London Grub

New finds from the latest trip to London….

Meat sweats after a plate full of barbeque at Pitt Cue Co. It’s dining area is tiny and you have to queue at the door when it opens but the smoked pig cheek with green chilli slaw was worth it. Based on the buzz though the best thing on the menu is the pulled pork so I’ll have to queue again next visit.

If you’re going to Spittalfields market then go to this wrap stall. Cheap and delicious. I had haloumi and aubergine loaded with garlic and tahini. For breakfast.

And finally if you do nothing else at all go to Brick Lane market on a Sunday and hit the world food stalls. This mixed plate was only £5 and it could have fed two. I landed up plonked on the pavement to eat it and it was the best thing I had all weekend.

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Teen Canteen

This week I came across a new pop up dining event with a special focus on community. The enterprising students of Linlithgow Academy are setting up a temporary restaurant that for the next week will be serving delicious food to the local inhabitants and visitors to Linlithgow. I was inspired by their enthusiasm and determination so I decided to help spread the word by asking them a few questions about the project…

Q: Can you tell me a bit about the project, the people involved and what you’re hoping to achieve?

A: In January 2013 the BBC came to our school and asked us to set up a takeaway – that’s all they said and we were left to decide, fundraise and advertise all by ourselves. Our management team is a real mix of people but that makes it all the better! We’re aiming to create a “Guilt Free Night Off for Mums” whilst being healthy, easy and having the ability to personalise the customer’s food to their tastes. The project has taught us so many things – I can now budget, work to schedules and I’m (a bit) less clumsy and messy than beforehand. I genuinely believe everybody taking part has learned something that will help them in later life. What we want to achieve is a redefinition of takeaway – we’re not a greasy chippy or a repetitive pizza place. We’re taking the essentials of speed and easiness whilst providing food of a restaurant standard using locally sourced ingredients. Community has also always been important for us and we’ve attempted to show this in many ways. We held assemblies at the local primaries to discuss local sourcing and how to help farmers in the area; we’ve used produce from nearby where possible and asked the townspeople to invest in the business.
Q: What happens after the week is over?

A: After the week is over us sixth years get back to normal life – which involves very little school work and quite a lot of parties. We’re still unsure of what do do with the profits – ideas have been putting it to local charities, spending it on our ball and holding an event to thank everyone who helped us. However, an idea I really like is to set up something memorable. Whether this is a community garden where people can learn to grow and produce food or it is a fund to spend teaching children in town about food I’m not too sure, but I really want the legacy of Teen Canteen to last beyond the week we are running. The potential is massive and we’ll make sure to take advantage of it!
Q: What type of food will you be serving and do you have any food heroes that have inspired you?

A: We decided to cook Scottish Soul Food – our own unique genre. It involves using the best Scottish ingredients available to us, cooked long and slow with plenty of passion and flavour. It’s the homely food that everyone craves when it’s cold outside and a proper family meal. The food doesn’t necessarily need to be Scottish ‘themed’. E.g. we have a smoky meatball stew and salsa verde on our menu. The main thing is it’s all been made using the best ingredients the country can offer. We’ve been inspired by quite a lot of people after some trips we made. Tom Lewis at Monachyle Moor showed us how prime ingredients can make the best food when treated simply and Ross Baxter of Dunbar bakery showed us how community and food can be linked so closely. Most importantly though, the two chefs who we have worked with closely, who have advised us and helped us understand the practicality of our ideas; Fiona Buchanan and Jonathan Macdonald of Scoop Events in Glasgow. They both helped us go from a bunch of teenagers with some crazy ideas, to teenagers who understand the food business and how we can turn the ideas we have into reality.

Q: West Lothian isn’t an obvious choice for an underground dining event. If you had a choice between staging the canteen in Linlithgow or Edinburgh would you swap?

A: I think we would stay with Linlithgow – the idea of our business being immersed in the community is key to the project and it works perfectly in a small town such as ours. Even though the project may gain more popularity and make us more money in a city, I believe that it’s going to bring so much more to here where everyone talks to each other and cares about their hometown. In my mind, our project should become a flagship and do two things, the first is it should prove to the population teenagers can be proactive and actually accomplish something and secondly it can inspire more people to try this – whether that is a school wide thing like us or simply a bunch of friends who are going to make some good food and take it to their local market to sell. In a city I think we would lose this ability to inspire. We are totally unique in Linlithgow whereas in cities this has been done before, just not by kids!

If like me you’d like to go along and try some Scottish Soul Food or help spread the word, you can find details about the canteen via the links below.

teen canteen

Linlithgow Academy

Brae Head Road

EH49 6EH

http://www.teencanteen.org/

http://www.facebook.com/teencanteen.linlithgow

Twitter- @Teen_Canteen

 

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You dont have to eat cardboard

First of all… people of Britain, if you’re travelling to London from Scotland or vice versa, pay attention. Service station food can be edible! Not all service station food, and in fact not most, but if you are travelling on the M6 between junction 38 and 39 you’re in luck.

We were driving down to London for the weekend and I couldn’t face the thought of a six hour drive punctuated by fast food that tastes like cardboard so I went searching for foodie spots close to the motorway we could stop at instead. It turns out there is an independent service station in Britain! With a farm shop! And cake!

Westmoreland (aka Tebay Services) is accessible in both directions and it has a cafe which we were pleased to find serving proper breakfast and baked goodies with a stunning view of the countryside. I’ll be honest my scone wasn’t brilliant (think it had been baked a while earlier and got a bit tired and heavy by the time I got to it but I never understand how anyone gets scones to stay fresh for more than an hour out of the oven) but the cooked breakfast using fresh local ingredients was delicious. The only thing we didn’t like was the black pudding but it serves us right for trying to eat it outside of Scotland (sorry England its just better here).

And despite the hour the farm shop next to the cafe was open, complete with butcher, shelves full of interesting jars and loads more baked goods to take with you (good if you happen to hit the cafe at an hour when your stomach isnt quite ready for the table full of cake – or in reality you’re greedy enough to need seconds later on). I’m so pleased the Dunning family decided to create this place and looking forward to my next trip south!

Right now second of all…. you need to stay on that M6 and get yourself to London even if only for one day. However, it must be a Sunday. This is non-negotiable. Now get to Waterloo and head for Blackfriars Street and The Laughing Gravy, for the best Sunday roast in… no just the best Sunday roast full stop.

This is not a gross exaggeration I promise. Friends took us here for the first time this weekend and I spent most of the journey back to Edinburgh trying to decide whether it was frivolous to spend the rest of my salary on weekly trips to London just to spend all my Sunday afternoons in front of their plate of Roast Aberdeen Angus beef onglet.

This beef is prepared with love. Talk about slow food… its soaked in a locally brewed London porter beer, itself based on a 100 year old recipe that the brewers researched… for a week. I have checked this again with the pub since I got home to make sure I wasn’t so punch drunk on beef happiness that I was hearing things and its true I promise.

Besides the unusual cut of meat and the week long marinade in porter, the beef is served in a heavenly red wine gravy that starts off in a pot big enough to bath in and reduces down ever so slowly to just  a few litres. The exact recipe is a secret of course. To top it off there are beef dripping roast potatoes alongside fresh vegetables and a big spongy delicious Yorkshire pudding to dunk. I also recommend you start your Sunday brunch with a Laughing Gravy Bloody Mary or a Bloody Shame (the non-alcoholic version and not a shame at all) and you add a portion of their slow roast tomatoes which are equally delicious. This is a meal worth travelling for.

So hopefully I’ve convinced a few new customers to go and support these places so they’re still there when I next want to pop in and hopefully a few chefs in Edinburgh will read this and take on the challenge to better the LG Sunday roast so I don’t have to bankrupt myself with weekly trips to London (pleeeeeeaaase)!

♥

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A night out with friends

Some (slightly dark) pictures from the food geeks November dinner at Cafe Saint Honore…

I cant think how to describe the night without sounding annoyingly gushing but it really was amazing. Four courses of excellent locally sourced produce, all served as communal pass around dishes and topped off with some lovely Highland Park whisky and even better food chat (and a sniff of the house sour dough starter!) . The perfect night.

I cant wait to go back, I just hope I get left alone again with the chewy bits stuck to the apple crumble dish and the last of the vanilla ice cream next time.

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Comings and Goings

I was looking through the pictures on my phone and realised Ive been storing up a raft of food snaps that Ive taken whilst out and about over the last month or so. So I’m doing something useful with them and mentioning a few foodie spots around Edinburgh (and beyond) that I would recommend as worth a visit.

The most recent (Im going back to front here) treat was a candle lit dinner for two at Steak.

At last.

I have been dying for an excuse to get there and it didnt disappoint one bit. This picture of my pretty and delicious smoked salmon mousse (with cucumber jelly and beetroot), was the only semi-usable image I remembered to take before I got completely side tracked by my Black Isle Ribeye steak with Bearnaise sauce and buttered greens that followed… nom. Oh, and then on top of all that I had rhubarb crème brulee which was equally nom. Sorry, the camera had been completely discarded by then so you’ll have to use your imagination.

Before my dinner at Steak, I had the luck of being invited to the relaunch of the new menu at The Old Bell restaurant on the south side of town.

My highlight of the evening was this dish which consisted of clams with borlotti beans and herbs, in a very delicate white wine and garlic sauce. I don’t know why now that I’ve tried it, but I would never have thought to serve beans as a side to clams in this way and it was so simple but full of flavour at the same time.

I have been thinking about it ever since and trying to remember each element so I can try to recreate it at home. I like food that makes you jealous because you wish you had invented it yourself.

Now, before the steak… and the clams… I had some damn good ice cream.

B. Janetta’s Italian gelato from their little shop in St Andrews. I’m sorry to betray the gelaterias in my own city but I havent been in one in Edinburgh that has the volume and creativity of flavours you can find in this one (if there are any Gelateria owners currently reading this who think I have just missed out on your shop I would be more than happy to be proved wrong and find that I have something better on my doorstep so please feel free to correct me should you feel I am doing you a disservice).

I chose buttered pecan ice cream which would have been delicious just on its own but I went OTT and had it topped with caramel crunch pieces and toffee sauce.

See what I mean?

Last but absolutely not least, I managed to get round to another foodie event Ive been managing to miss out every month due to a combination of bad timing and a slow trigger finger (the tickets are gone within minutes of being released).

I finally went to Burgher Burger! The three course menu for BB9 started with this bowl of freshly made miso soup full of crunchy veg and zingy ginger. It might seem odd that I’ve mentioned the soup first when the whole thing is about the burger but it made me realise the miso soup I have tried in the past was frankly, rubbish. I wish someone had given me this one the first time I tried it. Unfortunately the lovely mood lighting also meant it was too dark by mains to capture my beautiful handmade burger with mushroom ketchup and parmesan crisp but all I’m saying is that tickets for BB10 are being released tomorrow and I will be hovering over my keyboard with trigger finger at the ready.

Take my ticket and you’re dead! ♥

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A secret worth sharing

I’m breaking my own rule about food blogs without pictures. I did something fun and food related last weekend which I intended to write about here afterwards but as it turned out I was enjoying myself so much at the time I forgot to take any pictures, even dodgy fuzzy iphone shots. Still, I just cant go without writing something about it but I’ll keep this brief.

On Saturday I went to my first supper club, one of the last to be hosted by Aoife of MyHomeSupperClub (recently rebranded Jelly+Gin and organising other pretty cool pop up dining events if you’re interested). If you dont know what a supper club is just google it – others have already written long and interesting articles and I said I would be brief.

Tickets for most supper clubs sell out in seconds and I have been dying of excitement since I booked them a couple of months ago. I was excited but also equally unsure whether I would enjoy eating dinner in someone’s lounge with a table of strangers, but as you can probably tell it turned out well.

Maybe I got lucky with my dinner companions but it was very relaxed and not awkward at all. Of course nothing to do with the delicious green tea bubbly on arrival and several glasses of red wine after… mildly pished, ahem. Thankfully I didnt follow through on my cunning plan to nick the table cloth and pudding bowls which I took quite a fancy to.

Most importantly of all the tea inspired menu was delicious (chai pannacotta and rhubarb sorbet for pudding… dribble) and unlike a restaurant meal, I have a much better chance of bribing the chef for the recipes.

Unfortunately the next MyHomeSupperclub in May will be the last one for at least a while so I’ll have to go and try a few of the other ones in Edinburgh instead (probably a good thing as I think I would have got quite attached), but I just thought I’d write this short message to thank Aoife and her husband for their hospitality and let you know that the supper club is a secret worth sharing.

Just dont share it too far… I’ll never get tickets if you all start going!

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Cake…Cake…Mark Greenaway.

I’m full of the back to work depression and too lazy to write this week but I had such a cornucopia of good cake last week, and one hell of a good lunch at Restaurant Mark Greenaway so I present you instead a dribble inducing week in pictures and urge you try out these three establishments at the earliest opportunity.

That is all.

Pear and Almond cake from Frederick’s coffee house  – great cake and a sunny spot by the window with a nosy view of the street below.

♥

Cake overload at French fancies with the Edinburgh Cake Ladies – seriously delicious patisserie and charming owners.

♥

And last but not least….

One seriously good lunch at Restaurant Mark Greenaway. How can the man not win Great British Menu!?

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Stinky cheese and a Raspberry Cloud

I don’t know which I’d rather have… a wander round the goodies at a farmer’s market, or a wedge of really good cake.

The good news is I got both. I finally made it to Earthy Foods yesterday for a spot of indoor market shopping and lunch in their cafe, and since we were nearby we dropped in to Tea at 94 afterwards for a spot of cake.

These photos don’t need much explanation but if, like me, you think bliss is browsing mountainous piles of fresh veg, charcuterie, home made condiments and preserves and a deliciously stinky cheese counter (the cheese not the counter or the staff behind it I should clarify), then Earthy is worth a nose.

The market cafe downstairs serves some equally delicious lunch and some seriously good looking cakes. The only reason we chose to have our cake elsewhere was because it was a little draughty* so we started to get a bit chilly by the end of our meal but had I been in a slightly warmer jumper I would definitely have stayed for the chocolate cake. Next time… I’m on it.

So instead we rounded things up at Tea at 94 with a scone and a slice of Raspberry Cloud (a curious but tasty combination of pastry base topped with sponge cake and raspberry icing). This cosy little cafe isn’t as trendy or as busy as places like loopy lorna’s yet but personally I would rather get a seat, charming service and decent cake.

Nom nom nom…

* Earthy just advised me that their door heater is on the blink and hopefully fixed soon so don’t worry about an extra jumper if you plan to visit!

You can find Tea at 94 at 94 Buccleuch Street or on facebook or twitter.

The Earthy Foods website has all you need to know about their market shops and how to find them.

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Arrivederci…

It’s nearly time to go…

I’m finally off to get married in Gozo and then use my honeymoon to eat my way around Sicily. So because I might not be able to post anything for a month I decided to write one final bumper post – a collage of pictures and recipes from the last two weeks of last minute chaos which have stopped me writing all the things I wanted to post on their own.

I did somehow find time in amongst work and wedding preparations to eat a lot of delicious things and even make a few of them myself. So this is my week in pictures…

Roseleaf – Ruby red risotto and a Madhatter!

Great little restaurant down near the docks in Edinburgh which has hats all over the walls, serves cocktails in teapots and produces some seriously good food. The Madhatter cocktail is brilliant!

Cheese and Cherry Scones (adapted from Goodfood magazine)

Not together, a batch of half cheese and the other half cherry. Remember that amazing scone recipe I mentioned…

• 450g self raising flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 100g cold butter, diced
• 284ml buttermilk, halved into two portions
• 2 tbsp milk plus extra for glazing
• 2 tbsp caster sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 50g glace cherries, chopped
• 50g mature cheddar, grated
• 1/2 tsp sweet paprika

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Combine flour, 1/2 tsp salt and bicarb and rub in the butter until it resembles breadcrumbs. Put half this mixture in another bowl.

For the cheese ones, add the rest of the salt, cheese and paprika. For the cherry ones, add the cherries, sugar and vanilla. Now mix in half the buttermilk and milk into each one and bring together to form a soft dough. Press out on a lightly floured surface to about 2cm thick and cut out with cookie cutters to form rounds. Place on a floured baking tray, brush the tops with milk and bake for 12-15min until golden and risen.

Chocolates, Calissons, Marzipan Fruit & Marron Glacé

A very generous gift of Puyricard Delicacies in return for the cakes I bring in to work when I’m in the mood bake.

Cherry & Coconut Cakes – made these as a birthday cake for Dawn last week

• 225g butter
• 225g self  raising flour
• 225g caster sugar
• 4 eggs, lightly beaten
• 50g glace cherries
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 4 tbsp warmed cherry or strawberry jam
• 100g desiccated coconut

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Butter a 12 hole muffin tin. Cream the butter and sugar and beat in the eggs one at a time. add the vanilla. Fold in the flour and chopped cherries and pour into the muffin tin. Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden and cooked through. Remove and turn out on to a wire rack to cool. Dip the tops into the warmed jam and then the coconut.

♥

And last but not least… The Daddy Steak Sandwich

• 2 large rump steaks
• 2 long ciabatta rolls
• 1 punnet of chestnut mushrooms
• 1 red onion, sliced
• splash of balsamic vinegar
• 1tsp english mustard powder
• 1tsp wholegrain mustard
• 2tbsp mayonnaise

Fry the onions and mushrooms together until soft. Add a splash of balsamic vinegar and continue to fry gently until the liquid has evapourated. Season and fry the steak until medium rare (usually a couple of minutes each side, depending on how thick your steak is). Combine the mustards and mayonnaise and spread on both halves of the warmed rolls. Add the steak and top with mushrooms and onions. Ta da!

Speak to you all in a month, wish me luck!

♥

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The Ship

I’ve found my new favourite seafood restaurant. We landed up in The Ship by wandering along the waterfront at Edinburgh’s shore looking for some Sunday grub and it turned out to be a lunch worth writing home about.

The setting is a a cosy little pub style restaurant with a few tables on the roadside overlooking the canal and a simple but elegantly decorated interior with white roses and candles in champagne bottles on the tables. The menu has a range of dishes that offer everything from a casual lunch to a full seafood feast in the form of the Fruits de Mer Royale.

We went for the Grilled Queen Scallops with Citrus & Tarragon Butter and the Ship’s Prawn Cocktail to start, both of which didn’t disappoint. I have only had scallops a handful of times before and never been that impressed but they were deliciously tender and full of citrussy flavour. I have to say I think I still favour mussels and oysters over scallops but these were definitely edible! The prawn cocktail was your standard baby prawns in marie rose sauce but topped with a few whole prawns in their shells. Again I think there are more delicious starter options on the menu I would try next time (like a Half Dozen Loch Creran Oysters with Parmesan Chilli Basil Crust – hello!) but if its prawn cocktail you want then this is for you.

For our main meal we followed this up with the Hoegaarden Battered Haddock with Mushy Peas & Chips and the Steak & Caramelised Red Onion Toasted Sandwich with Ship’s Chips (ship’s chips turned out to be simple chunky potato wedges in case you’re wondering). As you can tell by my sterling camera work I was enjoying my fish enough to barely remember to take a photo and not to spend much time getting a good shot which you can take as a good sign.

The fish was well cooked and light and the mushy peas were fresh and minty, unlike the khaki mush you often get in a pub where the peas have been boiled to within an inch of their sad little existence. The tiny mouthful of steak sandwich which I managed to pilfer before it disappeared, was tender and perfectly perked up by the tart red onion relish (again, too busy with my fish to waste time on the perfect picture).

Finally, crème brulee. Creamy custard, crackly sugar…nuff said.

If its not already obvious by this review, this is a great find with a  lovely atmosphere and simple, fresh seafood. I’m definitely going to make a repeat visit.

Need to get my hands on those oysters…

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