London Food Detective

Belgo: Getting Quizzy with Lobster

My wife is competitive. Very competitive.

So when she had a spare afternoon before accompanying me to a lobster quiz, she used it to swot up on lobster facts.

The result? We ran away with the quiz organised by Belgo* to celebrate their annual Lobsterfest, which is on throughout June.

While everyone else was enjoying the lobster dishes and Belgian beers, Grace was explaining to me what she had discovered during the day, such as a lobster's favourite sexual position and how long they live for!

It was worthwhile though, as we won a very generous prize of restaurant vouchers and a booth at Lucky Voice - another of Grace's favourite pastimes, so thanks Belgo Bill!

Anyway, on to the food...

We started with a satisfying rich, creamy, lobster bisque.

The surf and turf

On to the star of the show and the signature Maine Lobster with a five ounce ribeye steak.

I've always enjoyed the work involved in eating lobster (and crab) and using the precision instruments to pull, scrape and dig around for the tasty morsels of sweet meat.  There's something very satisfying about it and I got stuck into my lobster and had bits of shell flying about the table as I pulled out the meat.  Good stuff.

My favourite thing about Belgo is it's range of beers and I was delighted to have the chance to have a Delerium, which brought back happy (if somewhat hazy) memories of a boozy trip to Brussels.

Overall, a fab night and Grace has already got the karaoke planned!

Lobsterfest runs until the end of June and you can pick up (or even eat) a whole, grilled 1lb lobster with fries and salad for £24.95.  I was invited along as guest of Belgo to this bloggers event.

 

The Blues Kitchen, Camden: Great venue, shame about the food...

Although not a huge aficionado of blues or jazz, I've been fortunate to visit some great clubs over the years in places like Chicago, Memphis and New Orleans, as well as Ronnie Scott's here in London.  So when I heard the Blues Kitchen had opened in Camden I thought I should pay a visit, not only to sample the music, but also the food.

The first time I wandered down was in it's first week of opening and they weren't serving food yet, but I was suitably impressed by the cool decor, comfy looking booths and impressive bar to try and make it back asap.

I ended up going back on Tuesday night and the place was heaving.  There were no tables free and we had to grab a drink whilst we waited.

The layout of the place is quite unusual and it has an 'L' shaped configuration with a long, narrow strip away from the bar leading up to a stage where they have DJ's and bands every night of the week.  The walls of the place are covered with blues posters and other memorabilia and I really liked the vibe and atmosphere in the place.

After a wait of around half an hour we were shown our table and given the Southern influenced menu.

Ordering was easy: gumbo is a huge favourite of mine and I didn't have to look past the top of the menu and Grace went for a steak po'boy.  Together we ordered some sides of onion rings and sweet potato wedges.

Service was friendly and efficient and our mains were with us in about 15 minutes. 

Sadly things went downhill from there...

Blues Kitchen Gumbo

The gumbo was extremely disappointing.  Overcooked chicken, cheap smoked hotdog sausage, the okra & sweet potato were missing in action and the sauce was bland with none of the kick that you'd expect from a decent gumbo. In fact, if you were in New Orleans and served this then they'd be sticking pins in a doll of you quicker than you can say voodoo...

The Po'Boy was equally bad. A sorry, overcooked, piece of steak placed between two massive bits of bread. Sadly I've no photographic evidence to show how bad it was, but please take my word for it.  This was really disappointing. 

I wish I could say the sides were decent.  They weren't.

The onion rings had a slightly funny metallic taste and only contained a pitifully small sized ring of onion.

Some of sweet potato wedges were ok, but others were massively over seasoned.  You also got the impression that they'd been sat there a while as they were a bit mushy (which I actually quite like) and wouldn't have been for everyone's liking.

Despite the main courses we (foolishly) decided to have desserts.

Key Lime Pie

Grace ordered Key Lime pie.  According to the menu this was a ''Southern twist on the Lemon Meringue Pie", unsurprisingly then we were expecting something that looked like a lemon meringue pie and not a bog standard slice of cheesecake. If anyone from the Blues Kitchen happens to read this review, then here is a Google image of what Key Lime Pie is meant to look like.

Mississippi Mud Pie

The menu promised marshmallow.  No marshmallow.

Instead just an ordinary slice of chocolate flavoured cheesecake.

It is a shame the food was so ordinary, as everything else about the Blues Kitchen was spot on.  Friendly service, great atmosphere, good (live) music and reasonable prices.  Hopefully we just experienced some teething troubles and the food standard will rise in the coming months, but based on this performance when I do go back I 'll make sure I've had something to eat first...

Hache, Camden

Twitter Review:

Good burgers and great toppings and sides make this the best burger joint i've been to in London.

Full review:

I'm a bit of a burger monster.  I've been to most of the burger chains, such as Gourmet Burger Kitchen and Fine Burger, that have sprung up around London in the last few years.  Whilst they are a big improvement on previous efforts, for me none of them have really delivered a truly great burger that competes with the best i've had in America.

To be truly great the burger has got to be medium thickness, not overly seasoned and be juicy and cooked medium.  So after hearing great things about Hache in Camden I thought I better give it a try.

I'd been for a few beers with friends in Camden and five of us turned up for dinner on a Saturday night.  The restaurant was fully booked, but the staff agreed to let us squeeze round one of the outside tables.

The first thing to say is that the menu presents a truly impressive range of burgers and sides.  They've got a great combination of burgers (beef, chicken, lamb, duck, venison, fish and vegetarian) and some original and appetising toppings, such as red peppers and goats cheese; chorizo and chilli jam; and jerk spices and Caribbean mango chutney.

Therefore choice was going to be difficult and I was going to get jealous at something my friend ordered!

In the end, I kept it simple and went for the classic bacon and cheese burger and as a table we decided to share some fries, onion rings and halloumi as well.

The place was packed, but service was friendly, quick and efficient and our food arrived in good time.  There is something aethestically pleasing about a seeing a burger stacked high on a plate and when the food arrived it truly looked the business.

So how did the burger fair?  Well it was cooked a perfect medium and was good, but for me it was just a little dry and not quite as succulent as i would have liked.  However, the sweet cure bacon was thick, and crisp, the cheese was nicely melted and the ciabatta fresh and crusty.  Overall it was a very good, but not quite great burger.

The fries were excellent - they were crisp, nicely seasoned with salt and not at all greasy.  The onion rings were also very good and my halloumi fetish was nicely sated by some well grilled slices.

Out of my friends food there were two stand-outs: the crispy duck burger was fantastic - a classic combination of duck, hoisin sauce, cucumber and spring onion.  Another highlight was the calorific chicken burger with cheese, bacon and honey mustard.

The bill was very reasonable (the burgers are typically £7-£10) and overall i'd say Hache is the best burger restaurant i've been to in London, but for me there is still room for improvement and it's crown could be taken by someone who can combine Hache's range and quality of toppings with a jucier burger...the challenge is on!

Bar Gansa, Camden

Twitter Summary Review:

Good buzz, slow service. Reasonably priced, but average tapas. Decent wine & cocktails. Veggie & seafood dishes better than the meat.

Full Review:

A few friends were staying with me ahead of a wedding we were all going to yesterday, so we thought we'd have a leisurely stroll down to Camden for a few pints and a bite to eat.  It was gone 9.30pm by the time we decided to put food choices to the vote.  I nominated burgers at Hache but was outvoted in favour of tapas at Bar Gansa. 

As we entered the place was full and really buzzing and we got a table near the front door, which is great for people watching.  At 10.00pm on a Saturday though this was mainly an electic mix of drunk teenagers queueing for the off-licence next door!

Before I go any further I should declare that Spanish food is one of my favourites and i've been known to spend a small fortune at Brindisa - so my standards are high when it comes to tapas.

Anyway, back to the meal.  We were waiting 20 minutes before anyone asked if we'd like a drink and we decided to order at the same time.

Three of us went for a selection of tapas, one for a seafood paella and one for a sizzling seafood dish.

Forty minutes and a couple of bottles of wine later the first tapas dishes arrived.

I tucked straight into the meatballs and stuffed yellow peppers (not red as it said on the menu). The meatballs were reasonable, but the sauce was fairly bland, however the peppers were pretty good with a generous helping of rice and melted cheese.

Next up was some disappointing and overcooked chorizo in red wine.  I'm a bit obsessed with chorizo and love the texture and flavour, but this was fairly chewy and no better than you can get from your local supermarket.

My favourite dish was a bit of a surprise.  The 'Tumbert' (a sort of aubergine lasagne) was excellent.  It was what good tapas should be all about - simple food, well executed and with plenty of flavour.

Garlic king prawns were ok, though my friend wasn't too keen on pulling their heads off, which is something I find strangely satisfying.  The dish I was most looking forward too was the Morcilla with black pudding and chilli pineapple salsa.  Sadly, like the previous chorizo, the morcilla disappointed.  In fact, i'm pretty sure it wasn't morcilla at all, but bog-standard British black pudding.  Most people probably wouldn't have been able to tell the difference, but I could, it was drier and didn't crumble like the best morcilla i've had and the pineapple salsa just didn't work with it.

We had to pester the waiters to get us another bottle of wine whilst we waited for the two main dishes to arrive.  For some reason they decided to wait until three of us had finished our tapas before bringing out the paella and platter, which meant it was gone 11.00p.m. by the time it arrived!

Both the paella and platter contained a generous amount of fish.  I managed to nab a muscle and some squid when my friends weren't looking and both were good and tasty, which led to my inevitable food jealousy of not choosing the same...

We finished off the wine, got the bill (about £125 for 5, including 3 bottles of wine and the obligatory 12.5% service) and walked back up the hill home with a warm wine glow.

Overall, a good evening and I thought the buzz and vibe of the place compensated for the average food and slow service.  My friends enjoyed their meals, so it could be my Spanish food snobbery that has led me to be fairly critical and only rating the food average.

How i'd improve it

• The menu outside looked a bit shabby.  The case could do with a clean and it needs to lose the bluetac and things behind it.  It was also low down and so hard to read.
• The staff were really friendly, but could have been a bit more attentive.  We had to ask for more wine (twice) and also had to wait over an hour from arriving to getting our first dish.