Nazca in Bogotá

Peru is well known as one of the gastronomical capitals in Las Americas. Unfortunately when I was in Peru, we really were travelling on the cheap and ate some really bad and cheap food in some bad restaurants. A real shame.

When we were in Bogotá we visited Lina’s cousin, and he recommended we go to a Peruvian restaurant called Nazca for some brunch.

My recollection of Nazca in Peru left sour notes in my mouth, as we were nearly robbed in that unfortunate town. Only famous because of the ancient culture who resided there many many years ago. It’s not a town I will return to.

Fortunately this Nazca in La Zona Gourmet of North Bogotá is a place where I would return in an instant.

The décor is slick and modern, upstairs in the front are some very comfortable sofas where you can and we did spend a few hours chatting and eating some delicious food. Downstairs you can sit either in the garden or inside. All quite formal, we preferred the sofas.

As we were new to the restaurant and in the hands of a regular diner we let Alonso order for us. He came up trumps.

We were treated to four sharing plates, each with four samplers on. Two of which were fish, one fried and one cold plate, and one hot meat plate which had a great piece of ox heart. I love offal. Of course we had a desert plate. All were fantastic, except I cannot bring myself to eat fish with Parmesan cheese. Not very Peruvian I know.

The fish was really fresh and the sauces they were coated in were a perfect match. Unfortunately I cannot remember all what we had as after 5 quiet strong Pisco Sours my memory is kinda patchy. The Peruvian’s like their Pisco blended with egg whites, lemon juice and topped off with some sugar syrup. Which is in stark contrast to the Chilean way of only mixing it with lemon juice and sugar to taste. I have to admit the Peruvian way is more delicate and a lot tastier. That is why 5 went down so easily.

All in all it was a fun afternoon with some great conversation, good food in good surroundings. What more can you ask for in life.

Nazca

Calle 74, No. 5-28

Bogotá

www.restaurantenazca.com

Andres, Carne de Res

I had heard of this restaurant from my wife’s cousin amongst others. It’s a real Bogotá institution. Every person who has spent anytime there has eaten there at least once. Some it is a weekly experience.

We were taken there as a treat after a day of hard day of sight seeing at The Salt Cathedral. Inside these salt mines they have carved out many large outstanding halls. It kinda reminded me of the …………. In Lord of the Rings. It’s pretty impressive, but still kinda weird. They can hold mass for over 3000 people, and a lot of people get married there.

So after this bizarre place we were taken to Andres, Carnes de Res. This restaurant can hold well over 300 people in one sitting. I so pity the chefs there. When we arrived, it was pretty empty. But still had more people then most restaurants I know in London have when they are busy.

It’s decorated to such an extent with small kitsch objects that strangely it actually works. Certain sections even have street names. The menu is vast and takes a while to go through. It’s contained in a machine that you have to roll it up and down.

I took a stroll around and had ganders at the kitchen. All wood burning stoves. Boy it was hot just standing on the other side. Never mind being behind those stoves for a busy shift on a Friday or Saturday night. All the little knick-knacks that make up the decoration you can buy in the small shop at the other end of the restaurant. Most of it would look out of place anywhere but here.

As I had been eating too much food recently I decided on Sanchoco. Basically chicken soup. Chicken portions (mainly leg) cooked and served in its own broth with a few vegetables and potatoes thrown in for luck. This one was a house speciality and it contained some pork leg and pork ribs. It was delish, and the best one I had ever had. Most of the time the broth is made up with a stock cube, and the chicken is either over cooked or dreadfully undercooked.

Everyone else had large cuts of beef. In fact they were so big that one plate would have fed two or three people in London.

Even though I only had chicken soup, I was stuffed. But thankfully I had not had the meat option. Just to prove how bizarre the place is the bill came in a shoe cleaners box with a magnifying glass for the people who cannot believe how expensive the bill is. Thankfully we were not paying. Gracias Ricardo for a fantastic day.

When we left which was about 6pm, it was really starting to fill up, and it stays open till 3am. I said goodbye to the chefs, and hoped they had an easy shift.

Till the next time Andres, Carne de Res ………….

A Day of Bad Food

I have flown on so many airlines now, that it has got to be quite dull to fly. It just doesn’t excite me as it once did. That’s what you get for working as a travel agent for 5 years.

We flew with Continental from London to Bogotá, via Newark airport. I have flown with them a few times before and the food was better than this. As per usual on planes it’s either a choice of Chicken or Beef. The beef meal was a lasagne, which ran out long before the stewardesses reached us near the back of the plane. So we were all left with the chicken meal. It was rank. Some soggy rice, with some chicken(ish) rissoles in what was meant to be crispy breadcrumbs. But alas it was soggy and tasteless. I pitied the bird that had a wasted life to feed me this rubbish meal. The cabbage salad was the highlight. Now that is saying something. But at least I had the first two Godfather films to keep me entertained.

Newark airport is a fast food gorgers delight. Shocking. As it took us over an hour to go through immigration, we were not left a lot of time to actually eat something. But I knew the Brooklyn Brewery had a bar there, so thought we might get a decent burger with some good beer. How wrong we were. The beer was really good. Brewed at a microbrewery in Brooklyn. Nice colour and taste, and went down well. Thankfully so as the burger and fries were actually microwaved. Big let down, as the place had that dodgy pub/bar feel to it. So actually the food fitted.

If we had of had more time, there are one or two other places that we could have gone to but alas pointless US immigration and customs prevented us.

The flight from New York to Bogotá was with a wrap a la Mexicana. The sauce was hot and spicy and improved the otherwise bland flavours.

Thankfully Bogotá fed us well. More on that in the next blog.

The Breakfast Club

What do you expect from a place that calls itself the Breakfast Club, apart from really good breakfasts. Well, that’s what you get. There is normally a queue outside with people waiting to get in. Which is always a good sign… For me, I don’t mind queuing but for others who have no patience it is a problem. Their loss.

It’s a fun, quirky place, lot’s of 80’s memorabilia on the walls, which was my teenage decade. Good and bad memories…. There are two other branches, one in Soho and one in Hoxton.

They have a varied menu, consisting of all the funtime breakfast favourites and a few other ones thrown in for good luck. The afternoon menu has a lot of burgers, jacket potatoes etc. The burgers are made in house and are really good. Disappointing are the lack of potato wedges that came with it. I want more.

But it was just the breakfasts that kept me coming back. Well actually I only ever had the Full Monty. I’m a sucka for a good breakfast, and when I find something I like, I stick with it. They have the largest sausages ever and some quality black pudding.

Lina has varied her menu, well she is the experimental one after all. The Eggs Benedict were well cooked, the eggs had that perfect tear drop shape that everyone likes. The Hollandaise was not as good as mine, but I have made several thousand litres. Kinda perfected it now. The Huevos Rancheros were not as I remember them in Mexico, but for this small corner of North London they were perfect.

Now, I wish I had eaten there more often than I did as in all my visits to Colombia, I have never seen sausages or good bacon on sale anywhere. What they call sausages is a hot dog sausage. So my full English in Colombia is gonna be a tad short. Or maybe I make then myself. This is an idea I have been playing with for a while. I’m not sure if they have Heinz baked beans either. Can life get any worse? Hahaha.

Well at least I know if things do not work out here, there is a Full English waiting for me ….. 

FoodLab - Food of Love

I have been meaning to post this bog for ages now, but with the hassle of getting everything ready for our move to Colombia, everything not connected was put on the back burner….

We discovered The FoodLab which is set within a nice stretch of Essex Road. Quite near a good green grocer, good butcher and a very good fishmonger. A rarity in London these days.

We ate there on several occasions, either for breakfast, brunch or midweek lunch and the food was always lovingly made and served in its own individual style, all with the usual Italian flair. The restaurant (if you could call it that, as it feels more like an upmarket café) is decorated in true rustic Italian fashion, with the veg and fruits littering the shop. You regularly see the chefs taking their supplies of veg and fruit back to the kitchen to prepare a dish …

The FoodLab is only open in the morning for breakfast and stays open till about late afternoon. It has become a popular spot for lunch, especially so as it’s a stones throw away from Upper Street. The portions are quite large, which is good. The prices are good also. What more could you ask for …

The Full Italian Breakfast consists of pancetta, Italian sausages, and some homemade beans, eggs, as well as some great bread. It is a breakfast of kings. One I loved and had on several occasions. After making a million eggs Benedict at the restaurant, I could never face one there, but Lina had it a few times and enjoyed it.

Lunchtime pasta dishes include Pasta with Ceps, with Pheasant, Ragu Bolognaise, and I heard the Lasagne is truly great.

I haven’t tried them, as normally full after a plate of pasta, but the cakes look delicious. True pieces of art.

It’s one place I am going to miss, but maybe what ever we do in Colombia, the FoodLab has shown me to keep cooking with Love and you will never go wrong.

Cheap Cuts 1: Beef Short Ribs

These past few weeks, since stopping work, I have been back in my own kitchen and cooking a lot …. But the best bit is, I’ve been cooking the things I love to cook. Offal, and a hell of a lot of it as well, and cuts that most people turn their noses up at. Why? I’ve never understood the snobbery with people and food.

So, on my menu lately has been a lot of liver and kidneys. Haven’t got around to buying hearts yet.

I have a thing about lamb’s kidneys. If I could I would use them exclusively, but am finding ox kidneys are an equal substitute. Much meatier and stronger in flavour, but just as good.

Ox kidneys flash fried to give them some colour, then finished off in the oven to cook just through, and served with some mash and a red wine reduction. Stupendous.

So the other day, I was wandering around Whole Foods. Mainly I was re-visiting places I know in London, as at the end of May I may never see them again. Anyhows, got to the meat section and saw some Beef short ribs on offer, at around £4.50p a kilo. Well this was an offer I could not pass up. As I had made up some brown chicken stock the day before. I could see a hearty dish coming up.

The next day I made up a mirepoix of the usual suspects, and sweated them off till they were nice and soft and just starting to colour. Whilst this was going on, I browned off the ribs in another pan. Just to give it some colour and to get the meat some flavour.

Before I added the ribs to the mirepoix. I added some red wine and reduced that for a while. The ribs went in, and so did some of my brown stock.

These are the type of dishes I love to cook. Little bit of work in the beginning, leave it to its own devices and then some work at the end, and voila. A magnificent dish.

The ribs took about 3½ hours to cook. The meat was falling off the bone, and was really juicy. In that time, all I had to do was stir it once in a while, just to make sure nothing was sticking to the bottom, and skim the fat off. Those ribs are quite fatty.

I removed the ribs, and strained the sauce back into another pan, and boiled it hard to reduce that sauce even more, to get it nice and thick.

Once the sauce was at the consistency I wanted. I.e. nice and thick. The ribs went back in to warm up again.

All served with some mash and the sauce poured over and around. It was nice eating I can tell you.

I wonder how this would go with a Chinese Red Braise Sauce. Hmm, next time. 

Has Anyone Ever had a Bad Meal at St. John’s?

Tradition goes in our house that when it is your birthday, you can choose a restaurant to eat at. In the past this has included the likes of the River Café, Locando Locatelli, Theo Randall (ex Head chef of the River Café). Lina this year choose Comptoir Gascon, as she was yearning for their Cassolet and some good Foie Gras. I thought she was going to choose St. John’s as it is one of her favourite places to eat. But she surprised me.

We have eaten there on several occasions, the last being exactly a year ago, where I kinda mixed my birthday and us leaving the UK for a 6 month trip through Asia. (See Below). We had a blast that night, about 12 friends eating and drinking our way through their menu.

As I am now working as a chef, and the pay is lowsy, I was looking at some bargain lunch deals. The River Café has 3 courses for £24, Odettes has 2 courses for £12. But unfortunately we couldn’t do lunch…

So when it came round to my birthday, there really was only one choice. St. John’s it was….. A 9pm slot was booked, which gave us time to hit Vinoteca opposite for some pre dinner wine. If you’ve never visited Vinoteca either for just drinks or food, then GO…..

It is the place that does the kind of food I love to it. Simple food, well cooked, no fanciness on the plate, and all washed down with some fantastic wine.

Now, I could go into detail about how great their food is. Well it is, but I’m not. What I really love about St. John’s is the simplicity of it all. The dining room is white. The waiters wear white jackets. There are no works of art on the walls. Just clothes pegs. You are there for one thing and one thing only. The food.

Now, Fergus Henderson, as we know have championed the whole concept of “Nose to Tail Eating.” And we are eternally grateful for him for this, but I am not here to go on about that, or I would still be writing this next week.

What I most love about St John’s is when you read the menu and you read Roasted Marrow Bone and Parsley Salad, that is what you get. It’s pure simplicity, and I love it.

So this my 39^th birthday. We shared a starter of the Roasted Bone Marrow and Parsley Salad, which comes with some toasted bread and salt for you to gorge on that yunkshus marrow. It fits well with the salt and parsley. A marriage made in food heaven.

I noticed through a visit, that Whole Foods are now selling bone marrow. Tempting.

For mains, Lina had some Chitterlings, which are pig intestines. These came with some fresh peas, onions and a great gravy.

I opted for one of their specials. Simply Old Spot Chop with Butter Beans. Guess what I got. Exactly that. This was a big throw back to the 70’s for me, as that was probably the last time I was offered butter beans. The pork chop was not served pink, as some restaurants in London like to do, but cooked through as I remember it so well.

For pudding we shared a strange mixture of poached rhubarb, ice cream and toasted brioche. Now I love rhubarb, I love ice cream, I adore brioche, but together it was a strange yet not unpleasing combination. It had been 2 years since my last rhubarb fix, as we missed the season last year. Rhubarb isn’t that big in South East Asia. Although it is indiginous to North East Asia. But somehow it worked but it didn’t. Odd.

I’m wondering, that before we leave London for pastures new, will we eat at St John’s ever again?

Am I in Spain, not quite ……

The other night we decided to pop along to rhe much published Barrafina. A trendy tapas bar in Soho, owned by the Hart brothers. There are no reservations taken, so it’s on a first come and first serve basis. The restaurant has about 20 stools all along the L shaped bar, from where you can watch fish being cooked on the flat top grill. Jamon being sliced off the leg in front of your very eyes. A marvellous sight for any carnivore. The place was buzzing which always adds an element of excitement to your meal. But you would expect this place to be jammin’, as it is the “IN” place to be seen at the moment in Soho. And packed it was. We only had to wait about 30 minutes, as a lot of people were pre-theatre dining. But with a clear crisp bottle of Albarino white wine, the wait flew by. As I said the wait flew by and in no time we were seated at the bar, and given a list of the days specials, which were all fish. The menu is easy to read and digest. Nothing really out of place here than you would find in an upmarket tapas bar in Spain. We opted for some Jamon Croquettes, what we thought were patatas bravas, but turned out to be fries with a mildly disappointed sauce (as we were with it.). A little but too runny small tortilla, and one of the specials, a beautiful piece of well cooked haddock. The croquettes were sublime, that combination of deep fried potato and ham rolled in breadcrumbs never seems to amaze me. We do a veggie option in the café with goats’ cheese and herbs. Eat far too many. The idea of doing French fries instead of cubes of potatoes is no short of stupid. This isn’t the golden arches you know, and if you say the sauce is brava then make it so. Not some tomato sauce with a little bit of paprika mixed in. The one portion tortilla is cooked in the same small frying pans we fry our eggs in, and is a great size for a tortilla. Unfortunately the inside was still a little bit too runny. Needed a little bit more salt, or have I become over salted working in a French (in style) café. The haddock was beautifully cooked on the flat top grill. Fantastic. Cooked all the way through, but still moist and the flavour was great. Hats off to the girl who cooked it. To finish off we shared a portion of chocolate tart. Nicely cooked pastry and good chocolate filling. For some reason since working at Café Boho, I have developed a sweet tooth, which never used to be there before. Maybe as I said it’s the amazing amount of salt I am now consuming, or maybe it’s the lack of food I am eating and I am getting my energy from the copious amounts of lemon tart I consume on a daily basis. All in all it was a good night, but would I return.... It's unlikely, unless I happen to walk past and there was space and I was a little peckish and fancied a little something with a glass of wine .....

The Difference between home and restaurant cooking ……

There are several differences between being an avid home cook and cooking in a restaurant.

1.    The extremely long hours and little sleep.

2.    The ability to multitask.

3.    There is no room for error.

4.    The pressure of cooking 3 or 4 dishes at once and getting everything perfect.

5.    The sheer volume of food to produce, and the little time you have to do it.

6.    The abuse when it all goes tits up.

7.    The Prep.

8.    Crap pay.

9.    Staff food. Sucks.

       10. The guilt when you send something out that you know is not 100% perfect. But you have no choice

Whose Idea was it for me to Work in a Professional Kitchen

Rather late in life, I decided to really get to know how to cook. So I took a 6 month full time cooking course at Leiths School of Food and Wine in London. I was a pretty good cook, and enjoyed it immensely. So when I started the course, I realized how much I did not know. Incredible, but I enjoyed the new learning experience. The theory side kinda bored me a lot, but had to learn the hows and whys.

After I finished in March, we popped over to Asia for six months. (See blogs below). On our return in October I decided to work in a restaurant, kinda wishing I had done it back in March or April, but Asia was fantastic and I am so glad we went.

Luckily enough I got a job in a new restaurant that was going to open in a new shopping centre in West London. The head chef was an ex teacher at Leiths, so thankfully I was taken aboard. In the kitchen there was 7 of us to begin with. 4 commis, a junior sous, a sous and head chef. This over the following 6 weeks dwindled down to just 5 of us.

The menu originally was fast healthy food for ladies who were going to lunch in this new shopping centre. They still came in but not as many as was predicted. Recession maybe.

Like in Sushi bars we had or a conveyer belt where the cold starters were to go. Thankfully this idea was aborted after the 2nd week. It became clear with the lack of customers there was a lot of wastage, as everything has to be cleared within 2 hours. So in the end I was making to order. A better idea.

The restaurant never fully recovered from a shamble of an opening, and we slowly went down hill over the next 2 months. Although we were really busy for weekend brunch …. Not enough to keep a place alive. So the owner closed up shop quite suddenly 2 weeks before Christmas.

For me it was a good introduction into kitchen life as we were not too busy but busy enough to give me an idea of what it was like. The hours were painful though as there were so few of us we used to do shifts of 16 hours. A killer. Normally at least three times a week.

I had a few weeks of doing nothing before Christmas before my Sous Chef gave me a call and got me a trial in a kitchen that is part of the Soho House Group here in London.

Now if I thought Ito was a killer. Nothing could have prepared me for this. I normally do 7 or 8 shifts a week, which are nine hours each. A few doubles in there for good measure. But sometimes the aount of work is relentless. Just to prep my station takes me several hours and if I am doing two at once. It’s a killer. At 38, my body can not really take much more of this. I’m hoping to last to the end of March, then take it week by week.

At one point I realized that over 3 days, I had slept for 15 hours, and eaten very very little. No wonder I was so mashed. All I do on my days off is sleep.

Now this sounds like either I’m moaning or torturing myself. The thing is I am really enjoying the job, and wished I had done this when I was younger. Much younger. I am learning so much more. Basically all I learnt in college does me no good here, as restaurant ways are a lot different from there and at home.