's chains like Gourmet Burger Kitchen, Fine Burger Company, Ultimate Burger etc that need to be worried.

Byron blows them out the water in terms of quality and if they can maintain their standards as they expand (which is easier said then done, just ask Strada...) then they are going to be huge.

The only specialist burger place that I've been to that comes close to Byron is Hache. However, what makes Hache is so good is the variety and quality of it's toppings, where Byron is all about the burger.

I suppose the only possible downside to Byron is if you like lot's of unusual toppings on your burger as they are limited to cheese, bacon and salad...

Chips and onion rings: a mixed bag

The side attractions were a bit more of a mixed bag.  Skin on chips were only average, as they seemed to be having an identity crisis and were somewhere between a skinny and a chunky chip and sadly they didn't have the qualities of either, which was a shame.  When I do go back I will be having the skinny fries as they did look good.

On the other hand, I thought the onion rings were great. A good light, crisp batter and thick, sweet onions that were highly satisfying.

Next time I want a burger in central London then I'll be back to Byron.