Foto Friday # 32

The thing I love the most about Singapore, is that you can walk into any unassuming restaurant and get a damn fine meal at a reasonable price.

Leong's Legend - The Original

I’m not gonna say too much about the original China Town Leong’s Legends, as I’ve already eaten and blogged about number 2 in this slowly growing chain of Taiwanese eateries. Plus the décor and menu are both the same so fewer words will be written. The only difference is really the vibe. The younger sister has a much better one.

The restaurant is somewhat smaller, but still has the same Song Dynasty drinking den feel and look to it. But somehow it is not as cosy as Continues is. I’ve not visited number 3 in Bayswater, but I’m sure it’ll be the same. But that won’t stop me from going one day soon. Real soon.

We weren’t that hungry so we only had a few dishes to tide us over. For starts we had a basket of Legends Siu Loung Bao. There were 8 of these little dumplings to wet our appetites. They were a mixed bag really. The insides were delightful, the pork was well seasoned and had a good texture. The jelly had melted and provided a soupiness to this dumpling when we bit into it. The only downside was the wrapper itself. It was too thick and almost chewy. Good but not great.

Next up were our mains of hot and fiery beef slices with beef tripe and a spicy pig’s offal dish. Our waitress, bless her, seemed shocked that we would order this dish. She did her best to dissuade us from ordering it, saying that only Chinese people liked it. She obviously had no idea of my obsession with offal. After a minute of this joyful banter she agreed to supply us with their offal dishes. As she turned to leave, she looked back at us and was about to try again but felt maybe we were ready for the good stuff.

Both were pretty damn good. The spicy beef slices with tripe were just that. Pretty damn spicy. Good texture and great flavour with some nice heat thrown in as well. Only downside was there wasn’t enough of it, as we could of eaten that all night.

The spicy pig’s offal came as more of a soup or stew than the previous dish as we were expecting. I think I tasted all bits of the pig there, liver, heart and kidney and all were well cooked and seasoned. It wasn’t that spicy but all can be forgiven as it was a really good dish.

I think word had spread amongst the staff, as they seemed impressed that we had eaten everything. I think they were expecting us to have it sent back and order something else that the other laowai were ordering.

All in all Leong’s Legends is a good restaurant with some funny staff, but somehow Continues has a much better vibe. Well we’ll see with numero tres.

Ajiaco Santafereño

Ajiaco Santafereño to give its full name is the national dish of Colombia, unless of course you are from Medellin, where it would be Bandeja Paisa. No question. Ajiaco is an odd soup. Then again most soups in Colombia are pretty bizarre, but they all taste pretty damn good. It really falls into being a light stew rather than a soup, as the broth and contents are pretty light, but in Colombia they call it a soup, and it is theirs to call what they wish.

In Medellin I have only ever had this at family gatherings, so I always liken it to a celebration food rather than an everyday meal, whereas bandeja paisa or mondongo are easily available from restaurants all over and outside of Medellin. Ajiaco is a special treat worthy of a special occasion.

Lina opted to make this for our Xmas eve dinner we were having with some homesick friends. Some Colombian, some not. It is actually a very easy dish to make for large groups, as it is pretty quick and easy to prepare and execute. 

There are however two key ingredients you must use to get a pretty authentic Ajiaco. They are guascas and papa criolla. Both are now readily available in any good Colombian or Latin American retailer. I.e. any shop near to Seven Sisters and that pink monstrosity in Elephant and Castle. Or as we recently found out some shops on Blackstock Road near to Finsbury Park as well.

The papa criolla are needed as when they cook they dissolve and give the soup its traditional yellow colour. Guasca is needed for the taste.

You can do most of this well in advance and a day of mixing those flavours together will do it no harm at all.

Ingredients for 4 (kind of)

1 Chicken breast

4 chicken thighs

Several pounds of as many different types of potatoes as you can get

2 ears of corn, cut in half

2 handfuls of guascas

Chicken stock or water

To serve with

Capers

Double cream or crème fraîche

Cooked rice

A banana each

Slices of avocado if you are so inclined. I am not.

Method

1. Get a frying pan pretty hot and add some oil. Add the chicken thighs and crisp up the skin. Pop in the oven to finish cooking. This is better this way, as most people put the thighs in the soup to cook and the skin goes soggy. Not nice. Keep warm.
2. Bring the water or stock up to a simmer. Add the chicken breast and a handful of the guascas. Simmer till the breast is cooked.
3. Remove chicken breast. Set aside. Once cooled, shred.
4. Add the potatoes and corn to the pot. Bring back to a simmer and cook for about 30 minutes, or until the corn and potatoes are cooked.
5. Remove some of the potatoes and mash with a fork. Add back to the pot to thicken. Add the rest of the guascas.
6. Add the shredded chicken breast back to the pot to warm through. Season.
7. Place one chicken thigh, ½ an ear of corn, and several good ladles of the soup into bowls.

Serve the rice, banana, capers and cream separately, you can then add or not add as you wish to your soup. I like to add a bit at a time so I have the soup with bits of cream and capers but not all the time. When you order Ajiaco in a restaurant in Colombia, the cream and capers are added on top just before service.

Don’t ask me why the banana with a soup. I don’t know. But it does work. I prefer to eat mine separately, but some people mix it in with the soup.

Slices of avocado are generally eaten with most Colombian meals, not only soups. I am not keen on this green mushy mess, but if you want to then this is up to you.

Enjoy this wonderful warming and hearty soup in these dark cold days. 

Foto Friday # 31

One of the many street stalls outside the Emirates. This jerk chicken stall is one of the better ones. It was even tastier after our 3-1 win over a certain Russian owned south of the river team.

Koffmann's - A Future Michelin Starred Restaurant

I have many regrets in my life. Most of them I have ignored and refuse to let them out of their little box. But one keeps rearing its ugly head. It is that I wished I had gone into catering when I had the chance at 16 or 17. But I was happy to waste my teenage years away smoking loads of dope and getting stoned everyday. Good times.

This for many years was locked away in a drug filled haze, and when I started travelling I never had the cash to go to decent places to eat. I was however content with truck stops and street food. Something even to this day, are the places I enjoy eating at the most.

But my short stints as a chef in two of London’s finest establishments has made me respect all chefs, that to this day when ever I walk past a kitchen I always thank the chefs, as I know how hard it is to work behind the scenes, and how no gratitude goes their way.

I think this has something to do with my dislike of waiters and waitresses getting all the tip, just because they bring you a plate form A to B, where it is the chefs who are sweating and under stress and totally knackered behind the scenes that do all the hard work to make your evening perfect.

So to be able to be able to eat Pierre Koffmann’s food for a ridiculous amount of money was a chance I was not going to miss. I mean £18 for 2 courses. (Now it is £21.50) There are only a few bargains like this in London, and should not be missed. Trinity is one, and Theo Randall is the other. All are amazing in their own way. I’m sure there are more, but I don’t know of them.

When we told people we were eating at the Berkeley Hotel, everyone was in awe of us, although half of them thought we were eating at Marcus Wearings restaurant. I wish, but as a travel agent, the pay is shit, but the perks are good. Sometimes.

Koffmann’s is as I thought it would be. Elegant, but in a very understated way. There is nothing uptight about this place at all. The service was spot on, everything was done with a smile. I can see the men from Michelin being very happy here.

I knew I was going for the set menu, but I was so tempted to go for Pierre Koffmanns’ signature dish of Braised Pigs Trotters stuffed with sweetbreads and morels. Really tempted just to have that and chill. But the lunchtime set menu was too much of a chance to pass up. This is what had dragged us in here, and until I get a pay rise we would have to stick with it.

For starters we ordered the French onion soup and the game terrine. I’m a sucker for a terrine in any shape or form and this game one was a pure delight to eat. Such a deep gamey flavour that it set my taste buds on fire. The only disappointment were the undressed salad leaves that accompanied it. Was this deliberate to serve some bitter leaves naked with no dressing, or had they been forgotten about and just placed on the plate, alone and naked. Either way it let down a great terrine.

Linas’ French onion soup was creamy, deep and wondrous. It was much creamier than those millions of litres I used to make in that faux French brassiere. The cheese was melted to the point of unxiousness. Really good.

The mains were a superb moist roasted loin of rabbit with black olives, tomato’s and garlic that sung of southern France. A very elegant dish that would see itself on any Michelin starred restaurant menu. Oh, I’m just thinking ahead here.

The other was a simple dish of fricassee chicken, mushrooms and rice. The chicken and rice was pretty simple but perfectly cooked. Lina was not impressed though, she was expecting some magical piece of chicken with some great accompaniment. She is obviously not a fan of rice with French food. I have to admit though it was the best plate of rice I’ve ever tasted. It had been cooked in chicken stock to the point of al dente. Perfect. No denying the talent that Chef Koffmann has in his kitchen. For rice it was pretty bloody good. But as a dish, a little underwhelming.

We skipped pudding, a shame as they had oeuf a la neige caramelise on the menu. I was so tempted to pay the extra but I was very content to bask in the feeling of a great meal. Next time though.

Sitting there with my coffee and nibbling on my madellines I was very happy that Mr Koffmann had decided to come back to London on a permanent basis. Just why did it take him so long?

Even though we opted for the two course menu, we still managed to spend nearly £100. I dread to think what the bill would have been if we’d gone a la carte. Hey ho. It was worth it. Bring on those Michelin stars. 

Foto Friday # 30

This is where we were about 2 years ago, and I want to be back there now!!!!!

Chinese in Dalston

We seem to be spending more and more time in and around Kingsland Road these days. Well cash is tight and you can eat great food around here for next to nothing. Bonus.

After quite a few visits to Mangal 1 and realising that maybe we don’t really need to try any more Turkish restaurants as none of the ones we’ve tried seem to match up to the dizzy heights that the original Mangal have reached.

I am tempted to try number 2, but it just looks a tad posher without the vibe of the original. So maybe not.

I’d seen and wandered past Shanghai on many an occasion, mainly after coming from somewhere else for lunch or dinner. It always seemed to be on the wrong side of a dinner date.

When I hear one person bleating on about a restaurant I kinda take it with a pinch of salt, but when I hear half a dozen or more folks from different groups telling me how great a place is, I pay a little bit more attention. For some reason within the last two weeks I have been told about the virtues of Shanghai from 5 different people. Maybe I should hold off and eat there.

A recent trip to a small Brasilian shop on Kingsland Road to buy some Guascas for a Xmas Eve Ajiaco (more on that at a later date) brought Shanghai to the front.

We had three or four choices for dinner. 1. Shanghai. 2. Puji Puji, a small Malaysian place that we tried and failed to eat at a week or so ago. 3. Thai Corner Café, where we endured a new mother breast-feeding her baby whilst we were eating. Or 4. The Snooty Fox, which was gonna be their speciality of Chicken and Chips. Yum yum.

As we were so close to Shanghai, and the snow just starting to come down. We headed to this Chinese restaurant. Well it was so close.

It’s kinda trippy when you enter. It immediately reminded me of an old Pie n Mash shop, which I later found out was exactly what it used to be, but it kinda fits as a Chinese restaurant now. Those wooden benches were meant to be sat at whilst eating good Chinese nosh.

We weren’t actually that hungry, but needed something warm and comforting. As it was after dark on a cold Monday night. Their Dim Sum was out the window. I’ve not tried too much dim sum in my life but eating it at night just doesn’t feel right.

So after looking through the menu we ordered just two dishes; Shanghai Beef and Double Cooked Pork Belly. Neither were amazing, but both were cooked well. The pork belly was soft and the fat melted in my mouth. So good.

The beef was nice and juicy and the sauce had a slight piquancy to it. Pretty nice. The only downside really on the food was the quantity of large diced onions in both dishes. Way too many. Thankfully they were cooked and had just a slight bite to them, not like other places I’ve eaten at where they are raw and have been mixed in at the last minute. Yuck.

Too be honest the food did not go below my expectations. For where it is, and for the price I’d say this place is a bit of a star. It’s not gonna win any prizes of culinary highs, but well worth eating at if you are in the area and haven’t eaten at Mangals yet. 

Sunday Roast @ The Duke of Wellington

We’ve realised after long last that we are pretty crap at organising anything. It took us about three weeks to hook up with Lina’s cousin before he returned to Colombia for the Christmas holidays. Not good.

We are getting really bad at this these days. Maybe this is what happens when you advance in years. God bring back my 20’s. Maybe I was the same but just never cared. Anyhows we finally managed to arrange something the day before he left. Talk about leaving it to the last minute.

We’d originally planned to meet up at Puji Puji on Balls Pond Road, but alas it wasn’t open. It’s only open by special request of parties of 8 or more on Sundays. Damn it. So as Esteban lives more or less in front of the Duke of Wellington we opted to pop in for a drink, some warmth as the minus figures outside were getting to me, and a ponder on where we could go for some food.

It was good to catch up with him, as we hadn’t seen much of him since the birth of his daughter. Or maybe we had been subconsciously avoiding them just to get out of babysitting duties. Not intentional you see. Just the way it is.

It’s a nice pub, lots of space to sit and chat and relax. So after a couple of pints of conversation and really enjoying the vibe of the place, my stomach was a rumbling.  We decided just to stay put. It was easier, and as Estebas lives above the sous chef of the pub and can vouch for the food. We ordered. Being Sunday, it had to be the roast. Thankfully we ordered in time, as they were just about to close the kitchen, and even more thankfully they still had some food left. Well it was after 8pm. But as we had an inside contact, we managed to grab two beef and one lamb. Phew.

They were pretty good, the beef was really nice and rare. The shredded lamb had some nice flavour. But why is it a lot of pubs are shredding their lamb these days. No idea.

The sides were nice and yummy. Good tattles, not crispy but nicely cooked, the veg consisted of carrots and some shredded caverlo nero. Perfectly cooked and well seasoned. Good amount of gravy, which lasted all the way to the end of the meal. A rare thing these days.

But sometimes it’s not about the food. The occasion, the company, the vibe of a place can transform a dull meal into a memorable one. This was one of those nights. But not to say the food wasn’t good. It was. It just wasn’t amazing. But who cares when you are enjoying yourself so much.

The Duke of Wellington has a varied menu, but it has a great atmosphere and a nice selection of beers and wines. We will be returning. 

Foto Friday # 29

I'm sure it was also. 3 Corner Field Farmers Market close to Greenwich Village

The Bizarre World of the Nepalese Embassy

During early November there is a monsters ball of an event called WTM, or the World Travelers Market. It’s a really dull affair, but it does give you a chance to meet your suppliers from different corners of the world. It’s networking heaven.

Sadly most of my suppliers I wanted to chat with never came. So I just wandered around for a while chatting to a few people I knew and meeting some new folks that I may or may not be able to buy from in the future. But contacts are contacts.

At this time of year there are always parties. But as I work for a hierarchal company where the higher caste people get the good shit, like tickets to watch Arsenal play in the Champions League that they never used but wouldn’t give them up. Grrrrrr.

I was invited to a few but declined most of them as they were from the smaller suppliers and would be really dull and awkward. But I jumped at the chance to goto the Nepalese Embassy, even though I had heard the evenings were cringingly embarrassing.

It was an odd affair, a colleague and me were the only travel agents there. Everyone else was either operators from Nepal, local Nepalese ex-pats or just friends of the Ambassador.

The speeches were pretty damn odd as well. The Ambassador was speaking through a mic for 10 minutes before someone told him to put it down as no one could hear a word he was saying. But the funniest was from the Tourism Minister who wins the prize as “The Most Boring Speech Giver of the Year”. It was really bad, he just read bullet points off a laptop. So bad. Laughable even.

But the oddest thing happened after the speeches had finished, and the prizes had been given out. Two Nepalese Tour Operators won a free tour of Nepal, more than likely handled by their own companies.  Comical.

We were promised a special guest and a special guest we got. I was expecting some Nepalese actor or singer, but alas no. What we got blew my socks off.

From a side door a man came out carrying another human being. Not just any person, but the World’s Smallest Man.

Khagendra Thapa Magar from Pokhara, who had to wait till his 18^th Birthday to be recognized as the smallest man on the planet. He stands a mighty 67.08cm’s or 2 foot 2.41 inches.

They sat him on a high stool so we could all see. Some people ran to the front of the room to get a good photo. I was still stunned to move, and embarrassed to take a close up photo. As you can see from my dodgy snaps. It was very surreal.

After this stunning surprise we were delighted to know that we were going to be fed as well. As we had polished the beer and wine off, I needed something to soak it up.

I was told the food came from a well known Nepalese Restaurant on Acton High Street, and from the taste of the food and by the way it screamed through my body the following morning I won’t be venturing to Acton to sample their a la carte menu anytime soon.

I left there still spinning from the biggest surprise of my life, to go to a pub nearby with some other freeloaders. I.e. travel journalist who have the best gig on the planet. Now that is something I want to get into.