London Food Detective

A cheesy night at GAIL's Artisan Bakery

Bread and cheese.  Two of my favourite food stuffs, with me being an unashamed food snob when it comes to decent bread.  In fact, I think you can often judge how good a restaurant is likely to be based on the quality of bread they serve.

So, when I got an invite to attend a tasting evening pairing different breads from GAIL's and cheeses from Paxton & Whitfield I jumped at the chance.

The selection of breads we were served.

The idea of the evening was simple, Emma from GAIL's and Rhuaridh from Paxton & Whitfield talked us through the various breads and cheeses they had picked for us and then we had to decide which combinations were our favourites.

A serious task and one I wanted to do a thorough job with, so (in the interests of research) I ate about a kilo of cheese and a couple of loafs!

 

 

 

 

The two cheese platters to choose from.

Most of the breads were varieties of sourdough and varied from a couple of simple types to ones with fruit/veg in.  Emma explained all the loaves are baked fresh everyday and are hand kneaded by their bakers.

The fruit breads at the top, cracker in the middle and sourdoughs at the bottom.

I thought the milder cheeses such as the delicious, creamy Cerney goats cheese and the St Felicien worked best on the plainer sourdough, while the more pungent cheeses such as the Gorgonzola Dulce and Highland Blue went well with the fruit bread such as the currant & cherry and apricot & hazlenut sourdoughs.

The thin, crunchy, seeded crackers provided a good alternative to the bread and went with most of the cheeses.

As usual, my favourite cheese was a Comte, though this was a bit younger (about 6 months old) and not as strongly flavoured as others I have had.

We were given a potato and rosemary loaf and an olive sourdough to take home and try and these were possibly my two favourite breads overall.

The potato and rosemary was excellent toasted with lashings of melted butter (I've had about five slices over the weekend!) and the olive sourdough was packed with big, juicy black and green olives that gave it bags of flavour.

The bread at GAIL's isn't cheap at £2.25-£2.99 per loaf, but the quality can't be faulted.  It would be ideal if you are looking to impress for a dinner party or just want to treat yourself to something a bit special and a class above most other breads.

Salt Yard, Fitzrovia: Some hits, some misses at tapas tavern

Before we all got partners and settled down a bit, I used to go on regular football, food and drinking trips to Spain with some friends from uni.  My love of Spanish food developed from trips to Barcelona, Madrid, Bilbao and other Spanish cities.

Anytime we meet up (usually in London or Liverpool) the first thought is to look for a Spanish restaurant to try and so it was with this in mind that four of us decided to give the Salt Yard a try on a cold Monday night.

It's normally a good sign if a restaurant is full on a Monday night and as were led through the bustling bar area to a downstairs table the place had a good vibe to it.

The menu is compact with six or seven choices in the meat, fish and vegetable sections of the menu.

The good:

If a Spanish restaurant can't get it's chorizo right then it's in trouble. Fortunately, the Salt Yard produced some excellent, hot, smoky chorizo on a bed of slow roasted peppers. Moreish.

It's only in the last few years that i've really got into calamari, but it's now one of my favourites. This crisp, lightly battered version came with a powerful aioli and went in a flash.

The butternut squash gnocchi was an unexpected hit.  Served with sweet, golden sultanas, pine nuts and a sage and butter sauce the contrasts of textures and flavours worked really well.  My favourite dish of the night.

The mediocre

My friends reported that "an excellent salsa verde didn’t quite rescue the Fillet of Lamb, which didn’t seem well matched with crushed Jerusalem artichokes."

The bavette (flank steak) would have been sent back if it wasn't the last dish we received and we weren't so full already. Served with luke warm onion rings, the beef was chewy, tasteless and very disappointing. I've a feeling this was the last bit of steak they had on the evening (another table near us were told it was finished) and it just wasn't up to scratch.

Overall, though we had a really good meal.  It was great to catch up with friends and the relaxed, informal and unobtrusive service added to the ambiance. 

You can see why the Salt Yard is a popular restaurant.  The beef aside, everything was of a high quality and, like the best Spanish cooking, the kitchen kept things simple and let the quality of the produce shine through.

 

Mystery pork scratchings & some pleasant surprises: February Restaurant Highlights

February started with visits from two sets of friends, which gave us an excuse to eat out a fair bit as two of the girls were pregnant and so pubs & clubs were out!

The first week of February we went to the Salt Yard (full review to follow) and then the following evening I took them for their first Byron Burger - I should be on commission for the place - which they both loved.

Later that week, I squeezed in a visit to meet a friend near Victoria and before drinking far too much and dancing badly in a dodgy club, I had a decent meal at the The Queen's Arms in Pimlico.

A good sized and tasty pork chop, which was only let down by the fat not being properly crisped and an excellent sticky toffee pudding with salted caramel ice-cream (though they could've been more generous with the icecream).  The pub had a good selection of real ales in the pub and it's worth a look if you're in the area.

The next day was a trip to Polpofor lunch.  It's the first time i've been and I enjoyed it much more than my visit to Polpetto. Favourite dishes were the mushroom piadina and the duck ragu.  The restaurant was buzzing and it was a relaxed, enjoyable meal with good food.  I'll be back...

We then crossed the road to Yu-Foria for some frozen yoghurt.  The toppings were very good (I had Oreo's and choc-mint sprinkles) but at the end of the day it's just not as good as proper ice-cream!

On the evening we went to the Crack Comedy comedy club in Wimbledon.  As part of the deal you got a two course meal at the local Thai place - Mae Ping.  Normally these offers result in some pretty dodgy food, but I was really impressed with the quality and portion size of what we were served.  The chicken satay was especially good and came with a spicy peanut dip. They have five branches across south London and I'd definitely go back to try the full menu.

I had my first trip to Tas on The Cut near Waterloo with some work colleagues and, like Mae Ping, was pleasantly surprised.  It's a Turkish restaurant and we went for a meze style selection of dishes that we all shared.  Everything came served with some excellent warm pitta bread and the best dishes were the fresh cold starters, such as the humus and aubergine with chickpeas.  There were a few mistakes with the meat and fish dishes (mussels were badly overcooked and chewy) but overall it was a decent meal and good for a works outing where there should be something for everyone to enjoy.

Everton beating Chelsea in the FA Cup resulted in an unplanned 8 hour drinking session in Victoria.  Memories of the evening are a bit blurry, but I do remembering drinking too many Jager bombs with a random group of Americans and these amazing, 10 inch pork scratchings from a pub that I can't find via google. If anyone recognises them then let me know!

Amazing pork scratchings, but where did I have them?!