TheKua Does Food

This cafe is literally hidden above all of Covent Garden, located on the fourth floor of the Snow & Rock outdoor store down a side street off the 7 dials. It’s run by Kiwi people so by default they serve the classic flat white – and a great serve at that. The interior is spacious with a number of tables and a set of benches at the front looking out at the skyline. You’re so high up that you can’t really see down on to street although you can see the sky surrounding the top of the other building.

Being a little bit more than just a coffee store, this cafe also serves lunch foods like simple sandwiches, paninis and many cakes and pastries to accompany the coffee you have. They even have a jug of tap water they keep full so you never find yourself thirsty for anything.

The good thing about this cafe, unlike a number of other coffee stores around London is that its opening hours are that of the store it sits in, so it’s open on Sundays as well as Saturdays. Many good coffee places seem to shut down on this day of rest.

It’s got a quiet atmosphere and is a great cafe if you need to get any work done. Highly recommended.

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I’d read about this tiny coffee place a long time ago but since it only opens during the working week, has been impossible to trial whilst commuting for work. With a couple of days in the office, I thought it was a good time to visit. My goal was to get here early so I could sit down and do some work. Whilst they have seating, it’s definitely not suited for working with a laptop with small wooden benches lining the interior walls. If you’ve every been to Dose, the Espresso Room is even smaller stil (if that’s possible). Given the little space that exists, I have to admit they impressed me with what they made of little space.

When I stepped inside, two friendly females greeted me. Like many great cafes these days, they do all the standard espresso based drinks including the wonderful antipodean-inspired flat whites. Whether it was the sunny weather or just what they’re like the baristas like they were very chatty, talking about what books they were reading (apparently The Alchemist is a good one!) and all other sorts of topics.

The important part about any coffee shop is the coffee and this one hits the mark fine. Perfectly creamy milk and a mean tasting espresso vanished far too quickly that I was thinking perhaps staying around for a second wouldn’t have been such a bad idea.

It’d be great if it was open during the weekend but I’m guessing they have plenty of business opening opposite a hospital.

Name: The Espresso Room
Found at: 31-35 Great Ormond Street
Website: http://www.theespressoroom.com/

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For the past five months, I would walk home from Kings Cross station as part of my daily routine returning from Cambridge. The walk home isn’t particular grand but at least you get some mild level of exercise into the day. I always noticed a few interesting restaurant around that area but it wasn’t until today that I finally got to try one of them, called Konstam.

I have no idea about what sort of food they are supposed to specialise in, but the interior is striking for the surrounding area – modern and hip interior that strikes a sharp contrast will the dull concrete buildings surrounding it. We ended up here after a Friday pub for a late dinner starting at about 9pm. Based on the lightness of the menu, I had the impression that it changes regularly – with three to four choices per course.

I started with Dartford purple sprouting broccoli, poached egg, hollandaise sauce & breadcrumbs concoction (£8) that proved to be a very light and lovely way to start the meal off. The breadcrumbs added another dimension of texture to an otherwise well executed classic.

Three of us at the table then went for the Charcoal-grilled rib-eye steak with braised January King, fried potatoes & horseradish sauce (£21.50). Unfortunately I neglected to take any pictures of this since it was so good. Mine was cooked perfectly rare, so pink and juicy and full of flavour. They served the steak in small strips atop all the other side dishes and was really easy to cut through without the need for a proper steak knife if you wanted to break it up ever further.

Everyone else had coffees but I thought I’d try their Spiced, toasted castle cake with plum jam & sloe gin cream (£7.25), apparently some version of a tea cake. When it arrived I was pleasantly surprised as it was light and deliciously most. The sloe gin was subtle but you can definitely taste the light berry flavour infused from the sloes.

Service was polite and when taking the food orders or plates, was fairly prompt. I think the only they thing they really could have improved on was keeping our water topped up throughout the night – I had to ask twice for a refill of our jug of water.

I’d definitely return here and with the service, we still paid £50 a head which I think is reasonable considering all the things that we ate and the two bottles of wine we drank throughout the night.

Name: Konstam at The Prince Albert
Found at: 2 Acton Street, London, WC1X 9NA
Website: http://www.konstam.co.uk/

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I’ve eaten at Anna Hansen’s bisto for breakfast before so I was pretty happy to go here for my flatmate’s birthday dinner last weekend. What made it all the more exciting was having seen Anna at the Taste of Christmas last year and talk passionately about her cooking interests and the thought behind dishes such as her Sugar-cured New Caledonian prawn omelette, spring onion, coriander, smoked chilli sambal. Therefore when I sat it on their menu as a starter (£8.50), I couldn’t but help myself and order it.

Although it’s pricey for a starter, it was deliciously put together – perfectly cooked egg, slightly sweet prawns and and the homemade chilli sambal adding that depth of heat to the dish. I’d definitely get this one again.

For my main, I ordered the grilled miso marinated steak onglet, cassava chips, feta cheese and salad with green pepper relish (£16.50). The onglet is an interesting cut of meat, often called the butcher’s cut because there is only one of these per cow, and it’s flavour and taste and tenderness often mean butcher’s would rather keep it than sell it. There’s a good reason for it, since it was so tender and really nice. Interesting, the waiter asked if cooking it rare was okay – completely fine with me in a restaurant I trust who knows what to do with it.

I finished the meal off with a hokey-pokey affogato(£4), a combination of two rare items to find in London that I would definitely regret not ordering it the next day. Delicious hokey pokey ice cream (effectively crumble mixed through ice cream) and then served in small cup with an espresso shot tipped on top. I absolutely adore the contrast brought about by dishes mixing hot and cold sensations.

I can highly recommend this place for a great evening. Service was prompt, and not even noticeable at times, the perfect sort. Even though we were the last ones out and hanging around quite late, no one ever asked us to leave.

Name: The Modern Pantry
Found at: 48 Saint John’s Square, London EC1V 4JJ
Website: http://www.themodernpantry.co.uk/

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We organised yet another team dinner out in Cambridge, this time deciding to hit a restaurant called Asia. I’d read some great things about it so I was quite excited to do so. I’d arranged the booking a week in advance, although I was surprised when I called up the day before our dinner to find out that our booking disappeared into the ether. Fortunately they still had space for our change in dining numbers.

We sat at a very local freehouse (St Radegund) in Cambridge (highly recommended for a very pub-like experience) when I received a call from the restaurant telling me that their Thai chef did not turn up. I thought this was quite nice of them, though understandable, when half of their menu is Thai.

We also had strange service throughout the entire night, mainly because we had a bit of a newbie waiter asking one of his colleagues to come across. I think it was the first five questions that sent him running that triggered us to have a bit of a laugh of it throughout the night. Strangeness continued throughout the evening, with the wine menu being presented with an one extensive page each, of red and white wines, yet then to be told only four bottles were available of the 20+ listed.

On to the food. The menu was pretty large, although being “pan-asian” they only seemed to have Indian/Pakistani and then Thai foods. This is probably a good choice because pan asian restaurants tend to offer greater variety of cuisines at the cost of quality. Fortunately they hadn’t sacrificed quality. I skipped the starters, although everyone else said their starter was delicious. They certainly looked like it. Then the mains finally arrived and I almost regret ordering the plethora of side dishes.

I ordered their Chicken Lababdar (Tandoori chicken tikka cooked in lababdar gravy with fresh ginger, green chilli, coriander and finished with cream) which ended up deliciously spicy and creamy at the same time. It was a hugely generous serve (as were all of the main dishes), hence regretting the presence of all the side dishes we ordered.

We ended up taking all the leftover food home. Despite all the strangeness, if you simply treated this as an Indian/Pakistani restaurant the food is definitely worth going for. I can also recommend ordering their mango creme brulee.

Name: Asia Dining Room
Found at: 66 Regent Street, Cambridge, CB2 1DP
Website: http://www.asia-dining.co.uk/cambridge

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Cambridge houses two chop houses, run by the same group of people. We went to the one located in the heart of the ring road, The Cambridge Chop House (opposed to their other one, opposite my favourite Cambridge gastropub, The Punter). We tried this one because I was told the atmosphere was much nicer, and with a cellar dining room, did have a lot more of an intimate atmosphere.

Wanting some greens, I started with the Roasted fennel, orange and red onion herb salad – a light and refreshing way to start the meal. The portion size was decent and aniseed-flavoured fennel went well to contrast the sharp herb and slightly tangy orange segments.

They had a number of specials that had gone that day, and what was surprising about this “Chophouse” is lack of a “meat board” or anything like it. In fact, I only remember them having one or two types of steaks! Strange for a chophouse. I succumbed to their temptation of a Venison Wellington, Mash and Gravy that the menu noted (and the staff emphasised) the wait for an additional 20 minutes. Considering that we weren’t in any particular rush, I thought that would have been fine.

As you can see from the picture above, the wellington ended up quite a massive portion and it took me a while to even make a dent in it. I was worried that it wouldn’t come with greens either, so I’d ordered an additional bowl but it also came with some broccoli. It doesn’t hurt to have more greens does it?

Service was odd throughout the evening with waitresses being rather direct. It’s not like they were impolite, but there was definitely an oddity to it and I still can’t quite properly explain it. I’d definitely recommend this over a number of the chain restaurants in Cambridge.

Name: The Cambridge Chop House
Found at: 1 King’s Parade, Cambridge CB2 1SJ
Website: http://www.chophouses.co.uk/TheCambridgeChopHouse/

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To celebrate the end of our project, a number of us decided to take the plunge and book in a dinner at Midsummer House. Located in the middle of Midsummer Commons’ park and right next to the river, I can imagine that it would be particularly lovely eating al fresco in the outdoors. Fortunately in winter when it’s much colder and particularly damp, the bright indoor eating area does just fine. We were one of the first tables to be seated at 7pm, although I think we were also one of the last remaining tables at the end of the night, obviously enjoying the food and wine that was soon to come.

When we arrived, they took our coats and led us to our table – a plain white table clothed round table right next to their bay windows where we could see fairy lights dotting their outdoor garden. We had an apertif to start (a number of gin and tonics and champagne for the table) where we then got a look at the menu. Midsummer House does do a number of dishes for vegetarians but their tasting menu is predominantly mixtures of meats and seafood that probably wouldn’t be that appealing. We ended up with the tasting menu (a number of courses for £85). Here’s a picture of Midsummer House from the outside before dinner:

To begin with, we had a number of small amuse bouche. I don’t remember exactly what this dish was, but it was some sort of foam dish with a light fruit. It was a nice way to start the palatte as it had sharp citrus flavours that stimulated the taste buds.

Whilst we perused the menu, we were then offered a number of other canapes including a whitebait fritter (the fried things in the left side of the picture below), and a bread puff filled with a savoury mixture. I remember both were light crisp and almost too easy on the way down.

After deciding on the tasting menu, a small cart arrived by the tableside, where they prepared a palette cleanser. With small round bowls that looked like mini balloons, they dispensed a canister including yet another type of foam.

It was a pink grapefruit and champagne foam! Hurrah. The flavours of the grapefruit were particularly sublime although you could taste the fizz from the champagne and was a lovely way to cut through the savoury tone of our canapes. I’m a little bit over the whole foam thing, but at least it was guaranteed to be a light way of starting.

Our first real course on the tasting menu was a White Onion, Apple and Scallion bisque. The apple was cut into small chunks, providing the texture to, an otherwise, monotonic but creamy soup. It was served in an impressive pleated bowl.

After being warmed up slightly by the soup, we then moved onto a Beetroot cannelloni, filled with small bits of goats cheese served with a horseradish sorbet, and a celery side salad. The cannelloni was really light and wasn’t too overpowering with the beetroot flavour. Its crispness as you cut into a small chunk then led you to a perfect pairing of salty goats cheese, without being overwhelming. Adding in the heat of the horseradish and surprising cold from the sorbet, was an amazing mouthfeel to last. I was a huge fan of this particular dish that was also vegetarian friendly.

Our next dish was definitely less vegetarian friendly, being Sautéed scallops topped with iberico ham, some fresh sage, and then a creme fraiche topped with green olives. The scallops were delightfully cooked – browned on the outside yet soft and perfectly cooked flesh. The iberico ham wasn’t overpowering, being shaved extremely thin and it worked really well with the other elements. Interestingly they didn’t actually describe all the elements on the plate when they put the dish down although we had great guess as a group picking all the remaining ingredients.

The next course soon arrived, Sweetbreads, pistachio, maple syrup and mouli. I remember thinking how the maple syrup could have dominated the lighter flavours of sweetbread, but was pleasantly surprised when you had the strange sweetness but not in the concentrated burst I’d feared. The mouli provided a nice contrast to the dish as well.

The next dish was Langoustine and Cuttlefish Risotto. As you can probably tell from the picture below, the risotto wasn’t a true risotto – instead made up of a cuttlefish cut into perfectly small cubes resembling the white firmness one would expect from a well made risotto. The langoustine was perfectly cooked, super sweet and went down almost too fast.

Our next dish was a “Pousse Cafe” meant to be drunk as a single shot. I remember it being fairly warm, and made up of a number of different savoury soups of different textures. It was brilliant how they layered the different flavours that when it was tipped into your mouth, then turned into a wonderful experience, further warming the belly as it made its way down. Yum!

After this enjoyable experience, we had the Pigeon, sweet potato and cocoa nibs. As you can the pigeon was pistachio-crusted which I thought was going to overpower the pigeon but simply added an interesting texture dimension to the dish. Pigeon, being slightly more gamey was much more tougher than what I was expecting but we still managed to have no problems cutting into it with a butter knife.

The cheese cart arrives – hurrah! With a huge selection of many different types of cheeses. It is actually an additional course (£5 for the small plate, and £12 for the large). Interestingly, the small plate ended up with four cheeses, the large five cheeses although I wasn’t sure if you could pick many many more for the large plate. The sizes of the cuts weren’t noticeably different.

After the cheese course, our desserts started arriving, the first being a Lemon grass topped with lady grey mousse. I thought it was a very interesting concoction and cleverly put together – the citrus tones working well to complement each other. It was a nice, light creamy dessert that was actually a pretty significant size.

Our next dessert was Warm kumquats served with lemon thyme ice cream that did well to continue the citrus-based themes of desserts. The kumquats looked like they had been caramelised with some sugar, being very potent on their own. I felt the pressure to down this one as the warmth from the fruits started to turn the ice cream to cream and it was definitely great to have that hot and cold contrast again with complementary flavours.

Our final “dessert” of the evening was this spectacular Tiramisu that was a much more deconstructed version of any tiramisu you’d likely ever see. You have the marscapone element as a cold ice cream, a dark chocolate truffle sitting to the side, and a chocolate tube containing the coffee cream with amazing cotton candy sitting on top. They brought each to the table before pouring the shot of espresso right through the cotton candy and in the middle of the tube that then spilled on to the rest of the plate. This was definitely one of the many desserts you wanted to keep lasting.

We then had some coffees and tea with the petite fours (which I didn’t try because I was so full and chocolate was definitely too rich after that series of desserts).

Amazingly that wasn’t the last of it when they brought out the final dish, Freshly sugared Beignets (AKA Donuts) with a lemon marmalade and freshly made creme anglaise (i.e. custard). Despite being particularly full I couldn’t stop myself from trying this. The custard was absolutely divine and the donuts light and not sickeningly sweet. A great surprise at the end of the meal.

Service was very good throughout the evening – not even noticing when they took plates away. One thing they could improve on is if their sommelier talked about the various wines as we went through the evening with the dish – rather than simply pouring them and then walking away. The wine tasting menu looked like this:

• Touraine Sauvignon Blanc, Francois Chidaine, Loire Valley, France, 2008
• Vin de Pays d’Oc, One Block Muscat, Domain de Treloar, Roussillon, France, 2006
• Chenin Blanc, Rudera, Stellenbosch, South Africa, 2008
• Albarino, Valminor, O Rosal, Rias Baixas, Spain, 2008
• Shiraz, Oliver’s Taranga Vineyard, McLaren Vale, South Australia, 2003
• Tokaji Aszu, 4 Puttonyos, Disnoko, Tokaji, Hungary, 2004
• Pedro Ximenes Viejo, Noe, Gonzales Byass, Jerez, Spain, NV

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When I had some friends around for dinner in January, I wanted to focus the meal using seasonal ingredients. One of the ones currently in season (in January) at least, are pears, so the weekend before I ended up at the Islington Farmer’s market.

The wonderful thing about the farmers markets is that you end up with some really fresh fruits and vegetables, and even though they don’t look like the perfectly polished wax-ware you might find in your typical supermarket, the taste is like nothing you can believe. At the stand that I purchased them from, they even had four varieties of pears on offer, some better for cooking retaining their shape, others better for reducing down into sauces, and others that were best for eating fresh, remaining crisp.

Inspired by the fact that I had, indeed, bought some really fresh fruits, I wanted to make a pear and honey sorbet. I couldn’t really find any recipes on the internet, so I made one up myself.

Here’s the one that I used:

Ingredients

• 1.5 kg pears
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup water
• squeeze of half a lemon
• tablespoon of vodka

Put the honey, sugar, lemon and water in a saucepan and heat using a low heat until the sugar has melted. In the meantime, peel the pears, taking out the core and seeds, and then slice them so they all sit underneath the liquid. I substituted honey instead of sugar to add a different dimension of sweetness. I added the lemon because I didn’t want the pears to brown too quickly. Poach the pears until you can stick a fork through them without too much resistance.

Cool the mixture down, and add the vodka. I don’t know if the vodka had much effect, but I hoped that it would mean that the sorbet didn’t freeze too hard.

After the mixture is cooled down, using a blender (I used a stab blender), puree the mix until you achieve the same sort of consistency. I guess you could choose to them pass it through a sieve if you want the pear juice/nectar but I think it’s quite nice to have some texture in the sorbet.

Freeze in an ice cream maker and you’re done!

How did it turn out? I served the sorbet with a pear crumble and it went down a treat. The honey certainly added depth to the sorbet, although I think I would change the ratio of honey to sugar next time to further accentuate the flavours of the pear.

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This year, I’ve been eating at least two full days of vegetarian cuisine. It’s forcing me to look at new recipes and try out some new things like the BBC’s Peppered Mushroom and Stilton Pie recipe. Highly recommended:

Here’s a picture after scooping out a serving:

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One of my favourite Thai dishes is the famously spicy Pad Kee Mao. Its spiciness is said to contribute to its English translation, “Druken Noodles” not because the noodles are drenched in any particular liquid, but because you often need to reach for a drink due its spiciness and best drunk with beer.

Not all Thai places serve this noodle, but I often ask them if they do it off the menu (great where they actually have a real Thai chef). I’ve successfully made this at home, so here’s the recipe that I used:

Ingredients

• 4 tbsp water
• 2 tsp brown sugar/palm sugar
• 1/4 tsp rice vinegar
• 1 1/2 tsp gold mountain (a classic seasoning sauce used in Thai cooking)
• 1 tsp soy regular
• 1 tsp oyster sauce
• 1 tbsp smashed thai chillies
• 1 sliced chilli
• 3 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 1 block of firm tofu cubed into bite sized pieces
• vegetables
• flat rice noodles, separated into different strands
• bell pepper/capsicum
• onion
• Thai basil (optional)

Method

1. Combine the water, sugar, gold moutain, soy, oyster sauces together with the smashed chillies. This will be added at the end of the cooking.
2. Prepare all vegetables – slice the onions, peppers into fine strips. Cut the vegetables into similar sizes.
3. Fry the tofu until it has a relatively crispy skin and set aside
4. Reheat the pan, starting with the garlic, onion then adding the chili to fry off.
5. Cook the vegetables and when ready, add the noodles. Having previously separated them makes it easier to mix together and still leave whole
6. Add the tofu and then fry until the noodle is soft and cooked. At the last moment, throw in the prepared sauce and stir until the noodles are evenly coated with it
7. Just before serving, I like to mix some Thai basil through to add another layer of flavour

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