Claire
Brunch on your doorstep
I opened my front door this morning to find this on the handle. In the seemingly never-ending competition between food start-ups I thought this was a great marketing tool - I actually read it before I put it in the bin. On offer and described by Time Out as 'Swanky Chef-made Meals' were Flat Iron steak, Artisan breads, Berlin Brunch which I had to look up, Truffle Mac'n'Cheese, Avocado sourdough, Club sandwich and Prosecco or Bloody Mary - all available at weekends from 11.30am to 10.00pm. But I won't be ordering because I will be making my own.
Dean Fryer - food hero and fisherman
Took dad for a drive to see his favourite east coast fisherman - Dean Fryer - one of Rick Steins food heroes. All fishermen are heroes in our minds - up at 2am seven days a week in good weather, with no guarantee of any income. We bought sea bass, rock eel, a lobster and some small dover sole. Within twelve hours of being caught the sea bass were on the barbecue.
What to eat in a Brexit.
Cameron ate a hot dog with a knife and fork, there was that famous bacon sandwich incident and now we are coming out of Europe what can we look forward to in the food-meets-politics scene? I'm off to Lidl before they run out of stock...
Morito moves East
Critically acclaimed Moro has little sisters and now we have one of them - Morito - living at the end of our road. With Brawn at the other end of the road I have hit the foodie jackpot for restaurants moving to this area of London, although at suffolkfoodie we rarely have deep enough pockets to go there more than once. Give me the pie and mash shops for dedication to service (about a hundred years of it) and value (still £3.50 for a home made lunch) But award-winning Moorish cuisine, rooted in Spanish and North African influences is hard to ignore, and the owners of Moro - Sam and Sam Clark - were locals once, they lived in the area too. So we booked our table, starting with three glasses of sherry (not each - there were three of us) advised by a waitress from Jerez, and quickly into a starter of dakos - a salad of tomatoes and soaked rye bread with fresh cheese, olives and anchovies. We then went through the tapas: octopus with fava puree, a succulent turbot steak with sherry vinegar and paprika, salt cod with purple potatoes, rabbit deep fried to a dry crunch with rosemary and moscatel vinegar, labneh with chillies and broad beans, and beetroot sweet herb borani with walnuts. It's all about the fresh quality ingredients and the interesting flavours here. The dessert we shared was filo pastry with gum mastic labneh and rhubarb. All of this and a glass of wine each amounted to £40 a head including service. I think we can afford to go back.
- beetroot, sweet herb borani and walnuts £6
- labneh, chillies and broad beans £7
- chicarrones - crispy pork belly £7.5
- dessert - filo, gum mastic labneh and rhubarb £7
- starter - dakos, fresh cheese, olives and anchovies £6.5
- salt cod, purple potato, quail egg and alioli £12
- the salt and spices on the table when we arrived
- turbot, sherry vinegar and paprika
http://kvchphxafwcdwtj.suffolkfoodie.co.uk/about-suffolkfoodie/who-we-are/itemlist/user/62-johnycakes.html?start=10#sigProId1ee244a389
VizEat - the new Air Bnb?
It looks exactly the same as AirBnb - it has the same format on it's website, but it's about food this time. Hooray! Now everyone can be a chef. I'm booking something tonight - this is what you can have in Barcelona - 'Pueees..., desde la tortilla de patata, pasando por el cus-cús, el cochinillo, un pescado con leche de coco y gengibre, gambas a la plancha, guacamole, musaka, rabo de toro, sushi...'
Cereal Killer Cafe
On Brick Lane, of course it's complete madness, but only because you didn't think of it first - and they have jobs!
White Men Can't Jerk
Oh yes they can! This was one of the nicest things at Meatopia with larger portions and a beautiful hot-sauce pineapple relish and so we had more than one. But of course we are biased - we are half Caribbean!
Mr (or Mrs) Cutlets Competition
The Mr Cutlets competition was Meatopia's chance for anyone to cook alongside some of the finest chefs from the UK and around the world to showcase a dish this year. The competition ran from 2nd July 2015 to 2nd August 2015 when the team selected a shortlist of six finalists to be invited to London to cook their dish. Two winners were selected from the finalists to cook at Meatopia 2015. Entry to the competition was open to everyone, from members of the public to aspiring young chefs and contestants who needed to supply details of their dish in advance. Inspector X entered and cooked a dish she created for the occassion - we often cook over a camp fire - Red Poll Shin and Tail, and made dumplings on the day. She wasn't selected - but she was the only girl!
Meatopia 2015
Founded in the USA and brought to the UK by Richard Turner of London butchers Turner and George, Meatopia is a festival of high quality, ethically sourced meat cooked over wood and charcoal in a weekend-long event of meat, drink, fire and music that we covered for SuffolkFoodie last year when we first went to Tobacco Dock for a day out and accidentally found ourselves surrounded by huge hunks of men, throwing huge hunks of meat on huge and hot blazing fires. But this year it was very different! A woman entered the competition to win a chance to cook at the event. And she made a stew. And it was our very own lovely, brave and intrepid Inspector X!! See Mr (or Mrs) Cutlets for the result!
Pork with bread sauce?
I'm just not sure about last nights show Nigel; it's a bit like roast lamb with Yorkshire puddings, they're not meant to be together, even if it has got apple in it. I like mine with baked red cabbage.