Bocca Di Lupo - The Mouth of the Wolf

I must have been one of the few people so far not to have eaten at Bocca Di Lupo. I followed its opening and the hurrah it created and the rush to eat there with interest. Yes it really was and still is in vogue. Maybe a little too much, as some of the reviews I read were showing the place had teething pains. But doesn’t every restaurant have those problems at the beginning. It normally takes a few months for the wrinkles to be ironed out, and you are left with a great product.

Well except for the ill-fated Tom Etridge’s Ito. It was supposed to herald a new concept in healthy dining at the then newly opened Westfield shopping centre. Unfortunately the wrinkles never got ironed out, and it was doomed to failure from day one. That was my first jaunt into a professional kitchen. I learnt from the inside why a restaurant is not going to work, and Ito was a case subject.

So, well over a year since it opened, I found myself with a few opportunities to go and eat there. Twice I tried with Lina, but on both occasions she couldn’t make it, and as I so hate eating alone. I like talking while I eat and sharing a meal. Well mainly picking off the other persons plate.

In steps an old work buddy who whilst out for a few drinks at the Dovetail in Farringdon said he had a few days off the following week, and wondered if I wanted lunch. Partner sorted.

For some reason, on their web site you can only book before 1pm or after 2pm to be able to eat at the chef’s counter. The restaurant is closed off. But the chef’s counter is where the action is. I hated working next to the counter at Ito. All I could hear were the bitchy comments of the customers. Actually most were justified.

When I sent Julian the website to checkout the menu, his reply was “Anywhere that sells tripe is a place I want to eat at.”

Bocca Di Lupo as you all know cooks Italian regional food, but a lot of it is Roman fried food. The menu is long and can be a pain or a treat to get through, it took us at least 30 minutes to decide, but we were more nattering than looking.

You can have big plates or small plates of dishes. Or you can have one plate meals. All too confusing for two people who wanted to eat the lot.

We were given some great focaccia and pungent olive oil to dip it in. Really nice olive oil.

I settled on the one plate meal of Amatriciana, tubular pasta with cured pigs cheek with pecorino cheese and tomato. Since normally I hate pasta in restaurants, as it’s normally over cooked and soggy. This was pretty damn good. Only disappointment was the guanciale. I was expecting it to have a really strong flavour, but all I got was the same as my homemade pancetta. Which I have to tell you is really bloody good, but with the pig cheek I was expecting much more. It was a sizable portion and I was still eating long after Julian had finished all of his.

Julian opted for two small plates, one of Baccala (salt cod, deep fried in a light batter). He never gave me any to taste, so I cannot say how it tasted, but he said it was some of the best fish he had ever eaten.

The other small plate was Tripe with guanciale. This was really good. The star of the show by far. Beats all the mondongo (tripe soup) I ate in Colombia. The tripe had so much flavour. It was delicious. Would return there just to eat that again.

Julian being the greedy git he is had another small plate. This time of Boccocini. A small unripened buffalo cheese, deep fried in batter. Again I never got to taste this, but there were murmurs of approval.

We both had a pud. His a sanguinaccio. In Bocca Di Lupo, it’s a chocolate mousse made with pigs blood. He said it was good and had a taste he couldn’t put his finger on. That would be the pigs blood then. It’s served as a pate and you get a couple of slices of brioche to eat it with.

I had the cannoli. To be honest this was the least favorable part of the meal. The ricotta really had no flavor at all. Which is a shame, as I love ricotta. But I’m not a big pud fan anyhows.

All in all Bocca Di Lupo lived up to the hype, but still left us a little flat. I want to return, not only to see if was just an off day, but to have some more of that tripe.

Mondongo’s

There is something about tripe that sends me into ecstatic excitement. I can remember my Nan cooking tripe and onions as a child. Not sure if I ever ate it back then, as I was a fussy kid. I still won’t eat brussel sprouts.

Tripe or mondongo in Spanish, hence the name of the restaurant, Mondongo’s.

They do of course sell the typical foods of Medellin. Bandaja Paisa; frijoles; carne asado. But you can get that anywhere. The one and only reason I goto Mondongo’s, is to eat Mondongo.

There are 3 restaurants in this chain. One near to the University where I am studying Spanish at the moment. One in Poblado, and one bizarrely enough in Miami. The Mecca for all Latinos.

The stew or soup that they serve comes in 2 sizes. A normal size, which they call the half size, and a slightly larger version, which would easily make Mr Kresote a content man. As I’ve commented before, I can only ever eat the baby portions, which still leaves me full and content.

It comes with a few accompaniments. A slice of avocado, a couple of small arepas, rice (of course), a slice of fried platano, a bowl of finely chopped coriander, and jars of sweet chilli, and a hotter version.

You can order a few extras, like, chicharron, morcilla and the like.

When the bowl of steaming soup arrives. I gaze at its beauty. This bowl of offal, which some many people find repulsive, sends shivers up my spine. I immediately scatter over some chopped coriander and a good hearty spoonful of hot chilli sauce, lastly is a squeeze of lime. I give this a mix around, and dip my spoon in and fill it to its limits.

What most people hate about tripe, is it’s smell. Thankfully this soup does not smell of anything but goodness. The initial taste is of the freshness of the lime, the herbyness of the coriander and then the spiciness of the chilli. The tripe only shows itself in the texture of its honeycombed body. The small potatoes are only there to beef up the stew, and a good job they do as well. The base of the stew is a rich chicken stock, as most soups here are, even the vegetable soups.

You also get a quarter slice of avocado. Which always gets left behind on my plate. Rice, which I spoon into the soup and moisten it with the soup broth. A banana is present also, to which I have never been able to figure out why, but I eat it nonetheless. It doesn’t make the soup any better, but I like bananas, so I don’t complain. The small arepas, just fill me up, again I like them so they get eaten also.

I sometimes have an extra order of chicharron and fried platano also. I love the crunchiness of fried pork skin and the sweetness of the platano. It’s pure heaven.

I’m still waiting and probably will wait for a while longer for their bean stew. It’s been saying soon for quite a while now. But as soon as it’s available I will break a habit and try something different in the Holy Temple of Tripe.