Tapped and Packed

I'd been recommend to visit Tapped and Packed by a few people ever since a shout was put out for more coffee shops for me to try. I was hoping for some closer to home, but these things are never as you want them.
Tapped and Packed have two stores one number 26 and the other 114. Neither of them are on the same street, but you'll have to goto their website to find out where exactly they are. More fun that way.
I had some urgent studying to do for an interview I had the next day. I needed to remember what sights are in which Indian cities, so I thought a trip into busy central London and away from the sereneness of Stoke Newington was the best thing to do. You could see I was slightly stressed and not thinking straight.
I went to 26, which just happens to be literally in front of Koba where we were a few weeks before sampling some fine Korean cuisine.
There is no sigh mentioning Tapped and Packed, just a large 26 glaring out at you like a beacon. For some reason this never hit me, I walked straight passed it, hit the corner and it dawned on me that I was there. Was a million miles away.
It reminds me a lot of Fernandez and Wells but with a slightly less industrial look and feel about it. Tapped and Packed has a few more seats and some nice seats against the side wall with nice mini tables   to the side. Reminded me a little of the Middle East in that way.
I was here to relax and study. Fat chance. The place has a good buzzy vide, with plenty of foot traffic, so i gave up trying to remember which city the Jamal Masjid is in and enjoyed my flat white and a baguette of chicken and a lemon thyme mayonnaise.
The flat white with its wonderful latte artwork, drunk well. Nice smooth roasting of some fine beans made this one of the nicest flat whites I've had in a while.
The lemon, thyme mayonnaise and chicken baguette was nice. It was nothing spectacular, i was a little saddened that it was not warmed or toasted, but the choicken was soft and juicy, the mayo was more lemon than thyme. But it was pretty good. Sorry no photo, as I'd ate most of it before i thought of taking a snap.
They have a wide range of other baguettes and some salads and soups on offer, which all looked pretty good on the eye. But it's the coffee that this place will drag me back time again and again.
On the interview the following day. It went well. Hopefully I impressed them enough to offer me the job. I'll find out next week no doubt when we are in New York.

K is for Korea @ Koba

There wasn’t really any doubt as to what cuisine we were going to eat for the letter K. I made a half arsed attempt to look for something else, but really let’s be honest it was only ever going to Korean.

The difficulty lie with which restaurant we were going to sample this wonderful cuisine and what to have.

As none of really had eaten Korean food, apart from a couple of bits and bobs here and there, it was and well still is a bit of a mystery.

Out of all the restaurants I’d read about Koba kept getting the better reviews for its bar-b-q, which really as a newbie to Korean food, I think this had to be a major thing on our collective first visit.

The plush restaurant is very modern, lots of dark colours, moody lighting and a youngish crowd. The vibe was nice and easy, vibrant but calming.

Between 6 of us we had quite a good selection of starters and 2 bar-b-q combo’s. The highlight of the starters were the fried pancake and the fried chicken. The pancake was crunchy and crispy and was very well seasoned.

The bar-b-q which was the highlight of the night, turned out to be a fun thing. Thankfully Koba have an exhaust shaft above every bar-b-q, otherwise the entire restaurant would have been chokey smokey.

For large groups the combo bar-b-q selections turned out to be pretty good value. We did find it slightly annoying that the staff literally cooked our meat for us, maybe they thought us novices didn’t know how to cook Korean bar-b-q for ourselves.

I’m not sure of the quality of the meat, as the marinades over powered the beef and pork. Not to say that the marinades were not good they were. Nice and hot. Just how we like it.

I do have one quibble about Koba and that was the amount they charged for the kimchi. My little knowledge of Korean cuisine extends to kimchi. As far as I am aware, it comes with every meal, and I feel it should be a free accompaniment, not a £5 side. 

All in all we had a great night with lots of good banter and good food. I would imagine however that a modest bar-b-q joint in Korea would be a match for Koba on its food, but for London I think this is probably as good as it gets.
Oh and love the name of the beer, and no there is not an S before that H.

Brunch @ Lantana

Through some weird set of events we ended up eating Brunch at Lantana a couple of times in as many weeks. I’d been meaning to eat there forever but other things got in the way. Mainly the Breakfast Club and Caravan. But finally we did it and again.

Lantana is small, and I mean small. After queuing for 30 minutes we were asked if we didn’t mind sharing a table (to eat now) or wait even longer for a table for just us to become available.

I don’t mind sharing but as the room is pretty small and everyone is closely packed together, my ribs took a beating from the guy next to me, as he seemed only to be able to use a knife and fork with his elbows stretched out.

The food at Lantana is really good and a far cry from the normal English fry up. All hail to the down under brunch set I say.

My favourite is the slow cooked Boston beans with some pork belly topped off with a poached egg. I mean how can this combo not entice even the strictest vegan into meat eating. OK slightly dumb comment but it is a bloody good dish. Unxious beans with a tender and soft piece of pork belly, and you get to mix in egg yolk as well. Heaven pure heaven.

The baked eggs are another winner, especially with the lovely feta they use. The posh version of bubble and squeak is a far cry from my Sunday night suppers as a child. I wish then we would have had black pudding, but my parents looking back on it seemed to have a dislike of it.

If I had a quibble about Lantana is that the portions are on the tad small size for the prices, but the cooking is exquisite. So cannot grumble too much. But I felt I had to.

Lantana is a great place and I’d love to try it in the week, when I hope the queues are not too large. Weekends can be a bugger. But as it is absolutely nowhere near my house, a special visit has to be made, but as the Breakfast Club and Caravan are so much closer, we always get distracted.

Brunch @ The Riding House Cafe

The Riding House café has been on my radar since it opened earlier this year, but for many reasons, some best not mentioned we’ve just never managed to go there and eat. These things happen you see. But finally we managed it. About time.

So this Sunday we turned up with reservation in hand for Sunday lunch, which actually turned out to be more of a brunch event instead, as we were still kinda heady from dinner the night before at Bistro Du Vin. We were coming to an end of a celebratory weekend for welcoming my wife back from 3 weeks in Ecuador. She was in need of some good food.

So with slight hangovers and really not wanting to eat that much we opted for their lighter options. Not their small plates I might add. I am kinda getting tired of small plates at the mo, I long for the day when small plates are so last year. So a while to go then.

We were seated in the rather opulent but not dining room, with its large red padded seats and quirky lamps made out of old plumbing parts. Very snazzy.

This lunchtime it was full of well-heeled-twenty-something-girlies having their weekly-brunch-gossipy get together. If I would had known, I’d have just turned up and gone into the main dining area and ate there. It seemed a lot more casual and less formal, but where we were provided a lot of people watching. A fave hobby of mine.

So on the Sunday lunch menu there are some breakfast/brunch items on the menu, these are on till mid afternoon. This is what we were in need of.

I’d already checked out their menu beforehand and noticed they had a smoked haddock kedgeree on the billing. I cannot remember the last time I ate this or even saw it on a menu. Wow when was that. We are talking years, and I mean years. This I had to have.

After 3 weeks of eating some of the worst food on the planet and being sick for it, the wife was more than happy to eat just about anything, but she opted for the delightfully sounding eggs Hussard.

My kedgeree was a reminder of how those Victorians knew a thing or two about breakfast dishes and how good they are to cure a mild hangover.

The flaked smoked haddock was wonderfully smoked and gave that all important taste to this Anglo-Indian dish. The rice was just as wet as it should be and well spiced and seasoned. The added pea shoots on top were a needless decoration. They seem to be this year’s garnish as 2 of the 4 dishes at Bistro du Vin the night before had then as well. One year it is chervil, the next its pea shoots. Whatever next.

The only downside to this dish was the not runny boiled egg on top. I prefer my eggs to be a slightly set but still runny. These were well cooked eggs. Not my style at all, but other than that it was damn good.

The hearty eggs Hussard with that marchand de vin sauce was delish. I actually wished I had ordered this. Although I did eat about ¼ of it after Lina was too full to go any further. I love dining with people who are just getting over an illness. This is now my fave hangover dishes. Definitely beats a full English, but in a more decadent way.

I’d never come across eggs Hussard before but I will be having it whenever possible. Basically it run like this, two poached eggs napped with hollandaise sat on top of a portobello mushroom, which was on top of an ox heart tomato. Beneath that was ham and baby spinach, which was nestled on top a doorstop slice of bread and this was mopping up all the juices from above and the marchand de vin sauce underneath. Awesome. Man I’m hooked. A greedy guts version of eggs benedict.

We really liked the Riding House Café, and already planning a return visit, as I want to try their burgers and maybe those small plates.

But for Sunday brunch, not so sure as it is sooooo far way from home, and Caravan and the Breakfast Club are just so much closer.