Photo Review - Josh & Johnnie's 'Summer Tastes' 2 Day Pop-up in Whitechapel

In June I was lucky enough to be invited along to Josh & Johnnie's 2nd pop-up in Whitechapel.  This is a photo review of what we had.  It was a very good night, in terms of the venue, the food and the company; my friend Meike and I were placed on a table with Vince, and old family friend of J&J and he was excellent company.  You're pretty much guaranteed an entertaining night when you go to one of Josh & Johnnie's events.  See the email address at the bottom to book their next one, on Weds 31st July & Thurs 1st August.

Here are the courses:

Chicken scratchings + Cheese popcorn

 Duck Egg, Peas and Iberico ham

Baked Scallop + Clams

Baby Guinness - essentially a warm, beefy shot

Grans Stuffed Chicken

3 Spanish Cheeses

The Chocolate Bar - home made - photo taken after I'd attacked it a bit

Josh and Johnnie are next at The Bell in Whitechapel on 31st July & 1st August - go!

Location – The Bell Pub, 50 Middlesex Street, London E1 7EX

Cost - £35 per head from josh@joshjohnnie.co.uk

Map

Link - Josh & Johnnie

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Photo Review - Forza Win & The Ginger Pig present CUTS Pop-up Restaurant in East London

Last night I was lucky enough to go the the press launch night for CUTS, the collaboration between Forza Win and The Ginger Pig.

Here are my photos from the night, with a few brief descriptions:

We were greeted with a large Americano cocktail

All of the meat is cooked by chef Nick Fulton on the outside barbecue

 1st course:  Pork rib eye, with tomato, onion and bread salad

2nd course:  Lamb neck with peas and courgettes (you can see that we had to keep out plates for the whole night)

3rd course:  80 day aged longhornn beef rump - I never wanted this to end!

& to finish:  The lavender panna cotta dessert with rhubarb.  Apologies for the slightly blurry image - after a night of campari and wine there had to be some casualties.

It's a great concept - well reared meat, simply cooked over fire - and it works incredibly well.  The 3 month run is about 75% sold out already, so if you want to go please book soon!


When - Thursday - Sunday from the 25 July - 22nd September

Where - 'a disused pickle factory in East London'

Tickets - £40 including an aperitivo, four generous courses and coffee from Billetto here - email CUTS first on cuts@forzawin.com for the password

Link - Booking page

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Photo Review - When Mac Met Cheese at The Endurance in Soho

When Mac Met Cheese are always popular (in terms of page views) on the site - people love Mac & Cheese!

I went along to try the menu at The Endurance this week - see below for photos.

Carlos the Cactus

Cheesy Green Afro

More Cheesy Green Afro

Macancinis

Deep Fried Oreos

More Deep Fried Oreos

When Mac Met Cheese continues at The Endurance, 90, Berwick Street, W1F 0QB until the end of June, Mon - Sat for lunch, and Mon - Thurs for dinner.  More here

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Photo Review - Charlie Stocker at The Old Sessions House in Clerkenwell

Last night I was lucky enough to be invited along to the first night of Charlie Stocker's fine dining pop-up at The Old Sessions House in Clerkenwell Green.

Charlie came to fame as a contestant in 2012's Masterchef: The Professionals, and he's been running pop-ups since then.

In fact I felt very much like a Masterchef judge as course after course of beautifully presented delicious food came out.

I didn't take a picture of everything, but here is the menu and 5 of the courses.  Pardon the camera phone and the Instagram tints.

It's sold out tonight, but he will be back...


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Review - Tavolone x Marky Market Supper Club in Shoreditch

Last week I was lucky enough to be invited along to the latest monthly Tavolone supper club.

Held in the foyer of the ad agency Mother in Redchurch Street, all guests at Tavolone first mingle in the bar area, before being seated at one very long table (hence the name - Tavolone means 'long table' in Italian).  During drinks I had a chance to talk to Christian Ahlert, the organiser, and Marky Market, who provided the lamb for the feast, and a few other guests.

Then time to eat!  Christiano, the chef for the night, had trained at Canteen, and was cooking a St John-inspired menu.  Starter was a delicious Butter Bean, Leek and Cauliflower Salad, which went down very well, and tee-ed us up for the main event.

The lamb.  Wow.  Marky's contacts at Smithfield had provided him with some excellent Welsh lamb shoulder, which had then been marinaded for a day, and then slow-cooked for eight hours.  We somehow ended up with a shoulder between four of us (which I don't think was unusual), and you can see how well we did with it from the before and after pictures.  Lamb is my favourite meat, and this is honestly the best lamb I have ever had.  Instagram does a good job, and I hope that it looks even a fraction as good as it tasted.

Finally we had a dessert of ice cream, which finished the night off well.  Wine had been provided (by Borough Wines) and poured freely with each course.  By this time cards were being swapped as well as stories, and we all agreed that it had been a fantastic night.  Tavolone's own review and pictures are here.

The Tavolone supper clubs happen once a month.  Great food and great conversation.  Make sure you get to go to one!

Also, Marky Market is your man for the best quality meat and fish in large quantities.  See his site here, and follow him on Twitter

Review - Project X Immersive Theatre Show in Covent Garden

On Saturday my friend and I went to Project X at the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden (& also the streets around it).  

This is a great pastime for masochists - but in a good way.  It's hard to review in any detail without giving some of the fun away, but participants (that's you: forget passive spectating for this performance) are given a character, a team and a situation and sent on a mission.  There are time limits, rules and red herrings, so get a decent night's sleep beforehand and wear sensible shoes.  Ours was a very small group, and we all got into the spirit of it, which made it all the more fun.  The actors were happy to have an extra audience of passers-by in Covent Garden, and won't leave you lost and floundering thanks to the smart use of tablet technology.  Altogether an enjoyable two hours which will make you remember that while you may eventually have to grow old, you never have to grow up!

See the original listing for more info.

The show runs every weekend until November.  We recommend you book your place here!

Review - The Soho Food Feast

The Soho Food Feast, held on Saturday, was a triumph.  It was held in the garden of St Anne's Church and  was to raise money for the Soho Parish Primary School.  Visitors had to buy a ticket in advance, and the event was sold out well before the the day.

On the day the organisation was brilliant.  The restaurants set up stalls under a big marquee, and all payment was through special tickets.  You bought tickets for £2 each (we bought 10 between two of us) and ten each of the dishes cost one ticket.

In effect the dishes were small plates, and perfect to share.  You can see the quality of the food from the photos - Mark Hix' salmon, and Bocca Di Lupo's cuttlefish risotto for example - and it was great to be able to sample dishes from such great restaurants as those and also The Ivy, The Groucho, Duck Soup and Polpo (& cocktails from Milk & Honey).

It was also a brilliant example of how great restaurants can produce great food in large quantities to tight budgets, as demonstrated too by Ferran Adria in his book The Family Meal)

There was also lots to buy on the day, including a 'egg cup' (cup, with a picture of an egg on it) by Gavin Turk, a special recipe book, and raffle tickets.

Well done to the PTA of the Soho Parish Primary School!

Review - Bukhara Pop-up at the Sharaton Park Tower

Last Friday I was lucky enough to be invited to the Sharaton Park Tower to experience the Bukhara pop-up Indian restaurant.  The original Bukhara is at the ITC Maurya, New Delhi, a Luxury Collection Hotel, and the idea was to bring it to London to let us experience it.  Bukhara is regularly voted into the Top 50 restaurants in the world, so I knew that the food would be good (it was) but I also wanted to see how it worked as a pop-up.

It was excellent.  As an experience it was superb.  First we were shown into a garden, specially created by Waris Ahluwalia, traveller, designer, actor and The Luxury Collection’s newest Global Explorer.  There we chatted and mingled - all sorts of other food writers and experts were there.

Then through to the restaurant.  We were seated at large tables; large enough to get a good group, small enough to talk easily.  More wine was offered, with water (served in copper mugs - very traditional) and then the eating experience started.  At Bukhara no one uses cutlery, so we were given large bibs to wear.  The lack of cutlery was expected for the poppadoms, but it really came into its own when the main courses of vegetables, meat and prawns came.  It was great fun to eat these with fingers, dipping them into the signature dhal.

I was expecting something special, and I wasn't disappointed.  Even though the experience was already so memorable, and such fun, the food itself was superb.  Cooked on specially shipped tandoor ovens, by equally specially shipped chefs, including Executive Chefs Manjit Gill and JP Singh (pictured) this was a pop-up that focussed on both experience and food.

Bukhara is sold out for its entire London run, but it may well return.  If and when it does you have to try it!  Update - more covers have been added!  Follow the link below:

Link - Bukhara London

Review - Great Taste at the Cadogan in Knightsbridge

Great Taste at the Cadogan is a great restaurant offering a surprisingly unique concept - all food is British, and all of the ingredients are winners at the Great Taste Awards.  Food that’s proudly and successfully British, capable of standing up on its own merits of taste and quality against the best of the rest of the world.

We went on a Friday lunchtime, and sampled the 3 course a-la-carte menu, created by Xanthe Clay, of the Daily Telegraph and Nigel Barden, chairman of the Great Taste Award Supreme Jury, who has been curating the menu for the past few weeks, alongside main chef Oliver Lesnik.  The restaurant will evolve over the year because every six weeks or so a new team of curators will come in, using their inspiration, and what’s seasonal, to create a new menu.  In this way it’s going to be like a series of pop-up restaurants, but always in the same space.

I went along last week with my friend Ali.  It was a beautiful day to be sitting in a restaurant and having a lazy lunch!  The presentation was superb, the staff were all very attentive, and looked after us very well.

At £28 a head for the 3 courses it’s definitely not an everyday lunch, but it’s a fantastic treat, and a great opportunity to support British producers.

For starters we had the trio of salmon (smoked, seared and tartare), and the cold meat platter (including smoked duck, smoked ham, and corned beef).  We were helpfully given instructions for the order of eating - it’s best to work up to the strongest flavours.

For the main courses I went for another trio, the 3 ages of sheep (lamb, hogget and mutton), while Ali went for the roast ray wing.  Again it was delicious, and perfectly presented.  You can see from the picture the care and imagination taken over the lamb!

Finally we opted for the gluten free brownie (amazingly moist) and the cheese board.  As with all the dishes the most was made of the ingredients; you could taste everything.  The menu also clearly gave the provenance of each of the main elements, with the number of Great Taste stars.

It was a fabulous lunch, and very highly recommended.  It’s great to be supporting British producers, because it’s great to be able to experience the food prepared and cooked perfectly.  Clay and Barden have set an incredibly high standard, and thrown down the gauntlet to the next two curators.  Can’t wait to see what the next pair come up with.

Great Taste at the Cadogan is at 21 Pont Street, Knightsbridge, London SW1X 9SG

Website

Review - South West Supper Club's Wild & Foraged Night in Wandsworth

On Friday I went to the South West Supper Club’s Wild & Foraged night in Wandsworth.  Jimmy Garcia (see earlier) was hosting in the flat of artist Nathan Meyer, who was also on hand to do some waitering, and sell some specially labelled wine.  My friend Jo and I arrived a bit after 7.30.  Outside there was a very welcoming ‘Supper Club Here’ sign on a blackboard.  Then up the stairs to Nathan’s flat on the top floor.

The front room had been turned into the dining room, with 4 tables of six chairs.  It was super-friendly; we didn’t table hop, but we had a great time with the other 4 people on our table.  We were soon swapping glasses of wine, and chattering away about anything from London auctions (Geasby’s in Tooting), Wine, Juliette Binoche, the merits of Barcelona vs. Berlin, and much, much more.

The food was uniformly excellent, and with the canapes we had a four course meal for £30.  The highlights were the Wild Pheasant starter, and the dessert of poached pears (which I asked Jimmy for the recipe for). I know it feels strange in a review to write so little about the food, but take it as read that it was all to a very high standard.  The evening felt like it was about far more than the food!

We finally finished off at about 11pm (I think) and wandered off back towards Clapham Junction.  This is a superb supper club; you’re guaranteed a good night.

Link 1 - The South West Supper Club on Facebook
Link 2 - The South West Supper Club on Twitter

Review - The Stew House Pop-up Experience in Hackney

The Stew House is a Pop-up restaurant run by the Dead Dolls Club that has been running in short stints since December.

Having met Adam and Katy, the organisers, I was expecting really good organisation, and I wasn't disappointed.  The venue was a large room, usually used as a gallery, and they'd decorated to the theme of the night - a large fireplace and grandfather clock drawn on the walls and more; add the candles on the tables, and it was very atmospheric.  The invite showed a dress code - think extras in Sherlock Holmes - so I'd bought a bowler hat in Oxford Street before coming, and worn my long coat - but it wasn't compulsory.

We were quickly seated with some others, and then offered drinks.  We started with mulled cider and then moved on to cocktails and beer.  The cold drinks were served in jam jars (a nice touch), and as the room had begun to fill up we ordered our food.

We went for the Ham Hock Terrine to start (vegetarian option also avaialable), and then chose our stews.  Four different ones were on offer, and we chose the Venison, Port & Chocolate, and the Welsh Cawl (lamb).  Both were very tasty - it was a good job we had lots of bread to clean the plates with.  An empty plate is the best review!  All food is locally sourced, and they also take a lot of care with the drinks - for example beers from the local London Fields Brewery.

Then dessert - Apple Crumble with Fresh Custard.  This was probably the highlight of the night for me.  The apple came in big, succulent chunks, and the custard was a revelation.  I really don't like custard (a combination of school dinners and a job working in a kitchen cleaning the custard pot with an ice scraper) but this was a million miles away from a carton of Ambrosia.  It was light, creamy, and not too strong; I was very, very impressed.

We left a bit after dinner as my friend was just getting over a cold, but we'd had a great night.  This is a very unique night, with great food, great drinks, and great hospitality, and great value for £20 a head.  Go as a two, or go with a group, and you'll have lots of fun.  Following the success of December and January, the Stew House is now going to be open on 3rd & 4th February, and you can book tickets here.

Review - The Secret Burger at The Opera Tavern

Yesterday The Opera Tavern tweeted about a secret burger that they were trialling - you had to say a magic phrase to get it - and since it's relatively close to work, I popped down with a friend to try it out.

I really like The Opera Tavern.  I've been there before, and always had good food and service, and so I was looking forward to this.  We ordered about 6 things from the menu, including the secret 'Horn' venison burger, the courgette flowers, the chorizo with piquillo, and the fritas.  All were delicious!

There was quite a lot of amusement when we ordered the burger, and they seemed as delighted as we were with the mock subterfuge.  The burger itself was excellent - small, like a slider, and very tender and tasty.

Apparently they test things regularly, and this is just the latest.  They'd made a limited number of the burgers, and wanted to know the reaction, with a view to possibly putting it on the menu.  It's certainly a fun way to do things, and a good way to create a bit of buzz and entertainment for twitter followers.  We had a great night.

Follow the Salt Yard Group on Twitter for more specials from The Opera Tavern and their other restaurants.

Review - the Barcelona Supper Club by Codorniu

On Wednesday night my friend Ali and I went to a fantastic interactive supper club. Most supper clubs give you great food and company; this one gave us all of that but also a cookery class, a cava tasting class, and a Jamon carving class...

The Barcelona Supper Club, organised by Codorniu, took place downstairs at L’atelier des Chefs in Wigmore Street.  It’s a medium sized venue, which normally serves as a cookery school.  We all signed in, were served our first (of many) glasses of cava, and given access to some delicious olives and bread.

We were given a small guide book to the evening, and put into 3 groups, to make the numbers more manageable for the different activities.  We could see the menu on the blackboard, and luckily my group got to do the cooking first.  I say luckily, because we were being plied with cava very liberally; I’m glad I was cooking early on!

The cookery session was run by Rachel McCormack from Catalan Cooking.  She took us through the prep and cooking of the final course, Anec amb Peras y Espinacs a Catalana (Duck breast with Codorniu cava Soaked Pears and Carrots, Broccoli, and New Potatoes), showing us first how to chop the tomatoes to the right size, then seal the duck and so on.  This lasted about 20 minutes or so, and we got to mark our casserole dishes so that we could find what we’d cooked at the end. (The equipment we got to use was fantastic - the Le Creuset frying pan is going straight onto my Christmas list!)

Then it was time for the ‘Fizzness School’ aka Cava Tasting, where Nick Mantella gave us 5 of the different Codorniu varieties to taste.  All were delicious, but I think my favourite was the Anna de Codorniu, which is the best-selling cava in Spain.

Then to the Jamon carving, led by Chuse Valero, who made it look so easy, and cut off huge amounts of fresh Jamon from the bone for us to taste. Quite simply I’ve never lasted ham like it.  Even the best you can buy has inevitably lost something through storage; this just tasted insanely good!

Then it was time to eat.  The four courses that had been cooked - Jamon y Pa amb Tomaquet (carved ham with tomato bread), Xato de Sitges (Salt cod and Romesco Sauce with Curly Endive), Calamarsons Farcits de Ceba (Baby squid stuffed with caramelised onions), & finally our own Anec amb Peras y Espinacs a Catalana were brought to the table in turn and wolfed down.  All the teams had done their cooking bits well, and all were very good.

By this point we were running a bit later than we’d hoped, so we had to race off, but not forgetting to grab our goodie bags (inc. a bottle of cava).

Overall it was a brilliant, brilliant night, and fantastic value for £40 a head.  Most cookery classes cost more than that, without the other sessions and tha cava.  Probably not one for teetotallers, people who don’t like cava, or vegetarians, but we’d definitely do it again.  Please Codorniu - can we do it again..?