Friday 27 March 2009

Moneygeddon

Wow, look: I was talking about fear of a recession over a year ago! I didn't realise the media had had its doom and gloom hat on for that long!

Anyway, the 'hate waste' campaign seems to have quietened down of late, to be ovetaken by the old 'cheap food is fashionable again' thing. Chefs, food writers and supermarkets are telling us that we can do no better than brisket, offal, scrag end and the like. (Ok, maybe not scrag end ...)

Do I agree? Well, not entirely. There's some things on which one can easily economise; value broccoli is much the same as gourmet broccoli (both delicious) for example, and over-priced fancy sausages still split, stick to the pan and taste the same as cheaper ones. But brisket is no substitute for a nice piece of topside. I wouldn't compromise, personally - not after the first time!

Thursday 26 March 2009

Crazy egg

Just a quick thing about scrambled eggs. Have I spoken about them before? Possibly, but who knows? Who cares?! It's not as if you read every day! Oh -perhaps you do! In which case I feel a scary sense of obligation to inform, educate and entertain, like the BBC.

Anyway - make them in the microwave. Just take them out every 20 or 30 seconds to do the scrambling bit with a fork, otherwise (as my colleague pointed out) you end up with an omelette.

Scrambly eggs, as I call them, should be a bit on the gooey side and are best eaten as hot as possible on some ciabatta toast with olive oil and black pepper.

PS: turns out I had talked about them before!

Friday 20 March 2009

Raising the steaks again!

Hurrah! The fortnight-long, strangely-named London Restaurant Week is here! Apparently venues in Manchester and Birmingham also take part, so it's really just the 'restaurant' bit of the name that's accurate.

During this fortnight well-known and prestigious restaurants offer three-course lunches for £15 and three-course dinners for £25, usually from a set menu.

Now, I'm in two minds about this event. I like the fact that it publicises good restaurants and encourages those who don't eat out very often to try somewhere new. On the other hand, the offer isn't exceptionally good value in most cases, compared to the year-round offers available online.

For instance, I've been wanting to visit the Albannach for a while and checked the list to find that it's taking part in restaurant week. I also checked Toptable, however, to find that they're offering 50% off all food. Well, that's not restricted to a set menu and it'll work out cheaper than £25 a head, so ...

I also noticed that Lanes, on Middlesex Street, is now a Marco Pierre White grill and steakhouse. I've always liked the restaurant but found the menu quite static and the atmosphere a bit 'city'-ish, so I was keen to see whether it had changed for the better. I checked the offers and again the Toptable offer won: I booked and went for dinner last night. Now I feel that I've done my bit for London Restaurant Week without being crowbarred into paying more than necessary!

And yes, it has changed for the better. The atmosphere is far more relaxed and the menu is a meat-lover's delight - a clever mix of fancy cuisine and simple steaks and grills. I'm certainly going to keep my eyes peeled for special offers in the future.

Friday 13 March 2009

Cake!

My favourite cake recipe, for low-fat apple cake, is probably the recipe I most frequently pass on. So I thought I'd dredge it up again here!

I recently made a new-Delia-like discovery, too - if you have no cooking apples handy, you can use a jar of bramley apple sauce instead! Hurrah for convenience!

The recipe can be found right here.

Thursday 12 March 2009

Port authority

I've just come back from a holiday in Portugal: land of no cuisine. I'm prepared to stand corrected, but as far as I can tell there is no good food in the whole country. The national specialities appear to be greasy, fatty pork and biscuit cake with ice cream (eet's a cooookie, we've been told!).

We did spend most of the time in Porto, so the majority of restaurants cater firmly for tourists and offer nothing more exciting than 'frying pan steak' and 'frog-fish rice'. I did, however, have a chance to visit the 'real' Portugal (the north-east, near the border) and I can confirm that the food situation doesn't improve away from the Ryanair track. Apparently the locals make caldo, a revolting cabbage soup, every day.

During the holiday I had a chance to venture into Spain for a day. This was incredibly exciting because it meant we could visit a tapas bar and eat some real food! We dined gratefully on excellent Spanish jamon, bread and ensalada russa (Russian salad, which contains tuna, potatoes and vegetables with a creamy sauce).

What Portugal lacks in food it makes up for with wine, though. Red wine from the Douro region is particularly nice. We also visited some Port cellars to learn how Port is made and, of course, to sample some into the bargain. I'd recommend this is practically the first thing you do once you're off the plane in Porto: hot-foot it down to the river, cross the Eiffel bridge and get yourself into a cellar, preferably the Calem one. For about five euros you get an interesting tour and two decent-sized glasses of delicious Port to taste. But be warned: it certainly works up a craving for cheese and there's none to be found, so take your own!

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