It's Not Tapas

Imagine for one moment a turd; not a pleasant image, I know. Imagine that this turd is then cut up into little bite-sized pieces before being artfully arranged in the middle of a small plate. There are some people who will tell you that this is tapas. It's not: it's shit on a plate.

With apologies to Jorge Valdano for bastardising his famous 'shit on a stick' rant.

Tapas @ Barrica

What is it about the letter B and Spanish food in London? Be it Barrafina, Brindisa, or the subject of this post, Barrica, all the good places seem to begin with the letter B. And true to form, Barrica is bloody good. Of the eleven or so tapas we sampled, there wasn't a single duff dish, which is unusual for a tapas joint.

Jamon Iberico Cebo (grain & acorn-fed ham)

Esparragos frecos (asparagus w/Manchego cheese)

Pierna de cerdo (grilled pork leg)

Tortilla

Albondigas (meatballs) and croquetas pescado (salt cod croquettes) 

Whilst naming a favourite dish is difficult, I can recommend perusing the Tapas del Dia (daily specials), as there's some seriously good stuff on there such as the pierna de cerdo (grilled pork leg w/paprika & garlic) and the esparragos fresco (asparagus w/Manchego cheese). Of those tapas not pictured, the pulpo a la Gallega (Galician-style octopus) and the patatas bravas are must orders.

There's a lot to like about Barrica, with its buzzy atmosphere and genuinely warm service. Although the bill came to £140 (including 12.5% service) between the three of us, it was good value given that we sampled eleven tapas, two bottles of red and a small bottle of sherry. Strip out the booze, and you can eat really well for around £25/head.



Barrica, 62 Goodge Street, London, W1T 4NE
(Tel: 020-7436-9448) Nearest tube: Goodge St

Action Against Hunger @ Fernandez & Leluu

It was my privilege to attend a charity event held at one of London's most renowned supper clubs, Fernandez & Leluu, last week. This event was hosted by unearthed to raise awareness and funds for Action Against Hunger, a humanitarian organisation committed to ending child hunger.

unearthed specialise in continental food and it was with their range of products that Fernandez & Leluu rustled up dinner. Much of unearthed's range has a Mediterranean bent so it was quite apt that Spain was the main inspiration for the menu. And what an inspired menu it proved to be...

To kick off, we had a selection of ham, Spanish potato omelette, oyster mushrooms, duck mousse and my favourite, pork rillettes. This was followed by sweetcorn veloute with chorizo film. So far so good.

Next up were flamenquines, made with pork loin, pepperoni and ham. I was a big fan of these meaty croquette-like tapas and they went really well with the mustard although the other herby dip was good too.

More pork in the form of meatballs followed. These were pepped up with cider and figs and were served with a Russian salad. These must have been good, as I forgot to take a photo of the salad!

By this stage of the evening, much wine had been consumed and if it wasn't for the rest of my table reminding me, I would've forgotten to take a photo of the Serrano ham salad with champagne poached pears. This was my favourite dish not least because of the amazing champagne poached pears. Sadly these are unavailable in the shops, as they are Fernandez & Leluu's own special creation.

There was yet more food to come in the form of baked rice, with chorizo, spare ribs, and probably some other stuff topped with tomatoes and potato slices. It was well worth the wait.

After this, I was quite full and would've been quite happy to call it a night but there was the small matter of dessert. I found some space for churros and chocolate, which was a great way to round off a great evening.

It was a shame that it was a school night, as I had to leave the party early. That said, I had a fantastic time and I'd like to thank Simon and Uyen for their excellent food and warm hospitality. I also feel more than a bit of a numpty for not having previously been to their wonderful supper club.

I'd also like to thank the other Simon from unearthed for holding this event and providing the ingredients. I was very impressed by the standard of the products, especially the pork rillettes, chorizo, meatballs, and Serrano ham.

If you'd like to do your bit for Action Against Hunger and have some fun at the same time, please check out their Fight Hunger Eat In campaign. Alternatively, if you buy any unearthed products in-store, 1p from each sale will be donated to this worthy cause.

Click here For Fernandez & Leluu's take on the evening and here for a recipe for those amazing Champagne poached pears.  

Tapas y Fideuá @ La Rueda (Spanish), London

I doubt very much if La Rueda on Clapham High St would have appeared on my radar but for the fact that it's one of the few places in London that serves up the Valencian noodle dish, fideuá. This tapas bar is more than a bit old fashioned with a very clichéd Spanish feel about it. It was so clichéd that you could imagine that you were in Spain albeit twenty years ago. Joining me for some tapas y fideuá on a Saturday night out was the Italian Shetland Pony, Dark Side and Miss Bolshy.

The décor wasn't the only thing retro about this place as our selection of tapas lacked the sophisticated sheen that you find in classier Spanish joints. That said what they lacked in quality, they made up for in quantity. Although as Miss Bolshy pointed out, they could afford to be generous with potatoes. Sadly they weren't as generous with the paprika and an insipid sauce accompanied the patatas bravas.

Of the rest, the seafood was the least worst. The calamares and sardinas a la plancha were passable with the pick of the bunch being the garlicky prawns in the gambas al pil pil. The rinones al jerez (kidneys in sherry sauce) was also OK but the accompaniment of chips puzzled me. There was also nothing wrong with the chorizo iberico but it isn't that hard to arrange some chorizo then wait for it to reach room temperature. I can't remember anything at all about the pollo al ajillo (chicken in garlic) or the empanadillas de atun (mini tuna pasties).

Following the unremarkable tapas was the fideuá, a dish that I have eaten just once before about ten years ago in Barcelona. I was therefore a bit nervous at rating this dish without much of a benchmark to measure it against. Thankfully, Italian Shetland Pony who as a frequent business visitor to Valencia was very familiar with fideuá was in attendance to provide expert opinion.

The fideuá de pollo y marisco included plenty of chicken and seafood. If anything our complaint was that there weren't enough noodles in this dish. Otherwise, it was a tasty moreish dish with the short fideo noodles absorbing the rich flavours of the abundant seafood. The lack of noodles aside, ISP thought it compared well to the fideuá, he had in Spain, although it was a good few years since he last ate it. A winner.

For once, there was room for dessert as I acceded to Miss Bolshy's request not to over order (I think she was still reeling from the ordering at 101 Thai Kitchen). Unfortunately, the desserts were the worse part of the meal; they had an artificial taste and feel and were most likely bought in. The low point was the cheap looking yellow vanilla ice cream (for some inexplicable reason, Dark Side thought it was mango flavour) that came with my tarta de Santiago. 

On the plus side, the restaurant was very buzzy and full of large groups having a good time. It was at this moment, I realised that people didn't come here to track down fideuá, they came to carry on partying. In fact being a tapas bar, it's ideal for those groups where some want to carry on boozing whilst others want to eat. 

Service was OK although it did deteriorate as the evening wore on as evidenced by a cock-up in the coffee order that left Miss Bolshy without her cappuccino. The cost was a not unreasonable £25/head including a round of drinks and service.

Verdict: Whilst fideuá is rare in London and La Rueda knocks out a decent version, it isn't that good that you'd pay a special visit to this dated tapas bar.   

Other Stuff: Birthday parties are well catered for here as they do the whole ‘lights off, cake with candles, waiters’ singing Happy Birthday’ routine.

PS: The search for fideuá continues - please let me know if you spot these Spanish noodles in London.

Off The Blog 2

Here's another round-up of some places that I enjoyed 'off the blog'. As with my previous round-up, these are places that I liked but for one reason or another, I didn't give them the full blog treatment.

Despite living all my life in Britain, I'm pretty ambivalent to the charms of the native cuisine. I guess it's because I grew up eating home cooked Chinese food and my experiences of school dinners nearly put me off British food for life. That and an intolerance to some dairy products means that I can never enjoy gwei-chaan, in the same way as a gweilo can. A weird side effect of my upbringing is that I view British food with a degree of exoticism, which means I like it as a change from my usual diet of rice and noodles.

For 'a decent British', Canteen, where I had a breakfast of bacon, eggs and bubble & squeak at their Royal Festival Hall branch, is none too shabby. A special mention goes to their front of house as they dealt with a long delay caused by a table number mix-up with courtesy and charm. I almost felt guilty in accepting my breakfast for free. They were indirectly rewarded as I went to their Baker St branch for lunch, which I preferred to their breakfast. I really enjoyed my pint of prawns, smoked haddock w/mash, and apple crumble. My dining companions also liked their kippers, pies, and cheese plate although they reckon it wasn't as good as the best home cooked British food.

Whilst I liked Canteen, the best 'British' I've been to this year is Medcalf whose pig cheeks, parsnip & bramley apple is one of the finest starters I've eaten since I started blogging. As the Chinese are the masters of duck, I usually avoid it in places like this but the barbary duck, rosti & wild mushrooms was a winner too. Dessert in the form of Bakewell tart was in danger of giving British food a good name! With an ever-changing seasonal menu, I definitely recommend making a trip to this restaurant that's located in Clerkenwell's Exmouth Market. 

Canteen

Medcalf

Now I don't know whether it was because she felt sorry at my indifferent soup noodle experience there or whether it was because she caught me casting envious glances at her bibimbap but Catty kindly invited me to Koba for a Korean BBQ. Joining us was The London Foodie and Dr G and we all enjoyed the BBQ including bulgogi (sirloin slices), kalbi (beef short rib) and baby octopus. 

It isn't just about the BBQ here and whilst I left the most of the ordering to the others, I did insist on the pajun, as this seafood pancake is one of my favourites. It was very good here and not at all greasy but for a more 'grown-up' starter, I really liked the yook hwei. Raw beef and pear with a raw egg cracked on top may sound rank but it was surprisingly delicious. I can fully understand why Catty lives here eats here all the time.

Koba is in the foodie paradise of Fitzrovia, where most foodie needs are catered for on Rathbone St and Charlotte St. But if you’re not in the mood for Korean then I 'kind of' recommend nearby Fino for tapas. I say 'kind of' because I think the subterranean dining room is over-lit and the bar looks like it belongs in a nondescript business hotel. Most of this can be forgiven by its superior tapas of which my favourites include; grilled octopus, Spanish cold meat platter, and tuna tatar. I'm still a little undecided about this place and it's also bloody expensive.

Koba
Fino

To round off this edition of 'Off The Blog', I'm recalling a late January night when I ended up going for a pit-stop part way through a stag night. That's what I've become, even when I'm seven sheets to the wind, I’m thinking about the blog. Noodle Bar is on Cranbourne St inbetween the twin hells of Leicester Square and Covent Garden and their USP is their Lanzhou-style hand pulled noodles aka la-mian.

I stood transfixed watching the noodle maker convert a block of dough into la-mian to go into a bowl of soup with roast duck. Sadly, the duck was a bit tired and the soup was full of MSG but frankly standards are lower when you're pissed so I didn't really care at the time. Besides the noodles were the best tasting work of art, I've eaten in a long time.

The other guys I was with couldn't wait for a bowl of noodles so they went for a selection from the buffet counter where lurid sweet and sour pork and other take-away classics lurked. I must confess I went for a giant spring roll whose greasiness soaked up yet more of the booze. For a proper assessment, I need to come back here when I'm able to walk in a straight line.

Off The Blog

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been lucky enough to eat out a lot (and I mean a lot) - in theory this means loads of posts. However with Christmas looming, I have precious little time to actually write them. So with the exception of my review of Red 'N' Hot, you'll have to wait until the New Year for tales of my festive dining.

In the meantime, here's another one I made earlier – a round-up of three great restaurants that I enjoyed 'off the blog'. I don't post about every restaurant I visit as blogging can be hard work and sometimes I just want to relax. Then there are those meals when it isn't really appropriate to blog ! Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that I really liked these places even though I didn't give them the full blog treatment.

Like English footballers with natural flair, high-end contemporary Portuguese restaurants in London aren't all that common. To stretch this painful analogy further, Portal on St John St is the 'Joe Cole' of Portuguese restaurants and it certainly deserves more acclaim. This classy and understated Clerkenwell restaurant really shines with a beautiful conservatory and warm efficient service.

The food is excellent too and I enjoyed my three courses of fish soup, suckling pig with pumpkin galette and the poshest pasteis de nata ever. Around the table, others enjoyed the grilled venison with chestnut & mushroom ravioli and the braised bisaro with sweet potato mash.

grilled quail, photo courtesy of The Catty Life

If Portal is one of London's hidden gems, the same can't be said about Roka on Charlotte St. No one seems to have a bad word to say about this modern Japanese restaurant and it largely lives up to the hype. The restaurant sells itself on dishes from its open robata grill but the sushi and sashimi are also exceptional.

If you can, go for one of the tasting menus – highlights include wagyu sushi, grilled scallop skewers, grilled quail (pictured – thanks Catty) and their giant dessert platter. It's not cheap but I struggle to find much wrong with this buzzy restaurant and I'm usually very suspicious of over-stylised Asian places. In short, one of the best places I've eaten at since I started blogging.



In contrast to Roka and Portal, Camino is an everyday kind of place which won't break the bank. It's easily the best bar in the King's Cross area (not hard I know) and its location in the Regent Quarter development will take you far away from the grimy streets of the Cross.

The food is above par too - you can either order tapas at the bar or dine in the restaurant where they serve an excellent value set lunch (£15 for 3 courses). But what I really like about this place is its cracking selection of affordable Spanish wine (especially the red). Oh and they have 'proper' table footy where you can re-enact Barcelona v Real Madrid.