Had a nice outing last night with my old workmates from FTSE. Went to Pride of Spitalfields - my favorite pub on the east side - for a beer and a pub cat. I had a Sharp’s Doom Bar, a 4% bitter from Cornwall. It was warm. But the cat was totally chill and the company were sweet as always.
After drinks, we headed up Brick Lane for a curry at Chaat, a Bengladeshi cafe off on Redchurch Street in Shoreditch. The food was pleasantly non-greasy, though I did think it needed a bit of salt (my companions thought I was nuts). I’ve had better samosas, but the “paneer roti wrap” was fun, the channa salad was pleasantly spiced, and the tarka dal was delicious and garlicky. It doesn’t beat Rasa, and it doesn’t beat my own Indian cooking (if I do say so myself!), but the food was great for the price, the atmosphere was pleasant, and the staff were really nice. I give it a three out of five stars.
One step closer to the truth yesterday at Mildred’s Vegetarian Restaurant in Soho. Made with beetroot, pumpkin, peas and spring onion, this vegan burger was NOT a mush burger. And it tasted fab. Lots of whole fennel seed. Great texture. Yummy sweet relish and basil mayonnaise on the side.
Now, how do I accomplish something similar? I’m guessing lots of oil… and salt.
BTW, Mildred’s is a very nice restaurant, and reasonably priced (the veggie burger was £7.50). I would definitely eat there again.
Friday lunch in the sun at Boundary. Food, friends, wine, the works. It was hard to believe we were in London. Almost. The Shoreditch hipsters gave it away.
Went to Highgate Cemetery last Wednesday, home of Karl Marx, Peter Perfect, Thomas Sayers and more. It was a spectacular sunny day. The highlight: the guided tour of the Western cemetery. Highly recommended. Add this to my Top 10 list of favorite things to do in London. It’s right up there with Sir John Soane’s museum and St. Paul’s.
I had lunch this afternoon at one of my favorite food spots in London: Story Deli off of Brick Lane near the Old Truman Brewery. Today’s pie may have been the best pizza I’ve ever had. Ever.
I ordered it on impulse, thinking the ingredient combination was too interesting to pass up: tomato sauce, roasted fennel, carmelized red onion, hot red chili, rosemary, raisins, olives, roasted garlic, marscapone, parmesan. Fresh spinach and red pepper served on the side. Also, I asked them to "go easy" on the mozzarella, so they left it off entirely and gave it me some fresh mozzarella on the side. The result was like magic in my mouth. The sweet raisins with the salty olives and rich roasted garlic and fennel. The was crust was, as usual, thin, crispy and superb. Plenty of extra virgin olive oil (and yet, not too much). The marscapone didn’t seem to add much, and yet, it didn’t detract either. I aspire to make pizza this good.
One of my fantasies is to go to India and learn to cook from the people who invented dal, channa masala, and numerousotherfavoritefoods of mine. Last night at Hot Stuff, I felt pretty close.
“Hot stuff is LEGENDARY,” he said. “I’ve been such a long time customer that we’ll get various freebies chucked in PLUS!! If you ask nicely and go early enough you can go into the kitchens and watch your order be cooked.”
How could I refuse an offer like that?
So last night Tim and I ventured to Vauxhall where we found Hot Stuff down a quiet little sidestreet handily located next to an off license where we picked up a few Tiger beers before we found our table (Hot Stuff is unlicensed and does not charge a corkage fee… in fact, it’s pretty hard to tell what Hot Stuff charges for. More on that later).
The dining room barely seats 20 people and every table but one was taken. The crowd was buzzing under the soft blue lights and strings of chili peppers dangling from the ceiling. Stu wasn’t lying about the staff - I’ve never been to a friendlier place in London. This felt more like a house party than a restaurant, and like all good parties, this one ended up in the kitchen.
Although the kitchen was even smaller than the dining room and already filled with at least four cooks, they didn’t mind packing us in to have a look at the operations and take some photos. It was all sparks and fire as the cook whip up a shrimp biryani. “This is punjabi style,” he explained and he seasoned it from the handy tins of spices sitting above the stove.
“Four basic spices form the foundation of almost every dish: turmeric, ground coriander, chili, and garam masala.”
The kitchen envy really kitched in when I watched another cook prepare the naan. I’ve never been so close to a tandoori oven before. As a lover of naan, chapati and all things bready, this was very exciting. Even though the oven was hotter than hell, I got chills.
I don’t think I’ve ever been so close to a restaurant kitchen before, even when I used to wait tables at Perkins in Champaign, Illinois. What impressed me most was how SIMPLE cooking seemed when everything you need to cook with is out and ready to go.
In addition to their spice station, Hot Stuff also had a table with big bowls of pre-chopped garlic, ginger, fried and ground onion, tomato paste, salt, ghee of course. I aspire to be so organized. I also aspire to have their ability to use these spices without needing a measuring spoon.
So the kitchen was smokin’. What about the food?
Hot Stuff is not strictly vegetarian, but there were plenty of veggie options to choose from, including a couple of specials. We started with bhajis, like vegetable fritters. They were crispy on the outside, soft and tasty on the inside, but the chutney didn’t do them justice. No worries - the chili paneer made up for it - what could be better than soft, spicy nuggets of cheesy goodness?
Stu said the spinach and butternut squash curry would make us feel like we had “died and gone to heaven”. I wouldn’t go that far, though this may be a personal bias - I love the flavor of spinach and butternut squash on their own, but they seemed to get lost when put together. Still, it was enjoyable, as was the sliced cabbage curry. The split channa dal was delicious.
Like most Indian restaurants, all of the dishes came with a liberal dose of ghee, just shy of being too over the top. The exception was the garlic coriander chili naan, which looked like a halo on our table, and indeed tasted like it came from above. If any of the other dishes were lacking, the naan picked it up and put it in its place: right into my hungry mouth.
If it weren’t for Raj and the awesomely cool people who run Hot Stuff, this might be just another Indian restaurant on just another tiny street in London. But Hot Stuff definitely is special. It’s more an experience than a restaurant. And you can’t beat it for the price. Dinner for three with leftovers and a tour of the kitchen cost just £35. Could this be right? There was no way of knowing - the waiter just told us the price without handing us an actual bill.
Hot Stuff’s website which proudly proclaims “DON’T EAT AT HOT STUFF” - “The restaurant is so popular that it doesn’t need a website. So we removed the fancy one that we did as a Xmas 7 present years ago.”
Courgette - that’s the same as zucchini for you American folks! Stu learned this recipe from the cooks and passed it on to me. These are his words, and I hope you’ll enjoy his English vernacular.
150g red split lentils
2 gloves of garlic finely chopped or pressed
1 finely chopped onion
1 finely chopped green chilli
bunch of fresh coriander
2 medium courgettes sliced lengthways
pinch of cumin
salt and pepper
300g creamed tomato, tomato frito, or passata
olive oil
Put some of the chopped coriander with the sliced courgette on a plate and marinate with olive oil for a few minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
Heat a griddle pan and lay on the courgette slices. Cook well on both sides.
At the same time in either a large frying pan or large saucepan (i use the latter), heat 2 tablespoons of oil and chuck in your garlic, chilli and onion. Sweat them for a few minutes (but don’t crisp up or burn). Then throw in your split lentils, stir and coat all the lentils and then pour in your tomatoes. If you’ve used a jar then pour in the same amount of water plus half again. I swill around the water in the tomato jar to make sure nothings been missed.
Heat a pretty fierce flame for a few minutes whilst stirring to ensure nothing sticks. Then turn down to a steady simmer - ensuring the non-sticking principle during the cooking process!
When you turn the heat down take your cooked courgettes, dice them and put in the mix. Stir, and add in the coriander. (Being a big fan of said herb, I chuck in loads, but put in as much as your comfortable with.)
Season with salt and pepper, add the cumin, if you have some paprika add that as well. If you love hot food you can of course put 2 chillis in at the beginning.
It’s been snowing in London, and the reaction from the locals is so insane that I find it somewhat difficult to enjoy it. I’m not the only one. Anne Applebaum of Slate.com:
Even for a native of Washington, D.C., the city that our new president recently described as in need of “flinty Chicago toughness” because of its pathetic response to the occasional snowflake, this reaction seemed excessive. So did the reaction of London’s transportation network, which grounded most of the city’s vast underground system and all 8,000 of its buses, leaving more than 6 million passengers stranded. So did the reactions of London schools (all canceled) and Londoners themselves. Walking down Piccadilly in the evening, I found no evidence that anyone had made use of anything resembling a snow shovel throughout the entire day.
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