Hey everybody: it's London Restaurant Week! Oh, except it was really successful last year, so they've actually extended it to a fortnight, confusingly.
Anyway, it started on Monday 14 April and goes through to ... er, a fortnight after that. Lots of top London restaurants are offering a two-course lunch for £15 and a three-course dinner for £25. This is about the price you'd normally pay for a special offer, set menu or Toptable deal but, from what I've heard, the menu for London Restaurant Week is usually less restrictive and better quality.
I'm taking advantage of this wonderful event twice this year. I'm going to Brasserie Roux tomorrow evening and to the Cinnamon Club next Friday. Reviews to follow, I promise!
Thursday 17 April 2008
Wednesday 9 April 2008
Super noodles
Sticky chicky noodles
I've never really bothered all that much about oriental food - Chinese, Thai, etc - because it's not my favourite kind of food and I had no idea how to cook it. Just recently, however, I've taken more of an interest for one reason and another and I've learnt a few recipes. Nowadays I'd say I'm pretty good at noodles!
One of my favourite recipes is one I found in Delicious magazine and have slightly adapted for my own tastes. So here you go:
First of all, mix together about four dessert spoonfuls of soy sauce, the juice of one lime, a teaspoon of chopped ginger (from a jar, in 'new Delia' style!), a few crushed chilli flakes and four dessert spoons of honey. Add to this two smallish breasts of chicken cut into smallish strips and leave it to do its business for ten minutes or so. Then transfer it to an ovenproof dish and put in the oven (medium hot) for about 15-20 minutes.
Next fry some suitable vegetables with a little bit of groundnut oil in a big frying pan or wok. I usually go for either a pre-prepared packet of sliced cabbage and leek or a bag of 'generic stir-fry vegetables' (I'm so Delia!). But if I was starting from scratch I'd use very finely sliced savoy cabbage, red onions, carrots and courgettes.
Separately cook some fine egg noodles and as soon as they're ready add them to the frying pan with the vegetables. When the chicken is ready, take the dish out of the oven and carefully pour or spoon the sauce over the noodles and vegetables. Leave the chicken in the dish for a while (in the oven to stay warm) and give the noodles a thorough jiggle around to make sure the sauce has covered everything. Serve massive plates-full of the noodles with the chicken placed on top, with a nice glass of fruit juice or guava Collins!
Ooh, and hey: remember I said I'd suggest some recipes for dinners that could also create leftovers for lunch? This one's the daddy!
I've never really bothered all that much about oriental food - Chinese, Thai, etc - because it's not my favourite kind of food and I had no idea how to cook it. Just recently, however, I've taken more of an interest for one reason and another and I've learnt a few recipes. Nowadays I'd say I'm pretty good at noodles!
One of my favourite recipes is one I found in Delicious magazine and have slightly adapted for my own tastes. So here you go:
First of all, mix together about four dessert spoonfuls of soy sauce, the juice of one lime, a teaspoon of chopped ginger (from a jar, in 'new Delia' style!), a few crushed chilli flakes and four dessert spoons of honey. Add to this two smallish breasts of chicken cut into smallish strips and leave it to do its business for ten minutes or so. Then transfer it to an ovenproof dish and put in the oven (medium hot) for about 15-20 minutes.
Next fry some suitable vegetables with a little bit of groundnut oil in a big frying pan or wok. I usually go for either a pre-prepared packet of sliced cabbage and leek or a bag of 'generic stir-fry vegetables' (I'm so Delia!). But if I was starting from scratch I'd use very finely sliced savoy cabbage, red onions, carrots and courgettes.
Separately cook some fine egg noodles and as soon as they're ready add them to the frying pan with the vegetables. When the chicken is ready, take the dish out of the oven and carefully pour or spoon the sauce over the noodles and vegetables. Leave the chicken in the dish for a while (in the oven to stay warm) and give the noodles a thorough jiggle around to make sure the sauce has covered everything. Serve massive plates-full of the noodles with the chicken placed on top, with a nice glass of fruit juice or guava Collins!
Ooh, and hey: remember I said I'd suggest some recipes for dinners that could also create leftovers for lunch? This one's the daddy!
Saturday 5 April 2008
Sunday service at the Church
We visited friends in Northampton a while back and, at long last, got around to trying The Church restaurant. It's a converted church (funnily enough!) and I've always thought it looked fairly classy as we've driven past. Although I'd never seen the menu I had read a few good reviews online and, all in all, had fairly high hopes.
Well, I can honestly say that I wasn't in any way disappointed. The entrance is quite impressive and we all looked around with 'ooh's and 'aahh's at the bar area with its high rafters and large stained glass window. We went for Sunday lunch so things were fairly quiet but it was clear to see that the bar could easily be lively with a good atmosphere on a weekday evening.
The decor of the restaurant itself is modern but understated to let the architecture of the church itself take centre stage. I sat next to another stained glass window and the sunlight sent beams of blue and purple light onto our table, which was rather pretty!
The food is at the high end of the 'gastropub' spectrum: a few brave, different choices but nothing pretentious and decent-sized portions. My starter of garlic mushrooms baked with pancetta and mozzarella was well constructed and delicious. One of my friends ordered scallops, which looked to be cooked excellently.
For the main course I ate a fish pie - perfect plain and simple Sunday lunch food cooked well with nothing fussy about it. One friend ordered the roast beef, served in the traditional way; he had good things to say about the quality of the meat but left quite a lot because the portion was enormous! The other two ate the salmon, which was apparently cooked well but was served with far too many 'branchy' bits of watercress and far too little lime dressing.
For me (strangely for me!) the highlight was the pudding. Everyone else had a hearty-looking slab of sticky toffee pudding (and none of it was left, so I'm guessing it was good!) but I chose three scoops of sorbet. The orange and raspberry scoops were lovely, but the champagne-flavoured scoop was utterly fantastic!
Add to this some excellent, well-judged service and some good music at just the right volume and I'd say the balance of everything was more or less right. So if you're ever passing through Northampton ...
Well, I can honestly say that I wasn't in any way disappointed. The entrance is quite impressive and we all looked around with 'ooh's and 'aahh's at the bar area with its high rafters and large stained glass window. We went for Sunday lunch so things were fairly quiet but it was clear to see that the bar could easily be lively with a good atmosphere on a weekday evening.
The decor of the restaurant itself is modern but understated to let the architecture of the church itself take centre stage. I sat next to another stained glass window and the sunlight sent beams of blue and purple light onto our table, which was rather pretty!
The food is at the high end of the 'gastropub' spectrum: a few brave, different choices but nothing pretentious and decent-sized portions. My starter of garlic mushrooms baked with pancetta and mozzarella was well constructed and delicious. One of my friends ordered scallops, which looked to be cooked excellently.
For the main course I ate a fish pie - perfect plain and simple Sunday lunch food cooked well with nothing fussy about it. One friend ordered the roast beef, served in the traditional way; he had good things to say about the quality of the meat but left quite a lot because the portion was enormous! The other two ate the salmon, which was apparently cooked well but was served with far too many 'branchy' bits of watercress and far too little lime dressing.
For me (strangely for me!) the highlight was the pudding. Everyone else had a hearty-looking slab of sticky toffee pudding (and none of it was left, so I'm guessing it was good!) but I chose three scoops of sorbet. The orange and raspberry scoops were lovely, but the champagne-flavoured scoop was utterly fantastic!
Add to this some excellent, well-judged service and some good music at just the right volume and I'd say the balance of everything was more or less right. So if you're ever passing through Northampton ...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
