Morito

I do love Spain and its Tapas bars. A whole night in some towns on a tapas crawl will leave you drunk and very nicely filled up as well.

It’s the diversity I love so much. Imagine a street lined with small bars that only do a few different plates, but do them well. You go from one to the other having a glass of wine or beer sampling what each bar does so well. A very good night indeed.

I’m amazed some shrewd businessman here hasn’t opened 3 or 4 tapas bars all within a ½ mile of each other, so we can have this mini tapas crawl in London. Hey if I had the cash I’d open them up. Does anyone want to join me ? All you have to do is put in the cash for my wonderful idea.

I’m surprised Brindisa or Moro haven’t done this. Or maybe Morito is just the first in a mini chain of Tapas bars around Clerkenwell. Hey you read it here first.

But this is what is kind of happening in Soho with Polpo et al, but they are more for the civilised dining scene, than the drunken tapas crawl I want to see here in London.

Anyhows away from my dream. The recent wedding bank holiday, we found ourselves around Exmouth market and very hungry. We was tempted to hit Caravan again, but I think twice in two days would be a bit much, or maybe not. But the better half wanted to try somewhere else. Amazingly this was the first time I’d seen space in Morito. Ever since it opened it has been packed to the rafters, which for a restaurateur is great, for a punter it’s a bloody nightmare.

A really unfriendly waiter seated us at the window. He obviously wanted to be watching the wedding. Thankfully he only told us where to sit, and had nothing more to do with us. Phew. He could have really ruined our meal.

To be honest I could have eaten the whole menu as it read so well. Lots of Moorish dishes to dive into and nourish your soul. We were in for a treat.

First off was an empanada. It was fried. I don’t like fried empanadas, I prefer them baked in the Argentine way. We didn’t particularly like it and cannot remember what its contents were. We were hoping this was just a glitch on the way to tapas heaven.

Next off were a brace of salt cod croquettes. They were smooth, creamy and fishy. Oh my god they were good. I wish we had ordered more of them, they were that delish.

The tablouleh salad was nice, but a tad under seasoned, but that is a personal thing on how much of the white powder we all need. I need more than others. It did however go very well with the lamb chops.

Those chargrilled fatty beauties were divine. Actually heaven on a plate. I love chargrilled lamb chops. When I used to work nights in the kitchens at Café Boheme, I used to steal a few and have them for a late night supper. Good times.

These chops were cooked to a lovely bloody pink, the flesh tasted so lamby and the fat had that slightly chargrilled taste, that just brought out the sweet lamby taste.

Lastly was a plate of botifarra. It was a must, not only because it was served on top of creamy white beans, but I kind of became addicted to them when we lived in Colombia.

The butifarra in Colombia, which mainly comes from la costa is normally served with Bollo de Yuca. Mashed yucca or cassava rolled in corn husks. You don’t normally find them outside of la costa region, but we found a place that sold them, and we ate there a lot. I do miss some things of Colombia.

I do love tapas, and only wish we had more of them closer together. Dreams. Let’s hope Morito is just a first stepping stone on the way to a tapas crawl that any Spaniard would be proud of.

Birthday Treats @ Moro

It has been so long since we were last at Moro’s, it really is quite sad indeed. When we first went there, it still had a big reputation of being full of tosser media types, and it was pretty full of those types back then.

Nowadays it doesn’t seem to attract those twats as it used to, although there were a few in when we arrived.

Everything else about Moro was just how we remembered it, from the warm welcome to the buzzy vibe, to the great food and that great kitchen. How I always wanted to work in there.

I really cannot understand why it has taken us over 5 years to return to Moro. I know it will not be as long before we return, but I’m pretty sure we said that last time.

I brought the first Moro cookbook when it came out, and have been regularly cooked from it for many a year now. Although I kinda prefer some of the recipes from Claudia Rodens Middle Eastern book. They have been cooked over many generations and have a long tradition. Moro’s recipes are modern and chic, just like the restaurant.

I wasn’t that hungry when we came to ordering, as we’d been house hunting in Herne Hill, and had a pretty good late breakfast in a small café near to the station, plus I wanted to save some room for the pud, so I passed on the starter.

Lina however was pretty keen to get stuck in. She was very glad that the dish she had the last time, which still haunts her even today. Scrambled egg and prawns was not on the menu.

This time she opted for a dish of mojama and wilted spinach. Mojama is dry cured loin of tuna, which is normally sliced very thinly and served with almonds and olive oil as a tapas snack in Madrid bars. Well that’s how I’ve had it before. Moro served it with some warm wilted spinach drenched in lush olive oil.

The mojama was not as dry as I remembered it, it had a slight tuna taste to it, but was as silky as the texture. A lovely starter, shame I wasn’t allowed but a few mouthfuls. But at £8.50, I wouldn’t have given her much either.

Our mains were wood roasted chicken with stuffed cabbage leaves and seasoned yoghurt, and the wood roasted seabass with cabbage puree and piquillo peppers cooked in white wine. Now that’s a mouthful.

My chicken was perfectly cooked, still very moist and not dried out, but it did lack any hint of being wood roasted. The cabbage leaves were stuffed with a lentil and rice pilaf, they were well cooked and well seasoned. The yoghurt dressing was nice and light and not too thin. A very easy dish to conjure up back home, but what sets Moro apart is the quality of the cooking.

From what I remembered of the Seabass (I was too involved in my chicken) was that it was again well cooked and well seasoned. The piquillo peppers were cut into slithers and were a treat indeed. I do love these small sweet spicy red angels. But I was blown away by the cabbage puree. Such a great cabbage taste, but yet so smooth and velvety. Wow. That would work well with a Sunday roast.

We shared the yoghurt cake with pistachios and pomegranate. This is how I remember yoghurt cake form the Middle East, with the added goodness of pistachios and pomegranate seeds on top, it was a great way to end a great meal.

The strangest thing is that the bill including service came to £88.88p. A most certain lucky bill. One I was happy to pay. It was a shame that our lottery numbers were not that lucky that night, or the fact that I got a bit of a roasting come Monday morning at work. It looks my good fortune was confined to a few hours on a Saturday night in a great restaurant on Exmouth Market.

Brunch @ Caravan

What can I say that hasn’t already been said about Caravan. Apart from saying the same as everyone else that it is great.

We hit Caravan around noon on a fine Sunday. The sun was out, the sky was blue and freshness was in the air. A glorious day.

The industrial interior of Caravan was heaving at the joints, but somehow we were found a good table by the window. Great for people watching. But I was distracted from my favourite past time by the fact that the girl on the table next to us kept bursting into tears over a telephone call from a soon not to be boyfriend. Good for her.

Anyhows back to the important stuff. The food and coffee. Well this is the reason why we were here, well that and just to enjoy ourselves.

The menu is pretty eclectic for brunch but damn fine reading it was. It was a toss up between the Caravan Fry-Up or the Grilled Ham, Bubble and Squeak, poached eggs and hollandaise sauce. I choose the former. Good choice, but I am sure the other would have been also. It will be next time.

Lina opted for the back pudding, caramelised apples on sourdough toast topped with a fried egg. I think she would have preferred the baked eggs, but that is for next time we eat here.

The food was excellent and well cooked. The flavours contrasted and worked well with each other. A hard feat for some chefs it seems these days.

The only let down was the coffee. It was pretty average to say the least. I had to have two just to make sure. Yeah it was so so. I could of gotten a similar cup across the road at Café Nero.

But apart from that, Caravan now tops my list over the Breakfast Club in Angel for breakfast cum brunch place in north London. Rock on.